Shadows, стр. 37

But the fighting wasn’t over. Yukannak dropped to the floor as bullets whined off the wall near his head. Was somebody targeting him?

No, not at him, at men crouching in the shadows ahead. Yukannak glimpsed the situation in the light of muzzle flashes. Deployed on either side of the tunnel, maybe a dozen men armed with the same kind of rifle that Unaa carried were firing toward the Inner City. They were either Offworlders or allied with them. Near the tunnel mouth, a clutch of the satrap’s militia fired back. Unaa stood and called out to the nearest group, waving his rifle overhead…and then toppled backward under a hail of rifle fire. The impetuous youth never took another breath.

Unaa’s death cry alerted his apparent comrades to their presence, but when they turned around, all they saw was Yukannak lying on his belly beside one of their own lying dead in a pool of blood. The safest reaction in such a combat situation was to shoot first and ask questions later, which they did. Bullets sparked off the stone floor and whined as they shot at him. He hid behind Unaa’s body—if the young man hadn’t already been dead he surely was now—as round after round struck his corpse.

“Stop! I’m a friend!”

More shots.

“I have a message from—”

A ripple of gunfire drowned out his words. The invaders weren’t in a mood to listen, and Yukannak had to do something fast or die. There was nothing he wanted to do less than what he planned to do next.

He leapt to his feet and yelled, “Don’t shoot, I’m your friend.”

He ran toward the militiamen at the mouth of the tunnel, waving his arms, with both sides shooting at him and each other.

Yukannak screamed, “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot! I’m the silci!”

* * *

Cutter’s shoulder ached from hanging inside the well longer than expected. He couldn’t help be proud as he’d watched his men deploy according to his orders. He’d trained them well, yet he had no illusions about holding their position against a determined assault. Imsurmik was jammed with amateur militias who’d spent their lives only fighting each other, unless they’d tangled with the J’Stull, and since the satrap ruled the region, that wouldn’t have gone well for the tribesmen. Cutter’s Cutters were better than the J’Stull, because the man who’d trained them had faced some of the toughest, meanest, least scrupulous soldiers in Earth’s history. But this time, he feared the militia would press home their numerical advantage, which would likely be considerable because they feared their own leader more than Cutter’s Cutters.

Yet, in his experience, the best attacks were made right away, before the enemy had a chance to prepare their defenses. Maybe the apparent reluctance of the militia to launch an assault meant that First Squad might not have to defend the plaza after all. Then the situation developed exactly as he’d thought it would. Simultaneous rushes from the south and west followed brief covering fire. Cutter hung from the iron rungs within the well, a dangerous ruse de guerre, since one brief glance downward by a passing enemy would discover him in his hidey-hole. If they didn’t see him, though, he could hit them when they didn’t expect it and disrupt their whole attack. It was a high-risk, high-reward ploy that captains were supposed to assign to others, but he couldn’t do that, not this time around. If he died, well, he’d already done that once, so what the hell?

By sheer bad luck, the angle of the sun was now hitting the side of the well where he was clinging to the ladder. When he’d first climbed inside, the heated iron blistered his palms, which made holding onto the ladder even more problematic. Eventually the metal under his hands cooled, but he couldn’t move them because the iron around his hands remained scorching hot. And even though the backs of his hands burned like somebody had focused a magnifying glass on them, all he could do was endure and hang on.

The well distorted the sounds of battle above. From the proximity of shots and screams, it sounded like his men took quite a toll on the attackers and held the line for several minutes. Then he heard Sergeant Riidono yelling for retreat and, as First Squad withdrew from the plaza, calling out, “We are pulling back, Captain, I’ll shout ‘now’ when the enemy is in position.”

Good man, Cutter thought; he’s company sergeant material.

Gunfire swept over the plaza. Voices came from around the well. Hanging by one hand, Cutter braced the Thompson’s stock in the crook of his arm and pointed the barrel skyward. If somebody discovered and started firing down at him, well, he wasn’t going to die alone. Now that he thought about it, his ruse no longer seemed like such a great plan.

Nobody peeked over the side, though, and he heard no voices nearby.

But he did hear Riidono shout, “Now!”

Trusting the sergeant with his life, Cutter stepped up one rung, balanced, leveled the Thompson, and opened fire at the backs of a score of local militia.

Everything about the Thompson, from its weight to the hammering recoil into his shoulder, was like play-wrestling with an old and trusted friend. At a range of thirty feet, the .45 caliber rounds ripped into the backs of the tightly packed enemy. Panicking, those who weren’t hit fled in all directions. Right on cue, just as the gun clicked on an empty chamber, his own troops counterattacked and poured back into the plaza, providing him with the cover he needed to climb out of the well.

Heaps of new bodies clogged the area, some still twitching. A quick head count showed only twelve of his men firing at the red militiamen, including Riidono. There was no time to think about that as he regained