Hopkins aimed at a trail of oats that was moving the wrong way, fired, fired again. They're getting too close-

Then a Tartessian rose and dashed-backward this time, away from the continuous crackle of rifle fire; he threw away his own weapon to run faster, and made perhaps ten yards before something slapped him between the shoulder blades like the hand of an angry invisible giant. He fell, lay still. More Tartessians ran; others crawled backward. Then there were shouts among them, and whole groups got up and ran back, while others covered their retreat as best they could, the same leapfrog drill they'd used in the attack, only reversed.

"They're running!" Hopkins whispered, as the last of them dashed past the torn-down fence where their attack had started and "Cease fire!" ran down the Islander firing line.

Then he stood, cheering, shaking the rifle over his head as the same savage howl went up from all his comrades.

"Silence in the ranks!" someone called, and he coughed and reached for his canteen. It was nearly empty, and he made himself take a small swallow. A corporal he recognized-she worked in the compressor-engine shed-came by.

"Where's Sergeant Folendaro?" he asked.

"Dead," she said and jerked a thumb.

Hopkins looked to the rear. There was a row of bodies there, with their khaki groundsheets spread over them; the lieutenant was standing nearby, looking at a map and talking to someone. He swallowed again.

"Anyway, Lieutenant says to check your bandoliers and sing out if you're short. Blocks down to cool. Gimme your canteen."

"Where's the latrine?" he asked, handing it over. She laughed.

"You're the fifth person's asked me that. No time. Piss in your hole if you have to."

She walked on. Hopkins found that he did have to; at least the sandy soil absorbed the stream quickly. He checked his bandolier as well after he'd buttoned his fly, and found to his astonishment that there were only forty rounds left.

I fired sixty rounds? he thought, incredulous. No wonder the chamber's hot.

He pressed the block down until it clicked into the open loading position and set the rifle on the mound of dirt in front of him; that way air could flow down the barrel and carry off some of the heat. Then he drew his bayonet and slid it under the rawhide bindings of the ammunition box that Folendaro-he's dead, Jesus-had dropped off earlier. Two swift jerks and it slit open; he pulled off the lid and began transferring the brass shells to the loops in his bandolier.

"Thank God for Ron Leaton," he called over to Evelyn Grant, who was doing the same.

"Yeah, that would have been a lot harder with the old Westley-R," she said, her voice hoarse. "I think we could have done it, but they'd have gotten closer and I didn't like the look of those bayonets, no sir."

"Say, Evelyn…"

"Yeah?"

"You want to catch dinner at the Brotherhood on Friday, then do the concert?"

She looked up at him, a cartridge poised between thumb and finger of her right hand.

"Jesus, Garry, you're asking me for a date now?"

"You know a better time? Hell, we could be dead."

"Yeah… okay, provided we're alive on Friday and they don't cancel the concert," she said, shaking her head. "I wonder what's going on everywhere else."

"We sure kicked their butts here," he said.

That's one way to put it. He could hear some of the enemy wounded calling out and could see a lot more bodies-he carefully didn't look too closely at the ones nearest, about a hundred yards out.

Further eastward was confused movement, and there were columns of smoke over toward Sconset. Something was coming down Milestone Road from that direction too.

"Uh-oh,"' he said.

"I know what 'uh-oh' means," Evelyn said, and ducked back into her foxhole, hunkering down.

The corporal came along the line, hurrying, dropping off canteens. "Lieutenant says watch out," she said unnecessarily.

"Uh-oh" means we're in the shit again, Hopkins thought. He loaded his rifle and thumbed back the cocking lever.

Click…click.

"Jesus, I'm starting to hate that sound," he muttered.

"Man-birds!"

Zeurkenol looked up sharply. Tiny shapes were rising into the air off to the southwest-right where the map said the airport would be.

"Sound the alarm!" he said.

It snarled among the confusion of ships packed near the beach, and among the warcraft anchored further out. Zeurkenol looked up at the tops of his own ship; men there were unlimbering an antiair rifle, the same as the Westley-Richards but twice the size and mounted on a ring that ran around the mast. More of them would be on shore, and crewmen were scurrying for their personal weapons. There was nothing he could do but wait.

On shore the first of the antiair rifles spoke, from the low ridge above the beach. The engineers had built a roadway of planks to the Eagle People's asphalt road, and soldiers were marching up it. A dozen ships were beached, and twice as many more were swinging loads overside to rafts and boats, or pushing horses over the side-a few of the gods-abandoned beasts started swimming out to sea, but most of them had enough wit to follow the boats shoreward.

"Message to General Naudrikol," he said. "Remind him that we must secure the airport."

The signaler began to clack, turning its mirrored surface to flash the orders ashore. The dots grew closer, until they were giant painted birds, eyes and beaks fierce. The hunting hawks of the gods, of the Eagle…

Men do this, he told himself. Not gods, but men like us. We too will ride the wind, when we have won the secrets they strive to keep for themselves.

One was coming toward him on the flagship. It swooped downward, out over the crested blue water at scarcely more than bulwark height. The antiair rifles in the tops were barking at it, as rapid as a rifle with four hands to help load. Ordinary rifles began to crackle along the rail as well, and it was closer, closer, only a few hundred yards…

Raaaaawisshshhh!

Rockets fired from the stumpy second wings on either side of the bullet-shaped body; two, four, spraying forward in paths of red fire and gray smoke. The crews shouted with fear and anger-many of the mercenaries had laid under Tartessian rocket barrages when their homelands were overrun.

At least they won't simply choke with fear, Zeurkenol thought.

And then-marvelous, his heart sang!-the attacking aircraft nosed over and hit the water, became sinking debris. A savage cheer went up from the crew, in the instant before the rockets arrived.

One of the rockets twisted away, struck the water and burst in a club shape of spray. Another corkscrewed through the air, running through the rigging of the flagship, but by a whim of the Jester not striking anything. Two hit the ship, up near the bows, in a blast of fire and lethal splinters. There was a crash, and Zeurkenol heard the high screaming of wounded men as he picked himself up and looked about.

The flagship's skipper was an able man. Well drilled, the crew responded to the fire with water and sand. As he watched, smoke billowed up, and then steam.

He genuflected toward the idol of Arucuttag of the Sea that stood by the compass binnacle; the damage-control teams had caught the fires before they spread to sails and rigging, which would have been certain death for the ship. Then he called out praise to them; they cheered him back.

A quick glance around showed yet more of the craft of the sky attacking his fleet; the air was full of smoke from the counterfire, loud with the crackle of guns, screams, and explosions. One went down burning as he watched, ignited by its own rockets; he sent up a silent promise of a sacrifice to Arucuttag. Another jerked and wobbled in the air; he was close enough to see the man steering it start and slump. By some freak of chance-he felt like beating Arucuttag's edolion with a stick, or cursing the Jester (neither advisable)-it flew straight on, rising slightly, until it crashed right into the rigging of a ship and exploded in a globe of flame.