Swords and Saddles by Jack Campbell Read Free Book Online

bother others any more with my skepticism. Now perhaps I’ve been proven right, and those experts are now dead in Amity, and it hurts so bad. If only I’d been wrong.” Her voice broke on the last words.
    “You being wrong wouldn’t have meant they were right.”
    She gave him a tormented look. “Perhaps there’s something more I could have done. Something that could have saved everyone.”
    He watched the night outside for a moment being replying, glad that her presence had driven off the ghosts. “Nobody can save everybody. It’s not your fault.” He’d been told that, years ago. He hadn’t believed it. Not really. He wondered if she would.
    Ariana inhaled deeply, then fell silent, so they just sat there for a long time until she dozed off and Adowa came to relieve him on the watch. Adowa raised a questioning eyebrow at Johansen as she pointed at Ariana, but he just shook his head and gestured for quiet.
    #
    When dawn came, there were no Izkop visible. Johansen felt hope stir.
    The morning dragged on with nothing moving outside except the wandering path of the cow and an occasional sighting of a wild creature in the grass or the sky. Archer nursed her comm unit but heard nothing. They checked and rechecked the barricades at the doors and larger windows. Singh moved from soldier to soldier, giving advice and calming talks, but no one said much, as if afraid too much conversation would draw the Izkop out.
    Juni had been pacing back and forth most of the morning, and now peered out the window toward the cow, which mooed piteously. “I should go out. I’ll get the milk, and come back. The Izkop aren’t doing anything today.”
    Singh shook his head. “No, sir. Please stay inside.”
    “But it’s safe . It’s almost noon and -”
    Ariana suddenly gasped. “Noon. ‘The banner of the sun flaming its highest.’ Sergeant, one Izkop myth says that’s when heroes die.”
    “And they might think we’re heroes? Everybody to the windows!” Singh barked at the soldiers. “Ma’am, you and the others get in with the kids. Call us if there’s any sign the Izkop are trying to get in through the back.”
    Ariana ran toward the rear of the building, grabbing Juni as she went, but Scorse fended her off. “I’ll stay out here,” he growled.
    Johansen took a long slow breath, his rifle resting on the sill of the window. Behind him, the door to the back room shut. Outside, a flying creature spiraled into the air from the surface of the meadow. “Something scared it,” Goldera said. “They’re out there.”
    Shouts echoed between the bluffs. The Izkop seemed to rise out of the ground a kilometer away and came forward at a steady pace, staying shoulder to shoulder as they moved. “Hold fire until I give the command!” Singh called, also kneeling at a window. “Make every shot count!”
    “Hell, Sarge,” Goldera commented, “with them lined up like that even Archer couldn’t miss.”
    “Shut up,” Archer snapped back at him, sounding for a moment more annoyed than scared.
    As the Izkop drew closer, Johansen found himself focusing on small things. The way their hips worked as they moved, not quite like a human’s would. The bright gleam of the short stabbing spears every Izkop carried. The faces which seemed curiously impassive to human eyes. The tough vegetation being crushed beneath the serried ranks of Izkop.
    “Fire!”
    Johansen aimed and fired as fast as he could, the solid oncoming block of Izkop an impossible-to-miss target. To his right he heard the thunderous whirr of the buzz-saw pumping out rounds, Nassar walking the stream of bullets across the formation to drop Izkop like a scythe felling reeds in long lines.
    The Izkop came inside the fence, rushing toward the building, while the soldiers fired, reloaded and fired again. The entire compound seemed to be packed with Izkop, a seething mass which lapped against the building like a flood, then abruptly pulled back, retreating to the fence and