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Damned sword caved in his temple. He just stood there and shot, never ducked
He got about four of them.
Nylan looked toward the other grouping. Who s that?
Kyseen, I think. Mangled leg. Three of them hit her at once. She got two.
The third got her with his horse. She still got him.
Nylan shook his head. The entire fight still seemed both horribly real and
terribly unreal.
From what he could tell, several other marines were also down.
From the hillside above, Ryba rode downhill, leading three more riderless
mounts. More to the west, another marine and Gerlich were on horseback, trying
to corner several more of the riderless horses. Nylan counted nearly a score
of mounts being held, tethered, or chased.
Nylan glanced back toward Kyseen.
Dumb bastard!
Since she sounded as though she had a chance for recovery, and since he was
certainly no medtech, he walked back toward the uphill side of the lander
shells where Ryba was directing the construction of something where the horses
could be tethered.
Nylan! ordered Ryba. Get a couple of marines and check the bodies. Those
that aren t too badly wounded we ll try to save for information. Gather all
the weapons, anything valuable, and have your detail bury the rest deep enough
that scavengers, or whatever they have here, won t get them. Keep any cloaks
or jackets or armor or boots-if they re in good condition.
Nylan nodded. While he didn t like the idea, he understood the need.
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Don t bury any of the dead horses yet. Ryba made a sour face. Maybe we
can butcher some and stretch out the concentrates.
Nylan frowned. Horse meat? Maybe it would be better than concentrates, but
he had his doubts. To stop thinking about that, he asked, Who got away
besides the fellow in white?
Maybe a half dozen. One or two were wounded, I think. Ryba turned her
mount toward the end of the meadow where Gerlich lurched in the saddle as his
mount nearly carried him into an overhanging pine branch. Use your legs,
Gerlich, and your head!
Nylan pointed to the three nearest marines. You, you, and you-we re the
scavenger - and - burial detail. He saw Huldran. You too, Huldran. We ll
start up by the rocks and sweep down. Carry the bodies to the lower end of the
meadow, near the drop-off. He gestured.
That s a long ways, pointed out a tall woman, who, like him, had come out
of the mysterious underjump with silver hair.
Nylan tried to remember her name. Was it Llysette?
Llysette, it s downhill-
It s Llyselle, ser.
Sorry. In any case, Llyselle, it is downhill and away from the water, and
it s going to be hard to bury them deep enough to get rid of the smell. There
are rocks there, for a cairn, if necessary.
Yes, ser. The four gave him resigned looks.
Why don t we just drop them over the cliff? asked Huldran.
That would probably just cause more trouble with the locals, and we don t
need that.
How would they know?
Nylan shrugged. I don t know, but they ve got something-call it
technology, call it magic. They knew Ryba was our leader, and they knew we
came from space or the local equivalent.
Great& mumbled one of the other marines.
Stow it, Berlig, said Huldran tiredly. The engineer s usually been
right, and these days that counts for a lot. Let s get on with it.
Take any weapons, knives, any gadgets or coins. Jewelry, too, added
Nylan. The more we find, the more we might be able to figure out about these
people.
The sun had dropped behind the mountain peaks by the time Ryba, Gerlich,
and their work crew had completed a makeshift corral for the captured mounts
and by the time a large cairn and five individual graves had been completed
and filled in the southwestern corner of the open area, just beyond the end of
the meadow and less than two dozen steps from the beginning of the drop-off.
Saryn was by the cook-fire area, making an attempt to butcher a dead horse.
Nylan shook his head, but kept walking toward the stream. He needed to get the
blood and grime off himself, if he could.
Not much more than an eight-day and already five were dead-Mertin and four
marines. Then, again, reflected the engineer, without the combat-trained
marines and Ryba, things would have been worse, much worse.
Nylan bent down and washed the rock dust and dirt from his hands in the
narrow stream. Then he walked back toward the lander where they had stockpiled
the plunder, such as it was, from the corpses. They had gathered nearly three
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