CHAPTER
TWENTY
Surjan crouched in the forest and looked up the hill. The east side of the mound was protected by a cliff, but the slopes on the north and the south sides were scarcely less steep. Only on the west was the approach tenable for a man walking or carrying a burden, and the western slope had been entirely cleared of brush so that a person climbing the slope would be exposed the entire way.
A dozen bare-chested men with javelins stood on the palisade wall at the top of the slope. No doubt more could easily be summoned.
The last sun of the evening came from over his shoulder, which favored him several ways. First, it meant that he and his warriors were in shadow, difficult to see. Second, it meant that the sun wasn’t in his eyes, blinding him and his men, whereas it might disturb the aim of those on the wall. Third, the men on the wall stood in high relief.
He would lose all those advantages as soon as the sun shifted. Now was the moment.
“François,” he said. “Take the half of the men who are the best shots and give the rest of us cover while we charge up the hill.”
François snapped off a nod and then a series of barked instructions. In two minutes, he had archers ranged all along the edge of the foliage.
“Stay back,” François said to Gunther. “Come after the attack.”
Gunther took inventory of several flasks hanging from his belt and then cracked his knuckles. “I’ll heal those who need it.”
François and Surjan shared a look and another nod, and then François shouted, “Fire!”
Surjan yelled, “Charge!”
A wave of arrows slammed into the men on the wall and sliced them neatly away, like a razor cleaning a jawline of stubble. Surjan was already running, ankh in hand. Javelins dropped past him and he heard the cries of warriors as they fell, but not many. His superior speed and stamina quickly left behind his own men, leaving him more exposed, but also shortening the time he’d spend while vulnerable. As enemies dared appear on the wall to replace their fellows, they were met with further volleys of arrows, and as he reached the gate, he heard cries of surprise and anger within.
The gate hung on leather hinges, one large patch of leather on each side, and was designed to swing inward. With the last rays of the sun, Surjan made out a heavy bar across the middle, locking the gate. He didn’t mess with the bar at all. With a single swipe, he sliced through one leather hinge. The left side of the gate thudded to the dirt and two men yelped and fell off the parapet.
His warriors arrived at the gate, catching up to him. “Push!” he yelled, and they threw their shoulders against the gate, which sagged to one side and leaned back.
“The gate! The gate!” men inside the palisade cried.
Surjan sliced through the second hide hinge and the gate crashed to the ground, silencing the defenders’ cries.
Within, a mob charged forward. They were a mixed rabble of Neshili in their tunics and sandals and bare-chested men in leather kilts, all holding spears.
“Drop!” Surjan yelled to his men.
Surjan’s Neshili fell to their bellies. François and his archers fired three quick volleys, shattering the mob. The archers began running up the hill, Gunther tending to the wounded in their wake, and Surjan rose to his feet, snatching the spear of a fallen foeman. His men rose with him, spears in their hands and blood in their eyes.
Within the palisade wall stood a circle of megaliths, and within the standing stones crouched something that was half village and half camp. Leaning hovels and leather tents alternated. On the far side, Surjan heard shouting voices that he thought belonged to Marty and Lowanna, but they weren’t shouting at him so he tuned the words out.
A line of spearmen faced him. The line was already ragged, having lost half its number to François’s arrows. Surjan struck it in the center at a dead run, pushing his spear neatly through a warrior who had the misfortune to be looking the wrong way at the wrong moment.
Then he pivoted, took his ankh into his hand, and cut through the line to his left.
His men hit the line just three steps behind him.
“Surjan!” he heard them yell. “Surjan the Lion! Surjan the Lion King!”
Somehow, the name had gotten out. Surjan didn’t have the luxury of being in a position to cringe. He gritted his teeth and kept fighting.
He turned inward to the center of the camp and found himself in the eye of the storm. Warriors on the other side fought Marty and Lowanna, and warriors to his left and right still battled, though his Neshili were steadily overcoming their enemies.
Here in the center, peaceful for one moment, he saw a cooking fire, with a roasting spit cooking meat over the coals, and the meat was a man he knew. It was Ammun the poet, who had gone with the girls to protect them. Maybe the cannibals had chosen him to eat for his majestic, imposed fat, which was ruined now, cut away in strips. His spine was exposed, pressed against the roasting spit, and his cooking innards.
He had been a man of heart, and he had loved his people.
The line of enemies around Surjan wavered and he hurled himself into it, shattering the last resistance, lopping off arms and heads with his ankh.
“For Ammun!” he cried.
His men saw the ruined body of the poet and took up the call. “For Ammun! For Ammun and Nesha!”
They crashed against the undefended backs of the warriors on the east side of the camp.
The sun was getting low behind the spearmen advancing on Marty and his Neshili, most of whom were young women. The few who held spears couldn’t be counted on to have any military discipline or training.
“Get behind us!” he said to them. “Dawa, get your people back. I will defend them!”
He shouted the words with confidence, but there were many warriors running their way, and he wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to do about them. Sharrum and the few men who had climbed the cliff with him ranged out to his right and left.
“We will defend them!” Lowanna yelled. She stepped forward to Marty’s side with a length of wood in her hand. As he looked, the wood thickened and grew gnarled, with its thin tip swelling into a heavy, bulbous knot. Lowanna’s skin abruptly wrinkled, as if she was aging before his eyes—not aging, but drying out, becoming leathery.
Marty couldn’t help but stare at the transformation. He’d never seen Lowanna do this before—it was clearly one of the preternatural tricks that had come with this new life of theirs.
Her skin became wrinkled because it looked like it was thickening, like a wrap of bark encircling her body like some new form of armor.
Marty took a spear from the hands of one of the young women and threw it at the advancing warriors. He impaled one of the men through the thigh and then he leaped into their ranks. He fought with his ankh, slicing spears neatly in half to disarm his enemies, and then taking legs and arms as well.
Lowanna fought with her club. She swung it like a croquet mallet, in great arcs, and she connected to deadly effect. Marty saw her literally cave in the head of one attacker.
When the dead man’s companion happened to stab Lowanna, his spear glanced off her thickened skin. Whirling her club over her head, she brought it straight down on top of her attacker’s skull. The head disappeared, and Marty couldn’t tell whether she had pulverized it or pounded it down into his chest. His lifeless hands dropped his spear and he toppled over sideways.
The attackers fell back to regroup. Marty heard a commotion at the gate. Marty’s spearmen had suffered wounds, but no serious casualties. He met Sharrum’s gaze and they shared a congratulatory nod.
“I was going to express regret that the sky wasn’t overcast,” Marty said, grinning at Lowanna. “I do like those lightning bolts of yours. On the other hand, it appears you have a few more tricks up your sleeve than I had realized.”
“That is indeed what I have.” Her voice was flat and hard. “Tricks up my sleeve.”
“At the risk of sounding totally autistic,” Marty said, “I am trying to compliment you. Indeed, I am complimenting you. I am saying that you are a capable warrior and, though I still find it strange to say this, companion.”
“I’m a capable teammate,” she said.
“You still sound mad at me.”
“It shouldn’t matter to you that I’m mad,” she shot back. “I’m your teammate, and I’m capable.”
“You’re impressive,” he said, feeling a growing sense of awkwardness between them. “And skilled, and obviously strong as hell. These are desirable things.”
“In a teammate,” she clarified.
“In a person,” he said. “Yes, in a teammate. Why the hell are you mad at me?”
The enemy charged again.
Lowanna charged the nearest attacker, throwing herself against his spear. Marty flinched, but the weapon failed to penetrate her thickened hide, and with the impetus of her charge she swung her club up into the warrior’s leather kilt. He made a sound like a reluctant jam jar finally popping open and fell straight onto his back without bending his knees.
Then Marty lost track of Lowanna, dealing with his own difficulties. Sharrum did him the favor of organizing and leading the small group of Neshili fighters, and they moved to put themselves between the young women and any attackers who made it past Lowanna and Marty. This left Marty free to wreak as much havoc as he could. He sprang in among the enemy, turning aside spears with perfect slaps to the weapons’ shafts. This was a skill he’d long had, dating back to kung fu practice with Grandpa Chang in his youth, but the new Marty, the time-traveling Marty who would speak with birds and run up walls, was even better than the martial artist he’d always been. Better than the young academic who’d gotten fired for punching a jerk when jerk-punching was called for.
He knew exactly how much force he needed to apply to each tap. He knew exactly where to touch the weapon with a single finger so that the fire-hardened wood or sharpened bronze tips whistled within millimeters of his skin without touching him. He saw the flaws in each man’s balance that let him pull them off-center, toppling them effortlessly to the ground so he could stomp and kick them without slowing down.
It wasn’t work to defeat them. It wasn’t play, either. It was breathing.
He was still a finite quantity, and attackers got past him. But if Lowanna didn’t bash in their heads, Sharrum and his men ran them through without mercy.
The rush of warriors fell back a second time to regroup.
Beyond them, Marty saw that the gate was now open. Neshili were pouring in through the opening, Surjan at their head. But the enemy were still numerous.
“Should we send the girls down the cliff?” he asked Lowanna.
“Good leadership,” she said. “You should consult with the team. Be more of a facilitator of discussion than a dictator.”
“I give up,” he said. “There’s a riddle, but not only do I not know what the answer is, I can’t even tell what the question is. And you’re angry about it. But now I’m going to send the girls down the cliff to get away, unless you tell me not to.”
She sighed the angriest sigh he’d ever seen. “Don’t send them down the cliff, dum-dum. Some of them will slip and be hurt. Besides, we’re about to defeat these clowns, and then they’ll be on the run in the forest. Any girls who actually make it to the bottom of the cliff will just be at more risk.”
“Thank you,” he told her.
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Teammate.”
“I get it,” he said. “You don’t want to be on my team anymore.”
She yelled and charged at the enemy while they were still regrouping.
Marty ran after her and Surjan and his warriors hit from the other side. Kareem emerged from one of the huts, his appearance putting him right behind two unsuspecting raiders with his ankh in hand. In moments, the remaining raiders and Neshili defectors evaporated, wiped off the grass like dandelion spores in a hurricane.
Marty put away his ankh and stalked across the bloody ground to Lowanna. As he approached, the husk of her wrinkled, leather skin fell away from her. It dropped like the old skin of a snake, peeling away in heavy chunks. She brushed at her face and forearms to shake off patches that clung.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“What for?” she asked.
“I get it,” he said. “You feel like I’m ignoring you.”
“Oh no,” she said, “you’re not ignoring me. You’re treating me like one of the guys.”
Marty hesitated. It felt like there was a trap here. “Sometimes, I need to treat you like one of the guys. You can call lightning and punch holes in ships and . . . whatever it was you did today. Make a superclub and grow your own armor. And I need to be able to think about those abilities, and your great knowledge of anthropology, as assets the team can access.”
She looked at him through narrowed eyes.
“As you need to be able to think about my abilities,” Marty said. “As you did, when you sent the parrot to summon me.”
“You can’t have it both ways, Marty,” she said. Her voice sounded disappointed. “You don’t get to think of me as just a teammate, and then be jealous because Sharrum notices that I’m a woman.”
Here was the real issue. And she was right. “I do think of you as a teammate,” Marty said. “But I never think of you as just a teammate.”
He stepped in closer to her.
She peeled skin-armor from one elbow and cast it aside. “Oh, yeah? What do you think of me as?”
“A woman,” Marty said. “A hot, smart, interesting woman.”
“Tell me more.”
Marty didn’t dare look, but he hoped that the rest of the party and the Neshili were distracted with cleanup after the battle.
“A woman who makes me want to do things.”
“Teammate sorts of things?”
Marty shook his head, ignoring the rest of the world. “Naughty sorts of things.”
“If you really like me,” she said, “and I really like you, and I agree to it . . . then maybe those sorts of things aren’t really naughty after all.”
“Well,” Marty said, “they must be kind of naughty. I mean, they aren’t the sorts of things you do in front of other people.”
“Oh, no?” She looked up into his eyes.
“Well, maybe you do.” He took her into his arms.