And thus, Stimson was all in favor of the current revolt within the Abellican Church, where Brother De’Unnero and Abbot Olin were reshaping the chapels and abbeys in the image of the Order before the days of Avelyn. By extension, Stimson had become a loyal supporter of Aydrian Wyndon, as well. Without Aydrian, there could be no revolution within the Church, so went the thinking, and thus, though he had always been loyal to King Danube and though he had always understood the successor to Danube’s throne to be Prince Midalis, Stimson would forgo the desire for that logical ascension.
The Abellican Church, after all, was paramount.
To Marcalo De’Unnero, brothers like Stimson were the most valuable of resources as he moved along with Aydrian to bring the kingdom into the proper fold. Thus, he had rewarded Stimson with this most important of missions. Seven brothers had sailed with the fifteen ships of Earl DePaunch out of the Masur Delaval and into the Gulf of Corona. They had shadowed the land for many days before turning straight north, taking a direct line to the target: the island fortress of Pireth Dancard. The weather had cooperated, with no early-winter storms blowing across the waters, but with a cold westerly wind that the great ships had tacked into a fine, water-raising speed. Right on schedule that cold sunny morning, the dark tower of Pireth Dancard came into view.
Brother Stimson was among the first on the deck to spot it after the lookout’s call came down. Standing at the front rail of Assant Tigre—the Behrenese words for Attacking Tiger, DePaunch’s flagship named by Aydrian in honor of Marcalo De’Unnero—Stimson gripped the rail tightly at the sight. He heard the commotion behind him, many footsteps shuffling forward.
“We have the gemstones held ready,” an excited Brother Meepause said to Stimson, and he held forth his hand with the graphite and hematite De’Unnero had given him. A couple of other brothers behind Meepause did likewise, though Stimson hardly seemed interested at that moment. It would be hours before any battle was joined, after all.
And Stimson secretly hoped that the gemstones, and all other firepower, would be unnecessary. Pireth Dancard and the Coastpoint Guards who manned it had not formally declared themselves for either Aydrian or Prince Midalis, after all. It was quite likely that Earl DePaunch and the Allheart escorts would be welcomed by the soldiers. That would be for the best, Stimson knew. The less battling that Aydrian had to do to stabilize the kingdom would allow for more concentration in securing the contentious Abellican Church.
“The bear rampant!” came the cry from the crow’s nest, and Stimson gritted his teeth as the man finished, “No tiger!”
Pireth Dancard was flying the pennant of the Ursals, not the new flag of Honce-the-Bear, the bear and tiger rampant, facing off above the evergreen of the Abellican Church. The island fortress should have known about the change in flags by this time, though Stimson recognized that the Coastpoint Guards stationed out here would have no appropriate pennant for King Aydrian available to them.
“There will be a fight!” one of the younger brothers behind Stimson remarked eagerly. “They ally with Prince Midalis!”
That seemed to be the feeling all about the ship and those ships nearby, Stimson could tell in glancing around at the sudden commotion, at the eager faces and sparkling eyes. He held quiet his argument that perhaps the soldiers out here were flying the only flag they possessed.
Signalmen flagged each other across the waters and the ships moved from their fairly straight triple-line formation, with the vessels port and starboard of Assant Tigre bowing out wide and tacking to slow, and those behind sliding up into the vacated areas. In mere minutes, with the black speck of Dancard on the horizon barely larger than it had been at first sighting, the ships had moved into an approach formation that created two rows, seven up front and eight off center spaced right behind, instead of in three columns of five in a front-to-back line. Assant Tigre centered that front line. These were the “kill” ships, heavily armored and manned with regiments of archers and the seven gemstone-wielding brothers. The eight smaller craft behind, swifter and more maneuverable, each housed a pair of long-range catapults and soldiers trained in ship-to-ship combat.
“Each of you knows your duty,” Brother Stimson said to his six fellow Abellican monks. “Since Earl DePaunch has chosen to concentrate us all on one vessel, we must be even more efficient and coordinated in our attacks. If resistance is discovered onshore, a catapult or a contingent of archers, then we must destroy that resistance quickly, before any real damage can be offered to this ship. Do you understand?”
Enthusiastic cries came back at him. Too eager, thought the older brother, who had seen a great riot in the days of the plague, a wild battle in the square of his small town northeast of Ursal. Stimson had heard men dying by the score, and despite his belief in De’Unnero and Olin and his acceptance that the Church and kingdom would not be secured without a fight, the man had little desire to hear those echoing screams ever again.
“Go and eat, if you have not, and make your peace with God before you find your positions,” Stimson told the brothers. “Brothers, relax and understand that we still have hours at least before any battle will be joined.”
With that, the commanding monk took his leave, moving to the center of the ship and the war room, to join in the discussion with Earl DePaunch and the other leaders.
He found DePaunch in nearly as agitated a state as had been the young brothers, and that he did not view as a good sign!
“I will move to within three hundred yards before I turn right and sail about the island,” DePaunch explained.
“Three hundred is within the reach of some of their greater catapults, those set up high on the rocks, my lord,” remarked one of the other commanders, Guilio Jannet, an Allheart Knight who had served for many years under Duke Bretherford.
DePaunch nodded. “But hardly could they prove accurate at such a range,” he explained. “The back eight will be split, four escorting us and four swinging left about the island. No enemy ships will sail beyond our reach.”
“I would suggest you allow four to continue to sail past Dancard,” said Giulio. “In case some have already fled—or soon will now that we have likely been spotted.”
Earl DePaunch thought on it a moment, then nodded his agreement.
“Pardon, good Earl, but are we not presuming much here?” Brother Stimson interjected. “We do not even know if these folk of Dancard are friends or enemies.”
“They fly the flag of the Ursal line, not that of Aydrian,” said one of the other commanders.
“Do they even possess the bear and tiger rampant?” the reasonable monk replied. “Do they even fully understand King Aydrian and the legions he commands? These are Coastpoint Guards, after all. Will they not be persuaded that ours is the proper cause when they see Allheart Knights among us?”
“Are we to sail into the shadows of their deadly catapults?” Earl DePaunch retorted. “When four or five of these great ships King Aydrian has entrusted to me flounder in the waves, am I to then assume it would be proper to attack?”
“I only meant—”
“Their first response is the pennant they fly,” Giulio added. “If a bear and tiger greeted us from above Pireth Dancard, then we would have sailed in as allies.”
Brother Stimson recognized what was going on, and in truth, he had expected nothing different. Earl DePaunch was the most eager of young men, as was Giulio Jannet. Accepting Dancard as an ally to the throne would be a great gain for King Aydrian; defeating a hostile Dancard and forcing it under the flag of Aydrian would be a great gain for the careers of DePaunch and Giulio.
The ambitious earl was spoiling for a fight.
When Stimson moved back out on the deck, he found that the ship sailing beside Assant Tigre had brought down their colors and the crew were now running up the more traditional flag of Honce-the-Bear, the bear rampant that had served as Ursal’s banner for more than a hundred years. The monk moved to the fore, beside his brethren, all of whom were watching the chang
ing of the colors beside them.
“What does it mean, brother?” one asked Stimson.
The monk wanted to reply that it meant they would use that ship as a front in order to get close to the docks. He wanted to reply that it meant that they were going to get their fight, whether Pireth Dancard wanted it or not.
Instead, the monk just shrugged noncommittally. Marcalo De’Unnero had chosen him for a reason, he reminded himself. While he might not agree with the methods of Earl DePaunch, he surely agreed with the outcome of Aydrian’s rule, especially as it pertained to the Abellican Church—the wayward Abellican Church, by Master Stimson’s estimation.
The wind remained strong, filling the sails, and the fifteen ships remained under full sail, speeding for the island. Stimson and the others watched it grow and grow, until the tower set on the high rocks came into clear view, the pennant visible even without use of a spyglass. The island’s southern docks were set right below it, down a rocky slope that housed a few buildings, including one long warehouse right on the water level. That hill was sparse of growth, with only a few patches of grasses and a couple of small trees, but it was well fortified, with crisscrossing walls of piled rocks leading up from the docks to the tower. Off to the right-hand side of the island, on the eastern slopes, was a small settlement of stone houses, and there, as on the docks, a commotion was brewing, with many people staring out at the fast-approaching fleet.
Barely a thousand yards out, ten of the eleven ships dropped to half sail, battle sail, and as one, ten prows dipped lower in the water. The one remaining at full sail—the one to Assant Tigre’s right, flying the pennant of Ursal—sped on toward the long wharf.
“Be ready, Master Stimson,” came Earl DePaunch’s voice from behind. “When Assant Tigre makes her run, I expect you and your brothers to trace our glorious path.”
Stimson looked at the man, and at Giulio Jannet beside him, both grinning and nodding, obviously eager.
Into his early fifties now, Warder Constantine Presso was among the oldest and most experienced leaders of the Coastpoint Guards. And among the most proper, with his neatly trimmed moustache and goatee and traditional blue, red-trimmed overcoat, complete with a black leather baldric running right shoulder to left hip. He was a tall man, and stood impeccably straight, shoulders wide and back, eyes never down. He had served at all of the major outposts of the rugged outfit, from Pireth Tulme to Dancard to Pireth Vanguard in the north. The man was well aware of the politics of Honce-the-Bear, and of the games that were often played by eager young commanders seeking a quick road to promotion.
Presso had been told immediately when the fleet had sailed into view, and had arrived at the tower’s top in time to watch their precision and training in action as they moved from an open sailing line to battle formation.
And now he watched them in this latest ruse, or whatever it was.
“She flies the Ursal bear!” cried a man from somewhere below.
It was true enough, Constantine Presso could see; the lone approaching ship was not flying the strange pennant that seemed to verify the rumors of a change in power in Ursal, but rather the more customary flag of King Danube and his predecessors. But, the warder noted, the ship was even then running a second pennant up her mainmast, the white flag of truce.
Presso wandered about his tower top, studying the catapult emplacements set among the stones left and right and the great swiveling ballista upon the tower top itself. He moved back to the lip overlooking the docks soon enough and called for his men to “stand ready.”
Then he again looked out at the fast-approaching ship, and the ten others gliding in behind it—and glanced west at the four others who had broken off from the back line and were moving at full speed about Pireth Dancard. Presso even offered a glance toward the north, where the two Dancard scout ships had long ago sailed, departing at the first sight of the approaching fleet as per their standing orders whenever a potentially hostile vessel approached the fortress. For Dancard was not built to hold out against a great foe, but rather to serve as sentinel to the mainland on the south and Vanguard on the north.
“What king do they serve?” came a confused cry from one of the Coastpoint Guards in position along the defending wall below the tower.
Warder Presso looked back at the leading ship, to see that both the pennant of Ursal and the white flag had been cut away from the fast-approaching warship. In their stead, the ship had run up the same flag the others were flying, along with a second fast-climbing the guide ropes: a white flag bordered in black and with a red X over the field.
In mariners’ terms in Honce-the-Bear at that time, that flag was one demanding surrender.
Presso noted that the ship’s catapult was set and ready to fire, pitch smoldering in its basket. He watched in disbelief as a great contingent of archers crowded the deck, all wearing the uniforms of Kingsmen. They dipped their arrows into unseen buckets below the rails and brought them up, tips aflame, and bent back their great bows.
Behind Presso, the ballista crew broke into action.
“Hold!” the warder ordered them.
Unfortunately for Presso and for Dancard, few on the island had been hardened by actual battle. Presso recognized the ship’s movements as a goad and a ploy—the full sail and continued course gave her away—but some of the younger and more frightened Coastpoint Guards did not.
A few arrows arced out at the ship; one Dancard catapult fired, then the second.
A ball of pitch hissed as it fell into the cold water at the ship’s side, but the second found the mark, splashing across the unfurled sails and setting them ablaze. From that fiery deck came the response, fifty flaming arrows knifing across the docks of Dancard, followed by a returning ball of pitch that splattered across the lowest levels of the wall.
The wounded ship tacked and steered hard, bending low into a direct turn for the island’s docks.
Up on the tower, Warder Presso closed his eyes and shook his head, understanding more fully the tactic. Momentum would carry the wounded ship to crash into the docks, where her crack crew would be fast ashore.
He looked past that vessel to the other ten, and to the ten fiery balls arcing gracefully into the sky.
Master Stimson, too, watched those responding catapults, taking note that of the ten shots, only six had been aimed at the dock areas. The four longer-ranged shots from the trailing vessels climbed out to the east to land among the stone buildings, igniting all flammable material within their splash zones.
Including people.
Stimson closed his eyes as he heard the screams again, just as in the riots of his youth. Not the roars of battle lust that turned to grunts of pain, as with combatants; these were the shrieks of surprise and terror that arose from the confusion of innocents caught up in a fight they could not comprehend. Even the pitch was different, for among the cries coming from the small village were intermingled the screams of women and children.
The Abellican master glanced back at Earl DePaunch and saw that the man was not alarmed by the apparently errant shots. Stimson understood; DePaunch was goading Pireth Dancard on to a larger fight. He was leaving little room for common sense and a possible compromise here, little room for diplomacy. For now, suddenly, Dancard was fighting for her very existence. The soldiers were fighting not only to hold their docks, but to keep their families alive. Perhaps four hundred people lived on this island, but no more than a quarter of that number were soldiers, with the rest working as dockworkers and farmers and fishermen. And among those three-quarters of the folk were the family members, the wives and the children.
Stimson turned his attention back to the docks just in time to see the leading, wounded ship slide into the wooden pier. Great beams groaned in protest, on both ship and dock, and a section of the pier crumbled into the wash. Finally, the ship settled against the broken wood, burning and listing, but the crew didn’t immediately debark. They lined the deck behind the blocking high rails and continued their barrage o
f arrows, great volleys sweeping across the docks.
Responding fire came at them from the rock walls, with a number of bowmen at least equal to the fifty archers on the wounded ship. The Coastpoint Guardsmen were well drilled, obviously, sending in volleys continuously, a third of them firing, then the second group, then the last, and back around in perfect timing. Many of those arrows coming out carried flaming tips, only adding to the confusion and devastation on the wounded ship.
A thrumming from above turned Stimson’s eyes to the tower top, to see a dark sliver flash out, a great ballista bolt diving down not at the wounded ship, but at one of the other approaching six. The shot was true, nearly, for the bolt skimmed the front of the boat to Assant Tigre’s far left, but glanced off the angled prow to splash harmlessly into the water.
Then came the second volley from the ships’ light catapults, this time with all ten flaming balls splashing about the area just beyond the docks and lower rock walls. The defenses were solid there, and the effect of the shot was minimal at best in terms of casualties. But the spreading bits of fire served the invaders well, for the defenders—slapping out smoldering pieces of splashing pitch or scrambling to find new positions away from the obscuring smoke—were clearly and necessarily distracted.
Some of the sailors on the wounded ship used the opportunity to continue their barrage, while others cut away the burning sails and worked to secure the craft more fully to the crushed dock area.
DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) Page 207