"They usually do. But they'll come at night. Couple of hours past midnight. That's how they remember doing it, or how their daddies told 'em to do it."
Kaur woke him by cautiously nudging his booted feet with her shete and stepping back as he uncoiled with steel in his hand. It was very dark, moonless, with the stars hard and white above; the walls of low forest around them were inky black, and only a faint red glow came from the campfires. The night had a dense green smell to it; the air was a little cooler, coming from the south. Lightning bugs blinked on and off, giving the illusion of little lamps as they drifted through the scrub.
"They come now," Kaur whispered, squatting and leaning on the sheathed weapon. "Many, Captain. They took the dead horse a little while ago, and now they come for us."
" How many?"
She shrugged; the brother and sister were good scouts, not magicians or witches. "Twice our numbers at least. Not more than ten times."
"Get everyone up-but quiet."
Her smile showed white in the darkness, and she ghosted away. He shrugged into his padded jacket, wriggling to get the mail shirt down and into place, and slid the carrying strap of his round shield over his head. He heard the howl of a coyote now and then, and the occa sional whit-whit whit of an owl; the preparations of his own folk were a little rustling and chinking only. He'd come a long way from that hulking clumsy nineteen year old who'd ridden off to make a name in the short glorious war against the Injuns.
God, I was useless. We all were. Everyone here now knows their jobs, though. Even the new ones hired for this trip.
The night was loud: wind in the trees, bullfrogs, cicadas, creak and rustle and groan, now and then the call of some foraging beast, once a distant squall of triumph as a catamount made a kill. Ingolf reached his commander's battle station, in front of one of the loopholed board barricades between two wagons. Jose the Tejano was there too, cradling a crossbow. He was a good few years older than Ingolf, old enough to have some strands of white in his black mustache, and he'd fought in most mix-ups between the Llano Estacado and the Red River of the North over the past ten years.
They looked out into the darkness, not straining their eyes, just waiting; he counted down internally, timing his breath to it and using that to calm himself. More mos quitoes bit, but he couldn't slap at them; the chance of the natives noticing it and learning their prey was onto their attack… was small but not zero. One thing he'd learned long ago was that mistakes could kill you, even little ones.
Of course, just being in the wrong place at the wrong time could kill you, even if you were an expert and careful as hell. A sudden high-pitched shriek of surprised pain came from out in the darkness.
"Now!" he shouted.
A deep tunnng sounded from the center of the en campment, where a man pulled the lanyard on a small heavy machine of springs and levers. It threw the dart shaped projectile upward nearly a thousand feet; there was a sizzling popping sound, and the magnesium flare burned with explosive brightness-as close to an explo sion as you could get in the Changed world, that was. He didn't look up; the spot of fire would kill his night vision, and hopefully a lot of the attackers who weren't expecting it would look, by reflex. From overhead it lit the clearing with a pitiless blue-white radiance, the huge shadows jerking and twisting; the flare swung and twisted beneath the parachute as it drifted down.
The crink-crink-crink of the winch's gearing sounded as the crew wound the thrower again, ready to launch another flare before the first hit the ground. The Boss man of Des Moines really had laid out for the very best on this trip, including choice items from his own armory. For some reason Kuttner seemed to find the sound disagreeable.
Out in the clearing the light showed a carpet of dark ragged furtive crawling movement, studded with gleams from eyes and teeth and ancient knives. His mouth went dry; there were a lot more of them than he'd thought there would be, at least a hundred and maybe twice that, eeling towards the circle of wagons on their bellies. A half dozen bands must have gotten together for this, a rare degree of cooperation among the wild men, who in variably hated one another with the malignant loathing born of a generation of stalking and eating the unwary, often starting the process of eating before death.
But then, an intrusion by outsiders was rare too. Apart from the meat of men and horses, their well-made gear and weapons would be a prize beyond price. None of them could let their rivals gain such strength.
A massed squealing arose, an endless AitAitAitAitAit-AitAitAit Some part of him realized that it was a word, or had been once: Eat.
The natives rose and rushed forward in a wave, like rats exploding out of a neglected grain bin when you opened the lid and shone a lantern inside. Seconds later about half of them started hopping and screaming, where they'd run into the mesh matting his people had spread around right after they camped. Lying flat and artfully camouflaged with soot and sand and pine duff, the nets were studded with upright razor-edged three-inch spikes.
Some of the enemy fell onto the points and slashed themselves open as they tried to roll away. Others just kept coming, hitting the bare patches by luck or in a frenzy great enough to ignore the pain.
A couple of the squad leaders shouted, Fire! Ingolf didn't bother, since everyone knew what to do and he personally had always disliked someone bawling at him in situations like that. He just drew to the ear and shot into the mass of them and reached for another arrow; there were boxes of them on the inside of the prefab barricade. The snap of bowstrings and the tung! of cross bows sounded, and shouts and curses of the salvagers, and the unearthly throbbing squeal of the wild men. Even as he drew and loosed, he realized…
"They aren't stopping for shit! Ready for it, you Villains! " he roared.
A whistling, and he ducked as a shower of little throw ing spears came down out of the night, driving into the sandy ground with a dry crunch, or into wood with hard cracks; the ones that hit the triple ply canvas of the wagon tilts made a drumhead sound and hung there like porcupine quills. One went into the barricade next to his eyes, and he could see that the head was a ground-down table knife. He used the moment to slide the shield from his back and run his left arm through the loops, and then the luckiest or fastest of the natives were at the barri cade. This was the south facing edge of the wagon-fort, and they were thickest here.
"Richland!" he shouted as he surged up.
He wore his shete over his back when he was on foot, the hilt jutting up by his left shoulder. He swept it out and cut with the same motion. A snarling face with a shock of greasy blond hair and a human finger bone thrust through the septum of its nose fell back in a splash of red. An ancient shovel crashed down on his shield, bang, and a kitchen knife probed at his armor. He jerked the shield downward and broke both the savage's arms; then he thrust across the thrashing body with his shete, the blade skidding on the wood of the shovel handle and taking off the fingers of the wielder…
A long snarling scrimmage around the edge of the wagons, steel glittering in the light of the second flare, gasping breaths, banging and rattling and shrieks. The horses in their paddock snorted and reared against the ropes; the half dozen spearmen of the reserve came pelting up in a line where some of the savages had gotten onto the top of a wagon's cover, and thrust them back with their long weapons. A few more minutes, and the attackers realized what the odds were of storming what amounted to a fortress held by men with real weapons and good armor, trained in fighting as a team.
Then they ran; Ingolf stuck his shete point-down in the sand and snatched up his bow again to shoot at their running backs, and so did everyone else except the wounded.
Kill enough and the rest would hide safely far away.