Blood In the Water (42 page)

Now he and a dozen Shee-Ree waited in a clump of brush, burdens of wood concealing weapons close at hand, and watched one of the Grik guards swagger casually closer as if to make a cursory inspection of their
hiding place. The 'Cats around Chack nocked arrows on bows they would leave behind and tensed.

“Wait,” he hissed. “Let him get closer.”

The Grik paused barely ten yards away. It was dressed in light leather armor dyed a dull gray and wore an iron-plated leather helmet just like all the other Grik. This was unusual in itself since they'd only ever seen a few Grik regiments wear actual uniforms. Over its shoulder was a cartridge box exactly like the Allied model, and it carried a sword and a brightly polished musket, complete with a socket bayonet. Chack sighed with relief when his closer inspection revealed the weapon to be an Allin-Silva rifle.

“Colonel Chack,” Lawrence hissed. “Hurry. The, ah, coast is clear.”

“Let's go,” Chack ordered, and the 'Cats dropped their bows, shouldered their loads, and darted out to join the column of hopeless misery that trod before them. There were a few exclamations of alarm but these were quickly silenced by hasty, whispered explanations. Chack tensed. He'd told his comrades what they might have to do if someone drew too much attention, but fortunately that didn't happen. Chack joined his raiders—he was already thinking of them that way—and Lawrence stepped close enough to whisper, “This ar'or stinks.”

“Its owner won't be found?”

“Not tonight,” Lawrence assured. He wrinkled his snout. “The goo the Shee-Ree used to stain I to look like a Grik stinks too,” he complained wryly.

“It will wash off. Probably,” Chack tried to reassure him. Several of the closer Lemurian slaves were unnerved by Lawrence's proximity—and by the fact he spoke their tongue. “Do not fear. He is one of us . . . in disguise.” He figured that would be the easiest explanation just then, and it was true enough.

*

“Loose!” Kaam cried, his voice carrying in that distinctive Lemurian way. With a great, long, whickering rush, six hundred invisible arrows rose high in the air.

“Go, go, go!” Silva roared, racking the bolt on his Thompson and leaping forward. Petey squeaked but held on. “We gotta get amongst 'em
just after the arrows hit! Watch our asses,” Silva shouted back at Courtney and Miles. “An' don't shoot us in 'em,” he added ironically.

Kaam gave the order to charge and a great, trilling roar went up.

“Just go,” Courtney cried back, sighting on the gun embrasure through a lane left open for Miles and him. Their jobs were to ensure that no Grik could fire those guns, if they were loaded and waiting for something like this. Silva sprinted forward.

Glancing from side to side as he ran, he saw the whole force charging the palisade and the sound they made sent a chill down his spine. Like many other things, apparently, Lemurian battle cries hadn't changed very much, and not for the first time he suspected they were a lot like what the oldsters he'd grown up around had described as a “rebel yell.” That cry had stricken fear into the hearts of their enemies, he'd been told, and this one probably did the same. It sure gave
him
the creeps. He heard the stutter of a Vickers gun and felt bullets pass him in the dark. For an instant he wondered if Miles was shooting at him after all, but dull red sparks sprayed from the cannon in front of him and he saw a shape pitch backward. Then he was at the embrasure itself, huffing and yelling, and he climbed up on the brush in front of the gun's axle. There in the flickering firelight he saw a Grik staring at him in wide-eyed astonishment, and he fired a short burst in its face. Wet . . . things pattered against him. Leaping across the axle, he almost fell, but regained his balance in time to spray another pair of Grik hurrying toward the gun. They spun and crashed to the ground. With his longer strides, he'd been the first to reach and breach the palisade, but now 'Cats were pouring through after him. Kaam was shouting for them to hold, and most did, though a few raced onward, lured by the near-perfect surprise they'd achieved.

“Turn these guns!” Silva yelled, slapping the one beside him. “Here, you three on this wheel, you others on that one. Heave it back! Now, you three hold on while the others push! Get over here and lend a hand!” he shouted at some other 'Cats just staring. “Get on the trail—that thing sticking out the back—and move it right . . . no!
Its
right, goddammit!”

“What's ‘right'?” one of the 'Cats screeched in frustrated anguish. Silva, somewhat chastened, quickly showed them, and a few moments later the gun was turned and pointing back at the camps. A quick glance up the line revealed that the other three guns were turning as well. No live Grik remained near them, and a fair number had been pinned to the
ground by the initial arrow volley. Any that survived that had been hacked apart. A growing tumult from the camps made it clear the Grik were starting to stir, however, and he looked at the vent at the breech of the big gun. “Somebody take that staff and shove it down the barrel,” he roared. “Yeah, that thing! Stick it in the hole up forward—in the end there, damm it! Put your hand on the staff where it stops and show me.” One of the 'Cats, blinking something like desperation to please, drew the rammer and showed him. “Yeah, it's loaded. Check these bodies. Look in their pouches! One of 'em's gotta have a priming horn or somethin'.” Another 'Cat showed him what looked like a handful of paper tubes. “Yeah! Gimme one o' those!” He took a tube and after squinting at it in the gloom, broke it in two. A little powder leaked on his hands. “Break 'em,” he instructed. “One for each gun, an' stick 'em in these little holes. Tell everybody to stay behind 'em—but not
right
behind 'em. They'll sqwush you when they go off—an' point 'em at the enemy!” The Grik were practically swarming now, in confusion, but weren't advancing; they were
forming up
. “Tell 'em to wait for my command, then light their tubes with a torch.” He hurriedly looked around and saw there were still a number of torches nearby.

“Yes!” the 'Cat cried and bolted.

“Oh my,” Courtney gasped, picking his way through the embrasure, lugging the Vickers in his hands. Miles followed, as did the younglings with the small arms and ammo—and Silva's Doom Stomper. “You've already turned the guns, I see. Most impressive!” Courtney squinted. “Most impressive indeed,” he continued. “The Grik are forming into ranks! I do believe they mean to fire a volley at us!”

“That's my thinkin',” Silva agreed. The Grik line was firming now, warriors forming ranks two deep the entire length of the palisade. What could only be Grik officers—real ones—frantically roared and snapped and chivvied the Grik into place. “We need to break 'em up fast.”

“Where do you want us?” Courtney asked.

“Here. On the ground. Kaam!” Silva called aside. “When we open up, I need your archers to pour it in. We can't stand here an' trade arrows for musket balls. They'll eat us up.” He didn't add that he doubted Kaam's undisciplined warriors would stand under the withering fusillade these Grik seemed prepared to deliver. “Hurry it up! Are those other guns ready?”

The shouted replies of “Yes!” were anxious—and uncertain. These 'Cats had no idea what they were about to unleash, had no idea what they were about to
endure
, but they were willing and highly motivated. Silva hoped that would be enough.

“Fire!” he roared, reaching over the wheel of his gun and touching the primer with his torch. Conditioned to know what would happen next, Petey clutched his neck more tightly and cringed.

None of the guns had been well aimed, they'd just been pointed in a general direction, but when three of the four big weapons spat fire and smoke amid thunderous, stuttering roars, the effect probably couldn't have been much more destructive. Obviously, the Grik finally had canister now, and hundreds of musket balls spewed from each gun. They flailed the sky with a sheeting rush or churned the ground and skated upward, warbling into the darkness—or the enemy. But the vast majority, at a range of about sixty tails, brutally slashed into the once-neat ranks of Grik warriors that were preparing to fire. Bodies tumbled back, flinging weapons in the air. Others simply dropped to the ground. Arms, legs, and heads were pulped by the canister balls—or the secondary projectiles they created when they struck equipment. Three great swaths of mangled heaps of dead and screaming wounded had been hacked out of the Grik ranks with that single stunning barrage—and that wasn't all. As soon as the cannon fired and the smoke was whipped away by the night breeze, Courtney Bradford and Ian Miles opened with their Vickers guns, sweeping their aim back and forth across the still-standing foe. Kaam had apparently been a bit stunned himself, but his belated roar sent dozens, then hundreds of arrows arcing in. More Grik went down, like wheat before the scythe, screeching cries of agony and terror.

Silva suddenly realized that for all their “professional army” appearance and discipline, these Grik weren't veterans. That they hadn't cut and run immediately, falling prey to Courtney's “Grik Rout,” bore testimony to how tough they'd be once they
were
, but he'd worry about that later. They were tough enough already. And those that hadn't fallen suddenly leveled their muskets as one. The fourth gun fired, spewing more canister into the carnage—just as the Grik fired their own volley at last.

Blood sprayed, flecking his face, and two of Silva's new gun-'Cats yelped and went down as dozens of balls shattered wheel spokes or smeared lead down the iron barrel of the cannon he stood by. Other
'Cats—a
lot
of 'Cats—went down on either side of him, wailing in pain and fear. Most kept shooting arrows, but quite a few wavered already.

“Stand fast!” Silva roared. “Kaam! Keep 'em at it! Get those other guns reloaded. You 'Cats, we gotta load this thing!”

“How?” several chorused desperately.

Silva hesitated, never having taught field artillery before, and certainly not in the middle of a battle. “I'm teachin' raccoons to dance in a hurricane,” he muttered to himself. “In that chest,” he shouted, pointing. “Some o' you dopes watch how we do this an' go show the others. Heave that chest over here behind the gun.” One Shee-Ree opened the lid as others picked it up. “This?” he cried, raising what looked like a four- or five-inch-diameter tin can about eight inches long, with a cloth bag tied on.
Grik are really starting to get their shit together,
Silva thought.
Now they have fixed ammunition!
“Yeah,” he shouted back. “Ram it in, bag first. Use that staff, the same one as before. Push it all the way down.” Cursing, he raced to the chest himself and found a vent prick and another handful of primer tubes. “Keep 'em coming. As soon as one fires, slam another down—but watch yourselves!”

“Watch for what?”

Silva ignored the question. He had no time to describe how many ways there were to die while operating a muzzle-loading cannon. “Mr. Bradford, how's your ammo?” he asked instead.

“What?”

“Your ammo.”

“Oh. Well, as you can see, I'm changing magazines now,” Courtney replied distractedly. Dark blood glistened all over the back of his left shoulder, but there was a dead 'Cat lying next to him. Silva hoped the blood wasn't Courtney's. “I have two more left. Battles are quite amazingly loud, you know, even without the shooting.” He blinked. “Of course you know,” he said, and continued what he was doing.

“Mr. Bradford, you an' Miles hold your fire a second, then hose 'em good right after we shoot this off, wilya?” Courtney was still trying to lock his drum in place and didn't seem to hear, but Miles nodded. Another volley clattered at them, and more screams rent the air.
The second rank,
Silva realized, even as he glanced to see its effect. More 'Cats were down, and a few seemed ready to hop back over the palisade, but far more now fought with that hard, blinking, savagely determined . . .
way
about them he'd learned to recognize in countless fights when Lemurians had settled into what he considered the “killing zone.” They'd hold a while longer.

The rammer staff thumped against the load in the gun, the 'Cat seemingly determined to pound it through the breech. “That's good enough,” Silva yelled. “Now stand clear! You and you, help me shift it a little to the right. No, dammit! If you move the
trail
right, it points the gun
left
, see? There! Hold it—I mean, stop!”

Piercing the powder bag through the vent with the prick, he broke a priming tube and stabbed it down the hole. Stepping outside the wheel and retrieving the torch from where he'd stuck it in the ground, he yelled, “Git out o' the way!” and spanked the breech with the torch.
Hisss—BOOM!
The gun roared and leaped back seven or eight feet, narrowly missing running over one of the 'Cats that hesitated too long. Piercing screams erupted beyond the smoke and the Vickers guns opened up. “Load it again,” Silva shouted. Obediently, the “rammer 'Cat” snatched another canister out of the chest, carried it to the muzzle, slammed it down the barrel with his staff—and disintegrated when the charge found a lingering spark at the breech and ignited.

Even Silva was stunned by the unexpected detonation, and Petey scrambled down inside his shirt with a panicked chirp, claws digging into his skin. It could've just been the latest assault on his damaged hearing, but near silence appeared to prevail for just a moment and Silva looked around. All that was left of the rammer 'Cat—Silva never even knew his name—was legs, tail, and torso below the chest. The rest was just . . . gone. Belatedly, Silva realized he should've at least thumbed the vent. There hadn't been time to teach his pickup crew to sponge with water, or anything else for that matter, and stopping the vent was something
he
could've done that might've made a difference. He took a deep, acrid breath. “Oh well,” he snapped aloud to himself, but he knew the young rammer 'Cat would join the long list of regrets he kept bottled up and tried to visit as rarely as possible. It didn't always work, and they often came to him when he least expected it, but now was definitely not the time. Short bursts from one of the Vickers guns snapped him out of it. “Load it again!” he snarled at the 'Cats standing around, blinking at the gun in obvious fear. “But treat that staff like a sore pecker. Don't go poundin' on it like that poor bastard did.”