"They come," a scout gasped at last, galloping his horse up the slope.

Raupasha settled into her own slit trench, squinting through her binoculars. The short winter's day was half-gone, but the snow was heavier, and the long columns of enemy troops appeared out of it like a genie in a storyteller's tale.

"Let them get close," Connor said quietly, and she nodded.

"And ma'am?" Connor said.

Raupasha looked around, surprised. Usually Connor was all business, at least in the field. In camp he acted like an uncle, sometimes.

"Ma'am, it's been an honor to serve with you," he said.

Raupasha shook the offered hand, honored and a little chilled. He does not think much of our chances either, she knew, and then folded the knowledge away. It was not… what was the word? Relevant.

Instead she waited, waited until the first clumps of mounted scouts were almost at the foot of the hill. They cannot see well either, she thought. And the snow is in their eyes.

"Fire!" she said, standing.

Marian Alston pulled down the night-sight goggles. The world turned brighter, but flat and greenish, and still silver-streaked by the cold rain blowing out of the north; probably cold enough to keep natives of this southern land indoors.

And why don't I ever get to fight in decent weather? It was a minor miracle that nobody seemed to have gotten lost, doing everything by compass and dead reckoning; night attacks were notoriously chancy.

She scanned the shores. No changes from the last overflight by the air corps. Most of the buildings were on the higher eastern bank, in the bend of an elbow of the river where Seville would have been in the other history. Most of Isketerol's new town was blocky adobe buildings, built quickly for utility. Down by the river were quays, most of the retaining walls made of vertical logs, a few of stone, the surfaces paved. Huge pyramid-shaped heaps of goods there under tarpaulins, or barrels standing in the rain. There were also big sailing barges, chains of them tied up three-deep by the wharves or anchored out in the river-normal commerce, supplies Isketerol had brought up for his army, possibly both. Probably both.

Streets were empty of all but the occasional hand lantern, hurrying through the dismal murk. One larger building near the water was the commandatura, or equivalent; it had high blank walls and a three-story square tower at one corner to make it a minor fort. A few dim lights glowed, probably someone on watch, and another at the larger windows that ringed the top of the tower below the sloped tile roof.

All the same, there were Tartessians out on the water in this broadened stretch of river. A stretch of linked pontoons spanned across from verge to verge a little further north; past it were the stone foundation-piers of a long-arch bridge, halted with the work half-done. Isketerol doesn't think small, that's for sure. One set of hands trains four, four train sixteen… but it took a driving ruthless will to keep the process going this fast. Lanterns glowed at the bows of small galleys, patrolling with a slow pace of oars-crews probably cursing the doctrine that kept them away from dry bunks, but they mounted a couple of light cannon and swivels, and all she had were ship's boats.

Wordless, she extended a hand backward. The sailor assigned to the duty unfastened the casing and pulled out a rifle, and another for her partner. They were hunting weapons, something she and Swindapa had given each other for Christmas; each a double-barreled side-by-side.480 express ordered from Nantucket Town's best private gunsmith. Last year they'd been trapped on a game path near the African coast with nothing but service-issue to use when a bull elephant tried to convert them into toe-jam, and come out of it whole only through very good shooting combined with more than their share of luck.

The rifle was built like a break-open shotgun, the stock Mauritius ebony and the steel of the barrels blued, with a telescopic sight over the bridge. It was twice the weight of an issue Werder but so well balanced in her hands you didn't notice it for a while. She snapped the action open and dropped in two of the heavy cartridges, felt and heard more than saw Swindapa doing likewise. The breech closed with a thick oiled snick.

Then she pulled the handset out from cover and pressed the speaker button. "On the count of three," she said, taking off the goggles. Sight clamped down again, no more than ten yards. Trickles of cold water slid off her sou'wester and down her neck. Somewhere out there…

"One. Two. Thr…"

Fumpff. A spot of light wobbling up into the dim sky, distorted and streaked by the rain in the way. Then it swelled and burned with a harsh magnesium brilliance in the night, jerking and jinking on its parachute. The river lit up like the inside of a swimming pool. Fumpff. Fumpff. More of the parachute flares went up.

"Go for it!" the Marine noncom at the tiller yelled.

Alston bent her knee to compensate for the sudden heavy thrust, the crew rising and falling to the timing of their grunts, the ashwood shafts of the oars bending as they threw legs and back into the motion. The Tartessian patrol boats seemed to freeze for a moment; she could imagine them gaping slack-jawed at the boats swarming silently across their secure riverport, so tightly guarded by downstream fort and strong chain…

SSSSSRAAAAWACK!

The first of the rocket launchers cut loose, like a giant cat retching. The Tartessian patrol galley to-ok the round right over its beak, just under the muzzle of the single forward-pointing cannon. Probably some hand there was; reaching for the firing lanyard of a tube stuffed to the trunnioms with grapeshot. That became completely irrelevant as the warhead struck metal, burst in a blossom of fire, and scattered white-hot iron razors across the foredeck. One of those must have plunged into a cartridge or powder barrel, because the whole forward third of the little ship disappeared in a globe of fire that cast reflections off the dark water and shot out a thousand red sparks in the rain. Planks and thankfully unidentifiable bits and pieces rained down as the rear part of the hull ran (forward and sank with hardly a trace, leaving only a few men 'clinging to oars.

SSSSSRAAAAWACK! SSSSSRAAAAWACKl

Rocket-bombs lanced across the water- of the river; those that missed their targets, which most did, plunged into the buildings and streets on either side. Isketerol was going to deeply regret proving that a useful bazooka could be fashioned with a technology considerably lower than Nantucket's. Once you gave Leaton's people an idea, they tended to run with it.

The barrage had only taken twenty seconds. The launch reached shore in about the same time; Marian gripped the thwart with one hand as the prow grated on gravel and the oars dropped, left to dangle in the thwarts as the Marines snatched up their weapons and vaulted over the sides. Marian leaped as well, came down in water barely deep enough to cover the soles of her boots, dashed forward to the dry verge of the riverside road with Swindapa at her side. The Marines pelted past her; all over the river boats were pulling for their assigned objectives. Guard sailors poured in a roaring wave over the gunwales of the moored barges, cut or clubbed down the scratch night-watch crews and set to work; others lay alongside the pontoon bridge. Marines landed all along the wharves.

There was a specific task for her and Swindapa. Two flicks of her finger, and the protective lids were off the ends of the telescopic sight mounted on the heavy game rifle; the forward one up like a cap, to keep rain off the lens, the rear fully back. She brought it to her shoulder and scanned up the commandatura's tower. Intelligence said that Tartessians always put the commander's quarters in the highest possible place…