Hole in the Sky -6- Fire! (Patreon)

An older man, large through the chest and shoulders, came striding out from between the buildings and approached us, stopping a dozen feet or so behind Hadar. He wore a homespun tunic too, but his was decorated with colorful embroidery and he had a turban-like hat on his head. He also had a wide belt with a bronze knife hanging from it and a heavy club in his hand.

"Headman," guessed Doc and Hadar confirmed this.

We spent most of another hour in Izim, giving presents from our food stores and talking with the headman through Hadar as interpreter.

We described the caravan in our dog Latin and we could tell that the news of how near it was frightened Hadar and the headman, though the big guy covered it up better. A few other villagers had gathered at what they seemed to think was a safe distance and they buzzed and choked in their own language.

The information that the caravan had hundreds of female captives did not surprise them. "They take them to Udul,” the town whose lights we had seen, “to sell for gold from Kuakua.” Another, larger city to the south. “They did this when they swallowed Cartago, too," Hadar said.

"Women only?" I asked.

He nodded. "The Gaeta do not take men prisoners."

"Well, shit," said Dunn, goggling a bit.

The headman interrupted, and he and Hadar conducted a rapid conversation, almost an argument, in Proto-Berber or whatever it was. Hadar was very deferential but seemed to be insistent at several spots.

Doc said he got about one word in ten being similar, in sound at least, to Hebrew, but he could gather no sense of any detail.

The headman fell silent at last and Hadar turned back toward us. "He thinks you must be gods," he said in Latin. "I told him you are sons of gods and that is how you can make the thunder."

"Don't know if I like that," said Dunn.

Hadar wouldn't budge on it, though. If we weren't sons of gods, then we must be demons, and he wasn't going to tell the headman that while standing between us. After we told him what we wanted to do, he said we must be sons of the gods or crazy. "You seem like nice people, though," he added.

He went on. “Attacking the Gaeta is surely crazy. And if you win, what will you do with so many concubines? Even Pharoah could not keep so many happy." He seemed amused.

Doc laughed out loud and Dunn blushed.

"What's funny?" the General asked. Not getting all of the conversation bugged him and his voice carried his irritation even more than usual.

"Sex and death," I said, quoting Woody Allen.

Hatton snorted.

"The Gaetim have thunder, also," Hadar warned us. We didn't disbelieve him, but we had trouble believing anything about the world we found ourselves in.

It all seemed unreal except that it had the solid reality of bugs biting you on the neck, and the rank smell of goats, and the even earthier smell of dog shit on Doc’s shoe.

"Do you suppose they're time travelers, too?" Doc suggested after the four us gathered by the SUV. He spent a moment using a found stick to clean off what he had stepped in.

"If so, maybe they know a way back home," said Hatton, still sitting behind the wheel.

"Are we going to do this?" I asked. "Four of us against maybe more than a thousand of them?"

"Hell, yes," said the General.

"Durn tootin'," Dunn agreed.

"Yup," said Doc. He threw the stick away and we all watched it land. A dog came over to sniff then squatted to piss beside it. A bitch, I supposed.

I shook my head, thinking about a thousand enemies. That was the real bitch. ”I don't think we have that many shells between us."

"Pete?" asked Doc. "You in or out?"

"I'm still in," I said. "But Hadar is right, we're all crazy."

They laughed at that because it was true.

Hadar told us the Gaets carried one of their gods with them, according to things he had heard. The god lived in an altar shaped like a small temple and made of gold or bronze. He suggested that the god’s temple was probably on one of the elephants.

"It is the god that casts the lightnings," Hadar told us. "The Gaets themselves are just harder to kill than a wild boar, and fight with axes and swords."

We didn't know what part to believe. Our being where and when we were meant almost anything might be possible, and Swedish supermen in Africa wasn't much less weird than a living god accompanying them.

Hadar agreed to lead us to where our small number might conduct an effective ambush against the much larger group. He liked our idea of shooting the elephants to make them run.

He wouldn't get in the truck with us, though. He and six spearmen would run ahead of us. We weren't going to be driving fast on the rutted tracks that passed for roads here, anyway.

Before we got moving, an old man came out and shook rattles at us and sang in a direful voice that made Dunn want to giggle. The high-pitched drone did sound funny, but the villagers took it seriously, and Hadar and the spearmen let the old guy daub black paint on their cheeks, chins and foreheads.

"Got to get their game faces on," said Doc.

"War paint," agreed Hatton.

“I think the old guy with the squeaky voice is their pastor,” said Dunn. “He’s got the patter for it.” Dunn ought to know, since his own father was some sort of minister, I knew.

I found a tube of our own hunter's green camo grease paint and passed it around and we all daubed a bit under our eyes and down our noses. If we were going to be shooting in the bright sun, it would actually help avoid glare and it impressed the natives.

I found a limp fisherman’s hat and wore that, too. Doc had a natty little Alpine chapeau, Dunn a straw topper and Hatton a gray-and-black St. Louis baseball cap. None of us wanted the orange hunter’s caps we had been wearing earlier, but the morning sun was hot enough all of us were grateful for head coverings.

Doc's watch read a few minutes after ten when we got going again. I started the Lincoln and the villagers ran for their lives but soon came back, the headman leading them. His eyes were wide as saucers but he walked up to the big SUV and put a firm hand on it. He said something but we couldn’t hear him, then all the other warriors had to come and put a hand on our “beast,” too.

Hadar and the young spearmen trotted ahead of us as we drove through the village. Dunn had the shotgun seat now with Doc behind him and Hatton behind me. Despite the sun and the clear skies, a coolness lingered under the trees and the day actually felt pleasant. Hadar had told us that in the way the Romans counted the year it was March, the month of the plowman.

That explained Orion but nothing gave us a clue to what had caused the Hole in the Sky.

We talked it over between us as we followed our guides.

“We’re not on Earth, not our Earth,” said Hatton. We all agreed on that, this was an Earth similar to our own Bronze Age history but there were too many differences. We had all read enough science fiction that the idea didn’t seem as outlandish as it might have to other people.

“These Gates,” that’s how the General pronounced it, “they’re from Sweden or Germany, somewhere up North and they’ve acquired some sort of magic? Technology?”

“Clarke’s law,” said Doc. “Any technology you don’t understand is magic.”

“Like the Hole in the Sky,” said Dunn.

“This totem or godhouse they have with them? Might it be a machine?” the General persisted.

“It might,” I agreed.

“A doohickey that makes lightnin’,” Dunn suggested.

We looked at him. Sometimes Dunn took his Aw-Shucks act a bit too far. He shrugged.

“A thing-a-ma-jig,” said Doc.

“A what’s-it,” Hatton contributed.

“A gremlin in a gizmo,” I said.

“As long as it’s not Gizmo driving a Gremlin,” said Doc and we all chuckled. We faced unknown danger and laughed, so we must be brave.

In forty-five more minutes of driving we had traveled perhaps three miles, most of it in the big Lincoln’s granny-gear. Where the track wasn’t steep, the tires sank into sand or silt, and once, while fording a small stream, nearly a foot of mud.

We made plans. I was the best shot and my .375 could easily take down horses, even at 200 yards or more, so that would be my job. I didn’t like shooting horses but it might be better than shooting people.

Doc would take the 300W to harass the elephants. He being the poorest shot, he got the biggest targets.

The lightest and fastest long gun we had was the General’s .223 Mini which fired a very hot round in a light caliber. Hatton’s target would be elephants, but he could switch to his .308 and shoot horses or horsemen as things developed. The scope on the .308 and its relatively flat trajectory gave him good range.

Dunn was our second best shot and would use his .30-06 to shoot at elephants first, then horses, also, as things developed.

We would all be using scopes and that didn’t make me happy. Someone should be shooting over open sights so they could keep an eye on the whole battle. But it was too long a range for any of us to be willing to give up our scopes.

We talked this all out during the drive while Hadar and the locals on foot easily kept up with us and eventually lead us to a bluff above the bigger river. I backed up swiftly when I saw what was ahead of us, and parked the Navigator under some trees.

We all got out and retrieved our gear from the cargo. The locals watched us with interest but did not get close except for Hadar.

“You have more magic spears,” he observed, meaning our rifles.

“They’re more like bows,” I told him. “We don’t throw them, we shoot tiny stones from them.”

He nodded as if that made perfect sense but he stayed well out of our way.

The bluff was perhaps forty feet high, a steep but not unclimbable slope, too rough and tilted for the Lincoln. The swampy, brushy banks of the river below marked off the edges of a brown river perhaps twenty yards across with another, lower bluff on the other side.

We each chose a firing spot on the bluff and settled down, near enough to speak to each other but at least an arms length apart. We all had field glasses as well as rifles and we took sometime examining the force on the other side of the river. They were closer than before but still more than 300 yards away.

“Good thing we only have to hit elephants and horses,” muttered the General.

The leading group of our targets made a change of direction to follow the river. They would not be getting closer than they were at the moment.

“Pete,” said the General. He settled in and put his eye to the scope of his Mini.

I cleared my throat. “On my word, we all start firing at once,” I said. “Joe and I will shoot the lead elephant, Doc and George take the next one.” I’d never called either Joe Dunn or George Hatton by any version of their first names before. “Once the beasts start moving or reacting, switch to the next elephant. Doc and George will take evens and Joe and I will aim for the odds.”

“Lord God Almighty,” said Dunn, “Don’t let us kill anyone if we don’t have to.”

After a pause, Doc said, “Amen.”

Hatton grunted dubiously.

I counted to four and shouted, “Fire!”

* * *

The eruption of fire and noise caused our allies to disappear into the brush surrounding our shooting stand. Across the river, the two lead elephants cried out, trumpeting their pain and surprise.

The lead animal shifted gaits from his leisurely walking stride, moving only one leg at a time, to a much faster tempo that involved multiple simultaneous movements. Not really a run, but the elephant version of a power walk. It didn’t look that fast but he made good time heading over a ridge in front of him.

The second animal followed, shifting to the same gait but before getting into gear, reached up and behind his head to lift a struggling warrior out of the howdah and toss him aside. We couldn’t see where the man landed but Dunn remarked, “That’s got to hurt.”

We changed aim to elephants three and four, firing individually now instead of in a single blast. The elephants reacted differently, too, turning to the sides instead of charging ahead. The fourth beast screamed like a steam engine, plucked a rider from horseback, and using his victim like a club, began flailing around at the surrounding crowd.

“God have mercy,” said Doc and Joe grunted an affirmation. Both of them stopped firing.

“Goddamned elephants,” George muttered, spraying the fifth animal with three rounds from his mini. Someone fell out of the howdah as that elephant made his escape following the first two. “Goddamned slavers,” Hatton added to his first imprecation. “Joe, snap out of it! Shoot the damned elephants!”

Joe was slow to respond but his .30-06, loaded for elk, moose and bear, roared again. The heavy rounds were still not deadly to something the size of an elephant but they punished the beasts enough to add to the chaos as elephants trampled and trumpeted and basically ran amuck.

Doc and I both said it at once. “Cease firing!” George got one more round off from his quick, small gun before realizing what had been said.

Then we all watched in horror as the remaining elephants, minus the three or four that had run off, decimated the slaver caravan—including the caffles of slaves.

“God, please, no,” whispered Joe. “No, no, no.”