And he had three more shells.
SmallMac must have seen the rat nearly make it running across Magh’ backs. He leapt.
Only the man didn’t try to run on their backs. He leapt onto the biggest long-legged runner there. Astride it. Out of reach of claws and stingers.
The horse-breaker used all the skills at his disposal to cling to something that hadn’t ever been ridden. Stayed on and somehow propelled his alien steed though the press. And then flung himself at the raised tier at the far end of the gun platform.
A claw snagged his foot. For a moment it looked as if he’d be pulled down. Then a rat bit through the clawjoint. Screaming . . . grabbing anything for handholds . . . SmallMac was up.
And so were they. Whatever control SmallMac had grabbed on the tier was raising the entire platform. Men and rats scrambled, snatched for purchase as the whole platform wobbled gently up into the sky, the rotors underneath lifting, clanging into suddenly hardening slowshields, faltering, lifting again. Maggots leapt frantically after them. Fitz saw Ariel go down under one. He lunged at it, pulling it aside.
Its razor-edged claw cut into his thigh and up toward his belly . . . before something stopped it.
Ariel.
The hovercraft-mounted gun was genteelly blundering deeper into enemy territory. As he lay there bleeding, Fitz saw SmallMac, his face white with pain, sticking his bangstick into holes plainly intended for a claw. And, although it nearly had them off, turning the thing in a wobbling circle toward the HAR-held lines.
With Fitz holding on to Ariel, and she holding on to him, consciousness faded as the handful of rear guards headed home, in the dawn.
9
His first memory of the hospital was clouded with anesthetics and pain. But after a couple of weeks, that too cleared. On the first day that he actually knew just who he was, a Vat-visitor with glasses in a dressing gown and on crutches came to see him.
“SmallMac!”
“Captain.” The bespectacled man managed a salute, despite the crutches.
“I thought you weren’t going to call me that anymore.”
“That was when we were going to die,” said Lance Corporal McTavish with a grin. “And that appears to have been delayed.”
“And the rest? Ariel?” There was a lump in his throat. He felt sick and weak and like crying.
SmallMac pulled a face. “Injured. Spanoletti came through it all with no worse than a few cuts. She’s been to see all the rats. Apparently Ariel looks like she’d been through a fight with a grizzly. She’ll live, though. We lost one of the rats to injuries. Pitti-Sing, I think. The rest of us . . . thirty-one men and rats in all . . . made it. Some of them won’t fight again. We had our doubts about you making it though, Captain. You owe your life to Ariel and some pretty sharp medics.”
“And to your riding and flying skills.”
“For a minute I almost thought we had cavalry,” said SmallMac, wryly. “But I won’t be riding again for a while. I’ve lost the foot. On the plus side I won’t be marching again either.”
“Hell. I’m sorry. But . . . that’s your livelihood.”
SmallMac shrugged. “I was getting too old for the falls anyway. And, well, I was nearly dead, like poor bloody Ewen. I hear I’m due for a desk posting here in GBS city. I’ll be able to sleep out with my family! There’s many a poor bastard who would cut their own foot off for that.”
After that came Fitz’s father. Other survivors. Parachute Major Van Klomp.
And then Ariel came to visit him. Rats of course were strictly not allowed in the hospital.
Fitz looked at her. Ariel’s rich fur was bandaged. So was one paw. The once beautiful little creature looked bedraggled. Her delicate ears were tattered.
But worst of all was the bandaged stump of a tail.
“I’ve just come to say good-bye,” she said, in a voice that was unaccustomedly subdued.
“Have you been posted back to what’s left of our unit?”
“No.” She twitched her tail stump. “I . . . methinks . . . I’ll . . . I just wanted to see you a last time. To be sure you were still alive.”