Part 36 (1/2)
”Here.” A tear-stained face tilted up toward Tess. G.o.ds, she was young.
”Shoot some of the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds for me. I know you can do it.”
The tears stopped. A sudden light gleamed in Valye's eyes. She pulled her bow from its quiver and nocked an arrow. And let fly. A khaja soldier stumbled and went down. The men cheered, immensely heartened. A barrage of arrows rained down from the heights, but they fell just out of range. The infantry advanced, step by slow step.
Valye shot again, and hit. And again, and hit.
With a great shout, the infantry charged. An instant of indecision on Aleksi's part: the khaja center was heavy and thick with soldiers, and if the riders went to either flank, they exposed themselves to archery fire from the hills.
Then he grinned. ”Retreat! We'll break back at my command.”
They retreated in good order toward the distant end of the little valley. But there, on the road where it wound around a rise, a second group of infantry appeared. Tess heard the khaja shout in triumph at their victory.
And then shout a warning. ”Turn!” cried Aleksi. They turned, to see Anatoly and the rest of the jahar charging through the gap and hitting the infantry from the rear.
Behind Anatoly, emerging through the smoke, came the first of the wagons.
They charged through and, meeting Anatoly's group, routed the infantry between them. As quickly as wagons came forward far enough out into the valley they halted and with astonis.h.i.+ng speed and efficiency, women shouting and cursing, a square formed. With a handful of other riders, Tess chased the retreating khaja, cutting them down from behind, those that did not turn to fight. Just in front of her, a khaja soldier fell with an arrow in his neck. A man shrieked out in pain up in the heights above.
”Fall back!” cried Anatoly. The cry went out.
”Tess!” yelled Aleksi. ”Fall back with me!”
In that wild instant, Tess realized that her charge had brought her out to the very edge of the battle, that she was surrounded by khaja soldiers with only Aleksi trailing at her side. A clot of khaja turned on her. She reined Zhas.h.i.+ hard around, slicing with her saber. A thump jarred her helmet, and an arrow fell over Zhas.h.i.+'s withers and tumbled down to the ground. Tess froze, realizing in that second that she had been shot in the head. A man lunged forward, sword raised-and an arrow sprouted from his throat. Like a brilliant, sudden, red germination, another arrow sprouted from the throat of his companion, and the man next to him, and the next one, a lethal flowering. Tess did not wait to see anymore but fled, Aleksi beside her.
There was a gap in the wagons. They rode through it into the eddying calm of the center. Behind, a wagon rolled to close the gap.
”Dismount,” said Aleksi in a low voice. Tess dismounted, because she was suddenly so tired that she could not think. ”Were you hit anywhere?” he demanded.
She shook her head. Her hands shook. Without that helmet, she would have been pierced through the skull. Bile rose in her throat.
”Aleksi, I'm going to be sick.”
”Here.” He held her by the shoulders while she threw up. A moment later Anatoly appeared, and with him, his grandmother. A moment later Sonia ran up and knelt beside Tess.
”Tess-? G.o.ds!”
”No, I'm all right. Just sick.”
”Ah.” Sonia rose as quickly. ”Mother Sakhalin, come. We need all the women old enough to shoot placed along the wagons. We need to prop up s.h.i.+elds for cover.
Boys to the herds. Some kind of screen-some wagons upended, I think-for the littlest ones.” They hurried off.
”Aleksi,” said Anatoly. ”Come with me. The women can hold them off for the time, but I'd like your opinion--should we sortie out to that other troop before the ones we routed have time to regroup?”
Aleksi patted Tess on the shoulder and let go of her and went away. Tess sank back on her heels and groped for her water flask at her belt. It was punctured, empty.
She stood, feeling dizzy and swept in waves by nausea, and staggered over to Zhas.h.i.+.
Thank G.o.d, the flask on Zhas.h.i.+ was unharmed. Tess gulped down water and then cupped water in her hands to let the mare drink. She raised her head.
Chaos. No, not chaos at all. Herds bleated; a string of boys pressed the animals into one corner of the square. The song of bows serenaded her. Sweet-faced Katerina crouched down beside a limp khaja soldier tumbled in the dirt and stabbed him up under the palate, making sure he was dead. Three silver-haired men turned a fourth wagon up onto its side and herded a troop of little children inside. Tess recognized Mira among their number. The little girl was sober-eyed, not crying, clutching the hand of an older child, who carried a baby. There, at the edge of the wagons, two young women staggered in from the outside. Each wore a wicker s.h.i.+eld bound onto her back, and between them they carried a jaran man. Tess saw his lips move and realized that he was alive, though wounded. They laid him on the ground next to another injured jaran man, and as they turned and went to run back out, Tess realized that they were Galina and Diana.
Katerina kicked a khaja soldier and unbuckled his helmet and threw it to one side. She glanced up. ”Oh. Aunt Tess! Can you help me strip these two? And then help me drag them out of here?''
The man was dead. Thoroughly dead. Perhaps Tess had killed him herself. Tess felt a haze descend on her as she stripped his armor, his weapons, anything valuable from him. She and Katya dragged the two dead bodies over to one side where a considerable pile of the khaja dead had built up, brought here by other children.
”I think we got all of the ones who were inside the wagons,” said Katya, sounding as practical as her mother.
”You'd better check again,” said Tess. The girl nodded and trotted off. Tess went back to find Zhas.h.i.+, but the mare was gone. Over to one side a set of wagons had been formed into a square within the square, and here the wounded congregated.
Young Galina sat on the ground between two men. She held her left arm with her right hand, gripping her arm where an arrow protruded from the flesh. Her face was pale, her lips set tight with pain, but she talked with the men. Cara moved among the wounded: Niko mirrored her over on the other side, and Juli Danov shouted at someone-G.o.ds, it was one of the actors, the chestnut-haired girl-who was offering water to the wounded but spilling more than she gave because her hands shook so badly. Gwyn Jones knelt beside a black-haired jaran man, delicately turning an arrow out of his side by easing the unbroken silk of his red s.h.i.+rt back along the twisting path of entry. Farther, at the outer line of wagons, women stood and shot, a rhythmic, deadly pattern.
”Aunt Tess! Aunt Tess!” It was little Ivan, leading Zhas.h.i.+. ”I looked for you.
Here is Zhas.h.i.+.”
”Thank you, Vania.” Tess let Zhas.h.i.+ blow in her face and watched as the mare's ears p.r.i.c.ked up. She kissed Ivan on the cheek. ”I want you to go make sure the little children are well. Where is Kolia?”
”But, Aunt Tess, I'm supposed to help with the herds.”
”Take care of yourself, then.” He ran off.
”Tess!” Aleksi hailed her. He rode over to her. ”We're about to make another sortie.”
' 'Another sortie?'' She swung up on Zhas.h.i.+ more from habit than volition.
”We drove them back once, but they've re-formed again. That crazed woman Ursula says we should let the women hunt them.””Hunt them?” They trotted across to the far wall of wagons, where the remains of Anatoly's jahar milled, forming up for another attack.
”Hunt them,” Aleksi repeated. ”Distance, with arrows. She's right, you know. I know Bakhtiian and the other men would never consider archery in battle, but they're wrong. We're not fighting feuds any longer, that it matters as a point of honor. I suggested to Sakhalin that we use archers. They're only khaja, after all.”
Tess was greeted by the sight of about fifty mounted women, bows ready, each with a sheaf of arrows at her back, ready to ride out with the men. They wore their heavy felt coats as protection. Anatoly's little sister rode with them and-to Tess's surprise-Vera Veselov and little Valye Usova.
Anatoly, deep in discussion with Ursula nodded; his face lit with a grin. ”Now, you women,” he said, and then flushed as if at his own presumption in ordering them about. ”You will fire over our heads into their ranks. Once we engage, if there is room, circle them and fire into the rear where most of their archers stand.” He waved Aleksi over, and Tess and Aleksi took position in the second rank. Mother Sakhalin yelled out the order to move the wagons: a string of men, boys, girls, and women- some actors among the group, Tess saw-rolled four wagons aside. With a shout, Anatoly led the jahar out at a trot.
The khaja infantry unit had marched close enough to fire arrows into the square.
The khaja soldiers jeered and let out a great shout at the appearance of the jaran riders.
The jahar broke into a canter. The women began to shoot. The sky went black with arrows. They broke into a gallop, and then hit the front rank of the khaja fighters and she was too busy to see what became of the women.
Until the khaja line disintegrated in front of her. The soldiers ran. Their entire back had vanished, shot through, decimated with archery fire. Out to either flank, Tess saw the women riding in circles, firing off to their left, cutting down the fleeing soldiers from behind with their devastating fire. The men rode the enemy down and cut them to ribbons. Not many escaped back into the hills.
The jahar re-formed quickly, but it took longer to get the women back in order.
They rode a great circle around the wagons, and not one arrow disturbed their circuit.