So much for King John’s spy service, Sam thought. Unless—unless he is in on the attack. But if he were he wouldn’t be standing out here where he’s likely to get killed any moment . . .
Anyway, Arthur of New Brittany would never make a deal with the uncle who had murdered him.
The rockets continued to arc down from both sides, the five-pound warheads with their rock-fragment shrapnel taking a toll. The Parolandoj had the advantage; they could lie flat while their rockets exploded among upright targets. The invaders had to keep moving, otherwise they might just as well go home.
Nevertheless, it was frightening to lie on the ground and wait for the next noisy blast and hope that it would not come closer than the last one. There were screams from the wounded that were not, however, as heartrending as they would have been if Sam had not been so deafened that he could barely hear them and if he also had not been too worried about himself to think of others. Then, suddenly, the rockets had quit blowing up the world. A huge hand shook Sam’s shoulder. He looked up to see that many around him were getting to their feet. The sergeants were yelling into the stunned ears of their men to form a battle array. The enemy was so close now that neither side was using the missiles or else they had all been launched.
Ahead was a dark body, a sea of screaming whooping fiends. They ran up the hill and the first, second and third ranks fell, pierced by arrows. But those behind did not break. They leaped over the fallen and kept on coming. Suddenly, the archers were being hammered down or thrust through or clubbed.
Sam kept close behind Joe Miller, who moved ahead slowly, his ax rising and falling. And then the giant was down, and the enemy were struggling on top of him like a pack of jackals on a lion, Sam tried to get to him; his ax smashed through a shield and a head and an uplifted arm and then he felt a burning pain along his ribs. He was pushed back and back, while he slashed away with the ax and then it was gone, wedged in a skull. He stumbled over a pile of wood. Above him was the burning floor of his smashed house, still held up by three burning pylons.
He turned on his side, and there was the handgun, the Mark I, that he had left by his bedside. Near it lay three packages of powder with the nitrate-soaked twists and a number of the plastic bullets. The explosion had hurled them out of the house.
Two men whirled by him in a dance, their hands gripping each other, straining, grunting with the strain, glaring into each other’s bloody faces. They stopped, and Sam recognized King John—his opponent was taller but not as thickly built. He had lost bis helmet, and he, too, had tawny hair and eyes that were blue in the light of the flames overhead.
Sam broke open the pistol, put in the bullet and the charge as he had done that morning up in the hills, locked the barrel and rose to his feet. The two men still struggled, one slipping back a little, then the other, trying to throw each other. John held a steel knife in his right hand; the other man, a steel ax; each was grasping the weapon hand of the other.
Sam looked around. No one was coming at him. He stepped forward and extended the muzzle of the big pistol, holding it steady with both hands. He pulled the trigger, the click sounded, the gun was jarred to one side by the heavy hammer, there was a flash, he had the gun back in line, a boom, a cloud of smoke, and John’s assailant fell to one side, the entire right side of his skull blown away.
John fell gasping onto the ground. Then he raised himself, looking at Sam, who was reloading the gun. “Many thanks, partner! That man was my nephew, Arthur!”
Sam did not reply. If he had been thinking more coolly he would have waited until Arthur had killed John and then blown Arthur’s head off. It was ironic that he, Sam, who had much to gain by John’s death, should be responsible for saving him. Moreover, he could not expect gratitude from John. The man had no such thing in his soul.