DELUGE

by Lisa T. Bergren

  This attack. So soon after Marcello and Luca had left for Siena.

  No doubt the Grecos were under similar attack.

  Lia arrived in the doorway, breathless.

  “They need you,” I said to her. “Up on the wall with your bow. Take as many out as you can, Lia. As many as you can. Because I think…” I paused, staring at the child. “I think they’re here for us.”

  Castello Greco.

  Castello Forelli.

  The She-Wolves of Siena.

  And…The thought of it brought me up short. Fortino. My precious boy, all dimples and brown eyes with his low chuckle. What might they do to him to get to us? I remembered the cage, the taunts, my near-death experience in Firenze.

  It would be the triumph of the decade for our enemies if they were successful. Sacking our castles. Capturing any one of us. A distraction in the midst of the devastation the disease wrought. A centering. They’d claim God’s favor.

  And perhaps they’d be right in doing so.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  EVANGELIA

  So…having morning sickness and trying to be a She-Wolf archer was a harder combo than I thought. Bile rose in my throat, and I nearly blacked out when I saw what approached us from all sides.

  Hundreds of Fiorentini.

  But I made myself stop, breathe a prayer, and in a few moments I knew I felt sharper than I’d been in years. Since Venezia, really.

  Attentive to every movement, every sound.

  Perhaps it was the spark of battle, real threat, not just endless practice or exercise, that brought it all into focus…

  Captain Pezzati insisted I stand mostly behind a stone barrier. But I still managed to take down at least twenty men in the first hour of our attack, while five of ours had either been wounded or killed.

  I edged over the corner of the parapet, trying to get a grip on what we faced. I was still a bit stunned that we were facing warriors at all. How had our enemy fielded an army while fighting the plague, too? I knew that Firenze hadn’t been as hard-hit as Siena, but…this?

  I studied them, making quick calculations, wondering just how many were at our walls. I leaned down low, crouching against the parapet, making my calculations. I’d seen fifty men. There were likely five-times more beyond them, held in waves. Luca and Marcello had taken twelve men with them. We had thirty-six others.

  Thirty-one now.

  Part of me wanted to just shout at all the guys to take cover. But that wouldn’t work. If we didn’t actively guard the wall, they’d attempt an ascent.

  The squires arrived, arms full of enemy arrows they’d collected below. They dropped piles off beside me, and the other archers and I grinned at the sight. There’d be something especially sweet about taking down our enemy with their own weapons.

  “Castello Greco has been breached!” cried a man.

  “Greco’s flags are down, Fiorentini flags in their place!” cried another, firing an arrow.

  My heart surged with terror. Where was Rodolfo? Was he dead? Or worse, captured? Had Alessandra somehow escaped and gone to her father’s house? Castello Greco and her knights were strong. If she could be breached, so could we…

  An iron claw shot over my shoulder, arced down, and clattered against the stone wall inside. I tried to wrench it away before it grabbed hold, but failed. The rope grew taut. On the other side of the castle, I saw a second claw had been shot across that wall. And to our south side, too!

  A moment later, the claw scratched its way upward until it caught on the far side. Otello lumbered over to me and crouched across from me on the parapet. “You take out a man or two and I’ll work on sawing through this rope.”

  I nodded once, rose, turned and aimed, but could only let one arrow fly before ducking, since three others were aimed at my head. I let out a cry of frustration and fear. Otello was only halfway through the rope. How were others doing on their sides?

  Concentrate on this one alone, I thought. One at a time. Just do this and move on. I hitched up my skirts and crawled five feet to the side, hoping I might surprise them and gain a couple of seconds to get a second arrow off.

  “Stones!” Otello bellowed to the nearest squire. “We need stones!”

  I saw it, then. What had alarmed him. The rope was moving.

  There were men on the rope, climbing!

  I rose and fired one arrow and ignored the three archers below, turning as one to target me again. I was rewarded by seeing my first arrow sink into the chest of the first climber and was pretty sure that my second probably found its target too—one of the enemy archers.

  Two squires arrived, arms full of stones, faces taut with a combination of fear and glory.

  “There,” grunted Otello, gesturing with his head to right below the rope. He was still sawing, three-quarters of the way through. “Let them have it, just as we practiced. Drop it atop them and then take cover, fast.”

  “Yes, sir!” they cried. On the count of three, they rose and pelted a man below with their rocks. We heard a cry and then a volley of arrows shot over their heads as they stared at each other, wide-eyed with glee. I rose at that moment and got two arrows off as the archers reached into their quivers. This could work, I thought.

  “Again, boys, again!”

  We repeated the exercise, and finally, finally Otello got through the rope. We heard the cries of two men falling. I wanted to give Otello a high-five, but he was already surveying the other ropes and claws.

  “Come with me to the eastern wall, boys!” he cried over his shoulder to the squires.

  The boys hurriedly grabbed their remaining stones and ran behind him.

  Dad arrived, grim-faced, but I thought I saw an edge of relief in his eyes to see me, alive. Hunched over, he went from one downed man to the other, passing two dead before he found one wounded. This one he dragged by the feet toward the turret door, then picked him up across his shoulders, squeezed through the tiny doorway, and disappeared. I assumed he and Mom were setting up a medical triage room. But if it got any worse, we might soon need them up here with us.

  I resumed my shoot-and-take-cover mode, relieved to spot those at the south wall repelling their attackers. Across from me, Otello and the squires had reached the eastern wall. With luck, they’d take care of it as they had the others.

  Another of our knights took a particularly brutal arrow, into his eye and out the top of his skull. Baldarino screamed and backed up, then fell over the inner wall to the courtyard below. I winced, swallowed back the bile rising in my throat and let out a cry of rage. Rising, I drew an arrow and began running down the wall, shooting arrow after arrow after arrow, pausing only to kneel, fill my quiver again, and then resume my run. I made it to the other side of the castle, all the way to the gate. Then turned and repeated my run.

  The men cheered as I passed, chanting She-Wolf, She-Wolf, She-Wolf, as they continued to unleash their own arrows upon our enemies. I smiled, even as Fiorentini arrows got so close to me that I could feel them whoosh past my head. When I got back to the western wall, Gabi was waiting by the turret. She handed me a skin of water and gave me a small smile.

  “This preggers thing is working for you,” she said under her breath. “Looks like your mad ninja skills are better than ever.”

  “Hope you’re right,” I said, after swallowing. “Because we’re going to need it. Take a look.” I gestured over my shoulder.

  “As bad as I thought?”

  “Badder,” I said.

  Gabi edged her nose around the corner, pulling back when an arrow shot past her. “How many?” she asked quietly, any trace of humor gone.

  “I don’t know. They keep to the trees, but I’m guessing by the numbers in these forward forces that they might have close to five hundred.”

  Having caught my breath, I nocked an arrow, ducked around the corner and shot it, then returned to face her. “Gabi…” I reached out to touch her arm. “It looks like Castello Greco fell.”

  “What?” she asked, her
brown eyes flying northward. She licked her lips, and I knew she’d seen the Fiorentini flags. “No! No, no, no…” she groaned, her face a mask of pain. She knew what I did…the Grecos would be lucky to die in the attack. If they survived, if they were taken to Firenze…their deaths would be agonizingly slow.

  She rubbed her temples, and her eyes moved to me, panic within them. “We have to go and find them…figure out…”

  I nocked another arrow, turned, aimed and shot it, then returned to face her. “I know. But we kinda have our hands full here, Gabs.”

  She swallowed hard, her face paling. “They’ll kill them,” she whispered. “If they don’t have them already…Alessandra might have escaped.”

  “Let’s hope she went far.” I resumed shooting, letting her come to the conclusion I had. If they’d kill them now, it’d be a mercy compared to what they’d face. And they were coming for us, too.

  I paused after I glimpsed a man below who appeared to have a bruised face. Turning, I dared to peek at him again. Then, as the arrows came at me, I crawled a few paces down the wall and dared a peek at another. There. Buboes. Black, bulbous, hideous lesions along some of their necks.

  Only their intense hatred could fuel them to move beyond the confines of their disease.

  I sat down, my back to the wall, trying to piece it together.

  Then I looked at Gabi.

  “Gabs, they’ve hired dying men. They’re all sick! Infected!”

  New horror entered her eyes. It was her turn to look…and look…and look again. Like me, she put her back to the wall and sank down, thinking.

  “They must have promised them something. Or their families something, if they did this,” I said. I nocked another arrow and then another and then another, shooting the men below. I noticed now that some were a bit slow to react. Sluggish. This was why I’d taken down a man with nearly every arrow I shot. Not because I was some freakin’ awesome She-Wolf. But because my enemies were sick. Probably feverish and dizzy. Slow to climb the ropes.

  A clamp came shooting over my shoulder and grabbed hold of the inner wall. Gabi immediately set to sawing it through with her blade. “So if they’re sick…” she said, “then all we need to do is hold them off for a few days.”

  “Sure, no problem,” I grit out, turning to take aim and shoot, then whip out of range again. Five arrows sang through the gap in the wall. “Except some of them seem to be faring better than others.”

  “They’re using the sickest,” she said, a piece of her curly hair falling in front of her face as she sawed, “to weaken us. They know they’re dying anyway…why not die in glory, trying to take us down?”

  I turned and looked down the wall, wondering where the squires and their rocks were. Where the men were. And then I saw. Five new claws had sailed across the wall. Everyone was busy. How long could we keep them from breaching the castello?

  I eased up, peered over the edge, and let out a little scream. There was a man just three feet below me, his eyes red-rimmed and hollow. He raised a battle axe and made a hasty attempt to cut my head like a Tuscan melon, but I dodged him, and his axe struck only the stone beside me. Holding the rope with only one hand sent him awkwardly twisting to one side.

  “Now that’s not nice,” Gabi said, slicing his hand.

  I heard men shout below him and suspected my sister had managed to take them all out.

  “Nice work,” I said, offering her my fist.

  She brushed my knuckles with her own, panting, as arrows soared over our heads. Then she positioned her sword behind her and rose, swinging at the rope with all her strength, a beautiful arc that had to have left her hands and wrists aching. All but the last strands gave sway to her strike. More arrows came past us as she knelt. She shouted at the nearest squire.

  “Go down to the kitchens! Tell them to boil every pot of water they can and bring it to us when they’re hot!”

  “Yes, m’lady!”

  “Scalding them?”

  “Yes,” she grit out. “I only wish I had huge vats of oil. Go. Tell Pezzati what we think is happening.”

  “On it,” I said, partially rising. But then urged her to pause. If she waited a minute or two, until others climbed the rope, she could remove the rope and a few men.

  Her eyes met mine. “Got it. Go!”

  I gathered myself, nocked another arrow, and began my run down the parapet toward the gate where Captain Pezzati, red-faced and sweaty, was shouting orders to the other side. I saw that the majority of our archers were on either side of the gate, continuously shooting. And then I finally recognized what I heard. Boom…boom…boom.

  They had a battering ram.

  I swallowed hard as the gate shuddered with each strike, but held.

  Oh, Luca. Come home, I thought. We need you. We can’t hold out for long. Luca! Luca!

  I prayed they’d learned of the Fiorentini invasion and were on their way to us even now. A man beside me took an arrow, and I took hold of him and eased him to the stones below, examining his wound, his face. It was Alanzo, steady and strong Alanzo, and I wanted to weep as he gasped for breath, holding my hand in terror. The arrow had pierced his lung.

  “Kill me,” he gasped, his voice raspy, thick with blood. He gripped my hand. We both knew that a strike through the lung was a slower death. But it did mean certain death. In Medievalville one did not carry on with just one lung.

  “I cannot,” I said, sorrow in every syllable. I wished Mom were here, that she could slip him some medicinal that would at least ease his pain or make him sleep until death took him.

  The captain looked down at me, and I knew I had tears streaming down my face. “M’lady?” he knelt, gripping my arm.

  “I am well,” I assured him, reading the fear in his eyes. “’Tis Alanzo I grieve.”

  The man was shuddering now, in my arms, and I held him tight, gritting my teeth. “The Fiorentini…They are all ill, Captain. They’ve put their sick troops forward, to wear us down,” I said.

  Captain Pezzati’s gray eyes scanned the wall, thinking. “All this time, keeping the ill from our gates,” he muttered, lowering his head and rubbing the back of his neck, “just to have them batter their way in.”

  Batter. Climb. Crawl.

  “How long…” I gasped, crying, “can the gate hold?” I tried to get a better grip on Alanzo’s head, attempted to keep him from thrashing as he drowned in his own blood, wanting it to end—God of mercy, please take him….

  Grim, Captain Pezzati leaned across his torso to aid me. “We could hold them off for a good while yet,” the captain said. His grey eyes met mine. “But I agree with you. There are many out there, behind these.”

  Alanzo gave one last shudder and then slumped in my arms, the life leaving him like water pouring from a pitcher. Feeling that—a soul leaving his body, the hollow of what remained—stole my breath.

  Captain Pezzati rose to his knees and crossed himself. Then he looked me in the eye. “While we can hold for a time, we need to be prepared. When I whistle, you gather up your mother and father, your sister and nephew, and you prepare to fight your way out. We shall surround you with every able man left. If the castello falls…”

  “She shall not fall!” I cried.

  He reached out to take my hand from Alanzo’s head and gently set it aside. He took the man’s body and shifted it to the edge of the parapet, out of the way, placing Alanzo’s hands over his chest, then stared grimly back at me.

  “If she falls, I shall not see you fall, too. You must be away, m’lady. Somehow. Some way. I cannot face Captain Forelli with word that his wife has been taken. But you all must be together. Ready. Understood?”

  I looked past his shoulder, at the men fighting, shouting, edging past, ducking. It was like they moved in slow motion. Sounds dimmed. I knew every one of them would die to save us.

  I lifted my eyes to the skies. Gray clouds gathered, and there was just a bit of daylight left. Come night…I shuddered at the thought. But with the hours left
, and with every ounce of strength I had, I would fight. Taking a deep breath, I rose, refilled my quiver, and went about my task again.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  GABRIELLA

  Cook sent eight terrified maids to the wall with buckets of boiling water, and we took to dumping them atop the men who tried to climb their way upward. I winced as they screamed, but I knew none of them would hesitate to kill me…or worse. Blessedly, Cook also sent two maids up with loaves of bread and cold water for each of us to take hurried gulps and bites.

  I hadn’t even realized I was hungry. Or how tired I was, until I’d stopped for a moment. The siege had been going on for more than four hours.

  We’d probably killed a hundred or more men outside. Eight of ours were down, leaving us with twenty-seven fighting men, plus Mom, Dad, me and Lia. The bad news was that Lia had been right…the men behind the first waves were stronger, less sick. They came at us, faster, more powerful by the hour. If their attack continued, unabated, I figured we could stand for another hour, maybe two if we were lucky.

  I wracked my mind for a way out. If nothing else, I had to stall for time. To give Marcello and Luca time to return to us, with aid. Or at the worst, put off that horrible thought that Captain Pezzati had given Lia—that we’d try to fight our way out.

  I knew that we’d all perish in that scenario. We’d be brave. It’d be epic. But we’d all die.

  I made my way toward the gate, and when Captain Pezzati turned to take a drink, the maid visibly shaking by his knees as arrows flew over her head, I said, “Fly the white flag, Captain.”

  He paused, slurped from the scoop, and wiped the excess off his lips with the back of his hand. “M’lady?”

  “Give our enemy the signal, Captain. I want to know who ’tis behind this attack before night overtakes us. I want to see his face. And I want to buy Marcello and Luca time to return to us.”

  “M’lady, we do not even know if Lord Forelli has been informed of—”

  “I am aware of that. I’m also aware that he hasn’t heard word from us for days. He shall be on alert. Mayhap even will have sent scouts out to make certain all is well.”