The blackbirds sing to him, “Brother, brother,
If this be the last song you shall sing,
Sing well, for you may not sing another;
Brother, sing.”
Melville felt a surge of joy and elation. He knew in his heart that this could well be his “last song,” and he was determined to sing well indeed.
The leading wave was barely five yards out. Melville saw that they stood approximately man high as they reared up like this. Broadax now slipped in behind the line, joining the reserve. This was the point where bravery turned into stupidity if you stayed out front, to be caught between a seemingly irresistible force and a hopefully immovable object.
“FIRE!!!”
“Ch-BLAM! Ch-BLAM!” At point-blank range seventy-six minié balls cut through the enemy mass. Some of those in the lead were each hit several times, but that wasteful redundancy was balanced out by the fact that many bullets punched straight through the upraised chest of the first target and dropped yet another immediately behind.
Now that they were reared up on their hind legs, the apes died differently. In death all six legs still splayed out, but their torso, head and gaping mouth lunged up and out in an arc that landed many of them, teeth first, with a thump at the marines’ feet, gouging out a divot of parched sod with their mouths. In two cases they sunk their teeth into trees marines were using for cover. The carcasses hung there in death, imbedded into the thick gray bark by their fangs. In many cases they landed close enough that men had to scramble out of their way, creating breaks and disruptions in what should have been a solid fence of gleaming bayonets.
The roaring, raging foe paused for a split second in response to the noise and shock of the final volley, and then they lunged into the center of the line. Suddenly they were in the line, swirling and twisting in flashes of white fur, red jackets, lunging yellow teeth and gleaming bayonets.
Here a marine’s mouth and jaw disappears in a smear of white bone and red blood as an ape’s claw connects. There another marine is disemboweled by a blow, viscera and blood coming out and up in an arc of gray, brown and red.
Now it’s the reserve’s turn to contribute to the battle. Melville held a double-barreled pistol in each hand. So did his purser, Petreckski, and the three midshipmen.
An ape loomed before him. Melville snapped into “slow-motion time” and hunter vision. Every event happened slowly and with incredible clarity. It seemed to take forever to swing the weapon up to eye level. “____!” He fired the pistol in his right hand. It flashed and created a puff of smoke, but he didn’t hear a sound or feel the recoil. The ape spasmed forward in its death dive, but it seemed like there was all the time in the world to step aside.
As early as the twenty-first century, Dr. Alexis Artwohl’s research found that eight out of ten of all law enforcement officers in gunfights experienced this diminished sound effect. Seven out of ten had heightened visual clarity, and six out of ten experienced slow-motion time. In the five centuries since, every warrior has been taught about this, and these powerful survival responses have been nurtured and encouraged. Melville had wondered if it would happen to him, and now here it was.
On his left a marine went down and a dog placed itself over the body. Again it seemed to take forever to swing and aim. “____!,” Melville fired the second barrel of his right pistol, dropping the ape and giving the marine a split second gap to recover. Again, he saw the flash and smoke, but didn’t hear the sound or feel the gun buck in his hand.
Like a predator in nature, he didn’t hear his own “roar,” he tuned out the distracting sounds of the “herd,” and saw everything his “prey” and his “pack” did with vivid clarity.
Directly in front a marine went down with an ape on his back. “____!,” “____!,” Melville fired both barrels of his left pistol. In the turmoil he missed the first time, but the other ball went true. The beast on the marine’s back suddenly went limp, giving the man a few seconds to scramble out of the melee and then stagger back into the line.
His midshipmen were still boys in every sense of the word, but they were very well trained boys. They were products of state-of-the-art training and the finest combat simulators that high-tech worlds could provide. In this melee they were definitely holding their own. Melville caught a flash of little Aquinar standing on tiptoes to shove his pistol into the mouth of an ape that had all four upper limbs wrapped around a marine. The thrust of the pistol was all that stopped the ape from biting off the marine’s face. “Ch-blam!, ch-blam!” The sound was muffled by the ape’s mouth as a spray of gray brains and red blood fountained out the back of the beast’s head.
Funny, he’d heard these shots. He knew that the diminished sound or “auditory exclusion” worked like that sometimes. You shut out your own “roar” but not others’.
In a few seconds the reserve fired twenty shots. But the real bulwark, the seawall on which the filthy white tide raged futilely, was Sergeant Broadax and her twenty pounds of double-bladed battle-ax, and the two rangers with their dogs. She’s singing, thought Melville in wonder as he watched the Dwarrowdelf. She is actually singing. Lo! She sang as she slew, for the joy of battle was on her, and the sound of her singing was fair and terrible. I wonder how she does it with that cigar in her mouth?
Her ax flashed in arcs of red, fountains of red, as she planted her mighty thews and hacked the heads from lunging apes, as a master swordsman might flick the buds from a rosebush in idle practice in his garden. She scorned to even notice the arms and claws of her foes, striking every time for the head. Her iron helm and splaying locks were splashed with red. Her red jacket was soon torn to shreds, displaying her lingerie of finest Dwarrowdelf mail underneath.
Hers was a race of delvers, mining deep into the hearts of high-gee worlds for heavy metals. Even after long years of service to the Crown of Westerness her face wasn’t well suited to endure direct sunlight. She was already red with sunburn and now her face glowed as bright as her cigar tip with exertion as the battle fury of her forefathers ran like fire in her veins.
This is what she’d hoped for when she abandoned her people to be the first Dwarrowdelf to enlist in the Marine Corps of Westerness. As a female, her own society wouldn’t allow her to be a warrior. They wanted to deny her the glory of battle, but now she was in her element. There was no regret for turning her back on her people and her culture to fight as a mercenary for some distant kingdom. This is what she was born for.
The two rangers and their dogs worked as a team, like the four fingers of a hand, reinforcing, supporting, assisting, and always, always attacking. These fell-handed warriors were indeed the “glory of the race of rangers.” Truly “matchless” in every endeavor.
Valandil worked high, his height and reach giving the Sylvan an unmatched ability to deflect all blows from the beasts’ upper limbs. He thrust his blade into the necks and open mouths of the approaching beasts with uncanny accuracy. Josiah took the center, deflecting blows from the middle limbs, and thrusting with great strength and power to the chest and gut. The dogs went low, biting and snapping at feet and knees. These dogs were larger and stronger than the ship’s dogs and with one chomp they could hamstring any ape they caught from the rear, to bring them crashing down with limbs flailing.
For one brief moment Melville had a chance to observe this masterful team at work. Three apes came at them simultaneously. Valandil blocked an ape’s overhand blow with his sword edge. The ape’s “hand” flew off. The ranger’s sword swept forward and down in a red blur, cleaving the head off at the neck. Josiah blocked a reaching claw with the flat of his blade. He used the impact to bounce his sword point over and in, to punch into the beast’s chest. One dog feigned at an ape’s knee. The beast turned to face this danger and exposed the hamstring at the back of its opposite leg to the rangers’ other dog. With an audible “Crunch!” of jaws the hamstring was ripped out in a mass of white tendons and red blood. The ape plunged to the ground. In the blink of an eye, three foes were down.