This powerful, ancient survival mechanism did exactly what it was supposed to do in Dwakins' body and mind. The sensory overload and confusion left him. His brain tuned out all input except for the sight of the individual who was about to kill him, and his body took action to survive.
He thrusts his musket forward with the strength and speed of desperation, slamming his bayonet to the hilt in the Gudlur's chest. Dwakins' thick, black hair flies forward with the force of the blow, momentarily blocking his vision. He has a fleeting, distracting thought about his corporal, who had been telling him to get a haircut, but somehow there was never enough time. With his vision blocked and useless, the survival computer that is his brain choses to turn on his body's tactile sensations. Suddenly he is conscious that the force of his bayonet thrust makes his hands ache like an ax blow that unexpectedly hits a rock. For a brief instant that shocked feeling in his hands, combined with a sickening, grating feeling as the blade crunches through bone, is the only sensory input that enters into the meager mental universe that is Private Dwakins' brain.
Then his hair settles down, his vision returns, and Dwakins looks at the creature he has stabbed. The doggie's face is a mask of cringing confusion and dismay. Its eyes are wide, its ears are back, and its head is cocked to one side. His old farm dogs looked just like that when they were being punished. Then it looked down at the bayonet hilt and the musket protruding from its chest, and a look of ineffable despair comes over its face as it drops its own weapon and wraps both hands around Dwakins' musket barrel, almost as though it is clasping its hands in prayer.
In a flash of insight, Dwakins realizes that the primary reason he is alive is because this doggie was even more confused and scared than he is. Dwakins is struck with a great sadness as he realizes that he might have just killed one of the few creatures who is more stupid and frightened than he is.
Everything up to this point takes only a few heartbeats to transpire, but the effects of slow-motion time make it seem like forever. In this same, stop-action daze, Dwakins' eye is caught by movement above him, and he realizes that the doggie's tick is about to bring its short sword down upon his unprotected skull.
Dwakins' monkey tries to stop the blow with a despairing "Eeek!" but the tiny creature is still small and immature, and the blow is too powerful for it to block. Dwakins only has enough time to look into the Goblan's malignant red eyes and think, Oh-Gawd-I'm-gonna-die! before Lt. Broadax's ax comes up from his right, in a great, sweeping, backhanded, upstroke that enters underneath the tick's armpit, slicing off its left arm, shoulder, and head, and launching them up into the air in a red rocket of arterial blood. The blow is so fast that even in slow-motion time it seems like a blur.
Then the Guldur drops backward. Dwakins' bare feet slip on the blood-slicked deck, and he falls on top of his foe. The doggie's body slams back on the deck, and the bayonet protruding from its back is driven back out of its chest, falling beside them. They are both on the deck, embracing like lovers as Dwakins reaches out and strokes the Guldur's head. His foe looks up at him with stunned, shocked, hurt, puppy eyes.
Dwakins whispers, with tears in his eyes, "Nice doggie. Good doggie."
Out of the corner of her eye Lt. Broadax saw Dwakins make one good lunge and sink his bayonet into one of the enemy. Then she saw the cur's tick take a cut at Dwakins, and she decapitated the critter with one casual backhand swipe of her ax. She took note of the fact that Dwakins slipped and fell, then she lost sight of him as Lance Corporal Jarvis stepped over his body and shifted right to fill in the gap.
Dwakins' panic-induced response resulted in tunnel vision and auditory exclusion in the young private, but Broadax's reaction to combat was completely different. She was conscious of everything around her, she heard all the sounds, and she was prepared to give commands or assistance as needed. Dwakins was a charging lion, completely unaware of anything but its prey. Broadax was a veteran wolf, hearing every member of the pack and the prey, conscious of all that was happening, and ready to contribute to the team effort.
To Broadax's right were Corporal Kobbsven and Gunny Von Rito. The massive Kobbsven bore a mighty, two-handed claymore, and Von Rito had only an ancient K-bar fighting knife in his hand. The two of them formed a deadly, long-range/short-range team that had been perfected in many past battles.
The Fangs all had their monkeys perched on their backs, usually clinging with six legs and swinging a wooden belaying pin with the other two. They used these wooden clubs with supernatural speed to block enemy sword blows and bayonet thrusts, and even incoming bullets.
Immediately behind Broadax was Corporal Petrico, their armorer and crack pistol shot, carrying four double-barreled pistols stuffed into his belt, and six more in two specially made bandoleers that formed a big X draping across his narrow chest. Petrico was using his pistols with great care and precision to help the individuals in the front rank. The marines' monkeys tended to block the shots and blows that were aimed at their hosts' head and shoulders, so Petrico focused on those who were shooting or thrusting from below. With a carefully aimed snapshot and a cry of, "Take that, chew pocker!" he placed a bullet between the eyes of a Guldur who was kneeling down and about to fire a musket up into Kobbs' stomach. Then, with another cry of, "And that, chew pocker!" he put another bullet into a dismounted tick who was scurrying around on the deck, trying to reach in and hamstring Lt. Broadax.
The rest of the marines formed a phalanx beside and behind these lead elements, and together they chewed through the enemy like a ripsaw through soft wood. They quickly swept around the dismounted enemy bow gun and dispatched the enemy who were trying to use it as cover.
The dog-like Guldur stood on two legs, and wore only a leather harness of crossed chest straps and belt to hang their ammunition and equipment on. Most of them held muskets in their forepaws and all of them had a vicious Goblan tick on their backs. The Fangs had learned to like and trust the Guldur prisoners who had joined their crew. In fact, many of the Fang's doggies were participating in this boarding operation. But not a single one of their malignant, spiteful ticks had permitted themselves to be captured.
These filthy creatures each wielded a short sword with deadly efficiency, howling and screeching like baboons as they sat perched atop each cur's shoulders. It was generally believed that the ticks exerted some kind of mind control over their hosts, and between them and the Guldur packmasters, the average cur seemed to have no real control over its own destiny. Thus it was with particular pleasure that the marines who were not in the front ranks used their muskets to pick off the ticks. Without their ticks the Guldur were notably less deadly and determined.
Broadax was both prima donna and chaperone in a red dance of death, leading by example and exhorting others on, slaying and slaying as she grinned that cheerful grin you see in skulls. The combined effect of the marines' attack was devastating and totally demoralizing, and the enemy fell like wheat before the reaper. Lt. Broadax's boarding party quickly reached the enemy's lowerside quarterdeck. Her marines were barely able to keep up with Broadax, who was a living, breathing avatar of death and dismemberment as her ax swirled through the foe in great red swaths.
In a matter of minutes the marines stood panting upon the enemy's lower quarterdeck. The remaining Guldur, profoundly daunted by the gore encrusted Broadax and with their ticks picked off by riflemen, threw down their weapons and cringed at her feet.
"We surrrenderr! We submrit!" cried out the Guldur's remaining petty officer. "You arrre a mighty warrriorrr. Therrre is no shrame in surrrenderrring to you!"
There was a chorus of whimpers of agreement from among the Guldur as they looked up at Lt. Broadax, and then from among the phalanx of marine bayonets, an anonymous voice called out, "Damned right! And that's jist our womenfolk!"
"We ain't got time fer this, dammit!" shouted Broadax. "Third squad, leave a guard and the rest of ye start bustin' through the hatches to secure the Ship's Keel and make sure the mutts don' scuttle the Ship. Th
en ever'one move up and help with the battle on the upperside! Move out, ye bastards! Move!"
On the upperside Melville took the point, with a sword in his right hand and a double-barreled pistol in his left. Westminster and Valandil were at his flanks, armed with sword and pistol. The two rangers also each had a double-barreled musket slung over his back. They had all left their scabbards behind. Their lives would not depend upon being able to sheath their blades aboard the enemy Ship, and the scabbard might trip them up and throw them beneath an enemy blade in the midst of battle.
Westminster's dog, Cinder, stood close beside her master, panting with doggie glee at the prospect of the coming combat. The captain's dog, Boye, was huddling hesitantly between Cinder and Melville, constantly looking to his dam and his master for reassurance. Boye's monkey waved a belaying pin uncertainly as it clung to the dog's neck.
Grenoble stood behind the captain with a broad-bladed spear in his hands and a brace of pistols holstered on his hips. The Sylvan bodyguard was a hereditary guardian of warrior leaders. He knew that in battle a commander often had to lead from the front, but the tall Sylvan was trained to thrust his spear over, around, and even under his captain in order protect him in battle. Ordinarily Ulrich, the captain's coxswain, would be there as well, but Melville had given him another mission.
Brother Theo, the Ship's purser, also stood behind the captain with a pistol in each hand. Behind Theo was a small cluster of midshipmen with pistols. The middies' primary duty was to hand a steady supply of fresh pistols to Brother Theo, and to fire their own pistols in extreme emergencies. The midshipmen also had a few of the precious, rare, and hideously expensive, Keel-charge "concussion grenades." Melville hoped they could hold these in reserve, but if the attack got bogged down he wouldn't hesitate to use them.
More of the Ship's dogs were immediately behind the front line, mixed in with Ship's boys who were carrying razor-sharp knives in their fists. And each of them had a monkey with a belaying pin. The boys and the dogs—and their monkeys—fought the battle down low, scrambling among the legs, biting and hamstringing the enemy. It was hard to say if the boys or the dogs were anticipating the battle with greater glee.
Their offensive line was set up to attack the enemy low (the boys and dogs with their monkeys), middle (the majority of the assaulters and their monkeys), and high. The "high" component consisted of their topmen with their monkeys. They were led by the elite Sylvan sailors (and their monkeys), who were attacking from the Fang's rigging into the still intact upperside rigging of the Guldur Ship. The canine-derived Guldur were poor hands at operating in this realm, so they depended upon great swarms of Goblan to do any work that did not involve having both hindpaws planted firmly on the deck. The Sylvans were masters of maneuver and battle in the low gravity that existed up in the rigging, and they were confident in their ability to sweep away the Goblan who were still alive in the upper regions.
The enemy's upperside was better defended than the lowerside. Their upper quarterdeck fairly bristled with the remaining Guldur crew members, each with a tick on his shoulders. Melville knew that the Guldur had gutted the rest of their Ship in order to make a final stand on the upper quarterdeck. This was standard operating procedure for the curs, and it was exactly what he had anticipated.
The Guldur's goal was to inflict as much damage as possible upon their invaders. Melville's objective was to prevent that. To take the enemy Ship with minimal loss of life to his precious crew. He had a scheme in place to do that, and all he could do now was fight like hell, keep an eye on the tactical situation, and see if the plan came together.
Melville's boarding party came across the enemy's upperside bow, a wave of cold steel immediately behind the hail of grapeshot and volley of musket fire that atomized the front line of the foe. This attack was very similar to what Fang's marines were inflicting upon the enemy on the lower deck. The methodology was slightly different, but the results were largely the same.
Melville vaulted over the rail and his bare feet slithered and skidded on the blood-soaked decks. All around him his boarding party stumbled over limbs and tripped over the thrashing carnage, choking on the airborne ichor of the pulverized, smattered Guldur, mouths and eyes filling with a salty-tasting, sickening red mist. Those who stumbled were left behind, but most kept their balance and launched themselves into the Guldur defenders.
The boarding party was led by three masterful swordsmen of the Kingdom of Westerness, who sundered the enemy ranks with fearsome, fell-handed skill and ability. The onslaught was supported on both flanks by veteran sailors with flashing bayonets, but the real keys to their success were Melville and his rangers. Each was a true artist with the sword, cleaving a red web of death among the enemy.
The swords of two-space were always straight, since the corrosive influence of that strange realm played the devil with curved surfaces. The influence of two-space also helped to keep their weapons deadly sharp. They were stored in special compartments in the Ship, essentially "floating" in that impossibly thin plane of two-space. The influence of Flatland worked to pull the blades "flat," atom by atom, so that the edges of the blades were drawn into mono-molecular sharpness. The bayonet blades and short swords of the enemy were equally sharp, but the curs and ticks who carried them were no match for the three swordsmen of Westerness and the blades they bore.
The swords of Melville and his rangers flashed in crimson arcs, severing limbs and piercing bodies with a practiced ease that seemed deceptively and frighteningly effortless. Under stress the body shuts down the blood flow to the outer layers of skin and muscles. This "vasoconstriction" allows the skin to become a kind of "armor" that can take great damage without much blood loss, which can be a valuable survival mechanism. One side effect of this is to make blood pressure skyrocket, and when an artery is severed, the blood fountains out with amazing power. Great gouts of arterial blood sprayed out from each precisely aimed stroke of those Westerness swords. A maelstrom of crimson ichor splattered and splashed off blades and bodies as Melville and his rangers flicked off heads and limbs like a swordsman might flick spent blossoms from a rose bush in idle practice.
The Ship's boys, dogs, and their monkeys battled underfoot, bedeviling and badgering the enemy with flashing fangs and pitiless knives amidst a red rain of blood and limbs that flowed down from above. Soon the dogs were heaving great, pink, foaming breaths from gore-drenched muzzles, and the boys' arms were soaked to the shoulder in the crimson life fluid of the hapless Guldur whom they had hamstrung and neutered with their remorseless blades. The blood in the air and on their faces ran hot and salty into panting, screaming mouths, while the monkeys screeched from their backs.
Brother Theo was delivering a continuous fusillade of rapid-fire pistol shots from directly behind the line. He picked off the Goblan ticks on the enemy's shoulders with machine-like precision and speed, with a supply of pistols constantly renewed by the hurried reloads of the middies.
Following immediately behind the piercing, penetrating triad of Melville and his rangers, forming a fourth point to their diamond, was Grenoble with his broad-bladed spear. One moment that spear flashed to Melville's right while the captain cut to his left, spilling an enemy's guts like a great ropey tide of slimy, sickly, purple snakes. Just as the captain's sword stabbed to his right, Grenoble's spear flashed back and thrust swift as an arrow to Melville's left, piercing a Guldur's heart in a great gush of red, and then snapped back with such speed that it left a line of blood in the air, like scarlet thread following a darting needle. An instant later that broad blade thrust high to pick off a Goblan tick, then down between the captain's legs like some great, gore soaked, tripodal phallus, to cut a cur's hindpaw out from under him.
The boarding party's monkeys, crouching upon their shoulders, were blocking and neutralizing the attacks of the enemy's ticks, and most other attacks upon their hosts' upper bodies. Periodically, with a resounding "Thwack!" the monkeys' flashing belaying pins would block an incoming bullet
. This was something that the Fangs would not have believed, could not have believed, if they had not personally examined the bullet-encrusted, wooden belaying pins after past battles.
The momentum of their combined, multilevel attack was stunning and devastating. The enemy who stood were mowed down like grass, and those who tried to take cover behind the dismounted bow gun were swept over from both flanks. Many chose simply to fall to the ground and curl into whimpering balls in the face of that implacable, inexorable onslaught. Melville and his boarders were happy to step over them, pausing only long enough to hack at any Goblan who remained alive, but permitting the broken Guldur sailors to live.
High above them in the rigging, the Fang's topmen, led by their Sylvan compatriots and ably assisted by their monkeys, slammed into the Goblan in the rigging. It was only on this front that the attack bogged down. It seemed than an inordinate number of the Goblan had been hiding in the crow's nests, and now they came boiling down like a deranged cross between insane circus clowns coming out of their car and enraged hornets pouring out of their nest. The Sylvans' skill in the low gravity of the upper rigging was astounding, but so was that of the Goblan, and their greater numbers slowed down the advance.
The rest of Melville's boarding party cut through to the enemy's quarterdeck. As Josiah Westminster put it later, "We went through 'em lahk a double dose of Mrs. Vodi's best rhubarb purgative."
Gotta maintain the momentum of the attack, Melville thought to himself.
"Come on! Come on!" he roared to his men.
"The combat deepens. On, ye brave,
The Guns of Two-Space Page 12