The Shadows of God by J. Gregory Keyes Page B

two thousand souls
    —had already fallen, and now trenches zigzagged very near the fort itself. The fort had been built sturdily, the lower wall of dressed stone quarried far up the Oconee River and ferried arduously down at great cost. It was worth it—a wooden fort would have fallen long ago. This one would have, too, if the invading army had sent its best artillery, or even the blue-fire weapons that he had captured yesterday. Or who knew? From what he had gathered, Mar had bungled the siege very badly, losing three aerial ships to Nairne’s devil gun.
    Perhaps he had lost his firedrakes and seeking cannon as well. Nairne, after all, had Indian fighters aplenty.
    Whatever the case, this was old-style warfare. Trenches snaked up the hill, the angle mostly protecting the diggers. Of course the diggers were taloi, and in fact the ground near the fort was littered with the broken forms of the automatons. Mar had tried at least one straight assault.
    The battle would have ended today, however, with the weapons the amphibian boats carried.
    A few redcoats came down to water, curious, as Oglethorpe’s men set up their artillery, but at that moment the fort loosed what was probably most of its remaining firepower, and there was even a sally from the gate. Oglethorpe’s men, dressed in Russian and English uniforms, quietly killed those who came to investigate. When they had their guns set up, they started to fire into the enemy’s rear.
    At first things went well, and the new weapons did their work with awful efficiency. But then some enterprising English captain managed to get a charge together, and they came crashing through the withering fire.
    Oglethorpe admired them, of course; but if they made it, he and all his men THE SHADOWS OF GOD
    were doomed. If their line fell, there was nowhere to go but the river.
    He wheeled around, shouting encouragement, firing his pistol. He found himself staring into the mouth of a musket less than ten feet away, and he took careful aim at the man, not flinching when the weapon belched and something hotter than fire seared along his cheek. Oglethorpe’s kraftpistole crackled, and the redcoat died. But the enemy surged forward in good order, reloading and firing even as they died.
    His own men were turning skittish. They were good at what they did, but this was not what they did. He had made a mistake, and now his men and everyone from Azilia—everyone in the world, if Franklin was right—would pay.
    And then, like the sun parting a cloud, the attack fell apart. The blue fire of the swivel guns from the amphibian ship blazed through one too many of them, the stench of their burning comrades snapped their courage, and they ran or threw down their arms or dropped to their knees in prayer.
    And it was over. By three o’clock that afternoon, James Edward Oglethorpe and Thomas Nairne, governor of South Carolina in exile clasped each other like long-lost brothers and began to discuss what to do with a captured army twice the size of their own combined forces.
    They did not spend long in celebrating. Mar still had men in the area, tricked into relocating by Oglethorpe’s false communiques. The two commanders dispatched troops to deal with them, and Oglethorpe sent for Mar to be brought to the more secure Fort Montgomery.
    “You did well by me, Governer Nairne,” Oglethorpe said that evening, as they sat in a half-darkened room, poring over maps and papers taken from Mar’s things.
    Nairne, a square-faced fellow with salt-and-pepper hair nodded wearily.
    “Thank you, Margrave. I most sincerely tried to. For commanding the Continental Army, we all owe you immeasurably. I could not see your capital taken while you were elsewhere.” He leaned back and took a deep puff on his clay pipe, and the pungent scent of tobacco bloomed into the air. “Besides, where else to go?”

    THE SHADOWS OF GOD
    “Another few days’ march would have had you in Apalachee territory, which has more easily