S.M. Stirling - Island in the Sea of Time

The power of will could substitute for strength. Her right hand scrabbled at her hip and pulled the Beretta; Walker wasn't ten paces away.

A shadow loomed over them both, the bleeding figure of one of Walker's troopers, his ax raised in both hands over Swindapa's neck. An instant to alter the point of aim, and the man's kneecap exploded into ruin. A crushing weight fell-two bodies on top of hers. She dropped the pistol and locked her fingers into the man's windpipe. He drew his knife and stabbed clumsily, wheezing; Swindapa grabbed the flailing arm.

Alston poured herself into the gripping hand. Fingers sank in behind the windpipe as awareness faded, and with the last strength in her she wrenched . There was a scream from very far away, and a warm soft falling.

October – November, Year 2 A.E.

"Will the chieftain live?" Ohotolarix said, his voice shaking.

"He'll live," Alice Hong said, completing the bandaging. "Bad scar, and that eye's gone, I'm afraid. Still, it's clean and the stitching was neat if I say so myself," she added, twiddling her fingers before she washed them in the bowl.

The little log surgery-clinic was empty except for the tools she'd just finished using; her assistants were cleaning and packing them as she laid them aside, and she'd been working in her custom-made traveling leathers, black with silver studs. A few more bloodstains wouldn't harm those. She paused to pat Walker's cheek; he was out with the ether, but he'd be awake soon enough. With a nostalgic sigh she looked around the board-and-split-log room, and the cheery little fireplace with its built-in rack for heating irons. Ah, well, there will be other places , she thought.

"Take him out to the wagon," she said, picking up her shotgun and slinging it muzzle-down over her back.

It was raining again outside, so she added a hooded cloak as she stepped out the door and watched the warriors carry the litter to the waiting Conestoga. Drops pattered on the veranda above her and on the canvas tilts of the wagons; people were still running around with crates and barrels, loading the last of the stuff they'd stripped out-what hadn't gone with the first caravans, back before that damned battle. You've got to hand it to Will - he thinks ahead .

Bill Cuddy came up with the big black ex-cadet. "It's Ygwaina," the young man from Tennessee said. "She's… isn't it taking too long? Why doesn't she open her eyes?"

"Bad labor," Hong said absently. "Aneurysm, possibly- it's quite a strain, you know."

"How are we going to move her?" the young man said.

He's actually wringing his hands, by the Divine Marquis , Hong thought. She'd never actually seen anyone do that before-but then, she'd been having a lot of new experiences lately.

"We aren't, of course," Hong said. "First, it would be too much trouble, and second, it would kill her-if she isn't brain-dead already. I'll leave that local midwife, what's-her-name."

"No-" McAndrews began. Then he heard the soft snick of an automatic's slide being pulled back behind him and froze.

Hong brought out the hypodermic from under her cloak and stabbed it through the wool of his jacket, sending the plunger home with her thumb. Two men caught the unconscious form as it slumped; she carefully retrieved the hypodermic and examined it to make sure the needle wasn't bent-no disposables here .

"Neat," Cuddy said. "He'll get over it, especially when we're going toward his Egyptians. Dumb bastard."

"Now, now," Hong said. "What about the slaves?"

"The ones we're leaving? Got 'em locked in the ergastula , like we have since last week," Cuddy said, beginning to turn away.

Behind him Ekhnonpa was handing her swaddled baby up into the two-wheeled light carriage, and climbing in after it. Martins and his wife were in the one behind; that one was closed, and securely locked. He'd been under guard since the day of the battle, also part of Walker's contingency plan.

"Why not set the ergastula on fire as we leave?" Hong said brightly. "It would be sort of… appropriate, wouldn't it?"

Cuddy looked at her with wondering distaste; "You just never stop, do you?" he said softly.

"Well, why should I? Live for the moment and enjoy every day, that's my motto, Billy-boy," she said, fluttering her lashes.

"No," he said curtly, and walked toward his horse. Louder, he called: "Let's get going! Now!"

"I…" Ian Arnstein swallowed. "Most of them are still alive. Some of them ate… well…" He spat into the muddy cobblestones of the street.

Oh, God , he thought. He'd been a classical historian, and he'd thought he knew what latifundium and ergastula meant. I didn't . There was no mind left behind their eyes, most of them, as they yammered and cowered away from the light. He met the captain's eyes, and she nodded quietly in perfect understanding.

Marian Alston stood by the neck of her horse, stroking it absently as she looked about the remains of Walkerburg. There was a giant crucifix of whole logs standing in the middle of the square, with iron shackles dangling from the arms.

"You can see the sort of kingdom Walker would have built," she said quietly. "Two days?"

"Two days," Arnstein said. "Nobody knew which way they were going."

"I can guess," she said. "We may be able to catch them at sea." But Eagle's still halfway across the Atlantic, dammit , she thought with cold self-reproach. With Isketerol's ships gone, she'd assumed the Tartessian had bugged out for Iberia. Instead he waited for Walker. He's probably lying up in a marsh somewhere, or the fenland, or the Thames - could be anywhere. Not many places in Britain more than two days' wagon-travel from the sea. Certainly not this one . Granted she'd been laid up right after the battle, but…

Swindapa came out of a hut. There was a squalling bundle in her arms. Oh, God, not another one… why couldn't it be puppies ?

Her smile changed as the Fiernan lifted the baby up close enough to see. That milk-chocolate color was not something she'd expected to see in the White Isle. McAndrews's child.

"The mother is dead, in the birthing."

"Well," Alston said after a moment. "There's room on Main Street for the four of us, I suppose."

A chill colder than the rain ran down her spine as Swindapa lowered her eyes silently.

"We've won," Alston rasped into the microphone; her throat still hurt. "The question is, what the hell do I do now?"

"You've done a damn fine job," the chief said, his voice clear under the crackle of static-very clear, for a transatlantic broadcast with this equipment. "What you should do now is wait a little. From the sound of it, you're not up for much diplomacy."

She leaned back in the canvas chair, conscious mainly of an overwhelming weariness. Fort Pentagon's HQ hut was chilly and drafty in the aftermath of the week's rains, despite the brazier glowing in one corner. And Swindapa's hardly spoken to me in a week. She turned pale as a ghost when I mentioned going home… home, Christ, where is her home. Enough. There's work to do .

"I got a third of my command killed." She sat silent for a moment. "Christ, Jared, those were kids. They should have been back in the Academy, cramming for exams, with nothing more serious to worry about than zits and their social lives."

"We're none of us where we would have been," the slow Yankee twang said. "Anyway, we've sent some people over on Eagle this trip… That conference you arranged still on?"

Well, I said I was an ass-kicker , she thought wryly, suppressing a tinge of hurt. Jared's taking me at my word and sending someone to handle the problems that aren't nails. Put the hammer back on the shelf …