Jon and Petor were hunched down on the armory wag, their tender years and the reality that they were men in an Amazon tribe belied by the fact that they were both calmly and assuredly issuing battle orders to the other men clustered around the two groups of wags.
Those men who were guarding the children of the tribe had formed a small arrowhead formation around their wags, and were firing in a regular pattern at any sec forces they could see. The other men, who were in the cluster of wags that included the armory wag with Jon, Petor and Doc, were taking shelter behind their wags as they were in a more exposed position, and were also picking off shots at any uniform that heaved into view.
“Doc, take three men and track back to the end of the road, just behind the last line of Gate,” Jon said over his shoulder. “Mebbe these sneaky fuckers will try and get some sec behind the wall and between us and the warriors.”
“In which case we’ll have our backs exposed,” Petor added.
“Gentlemen—for you are no longer boys—I tip my hat to you. Or at least, I would if I was at present in possession of such an article,” Doc murmured. “A splendid idea…”
With which, Doc slid down the back of the wag, reloading the LeMat percussion pistol as he went. He beckoned three of the Gate men to him.
“Gentlemen, we have the hordes pinned down to the front, but mayhap they will try to inveigle their way to our rear, between ourselves and the main battle, thus creating not only a bridgehead for themselves but a very sticky situation for ourselves.”
One of the men, a swarthy, squat man with a beard and deep brown eyes, looked puzzled. “Cut to the chase, Doc, and tell us what the fuck we’re supposed to be doing.”
“Of course, of course,” Doc replied, his wandering mind suddenly sharpening as the necessity for speed in such a situation suddenly hit him. “Forgive the foolish ramblings of a man old before his time. You two—” he indicated the two who hadn’t spoken “—take that side and make sure that none of the Illuminated Ones try to get at our rear from around the sides.
“As for you,” he said to the swarthy man who had questioned him, “you come with me and we’ll take the other side.” Doc indicated each side he spoke of with a flourish of his silver lion’s-head cane. “Now, get to it, and swiftly, for there may not be much time,” he snapped.
As the two parties went their separate ways, the Illuminated Ones to the front of the wags attempted another surge forward. It was doomed to failure…
Jorgensen’s tactic had been simple and could have been ruthlessly effective. A small group of sec men would come up through the hidden exits into the compound and converge on the point where the men and wags of the Gate tribe were waiting for the Amazons to finish battle. Their attention would be focused in the opposite direction to the surprise attacking force, and it would be simple for the Illuminated Ones to blast the menfolk and take cover from any retaliatory fire by taking shelter in the doorways along the sidewalk.
The flaw in that being that Jorgensen hadn’t accounted for the Gate menfolk having an idea that the attack was about to take place and opening up as soon as his people were in view. Then, the shelter in the doorways became the only place where they could avoid an instant chill, and what should have been protection became a prison where the only escape was to move out into the arms of a chilling.
Beneath ground level, observing this on the banks of monitors, and acutely aware of the sidelong glances coming his way from Simon, Al stammered the order for a small group of sec to detach from the rear of the action and circle around on each side, coming up between the main battle and the rear of the wags.
Even as Al spoke, Simon stared at the monitors in disbelief. He had seen Doc and the swarthy man leave the rear of the wags and make their way toward the junction where the sec force would attack. Checking another monitor, he could see that another two men from the wags were conducting a similar maneuver in the opposite direction.