The rebel army stretched along the bank of the River in either direction as far as the eye could see, lances and spears glinting in the sunlight, crimson banners straining in the stiff wind. Across the water came the sound of rhythmically clicking hordi and pounding horses’ hoofs.
As Seamus watched in stunned silence, swarms of aborigines rushed to the riverbank with giant rafts on their heads. They cast the rafts into the River like paper boats. Other hordi, monsters, and red-clad exile cavalry swarmed on them. The current carried the rafts downriver as solid massed ranks of poles on either side of the rafts steered them across. A cluster of hovercraft put out from the bank, carrying several dozen troopers and their horses.
The Imperial Guard, with a number of grudges to settle.
“What do we do now?” Marjetta asked, still ice-calm.
“We engage them in combat, that’s what we do.”
As soon as I get an idea of what that means.
“Reform the battle line. Hold your fire until I give the order.”
That’s not a very original idea.
Then he had another idea that was also not original, but seemed at least to be useful. He didn’t think through the possible outcomes, because there was neither the time nor the need.
The Guard disembarked on the bank. Narth, on a mammoth black stallion, led them off and remained a safe distance away from Seamus. Learned his lesson, did he? Well, we’ll see about that.
“I thought I’d toasted you for the hordi, frigging lardass,” Seamus bellowed. “What happened? Don’t they like grease?”
“I’ll cut you up in little pieces, Taran worm.”
Not a very creative response, at all, at all.
“You’re a loudmouthed coward, you fat disgusting slob,” Seamus continued.
“Seamus…” Margie whispered.
“Shush, woman, I’m engaged in strategy.” And again at the top of his voice, “Maybe if I carve you thin, the hordi would find you more palatable.”
“You and your whore will die for days.” His face was now as red as his cloak.
“You notice, fellas, how he’s always big talk when he has the weapons, but he won’t fight fair man to man.”
Popilo, guiding his mount daintily off a hovercraft, rode up behind his leader. “Kill him now,” he screamed.
Sure the man is wound up tight enough to go into orbit. He’s completed his pilgrimage round the bend.
“Ah, he can’t do that, Poppy old fella; you’d have to charge us first and some of you might get killed before you killed us. Maybe most of you. My crowd are crack shots.” A shameless lie. “And he won’t be in the first rank either.”
“Prepare to charge!” Narth moved his horse back from the front of the troopers.
“Tell you what, I’ll fight you myself, man to man.”
Narth stopped his horse. “Your whore will tell you that I’m the greatest ax fighter in all Zylong.”
“He is.” Marjetta was as cool as ever.
“Regardless,” Seamus whispered. “I’ll make you a deal,” he yelled, his voice hoarse from shouting. “You come on foot with your ax and shield and I’ll fight you with one of these little spears.” He grabbed Marjetta’s weapon. “Winner take all. If you kill me, we won’t kill your troops when they charge. If I kill you, your Guard lets us leave before they destroy the City.”
As Seamus had hoped, the troopers stirred restlessly. They expected their fearless leader to respond to the challenge. Narth had been trapped.
“Kill him,” Popilo screamed again.
“I’ll do just that.” The fat rebel climbed ponderously off his horse, discarded his cloak, took a shield from one of his lancers, hefted the biggest ax Seamus had ever seen, and strode manfully toward O’Neill.
“Tell me about him quickly,” he said to his woman.
“He’s most vulnerable when he raises his ax for the kill. He’s fat and out of condition. I’m sure he hasn’t fought in years. But he’s dangerous and you are wounded and exhausted.”
Did the woman have no nerves at all, at all?
“Well, then I guess I have him outnumbered.”
“Seamus…”
“Yes?” He hefted the spear and waited for words of love.
“What do we do if you die?”
“Run like hell.”
“Will they honor his word if you win?”
“Probably not.”
No argument, no disagreement.
“Form up behind me,” she ordered their band. “Be prepared to respond to my orders instantly.” Then in a whisper, “Be careful, Seamus.”
Sure she was a lot like herself.
“Ah, fat man,” he began the ritual insults, “how can someone as gross as you even lift that frigging ax?”
“I will show you.” He lifted the ax over his head and swung it violently—and skillfully.
Seamus ducked quickly, almost not quickly enough. The man was indeed good with the frigging thing.
“Careful, now, big belly, you’ll hurt yourself swinging that thing around like a drunken grandmother with her pisspot.”
Seamus’s strategy, if you could call it that, was to continue to duck until his opponent’s mighty heaves began to exhaust him. Then, taunted perhaps into an unguarded assault, Narth might leave himself open for a quick thrust, like Marjetta’s assault on the saber-toothed tiger.
Roaring like an angry elephant, Narth charged again. The great ax whistled so close to Seamus’s ear that he feared he had lost it.
“Ah, grandma is finding the pisspot heavy, isn’t she?”
Some of the Imperial Guard snickered. Insane with rage, Narth hefted the ax again and charged at Seamus much as the tiger had. This time the Taran was quicker; he dodged the swinging ax and tripped the rushing rebel.
“Earthquake, earthquake,” he shouted as Narth tumbled onto the ground. Quickly he darted in and jabbed his spear into his opponent’s body.
And missed. Completely. His spear stuck in the soft ground and would not come out when Seamus tugged it.
Too tired from the sleepless night and too weak because of my wounds. The man had been an easy target.
For the first time Seamus was afraid.
Narth rolled up and swung the ax at Seamus’s leg. The Taran had a choice, pull his spear out of the ground or save his leg. He elected to save his leg.
But now he had no weapon and Narth was advancing on him with the light of victory shining in his black eyes. Exhausted and breathless, Seamus wondered what came next. Out of the side of his eye, he saw his woman waiting, calm and implacable.
Holy saints, she thinks I can’t lose!
He retreated toward the riverbank, leading on his slow and panting opponent and wondering what he would do when they arrived at the edge.
Finally Seamus was cornered with the water behind him and the great ax in front of him. He feinted in either direction, as though he were trying to run back to his spear. Narth, supremely confident now, blocked his escape with a negligent wave of the ax.
“Now I’ve got you, lardass,” Seamus taunted him. “Come on now, don’t let your men think you’re a gutless coward.”
With a furious howl, Narth charged him; the ax poised over Seamus’s skull, and then swept downward.
As if he was blocking a defensive charge in hurley, Seamus banged into the rebel’s knees. Personal foul, fifteen yards for unnecessary roughness, he thought as Narth sailed over him and into the waters of the River.
Now all the Imperial Guard laughed. Standing in two feet of water and out of his mind with rage, Narth reached for his ax.
He could not find it, because it was on the bank of the River. The fat man rushed to grab it, quickly for someone his size, but not quickly enough.
“I don’t want to kill you,” Seamus said, struggling to lift the incredibly heavy weapon. “Do you want to talk peace?”
Narth grabbed for the weapon. Seamus shoved it at him, cutting into his foe’s leg. The rebel collapsed on one knee, his hands still gripping the handle of the ax. His blood was spurting out on the soft sand of the bank, but with a mighty heave he pulled the weapon out of O’Neill’s grasp. Seamus scampered for his spear and then danced toward the riverbank.
“I don’t want to kill you,” he repeated, raising the spear.
“I want to kill you,” Narth bellowed. Despite the blood escaping from his artery, he rose and lunged toward Seamus, his ax raised for one final mighty swing.
He charged limping and screaming into Seamus’s spear, dropped the ax, curled up on the ground like the dying tiger, and expired. Quietly.
The falling ax hit Seamus a glancing blow on the head. He fell to the ground, momentarily stunned. He’d won fairly. Would that mean anything to Popilo? Of course not. Why hadn’t he thought of that?
“Kill him now!” screamed the madman.
The Guard hesitated.
“I said kill him!”
The cavalry lowered their lances and began to trot forward. This was the end. Seamus had a fleeting wish to embrace Marjetta, but it was too late now. He made a quick sign of the cross. A long way from Jerusalem.
The lead lancer was only a few yards away, his deadly weapon pointed at the Taran’s chest. Seamus Finnbar O’Neill heard a mighty roar from across the River, inundating them all with a terrible, shattering shock wave of sound. The noise was the loveliest sound Seamus had ever heard—retrorockets.
The lancers’ animals bolted, leaving only Popilo, a stone’s throw away from Seamus.
A final explosive burst shook the ground, and a cloud of smoke enveloped Popilo and Seamus. Then there appeared, standing between them, a slender woman with long black hair blowing like a great frigging banner in the Festival wind. She was clad in dazzling cardinal-red robes and shining ermine and held in her right hand a thin gold crozier with Saint Brigid’s cross on the top.
“Who are you?” screamed the demented Popilo. He raised his gun to fire at herself. She extended the Brigid crozier and lightning jumped out of it, knocking the gun from the madman’s hands.
It was only psychic lightning, but sure it served the purpose. The hordi rafts, paralyzed in midstream, began to swing around. Some of the Imperial Guard had already plunged back on their hovercrafts.
“I am,” announced the vision, “Lady Deirdre Fitzgerald, Countess of Cook, Archbishop of Chicago Nova, Fleet Commodore of Tara, Captain Abbess of the Pilgrim Ship Iona, and Cardinal Priest of the Holy Roman Church of Saint Clement. Who, may I ask, kind sir, are you?”
That was enough for poor Popilo. He turned his horse and raced for the landing area. The frightened animal stopped at the edge of the bank and tossed its rider over its head into the River—right in the path of a fleeing hovercraft. The madman went under without a sound in a burst of bubbles that turned from white to red. He did not come up.
The Cardinal raised her staff higher, the Brigid cross on the end of it glowing momentarily with the brightness of the sun. Lightning, still make-believe and still effective, jumped in all directions—along the City walls, across the River, into the ranks of Narth’s army, up the side of the Island, down the newly harvested plain, and to the tops of the snow-capped mountains in the distance.
Ah, it was quite a show.
Panic-stricken, the rebel army broke and ran in wild chaos, the insanely clicking hordi, poor things, leading the way. Hovercrafts nosed over, rafts capsized, canoes loaded with weapons floundered, horses galloped off in terror. The River filled with bobbing hordi heads. Fortunately the poor things seemed able to swim.
For good measure, herself raised the cross higher still. It glowed with space darkness for a fraction of a second. The sky turned black and the whole world shook with thunder. And more thunder. And yet more thunder in an ear-splitting cadenza of primal sound.
Imaginary thunder of course, but it worked just as well as the real thing. The clouds dissipated quickly and it was once again a lovely harvest morning.
The late Narth’s army was finished. It would be at least a generation before anyone would attack the City again.
Conscious that his woman and his friends had gathered around him, awed by what was really, to tell the truth, only a minor trick show, Seamus stood stock-still in the fullness of his relief and pride. Ah, the bitch is loving every minute of this, he thought as she lowered her crozier and seemed actually to wink at him.
Just to the right of the awestruck rank of Young Ones, two squads of Wild Geese poured out of the Michael Collins and the Thomas Patrick Doherty. They carried their blue plow-and-stars flag and were dressed in white electronic-protective armor, their black cloaks flowing behind them, phasers ready to fire. Further down the River, there was another blast as the Napper Tandy glided to a soft landing.
“It took you long enough to get here,” said Seamus O’Neill.
“O’Neill, will you never learn that you are not the hinge of history?” She was grinning broadly. “When the City was obviously collapsing, we decided more positive action was required before Narth gained control of the food and energy resources and eliminated the only remnants of sanity and order on this heathenish planet. I admit that it’s a little strange to think of you representing sanity and order, but the Holy Rule says work with what you have. We trusted you could hang on in the City long enough for us to get to you.”
“You might have given us a hint you were coming,” he argued.
“Och, Seamus, you didn’t think we’d leave you here among all these heathens, did you?” The Lady Deirdre was not only grinning broadly, which was unusual enough, she was laughing. “Sure weren’t you after inviting us to come, and aren’t you—” the woman actually guffawed, something Seamus had never witnessed before “—Lord O’Neill himself?”
More Wild Geese were pouring out of the Tandy, and the Brian Borou was settling down in the distance. His own platoon—with a grinning Fergus in command—was marching on the double toward them. The young Zylongi skirmish line remained in astonished silence, not comprehending what had happened or what was being said.
Deirdre continued in Spacegael: “Now, O’Neill, I have something for you to do that just may suit your talents, something you can perform adequately for a change.” Then in perfect Zylongian, “Far be it from me, Colonel O’Neill, to give you military advice, but if you wish to supplement your own excellent troops with a few platoons of Wild Geese, you may want to restore some order in the City. You may also wish to leave your talented and charming … uh … ‘proper woman’ with us so that we can treat her injury. She can help us with communications.” And the Captain put her arm gently around the astonished Marjetta. “Can’t you, my dear?”
“Yes, Deirdre,” the little imp replied, inordinately pleased with herself.
The Young Ones, fascinated by their new allies, fanned out with Fergus’s platoon of Wild Geese and began to march back into their City. The silence of the morning air of Zylong was rent again, now by the mournful but implacable wail of Celtic warpipes. They had almost reached the gate when the sound of massive retrorockets roared behind them again.
Out on the Island the smoke cleared; there on the highest hill a great, gray spaceship settled slowly to the ground. The Peregrinatio of the Iona was over.
The chapel bell rang softly across the waters. It was time for Morning Song.