Artillerymen wrestled some of the cannon around half a turn, so they bore on the logs across the road. Twelve pounds of highspeed iron smacking an obstacle like that did much more visible damage than the roundshot did to the stone fence. Logs tumbled like jackstraws. Consul Stafford hoped they squashed some of the fighters behind them when they fell over.

"This is good," Sinapis said in somber satisfaction-the only kind he seemed to show. "That is very good. If the flanking party gets through there, the frontal assault matters less."

Stafford hadn't thought the flanking party would matter. He'd assumed the frontal assault would overwhelm the insurrectionists in back of the fence. They proved steadier than he'd ever imagined they could. Despite the bombardment from the field guns, they kept pouring a galling fire into the Atlantean soldiers assailing their position. Dead and wounded men in gray uniforms dotted the slope, more of them every minute. There was a limit to what flesh and blood could bear. The Negroes and copperskins firing as if their lives depended on it-and they did, they did-forced the soldiers right to the edge of that limit.

And the attack on the barricade didn't go as well as either the colonel or the Consul wanted. Some of the men behind the logs might have got squashed. The rest kept on shooting. And insurrectionists hiding in the woods banged away at the flanking party from the flank-an irony Stafford failed to appreciate.

"Make them stop that!" he shouted to Sinapis.

The colonel looked at him without expression. "If you have any practical suggestion as to how I am to accomplish that end, I should be delighted to hear it." He didn't add If you don't, shut up and quit joggling my elbow-not out loud, he didn't. Stafford heard the suggestion whether it was there or not. He knew too well he didn't have any practical suggestions along those lines. He could see what was wrong, but not how to fix it.

Leland Newton pointed to the slope and the wall. "They're getting up to it," he said, and then, diminishing that, "Some of them are, anyhow." Yes, a lot of bodies dotted the slope.

"Once they get over it and in amongst the damned insurrectionists, the fight is as good as won," Stafford said.

"You hope," the other Consul said.

"Yes. I do," Stafford agreed. "And if you do not, I should like to know why."

"Oh, no-I won't fall into that trap. Now that we are in the field, you will not be able to accuse me of failing to support our soldiers in every way," Newton said.

"I suppose you also wish to pretend you did not do everything in your power to keep them from taking the field," Stafford growled.

"My dear fellow, had I done everything in my power to prevent it, the army never would have left New Hastings," Newton replied easily. My dear fellow, here, had to mean something like You silly son of a bitch. He wasn't wrong, either. But he certainly had delayed the army's departure.

Stafford might have pointed that out. Instead, he peered toward the fight at the stone fence. Some of the Atlantean soldiers were scrambling over it. Through the spyglass, he could see soldiers and insurrectionists stabbing at one another with bayonets. The copperskins and blacks weren't giving much ground. Were they giving any ground at all? He had trouble being sure.

Over on the wing, the flanking party had reached the barricade. Not many white men had got past it, though. The gunfire from the woods alongside the road was too intense to let the flankers ignore it. They had to turn and respond, which meant they had trouble going forward.

"The insurrectionists planned this battle well," Colonel Sinapis remarked. "I do not think I could have improved on their dispositions."

Hearing that did nothing to improve Stafford's disposition. "We can beat them?" he asked anxiously.

"Yes, we can beat them," Sinapis said. "But they can also beat us, which I had not counted on before we set out."

If enough Atlanteans got over the wall, they would win. But the enemy had more men, and more determined men, back there than Stafford had dreamt possible. Colored fighters, savages, couldn't be that brave… could they?

Sinapis' spyglass also surveyed the front. Under it, his mustache-framed mouth twisted. He lowered the telescope. "I am very sorry, your Excellency. I do not think we shall succeed this day."

"Dear God in heaven!" Stafford cried. "Can that-that rabble beat our finest soldiers?"

"It would seem so, yes," the colonel answered impassively.

"They must not!" Stafford said. "Do you hear me? They must not!"

"It is war," Sinapis said. "There are no musts in war. There are only ares."

Consul Stafford almost hit him. One thing alone made the Consul hesitate: the likelihood that he would lie dead on the ground a moment after he did such an unwise thing. He groaned instead, watching everything he held dear crumbling before his eyes.

Eight shots in one weapon were wonderful. Reloading the pistol after firing eight shots at the Atlantean infantry was a son of a bitch bastard, as Frederick Radcliff discovered to his sorrow. Put a bullet in each chamber. Measure a charge of black powder and stuff each charge into a chamber without spilling it. Fix a percussion cap for each chamber. Do all that while your hands trembled because you'd just come as near as dammit to getting killed.

Doing it seemed to take about a year. But Frederick methodically went on. He couldn't afford to stay unarmed. Seven more bullets for the white men-some of them would probably hit, anyhow. One more bullet for himself, just in case.

They'd got over the wall. He hadn't dreamt they could do that. He'd also assumed that, if the white soldiers did get over the wall, the battle was as good as lost. But it turned out not to be. The Negroes and copperskins he led didn't flinch, even from the soldiers' most savage bayonet work. They rushed toward the white men in gray, not away from them. They might be less skilled with the bayonet themselves, but they were every bit as plucky.

And they turned the wall to an advantage. They pinned the soldiers who'd got over against it and started killing them there. It was madness. It was mayhem. Neither side asked for quarter, and neither side offered it. For longer than Frederick thought possible, neither side gave ground, either.

A white man's voice, furious and astonished, rose above the din of shrieks and gunfire: "You nigger assholes can't do this!"

"Hell we can't!" Frederick shouted back. He had no idea whether the soldier heard him. He'd finally got that damned eight-shooter reloaded. As he raised it, he breathed a small prayer that it wouldn't explode in his hand. If you didn't do a good enough job cleaning off excess powder, more than one chamber would fire when you pulled the trigger. Only one bullet could get out, of course. The rest… the rest would probably blow off the hand that held the revolver.

More whites scrambled up over the wall to try to help their comrades. Frederick fired at one of them. The man clutched his ribs and tumbled back on the far side of the stone fence. Only after that did Frederick realize the gun had hurt the enemy, not him.

Then-and the thought within him warred between all at once and at last!-more Atlantean soldiers were climbing over the fence to get away than to come to their friends' rescue. "We licked 'em!" Lorenzo cried exultantly. He asked, "Shall we go after 'em?"

"If we do, their cannon will murder us." Frederick unbent enough to follow that with a question of his own: "Or do you think I'm wrong?"

"Nooo." The way Lorenzo stretched the word showed his reluctance. But he didn't try to talk Frederick out of the decision. He might not like it, but he saw it was right. A moment later, he brightened: "When word of what we done here gets around, every copper man and black man in these parts is going to come running to join our army."