Harry Turtledove - Opening Atlantis

At last, the fit left Henry. He slumped forward, exhausted. Richard leaned forward and set a hand on his shoulder. "We can do this. We will do this." Then he said, "Father would be proud of you." That was when Henry was sure he hadn't been spouting nonsense.

Bartholomew Smith said, "You sounded like a great captain, skipper-like somebody who's won battles in the War of the Roses."

"I don't want to sound like a captain. I don't want to have to sound like one," Henry said. "And I don't care about roses, except I wish more of them grew here. If not for Warwick, I never would have worried about any of this."

"Well, then, he's got a lot to answer for, by Our Lady," Richard said. "Only thing is, he doesn't know it yet."

Like his father, Henry Radcliffe was a leader of men. Richard had never much wanted to tell anyone what to do. He'd never wanted anyone else telling him what to do, either. No wonder wandering alone through lands no other man had ever seen suited him so well.

Hurrying through the Atlantean woods with a dozen grim, angry, determined men at his back felt very different. Bartholomew Smith would have made a better leader, but everyone looked to Richard. He was Edward's son. The magic had to be in him. They thought it did, anyhow.

Maybe their thinking so would help make it true. He could hope so. He had to hope so. If it didn't, he was only leading them into disaster.

Farms above Bredestown were thin on the ground. Only men with some of the same hermit streak that ran so wide in Richard built on the edge of the wilderness. But Richard and his followers had no trouble coming out of the forest wherever they pleased. Warwick's soldiers weren't about to go in among the trees again. They defended a perimeter closer to the sea.

"Go away!" shouted the first man whose house the raiders approached. "I don't want anything to do with the quarrel. I just want to be left in peace."

"Will Warwick heed you if you say that?" Richard asked angrily.

"No. All the more reason you should."

Richard felt the force of the embittered argument. He might have made it himself. But he couldn't listen to it now, not unless he wanted to let his father down. "We have to fight him," he said. "Otherwise, he'll be king in truth over us. Do you want that?"

"No. Don't want you doing it, neither."

"Not me, by God!" Richard said, and said not a word about his brother. "If we want to live our own lives, we have to free the land of the Earl of Warwick. We have to, dammit! Then I can go back to the woods and make my wife wonder whether I'm ever coming home again. And that's all I want to do. Don't you understand? Warwick won't leave you alone."

"He hasn't done anything to me yet," the man said. "When he does, that's the time for me to worry about it."

"No." Richard shook his head. "That's when it's too late to worry about it." He turned to the men at his back. "Come on. We'll find men who aren't puling babes somewhere else." We'd better, or we're ruined, he thought.

And they did. Some men could see the writing on the wall, unlike the blockhead at the first farm where they stopped. Some had kin whom Warwick's hounds had already despoiled. And some, like Richard himself, didn't want anybody telling them what to do. "I don't much like you," one of those told Richard as he grabbed his bow and slung a full quiver over his shoulder, "but you're the ague, and that Warwick, he's the plague."

"Too bloody right he is," Richard said. "I don't care if you like me or not. Put up with me till we dig the God-cursed badger out of his sett. Then you can go back to thinking I'm a fool, and I'll go off into the woods and forget all about you. Is it a bargain?"

"It is," the farmer answered. "Not the best one, maybe, but the best I'm likely to get."

Richard wondered whether they would have to fight before they got to New Hastings. They did. Maybe one of the men who didn't want to fight on his side slipped away and carried word to Warwick's soldiers. Maybe they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. However that was, a clump of them spotted Richard's ragtag force as it came out from behind some trees. The troopers wasted no time figuring out who was who. They strung their bows with frantic haste and started shooting.

"Back into the wood!" Richard cried. "The trunks will give us cover!" They would need it, too; a man screamed as he was hit. The soldiers had mailshirts and helmets and swords. Only a few of Richard's men had swords; most made do with belt knives or axes. None of them wore armor. If Warwick's troopers came to close quarters, they would slaughter their foes. They knew it, too. Some of them lumbered forward while others kept shooting to disrupt the Atlanteans' archery.

How fast could a man in a byrnie cover a couple of hundred yards? Not fast enough to keep the settlers from shooting before they got to the edge of the copse. Rings of iron kept glancing hits out, but an arrow that struck square would punch through any armor made.

Another Atlantean shrieked. He fell, clawing at the arrow in his throat. His blood rivered out, hideously red. Still another farmer took a clothyard shaft an inch above the nose and died before he knew it.

One of Richard's arrows caught a soldier in the left shoulder. Though it got through, it did less harm than the bowman would have liked. The soldier yelled, but he broke off the shaft and kept coming.

"Away!" Richard shouted. "This isn't the place for a big fight!" He didn't want the men to empty their quivers here. Archery was the one skill they had that let them confront Warwick's fighters. Without arrows, they could only run when armored men came after them. We'll, we've got arrows, and we're running anyhow, Richard thought glumly. He misliked the omen.

They had to leave their wounded behind. That was no good. Lord only knew what the angry troopers would do to them. But Richard didn't see what else he could do. Trying to drag them along would have slowed the whole band. If the soldiers caught up with them, the rising would die before it ever came to life.

"You should have planned this better," one of his men panted as they trotted north and east.

Richard looked at him. "What makes you think I planned it at all? Those bastards were there, so we fought them. We hurt them, too."

"And they hurt us," the settler answered. "Worse, I daresay."

"That's what fighting's all about, Peter," Richard agreed. "When we get the battle we want, we'll hurt them worse."

"How do you know?" Peter asked. Richard told him how he knew-or how he hoped, rather. The man trotted on for a couple of paces, then nodded. So did Richard, thoughtfully. If anything happens to him before the big fight, I have to knock him over the head. Can't give him the chance to spill his guts to Warwick's men.

One thing: men without mailshirts could run faster than men with mailshirts could chase them. After Richard's followers pulled away, he relaxed-a little. He still had a decent-sized force behind him, and he was still moving in the direction he wanted to go. It could have been worse. But it would have been better if they'd reached the seaside unbloodied.

Black midnight, blacker than the Earl of Warwick's heart. Henry Radcliffe and Bartholomew Smith crouched on the beach, a couple of miles south of New Hastings. "You're sure they know the signal?" Henry said.

"They'd better," the mate answered, which wasn't what he wanted to hear.

Henry set dry pine needles and other tinder on the sand. He clashed flint and steel above them again and again till they caught. No matter how many times you did it, starting a fire was rarely quick or easy. He breathed on the flames when he finally got them going, coaxing them to brighter life. Smith fed them more fuel. At last, the two men had a fire that gave some warmth against the chilly breeze.