The Shadows of God - J. Gregory Keyes [115]
He felt he was pushing through a black fog, one gradually closing on them. In the heat of the charge, there was no way to get the aerial intelligence he needed, so he had no way of knowing how the enemy was gathering ahead—but they were surely gathering.
But they had certainly pressed more than a league. The ships couldn't be that much farther.
He was thinking this as they came over a rise and stared straight into a line of artillery that stretched as far as he could see in either direction.
“Sweet Jesus,” he breathed, taking in the black maws of cannon, firedrakes, kraftcannon, and weapons he in no wise recognized. He heard the sudden bellow of the Swedish battle cry to his right, and knew the line stretched even there. The damned taloi again, making artillery more mobile than it ought to be.
“This looks like fun,” Parmenter said. Oglethorpe heard the quiver in his voice.
“Let's give ‘em only one volley at us, lads!” Oglethorpe shouted. “Don't even think to let the Swedes beat us to our goal! For God and the Commonwealth!”
And once again he led the charge.
For a long moment, it seemed the cannon would stay silent, that they would repeat their feat of weeks past and blow through the line like a swift wind.
But the only wind came from the north, a fiery wind, tearing through them as if they were dry leaves. Parmenter, on Oglethorpe's right hand, was suddenly headless. Oglethorpe saw it out of the corner of his eye, and glanced in astonishment at the way the ranger's body remained upright, hands gripping the reins. Then Parmenter's horse caved in from the front, and Oglethorpe couldn't look anymore, because he had his own troubles.
The second volley followed without respite. Oglethorpe could see the gunners now, crouched behind their weapons. Closer, closer, and he could almost reach them with the point of his sword—
Brass cymbals crashed around him, and he was on his back. But not still, no —his foot was caught in the stirrup, his horse dragging him along.
For a second or two. Then the poor beast vanished in a cloud of blood.
His body was numb, and for all he knew he was dying already, but he was damn sure taking one or two of these bastards with him. He couldn't see a god-rotted thing, either, for the cloud of gunsmoke in the still, hot air. But that could work for him as much as against him.
His pistols had been on his horse, and they were spent anyway. Whisking out his saber, he crept along the ground until he saw booted feet.
He stood and swung, and a young man's surprised face leapt, along with the rest of his head, from its neck. If he made a sound, it didn't carry over the battlefield clamor. A yard away, another fellow in a green coat, plug bayonet fixed and staring someplace behind Oglethorpe, seemed oblivious of his presence. Oglethorpe cut him down like a sapling, and it was only then, as the guns spoke again, that he understood his horse had dragged him right into the line itself, and he had gotten turned around. To his left was a cannon, and to the right a kraftcannon.
The first of the carabiners guarding the kraftcannon died without noticing him, but the second managed to fire his weapon. Oglethorpe felt the powder sting his face, but that was all, and then he hacked the fellow's hand off.
Something bumped into his back. He whirled—and found Tomochichi there, a bloody tomahawk in his hand, a fierce grin on his seamed face. Satisfied, Oglethorpe put his back to the Indian, unworried about that quarter for the nonce.
The kraftcannon was mostly a bar of iron six feet long, ground to a point on the business end and light enough to be mounted on a swivel, like