David Weber - March to the Sea - Empire of Man Book II

His revolvers clicked empty, and he snarled in frustration at the interruption of the terrible frenzy of slaughter. He swung out the cylinders and began stuffing fresh cartridges into the chambers. He recapped them, closed them, and began firing yet again.

"Cease fire, Honal," someone said in his ear.

"What?" he asked, picking another target and squeezing the trigger. The Boman blew sideways, disappearing into the heaped and piled corpses of his fellows, and someone hit Honal on the shoulder.

"Cease fire!" Rastar shouted in his ear.

Honal gave his cousin an incredulous glance, unable to believe what he was hearing, then looked back out the firing slit. The terrifying warriors of the Boman were a pitiful sight, most of them trying desperately to cower behind and under the piles of their own dead, and Rastar shook him by the shoulder.

"Cease fire," he said in a more nearly normal voice. "Despreaux says to cease fire. It's all over."

"But-" Honal began, and Rastar shook his head.

"She's right, cousin," the last prince of Therdan said. "Look at them, Honal. Look at them, and remember them as they were when they came over our walls ... and as they will never, ever be again." He shook his head again, slowly. "The League is avenged, cousin. The League is avenged."

Tar Tin stood trapped in the center of the bridge, watching the destruction of his people's soul. The pride of the warrior people who had always triumphed, for whom defeat had never been more than a temporary setback and a spur to still greater triumph, died that day before his very eyes, and he knew it. Whatever might become of the pitiful survivors of the clans, they would never forget this disaster, never again find the courage to take the shit-sitters by the throat and teach them fear. They were the ones who would cower in terror from this day forth, hiding in the shadows lest the terrible shit-sitters come upon them and complete their destruction.

And it was he, Tar Tin, who had led them to this.

He knew what the clans would require of him-if they still possessed the spirit to demand a war leader's death. And he knew what they would expect of him, yet try as he might, he could not force a way through the defeated warriors about him to attack the shit-sitters and force them to kill him. He could not even sing his death song, for there was no enemy to give him death with honor. There was only shame, and the knowledge that the warrior people, terror of the North, would be warriors no more forever.

He looked down at the ceremonial ax in his true-hands-the ax which had been borne by the war leaders of the clans for fifteen generations, and which had finally known defeat and humiliation. His hands tightened on the shaft as he pictured the shit-sitters' gloating pleasure at claiming that emblem of Boman pride as a trophy to hang upon a palace wall in some stinking city, far from the free winds of the hills of the North.

No! That much, at least, he would prevent. In this, if in nothing else, he would prove himself worthy of his war leader's title.

Tar Tin, last paramount war leader of the clans of the Boman, clutched his ax of office to his chest with all four hands and climbed upon the parapet of the Great Bridge of Sindi. The water of the Tam ran red with the blood of his people below him, and he closed his eyes as he gave himself to the river.

Poertena tossed down a single card.

"Gimme."

"Never draw to an inside straight," Fain said, flipping a card across the table. "It just won't work."

"A week," Tratan said. "A week he's been playing, and already he's an expert."

"It won't," the company commander said.

"We've got the masts almost finished," Tratan said, changing the subject, "and the last of the spars will be ready next week. Now if you hull pussies would ever get finished ..."

"Real woodwork takes time," Trel Pis said. The old K'Vaernian shipbuilder scratched his right horn as he contemplated his cards. "You can't rush perfection."

"We gots tee last load o' planking from tee mills yestiday," Poertena said. "Tomorrow we starts putting it up. Every swingin' ... whatever gets to put up planks til we done. T'en we parties."

"So next week the Prince has his yacht?" Fain asked. "Call. Pair of twos."

"Or tee week after," Poertena said. "We gots to set up tee rigging, an' t'at takes time. An' tee new canvas ain't ready yet, neither. Four eights. Gimme."

"If he was a Diaspran, I'd never believe it," Tratan said, throwing down his hand.

"Natural four?" Fain said in disbelieving tones.

"Hey," Poertena said. "If you gots tee cards, you don't have to draw to a straight. It's only when you pocked you gots to do t'at."

"Sergeant, could you take a look at this?"

The humans hadn't tried to explain the nature of the listening post to their hosts. The Mardukans had remarkable facility with gross manufacture, but the minute the word "electronics" was used, it became supernatural. So instead of trying to explain, Pahner had just asked for a high, open spot on the western wall, and left it at that.

Julian walked over from the open tower where the rest of the squad was lounging in the shade and checked the reading on the pad.

"Shit," he said quietly.

"What's it mean?" Cathcart asked, tapping a querying finger on the flashing icon.

"Encrypted voice transmission," Julian said, crouching down to run expertly through the analysis.

"From a recon flight?"

There was an unmistakable nervous note in the corporal's voice, and Julian didn't blame him. The entire company had known since the day they left Marshad that someone from the port had discovered the abandoned assault shuttles in which they'd reached the planet. The scrap of com traffic they'd picked up from the pinnace which had spotted them had been in the clear, which hadn't left much room for doubts. But it had also been only a scrap, and what no one knew was what whoever was in control of the port had done about that discovery since. It was unlikely that anyone would believe a single company of Marines could survive to get this far, but it certainly wasn't impossible.

"Don't know if it's a recon flight," he told Cathcart after a moment, "but whatever it is, we're close enough to pick it up. Which means they're close enough to see us ... if they look. Or hear us, if we're careless with our radio traffic. "

"Saint?" the corporal asked, glancing at the sky.

"Civilian," Julian replied. "Standard program you can download off any planet's Infonet."

"That's good, right?" Cathcart said. "That means the Saint blockade might have been lifted. It might be a freighter or something."

"Yeah," Julian said. "Maybe." He tapped the icon, and it flashed red and yellow. "On the other hand, pirates use the same program."

Cord had considered himself a scholar in his day. And a poet. So when O'Casey set her toot to the task of accurately translating the long-ago log of the only ship known ever to have crossed the ocean, it was as a scholar that Cord had offered his assistance.

But it was with the mind of a shaman that he finally read the words which had been written on the crumbling leather leaves of the ancient log.

"Upon the forty-sixth day of the voyage, in the first quarter after light, there was a vast boiling upon the sea, as of a giant swell of water. All who were not employed upon the oars gathered on the starboard side to observe as another boil came up, and still another, each closer to the ship and apparently approaching rapidly.

"Just as the fourth boil of water was observed near alongside the starboard beam, there was a great shudder from below, as if the ship had struck a hidden reef.