Robert Adams - The Witch Goddess

“Flankers,” the officer muttered to himself. “A three-pronged attack.”

He unslung the padded case, slipped the binoculars into it and hung the case on one of the thicker root stubs, then climbed back down from his perch. On the ground he beckoned over Cash and the PFC who was assisting the acting sergeant. “Those men who just led the reinforcements in are obviously the Ganik commander and his captains, and he’s a bit more intelligent or maybe just cagier than the bulk of them. He’s sent a strong party, each under one of his officers, to either flank of our position. Now he seems to be pep-talking the rest of them into a frontal assault, and it’s only a matter of time, the length of it dependent on how much we demoralized that first contingent earlier today, until they do hit us.

“Now, the abattis that that tree has formed has changed my strategy, Cash, for we are no longer vulnerable to a cavalry charge—not only is no horse or pony going to penetrate that splintery mass of branches, but even a dismounted force is going to be slowed up by it.

“Therefore, I don’t want anyone firing down here until the bulk of the Ganik force are into that abattis. Understood? Yes, our primary objective is to hold off pursuit of Gumpner’s party as long as possible, but our secondary objective is to cost those damned cannibals so many casualties here that when they do finally get by us or over us they’ll be so under-strength that Gumpner will have at least a fighting chance.

“So have the two highest snipers climb on up and join the men atop the sides of the gap. The lower ones can come down and join us; they’ll be just too vulnerable where they are to darts or thrown axes.

“Put the rock details to gathering fist-size ones for throwing, now—no need to make the breastwork any higher than it already is. Get the mounts picketed back around that bend where they’ll be safer; if some of us do live through this action, I don’t want them to be trapped here for lack of mounts.

“Station a man up on those roots. I left the glasses up there. He’s to let us know the minute they start to move on us.

“Oh, and you might as well have the men fix their bayonets. There might not be time, later.”

Erica slowly, haltingly regained consciousness. There was the sound of voices, ebbing and surging, first loud, then dim as if with distance. At first, she could feel nothing, then, like a clap of lightning, the pain began.

There was no one place where it commenced, rather it seemed to encompass every cubic millimeter of her body, throbbing, seemingly intent upon rending her every cell apart. Her instinctive impulse was to scream, to shriek out her agony to the ears of all the world, but she could not. Try as she would, she had seemingly been bereft of control over her body, any part of it—neither her lips nor her jaws nor even her eyes would open on command, and not even a groan could she force from her throat.

The voices surged louder again. She could understand them, for all that the language—what was that language? It seemed that she should know well its name, but now she could not recall it—was slurred and much debased from its origins. They were, she knew, discussing her.

“… tolt you it ’uz a Ahrmnee,” attested Joe-Bob Lodge. “A mite skinny, he be, but betcha he’ll cook up jest fine.” He squatted and pressed his fingertips into the thickest section of Erica’s thigh. “Be tender, too, betcha.”

“He ain’ daid, yet,” Kevin Spottswood remarked. “He still a-breathin’, may be, we kin mek ‘im screech, back’t’ camp. Thet’ll tender ‘im up more, betcha.”

The voices faded away, for Erica, as unconsciousness again claimed her and her breathing became shallower.

Kevin’s horny, dirty palm held before the Ahrmehnee’s nose failed to register respiration, so he knelt, leaned over and placed his ear against the chest, then sprang up with a start. “Thishere ain’ no he , Joe-Bob, it be a she !

Joe-Bob began to fumble with the length of rope holding up his faded, ragged and filthy trousers, stuttering, “Le’s… le’s… le’s fuck ‘er now, afore the resta owuh bunch gits here. I… I… ain’ nevuh been first on no took-female.”

But the older man, Kevin, shook his shaggy head emphatically. “Somebody, he done axed opuned your haid and stuffed it with turds, boy, bound to, way you tawk! Thishere Ahrmnee bitch, she near daid, enyhow, you and me come to pole ‘er, she gon’ be awl daid, and you know what Long Willy’ll do to us, then! The bunch’ll be a-chawin’ awn owuh short ribs afore night, an’ you betcha ass he won’t kill us quick, neither.”

Joe-Bob began to tremble all over and big tears squeezed from the corners of his mud-brown eyes, to become lost in the matted tangle of his dark-blond beard. “But it jest ain’ fair, Kevin. Ol’ Long Willy, he gits him eny one the wimniens eny time he wawnts to, too. My turn, it don’ come up fer more’n a week… and I’m so all-fired horny. It jest ain’ fair!”

“It the way it is, boy,” shrugged Kevin, resignedly. “It the way it allus been in the bunches. Onlies’ way you can mek it diffrunt, is you fight Long Willy and kill ‘im, opun and fair; then you’ll be top dawg till somebody kills you.”

Kevin went on, “Now you go back up top an’ fork your pony an’ go fin’ Strong Tom. Tell ‘im wher I be an’ whut we founded, heah? I’m gon’ git ‘er out’n the sun an’ see kin I keep ‘er livin’ till yawl gits back.”

Gumpner had kept the party moving at a gallop or a fast trot for as long as his experience told him the mounts could safely endure so frenetic a pace, then he halted them, and he and his hale men were engaged in transferring saddles and gear onto the spare animals when first the riderless troop horse, then the big mule bearing Harry Braun caught up to them.

“They got Dr. Arenstein?” asked the sergeant, with a soupcon of deference, despite the press of circumstances.

His face a mask of agony, Braun just nodded, then, after a moment, gasped out, “My girth was slipping. Poor Erica had dismounted to tighten it for me when three of the stinking savages seemed to appear from nowhere. One of them smashed Erica’s head with a huge club, while the other two came at me. I shot one, but then my pistol jammed, so I struck the other with the barrel of it, then the mule bolted.”

“And probably just as well for you, Doctor, that it did.” Gumpner nodded soberly. “Give me your sidearm—maybe I can clear it.”

Shortly, the old noncom’s bootknife and knowledgeable fingers had extracted a ruptured cartridge case from the chamber of the big automatic. When he had recharged the pistol, he placed it back in Braun’s belt holster, then saw to having the injured man and his horse harness transferred to another mule. After removing most of its heavy armor, the sergeant mounted the troop horse; then he led his party southward again, at a fast, distance-eating trot, trying not to hear the distant crackling of the rifles, the duller booming of the big pistols, or to reflect upon how dear was the price of survival of himself and the few accompanying him.

It was pure slaughter, butchery, not warfare, and Corbett willingly gave credit where credit was due. It was certainly due the Ganiks, for determination and raw courage in the face of near-certain death. They just kept coming, wave after screeching wave of them, even when they had perforce to crawl over bloody, squirming piles of their own dead and wounded even before they got to the hideous deathtrap of the abattis.

And now ammunition was running very low; some of the riflemen were in fact reduced to throwing rocks, or to casting back the Ganiks’ own rude axes or iron-pointed darts.