right hand sword to my left, grab one, and try the toss past tube one where One’s going down and the Reems guys are starting to leak in at the baggage.
These are the little version of the whirling glass tentacle thing. Good. The ones leaking between tubethree and where Four was are too close for that, so I get a file closer and what’s left of the colour party throwing at that leak past One and drift right.
Blossom and Halt are talking, hands waving and bits of dust sparkling between them.
The Reems guys mobbing tube one turn, screaming, into an awful red mist under the molten wings and implausible jaws of a vast steel cloud of butterflies.
They’restarting to thin out a bit to the right of tube three; I’ve got another pile started, but it’s only some past waist high.
Blossom says six presumably utterly improper words, because Halt’s eyebrows lift to the hairline. Something, briefly, smells of ugly and tastes of fire.
The light comes back, and the focus. There’s about sixty, seventy guys in the standard. Less than half, maybe.
Everythingfirms up, in fits and starts and staggery bits as the last of the Reems guys need killing. None of them run, none of them even look like they’re thinking in words any more as anybody still standing tries to fend them off and the butterflies flow over them like phase change.
Chapter 15
Radish’s brain is stuck. “Idiot, idiot, botched it, idiot…”
Sergeant.
Radish stops, in a staggery sort of way.
The dust was some kind of cogitoxin. Most of those are slow, they sneak up on you. This was more like stepping on a rake.
Really don’t want to start talking out loud, I’ll be making blood-gargling noises getting my mouth clear. I’m getting something like attention, anyway. Andthere’s still plenty of shouting and screaming going on, so the standard works better.
Sergeants, report.
Dead, sir.
Toby sounds abashed.
One has nine up, twenty down, and fifty two dead, sir.
Thirty five up, eleven down, six and twenty nine dead, sir.
Radish’s grip’s getting firmer.
Sixty seven up, five down, eight dead, sir.
Dove’s take on calm might be real.
Solid silence, for a beat and anotherbeat. The pointy stick seems to have convinced Hector’s shade it was dead in some thorough way. None of Four’s file closers come in, which isn’t good.
Blossom comes in:
Tubes two and four are effective, tube three’s reduced, tube one’s ineffective.
The battery’s lost eight files, sixty-odd guys out of two hundred some.
Radish, Two gets everybody who’s down, company and artillery, to the medics,start now. Don’t wait for the medics to do the carrying, they’re getting overwhelmed. Get a file checking where Four was soonest.
MEDICS! Back to the central point, triage as they get brought in.
I get heads up and wild eyes and nods. Medics are
of
the Line, not
in
the Line, and these are all excellent medics and good Creeks. Treating those who have been half hacked apart by berserks is a newexperience. Having to help friends in that state is new, too, but not those who’ve been mashed by timber or crushed by rocks, so I can hope the habits transfer.
Dove, Three hands their down to the medics, does a gear check, drinks up, forms up, and heads up the valley. Don’t get within five kilometers of the permanent fortifications; find a good rise for a camp, lay it out, picket it. We’ll bealong.
Everybody gets that.
Sir.
Just for Dove,
Get water into them and get them chewing on the march. It’s going to hit hard when the fight wears off
.
Teach Halt to scare demons, sir
.
Rust?
Steel-winged butterflies rise off stripped corpses into an elegant curve of interrogation mark.
Go with Three. Keep them out of trouble. Trouble you can’t keep them out of they are to retreat from and rejoin,and you, too.
The butterflies do something that looks for all the world like a formal bow of acknowledgment. Dove’s eyes roll before all the sergeant’s attention turns back back to Three
These are the little version of the whirling glass tentacle thing. Good. The ones leaking between tubethree and where Four was are too close for that, so I get a file closer and what’s left of the colour party throwing at that leak past One and drift right.
Blossom and Halt are talking, hands waving and bits of dust sparkling between them.
The Reems guys mobbing tube one turn, screaming, into an awful red mist under the molten wings and implausible jaws of a vast steel cloud of butterflies.
They’restarting to thin out a bit to the right of tube three; I’ve got another pile started, but it’s only some past waist high.
Blossom says six presumably utterly improper words, because Halt’s eyebrows lift to the hairline. Something, briefly, smells of ugly and tastes of fire.
The light comes back, and the focus. There’s about sixty, seventy guys in the standard. Less than half, maybe.
Everythingfirms up, in fits and starts and staggery bits as the last of the Reems guys need killing. None of them run, none of them even look like they’re thinking in words any more as anybody still standing tries to fend them off and the butterflies flow over them like phase change.
Chapter 15
Radish’s brain is stuck. “Idiot, idiot, botched it, idiot…”
Sergeant.
Radish stops, in a staggery sort of way.
The dust was some kind of cogitoxin. Most of those are slow, they sneak up on you. This was more like stepping on a rake.
Really don’t want to start talking out loud, I’ll be making blood-gargling noises getting my mouth clear. I’m getting something like attention, anyway. Andthere’s still plenty of shouting and screaming going on, so the standard works better.
Sergeants, report.
Dead, sir.
Toby sounds abashed.
One has nine up, twenty down, and fifty two dead, sir.
Thirty five up, eleven down, six and twenty nine dead, sir.
Radish’s grip’s getting firmer.
Sixty seven up, five down, eight dead, sir.
Dove’s take on calm might be real.
Solid silence, for a beat and anotherbeat. The pointy stick seems to have convinced Hector’s shade it was dead in some thorough way. None of Four’s file closers come in, which isn’t good.
Blossom comes in:
Tubes two and four are effective, tube three’s reduced, tube one’s ineffective.
The battery’s lost eight files, sixty-odd guys out of two hundred some.
Radish, Two gets everybody who’s down, company and artillery, to the medics,start now. Don’t wait for the medics to do the carrying, they’re getting overwhelmed. Get a file checking where Four was soonest.
MEDICS! Back to the central point, triage as they get brought in.
I get heads up and wild eyes and nods. Medics are
of
the Line, not
in
the Line, and these are all excellent medics and good Creeks. Treating those who have been half hacked apart by berserks is a newexperience. Having to help friends in that state is new, too, but not those who’ve been mashed by timber or crushed by rocks, so I can hope the habits transfer.
Dove, Three hands their down to the medics, does a gear check, drinks up, forms up, and heads up the valley. Don’t get within five kilometers of the permanent fortifications; find a good rise for a camp, lay it out, picket it. We’ll bealong.
Everybody gets that.
Sir.
Just for Dove,
Get water into them and get them chewing on the march. It’s going to hit hard when the fight wears off
.
Teach Halt to scare demons, sir
.
Rust?
Steel-winged butterflies rise off stripped corpses into an elegant curve of interrogation mark.
Go with Three. Keep them out of trouble. Trouble you can’t keep them out of they are to retreat from and rejoin,and you, too.
The butterflies do something that looks for all the world like a formal bow of acknowledgment. Dove’s eyes roll before all the sergeant’s attention turns back back to Three
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