me of,” he said, in a low voice looking out at the oncoming regiments. “I knew what it meant when my bandsmen took off. But I also understand how they could decide to do it.”
There was nothing more I could say. We both knew that without” his forty men we could not even make a pretence of holding the first terrace past the moment when the first line of Naharese would reach the base of the ramparts. There were just too few of us and too many of them to stop them from coming over the top.
“They’re probably hiding just out beyond the walls,” he said. He was still talking about his former bandsmen. “If we do manage to hold out for a day or two, there’s a slight chance they might trickle back—“
He broke off, staring past me. I turned and saw Amanda.
How she had managed to do it by herself, I do not know. But, clearly, she had gotten herself out of her hospital bed and strapped the portable drainage unit on to her. It was not heavy or much bigger than a thick book; and it was designed for wearing by an ambulatory patient, but it must have been hell for her to rig it by herself with that tube rubbing inside her at every deep breath.
Now she was here, looking as if she might collapse at any time, but on her feet with the unit slung from her right shoulder and strapped to her right side. She had a sidearm clipped to her left thigh, over the cloth of the hospital gown; and the gown itself had been ripped up the center so that she could walk in it.
“What the hell are you doing up here?” I snarled at her. “Get back to bed!”
“Corunna—“ she gave me the most level and unyielding stare I have ever encountered from anyone in my life, “don’t give me orders. I rank you.”
I blinked at her. It was true I had been asked to be her driver for the trip here, and in a sense that put me under her orders. But for her to presume to tell a Captain of a full flight of fighting ships, with an edge of half a dozen years in seniority and experience that in a combat situation like this she ranked him—it was raving nonsense. I opened my mouth to explode—and found myself bursting out in laughter, instead. The situation was too ridiculous. Here we were, five people even counting Michael, facing three thousand; and I was about to let myself get trapped into an argument over who ranked who. Aside from the fact that only the accident of her present assignment gave her any claim to superiority over me, relative rank between Dorsai had always been a matter of local conditions and situations, tempered with a large pinch of common sense.
But, obviously she was out here on the terrace to stay; and obviously, I was not going to make any real issue of it under the circumstances. We both understood what was going on. Which did not change the fact that she should not have been on her feet. Like Ian out on the plain, and in spite of having been forced to see the funny side of it, I was still angry with her.
“The next time you’re wounded, you better hope I’m not your medico,” I told her. “What do you think you can do up here, anyway?”
“I can be with the rest of you,” she said.
I closed my mouth again. There was no arguing with that answer. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw Kensie and Ian approaching from the far ends of the
terrace. In a moment they were with us.
They looked down at her but said nothing, and we all turned to look again out across the plain.
The Naharese front had been approaching steadily. It was still too far away to be seen as a formation of individuals. It was still just a line of different shade than the plain itself, touched with flashes of light and spots of color. But it was a line with a perceptible thickness now.
We stood together, the four of us, looking at the slow, ponderous advance upon us. All my life, as just now with Amanda, I had been plagued by a sudden awareness of the ridiculous. It came on me now. What mad god had decided that an army should march against a handful—and that the handful should not only stand to be marched upon, but should prepare to fight back? But then the sense of the ridiculousness passed. The Naharese would continue to come on because all their lives had oriented them against Gebel Nahar. We would oppose them when they came because all our lives had been oriented to fighting for even lost causes, once we had become committed to them. In another time and place it might be different for those of us on both sides. But this was the here and now.
With that, I passed into the final stage that always came on me before battle. It was as if I stepped down into a place of private peace and quiet. What was coming would come, and I would meet it when it came. I was aware of Kensie, Ian, Michael and Amanda standing around me, and aware that they were experiencing much the same feelings. Something like a telepathy flowed between us, binding us together in a feeling of
particular unity. In my life there has been nothing like that feeling of unity, and I have noticed that those who have once felt it never forget it. It is as it is, as it always has been, and we who are there at that moment are together. Against that togetherness, odds no longer matter.
There was a faint scuff of a foot on the terrace floor, and Michael was gone. I looked at the others, and the thought was unspoken between us. He had gone to put on his weapons. We turned once more to the plain, and saw the approaching Naharese now close enough so that they were recognizable as individual figures. They were almost close enough for the sound of their approach to be heard by us.
We moved forward to the parapet of the terraces and stood watching. The day-breeze, strengthening, blew in our faces. There was time now to appreciate the sunlight, the not-yet-hot temperature of the day and the moving air. Another few hundred meters and they would be within the range of maximum efficiency for our emplaced weapons—and we, of course, within range of their portables. Until then, there was nothing urgent to be done.
The door opened behind us. I turned, but it was not Michael. It was Padma, supporting El Conde, who was coming out to us with the help of a silver-headed walking stick. Padma helped him out to where we stood at the parapet, and for a second he ignored us, looking instead out at the oncoming troops. Then he turned to us.
“Gentlemen and lady,” he said in Spanish, “I have chosen to join you.”
“We’re honored,” Ian answered him in the same
tongue. “Would you care to sit down?” , “Thank you, no. I will stand. You may go about your duties.”
He leaned on the cane, watching across the parapet and paying no attention to us. We stepped back away from him, and Padma spoke in a low voice.
“I’m sure he won’t be in the way,” Padma said. “But he wanted to be down here, and there was no one but me left to help him.”
“It’s all right,” said Kensie. “But what about you?”
“I’d like to stay, too,” said Padma.
Ian nodded. A harsh sound came from the throat of the count, and we looked at him. He was rigid as some ancient dry spearshaft, staring out at the approaching soldiers, his face carved with the lines of fury and scorn.
“What is it?” Amanda asked.
I had been as baffled as the rest. Then a faint sound came to my ear. The regiments were at last close enough to be heard; and what we were hearing were their regimental bands—except Michael’s band, of course—as a faint snatch of melody on the breeze. It was barely hearable, but I recognized it, as El Conde obviously already had.
“They’re playing the te guelo,” I said. “Announcing ‘no quarter.’”
The te guelo is a promise to cut the throat of anyone opposing. Amanda’s eyebrows rose.
“For us?” she said. “What good do they think that’s going to do?”
“They may think Michael’s bandsmen are still with us, and perhaps they’re hoping to scare them out,” I said. “But probably they’re doing it just because it’s always done when they attack.”
The others listened for a second. The te guelo is an effectively chilling piece of music; but, as Amanda had implied, it was a little beside the point to play it to Dorsai who had already made their decision to fight.