Harry Turtledove - Opening Atlantis

"A plague!" Carl exclaimed. "My brother's over there, the cursed, mangy hound."

"And? Do you want us to try to spare him or try to shoot him down like the dog he is?" Richard asked.

Before Carl could answer, the troopers shouted, "Warwick!" and trudged forward, swords drawn, shields raised against the storm that would soon fall on them. Warwick's archers began to shoot.

At first, their arrows hardly seemed to move in the sky. But then, terrifyingly fast, they were on Richard and his comrades. You could dodge one, but if you did you were likely to step into the path of another. Richard had never had so many men trying to kill him all at once.

"Shoot!" he shouted. "Pick your own targets!" A better general, or a more certain one, might have concentrated on the troopers or the archers. He hoped splitting the difference would serve well enough. If he was wrong…then he was wrong, that was all.

He let fly at a trooper, and missed. Swearing, he looked over his left shoulder. Where was the Rose? If she didn't do what she was supposed to do pretty soon, he and his men would have to run. They couldn't face armored soldiers with swords at close quarters. And if they started running, where would they stop? Wouldn't they be doomed to outlawry and skulking through the woods the rest of their days?

She looked close enough to Richard, dammit. One of his men fell with a groan. He let fly again. His shaft pierced a shield, but evidently not the trooper behind it, because the soldier kept coming.

Richard's quiver would run dry soon. His men couldn't have many more arrows than he did. He'd also have to run when he couldn't shoot any more. Henry had wanted to cut this close. But what was the difference between close and too close?

Simple, Richard thought, nocking another shaft as an enemy arrow hummed venomously past his head. If it's too close, we lose.

The leadsman in the Rose's bow cast the line again and again, calling out how much water lay under her keel. He'd already called out less water than she drew more than once. Why she hadn't run aground Henry Radcliffe didn't know. Maybe God loved her and hated the Earl of Warwick. Maybe she was just lucky. Either way, she was at last just about where she needed to be-and just in time, too. Or he hoped she was just in time, anyway.

He stood at the bow starboard swivel gun. Bartholomew Smith stood by the stern gun at the same side. "Ready?" Henry called.

"At your order, skipper," the mate replied.

Henry sighted down the wrought-iron tube. It was loaded with stones and scrap metal and whatever else they could stuff into its maw. "Fire!" he shouted, and lowered a tallow-stinking torch to the touch-hole.

Boom! The thunderous noise terrified and exalted him at the same time. You could never be sure a gun would go off when you fired it. You could never be sure the barrel wouldn't blow up, either. He whooped when Smith's gun boom!ed a heartbeat after his. Then he peered through the choking, stinking smoke to see what the two shots had done.

He whooped again, pumping a fist in the air. They'd caught Warwick's men from the flank, and torn them to bits. More than half the armored soldiers were down and kicking or down and suddenly still forever. And almost all the rest were running for their lives. They were battle-hardened, battle-ready men, but disaster striking out of nowhere stole the courage from anybody.

"Reload the starboard guns!" Henry shouted. The sailors leapt to obey, swabbing out each barrel, pouring in fresh powder, and then loading more junk to fire. Henry pointed his piece a little to the south, toward the Earl of Warwick. What did he think at the unexpected overthrow of his hopes? "Port bow gun-fire!" Henry yelled.

Boom! That one was aimed at the earl, too. Warwick was farther from the Rose-probably a quarter of a mile. Maybe God really was on the settlers' side. Or maybe a horse made a bigger target than a man, for the noble's mount staggered, then fell, pinning him beneath its weight.

Another chunk of iron or stone knocked over an archer behind Warwick. Together, the two downfalls made the rest of the settlers who'd taken the nobleman's side realize they might not have decided wisely.

"Drop anchor!" Henry cried. It splashed into the sea. He didn't want the wind to sweep them past the enemy's archers. The Rose's timbers groaned as she slowed. Boom! That was Bartholomew Smith's gun, ready before Henry's. More of the archers who'd backed Warwick fell. The rest ran faster than the armored soldiers. None of them would ever have faced gunfire before. A lot of them would never even have heard it. It was frightening enough when the gun wasn't aimed at you. When it was…

Henry didn't aim his piece at the fleeing settlers. Once Warwick was dealt with, they'd be good neighbors again. They would want to pretend they'd never been here, and he was willing to let them, though he wasn't so sure Richard would be. The soldiers, on the other hand…If you wanted to keep your flock safe, you had to get rid of the wolves.

He lowered the torch to the touch-hole. Boom! The powder stank of brimstone, and Warwick's men had to think hell was visiting them there by the strand. More of them toppled, writhing on the sand and mud.

"Reload!" Henry yelled again. His ears rang. The rest of the sailors' must have, too. "We'll give it to them one more time!"

Richard Radcliffe stood over the Earl of Warwick. Even with his dead horse dragged off him, he wasn't going anywhere; he'd broken a leg in his fall. Pain twisted his face as he glared up at Richard. "Well?" he said through bloody lips. "You've won, villein. Make an end to it, if you'd be so kind. Damned saltpeter!"

"I ought to let you suffer first," Richard said. "You killed my father."

"Not in my own person. And you, in your own person, did murder my men and spur them to avenge in blood."

"They were robbing him of what wasn't theirs to take." Richard didn't need to argue any more-didn't need to and didn't intend to. He drew his bow and shot Warwick in the face. The nobleman kicked for a few minutes, then lay still. Richard let out a long sigh. The worst was over.

His men were finishing Warwick's wounded troopers: cutting their throats or shooting them or knocking them over the head. A few troopers still slogged back toward New Hastings. If they surrendered, he supposed he would let them live. If they wanted to go on fighting, they wouldn't last long, not with their liege lord dead.

One of the settlers who'd sided with Warwick lay on the sand, an arrow through his calf. He eyed Radcliffe apprehensively. "What are you going to do to me?" he asked as Richard approached.

"I was going to take out the arrow and bandage you up," Richard said. "You were a bloody fool, Tim, but you won't be that kind of bloody fool again."

The wounded man started to cry. "God bless you," he grizzled. "Oh, bless you."

"Shut up, or you'll make me sorry I don't do something worse," Richard said roughly. He'd never known what to do with praise. He knelt by Tim and cut away his breeches so he could see how the arrow had gone through. "I'm going to break off the head and then pull the shaft back through. It will hurt some, and you'll bleed some-not too much, with luck."

He cut through the shaft with his knife till he could snap off the head without moving the rest of the arrow very much. Tim groaned anyway. Richard didn't suppose he could blame the other man for that.

"Ready?" he said. Then, before Tim could answer, he pulled the shaft out the way it had gone in. The other man howled and twisted. Blood poured from both ends of the wound, but it didn't spurt, so Richard hoped the arrow hadn't cut any major blood vessels. He bandaged Tim with the length of breeches leg he'd cut off. "If I get you a stick, can you walk?" he asked.

"Not yet," the other man replied. "Better to wait till the bleeding's stopped for a while." Richard grunted; Tim made sense.