by David Mason
We were so close to the shore now that we could see small things; the faces of a group of skin-clad riders who came at a trot, keeping level with our ship, and we could hear their distant, piping yells. A flight of arrows rose and fell halfway to the ship; and more of the riders came out of the trees to join the first. They may have believed we were drifting ashore.
The gunner chuckled again, and lifted his fire stick; counted, and swung it down.
The gun had been double-loaded with a great bag of small shot; it roared and leaped, and the ship quivered. But before the smoke cleared, men were running the gun back, reloading, and the master gunner had leaped to the second piece.
Then we could all see the result, and a fierce cheer rose from our deck. There were men and horses down in the surf, and others fleeing. The second shot caught a few more.
But by that time they had learned, and I ordered the gunner to cease. It was little enough harm to do them, but it had helped our spirits somewhat.
Then the Luck came about the point at the foot of the bay, and we could see the city well ahead. It was an evil sight.
Where the shore was unprotected we saw the burned bones of ships and boats, and the ruins of houses. Out in the lower bay itself there was more wreckage. And to either side of the town proper, on the green downs and among the orchards, the invaders waited. Black tents clustered, and horses were tethered in long rows; cooking fires flared, seemingly thousands of them. On Long Hill, to the west of the city, we saw a group of the black tents, with standards before them; these appeared to be more important than the others.
A captain of the Count’s men, one Caltus, came up next to me, his sharp eyes picking out the tents on Long Hill.
“Might be their chiefs there,” he said thoughtfully. “Your guns couldn’t carry so far, would they now?”
I shook my head glumly.
“Oh, well,” Caltus said. He studied the walls of the inner town, the squat keep of the castle over all. “Those riders have no siege engines yet. Though that might be a ram of sorts they’re at work on. See it?”
I could barely make it out; it might be a ram.
“There are men on the walls,” Caltus said. “But not many.”
Slowly we came through the entrance to the inner harbor, and drew in the quay. There was a sharp, unpleasant stench in the air; smoke eddied slowly, and the town was dreadfully quiet. The houses along the quayside looked down blindly, and no one was there.
Men leaped ashore, making the lines fast, while we on deck stared in puzzled surprise at the town. Then a man came running out from between the houses.
I recognized him. He was Bartin of the house of Morga, a man only a little older than myself whom I had known well. But he now looked ancient, withered, and gray, and his eyes were like black pits in his face as he came toward us.
“Bartin!” I called out. “Bartin Morga! What’s going on?”
“Kavin…” He came to a stop, below where I leaned on the rail. “Prince Kavin, they’ve sent me to warn you…” He coughed, and regained his breath. “There’s plague in the city. Leave us arms and what food you can spare, and draw your ship out into the bay. Or sail out, and leave us. We’ve no hope, Lord Kavin. Today we meant to open the gate and make a last sally… but we saw your ship and held back.”
Caltus, beside me, paled a little and swore under his breath; there was a murmur as the word spread back through the ship.
“Hold hard, Bartin Morga,” I said, trying to sound like a prince and a brave man—with difficulty. I was very young. I had never seen plague, but I knew about it, as who does not? And while death from an arrow or a steel edge is only death, the plague is a black terror, a slow, unclean doom.
“We didn’t come so far to go away again now,” I told him. “Other ships follow, with food, and men.”
“Dorada is doomed,” he said. “If you enter the town, you die.” He turned and walked away.
A kind of insanity took hold of me at that moment. I lost all common sense, which would have taken me and my ship out of that doomed place. Instead, I let out a crazy whoop, seized the rail, and vaulted to the quay.
“No plague can touch a man who’s been aboard Kavin’s Luck!” I shouted up at the deck. “Watch, and you’ll see—Tana defends!” I ran forward to where the prow overhung the dock, and the white image of the girl with the lance leaned forward. As I reached up, I noticed once again how like it was to the girl Isa. I reached out, and slapped a hand, in a familiar gesture, on the figure’s rump; men leaning from the ship saw, and a rumble of voices rose.
“Come down, any of you with guts!” I cried out. “Give our lady Tana a pat and the plague can’t touch you, my word on it! And any of you with the livers to do it, follow me into the town.”
And I walked off, swaggering after Bartin Morga, all alone as I thought.
However, my ridiculous tale about the figure seemed to take hold. Men in fear will seize on very small matters, believe almost anything. These men swung down by dozens, not waiting for planks to be laid; and each man passed the figurehead, reaching up to touch it as he went, then following me. As I looked back to see them coming, I felt a sudden pang of guilt. My nonsense would not protect them; I was leading them into death.
Minutes later we were in the square before the western gate. Behind us rose the castle keep, and ahead, the city wall.
At the sight of us, cries came from the shuttered houses, and from the walk on the wall overhead. Men emerged, staring at us with hollow, doomed eyes. There were no greetings; only the smell of death over all.
Bartin Morga appeared again, with Camor, a junior officer of the city guard; they approached, grim-faced, and Camor saluted.
“Lord Prince, you have come to your death,” he said. “We tried to keep you back.”
“I know you did.” I glanced up at the walls. “How many have you up there?”
“If the invaders knew how few, they’d assault again,” Camor said. “Not enough. And there will be fewer, when the night’s over.”
“Well then we’d best not wait too long,” I said briskly, wishing I felt as confident as I sounded. Inwardly, I cried out for a plan, for any wild scheme… Luck, be with me!
And then it came, leaping into my head full formed, a notion worthy of a maniac. It had nearly no chance of success; but then, we stood now in a certainty of death. “No horses, I suppose?” I asked.
“Eaten,” Camor said shortly.
“Ah. Well, we’ve extra rations on board, and we’ll unload them. Then…” I grinned at him. “We’ll up anchor and sail off.”
I don’t know what he was thinking at that moment. Maybe he was pleased, to have his prince live on, or furious, to see him play the coward. Maybe he was too sick to have an opinion. But I wasted no time; I explained my notion to him swiftly.
It was simple enough, no great feat of strategy. But I was young then, and thought very well of it; it was my first move on the chessboard of war, after all.
We sailed with the evening tide, making as much to-do about our going as we could, with much parading in and out of the ship. Sharp eyes were watching from the farther shore, and we gave them as much to see as we could. We were taking what wealth we could away from the city, it must seem, and carrying away as many of the people as we could.
Actually, the Luck was too high in the water when we had taken off the last of the stores and arms; we ballasted her with chests of book rolls, taken from Uncle Hogir’s library in the castle, with gold from the Temple’s treasury, and with anything else that came handy and could be swiftly loaded.
As we slipped down the harbor, there were only the ship’s own hands, and thirty men at arms aboard, the best I could pick. All the others joined the defense of the city, and the priestesses—including my untouched bride—had gone to the Temple. They had even taken my Isa along, without asking me, I noticed. However, this was no time to be entering into a debate with the Goddess, which no man has ever won.
I was counting heavily o
n my own small goddess, the Luck. In my cabin, I burned a plate of incense before her, and poured wine, laughing at myself as I did. But I did her homage anyway.
This was my land; I knew it as I knew my own face in the mirror. I had ridden through these fields and downs, and I knew where we must go.
Wild as the invaders were, they had leaders and chiefs, and I felt sure these were camped together on Long Ridge. Behind the ridge, a ravine led from the shore, the path of a small, wild brook; it was lined heavily with dense brush and a tangle of trees on either side. It was a hidden road, and a road that led straight to the invaders’ backs.
The sight of our departure drew them toward the town walls, as I knew it would. Even as we put down the bay, I saw clumps of riders, close enough for arrowshot, under the walls; but I had given orders to let them come in. I hoped, in fact, that they might grow brave enough to try the gates, since I had laid a trap there also.
We moved slowly, and it was dark before we were quite out of sight of Astorin’s last towers; pitch dark, without a moon. Even the smaller moon had not yet risen.
We anchored, very quietly, and lowered two boats. Moving like mice near a cat, we rowed ashore, no more than a few yards from the entrance to the ravine. Our armor, our blades and our faces were well-smeared with soot, and we moved like black shadows up the brook.
It was a matter of some hours, and in that time we learned to see in the dark, like cats. The brook was our guide, and there was a glimmer of starlight. We were not seen, although we heard riders once or twice; and nearly there, we were almost discovered by one of them.
He had evidently come down to the brook for water, for we heard him crashing through the brush and saw a small torch he carried. He did not see us. A man in the lead came up to him, all unseen, and took him from behind.
One hand went round his mouth, the other drew a blade across his throat, and his torch fell sizzling to the brook. We let him lie, and moved on.
And now, outlined against the stars, we saw the ridge, the line of horses, and fires burning. Tall poles, ornamented with horsehair banners and oddments, stood in front of the tents, and some of them were lighted within. I sought for the biggest, and found one that must be a great man’s own tent; with an elbow I dug Caltus in the ribs and pointed it out.
We crawled forward, on our bellies like snakes, foot by foot. I noticed we were down wind from the horses, thanks to Tana. Those scrubby beasts would know a stranger’s scent, and trumpet the fact.
We reached the walls of the tent itself, greater luck than even I had hoped for. As my men came closer, I listened, and heard voices within: one deep, hoarse voice with a note of command, and others, seeming to consult with him. I stood up, gripping my longsword. Now!
A single slash, to open a door in the tentwall, and we were in; each man plunged straight for a victim, aiming first for silence. Blows went for the throat; a man with a hand’s length of steel in his gullet cannot cry out very loudly. There were half a dozen or so in that tent, all gaudily gotten up with painted faces and many feathers; chiefs and lordlings all, I hoped.
The biggest was no giant, a man short, barrel-chested, with a look of great strength about him, and a great, grizzled beard. He wore a gewgaw of feathers, gold, and furs on his head, which I took to be some mark of high rank, and he was my first object.
He was no easy prey, though. The others went down like so many hens before a flood of foxes, and there was hardly a squall from any of them. But he, and one other, leaped back together against a post which held the tent-roof, and dodged my first thrusts with ease.
The other, his back to the bearded one, was a young boy of twelve or thirteen, beardless, but a handy lad as the first of my men to try him found. I myself had my hands full with his elder companion, who had drawn a heavy curved blade by now. Fortunately, he was too busy to manage an outcry, though he tried to shout as he slashed.
My blade met the bearded one’s, and for a moment it was wild, unschooled cut and thrust. Then his slasher took the tip of my left ear, and the bloodletting cooled me a trifle, making me craftier. I caught him twice, once with a fine carving across the lower ribs, and again, with the point in his right elbow. His sword spun away, and he bent, groaning.
At that moment, two of my men had the boy, who had by ill chance killed a third. One, Caltus, held his mouth strangled with a cloak, and was busily breaking his arm; the other man placed his point on the boy’s throat.
Myself, about to kill the graybeard, with my own point at his gullet, saw the older man roll back his eyes and heard him croak in terror. Instinctively, I knew what his cry meant; the boy was apparently his own. And I had a sudden thought.
“Caltus!” I said, in a low voice. “Wait! Don’t kill the brat. We’ve got his sire here, too; bag them well, and we may be able to keep them awhile.”
They were wrapped and tied like bales in a moment. I stirred the other corpses with my foot, finding one still gurgling his blood and maybe capable of later noise. Him I finished with a quick thrust; then I pulled aside the tent flap very cautiously.
From the ridge it was possible to see the city wall, not far below. Torches, carried by riders near the gate, made it even easier to see, and fires burned on the walls too. Doubtless the invaders were about to make the night assault I had guessed at; possibly they believed the city held no more warriors at all.
Above the distant shouting, I heard a rhythmic booming noise, and saw a cluster of dark shapes about the gate; they had brought up their ram, and were even now at work. They were rats, sweating to work their way into a trap, and I could have cried out for sheer joy at the sight.
And this camp, I realized, would be nearly empty, with all the invaders drawing closer to the walls for that final assault. These dead on the tentfloor had been making ready their final plans. Ah, Tana smiled indeed!
Leaving two men behind to watch our newly won prizes, we slipped from the tent in groups of three or four, each toward a planned objective. In a moment, the ropes were being cut, and freed horses were plunging and shrieking; swords slashed at tent ropes, while we seized torches from the camp fires and flung them at the black felt peaks.
There were men in the camp, but the ones we found seemed mostly old or wounded; and there were innumerable women and brats, as well. These added to the invaders’ problems by running wildly and shrieking, thus hampering the few able men in their defense. Partly, we were helped by the complete surprise, and the darkness; it was almost as if we were invisible, so easy was it to slay.
Within a few minutes we were coming together again. I counted quickly, and discovered we had lost but three men so far. But every man looked like a butcher, painted with bright blood from helmet to feet.
We dragged the two captives to their feet and hauled them behind on a rope like unwilling mules, giving them an occasional stimulating whack with the flat of a sword to hasten their feet. So we went out of that burning camp as quickly as we could run, myself last of all.
Just at that moment, a haggard woman dashed out of a flaring tent, and caught sight of me. Wild as a cat, she seized up a short lance and ran at me. I had no choice; I cut her down. To kill a woman is a great evil, and against our most ancient laws, yet in such wars as these one is sometimes forced to do it. I have made such sacrifices as should cleanse this guilt from me, but I still recall it.
By this time, the invaders had forced through the gate, as they were meant to do, and a boiling mass of them were within. But some had seen the fire on the ridge, and the running horses, and were beginning to turn back.
Then we heard a cannon roar, and we knew the trap was sprung.
Within the city, my men and those of the townsfolk who could still work had been busy all through the day. Stout barricades had been laid across the streets that led from the square, just inside the gate. Over the gateway, a massive barrier of timbers had been hung by chains, and all else had been made ready. From the iron-barred gate of the castle tower, looking down into the square, culverin
s and two small cannon were laid, and bowmen waited on the housetops. One narrow street, a gulley that had no doors on either side, was left open as a slaughtering alley. And one more thought of mine had been carried through: under the cobbles of the square lay a dozen casks of powder mixed with small stones, and a thick trail of powder to link them all.
As we ran toward the distant walls, circling round to avoid the returning horsemen, we could see the wrecked gate, now blocked again. From within, the cannon bellowed once more, and a roar of fury rose from the trapped besiegers, now themselves besieged. The shrieking of horses and howling of men, all together, was a blood-freezing sound, even more so for the riders lucky enough to be still outside. They wasted no time on the hopeless task of freeing their comrades, we saw; it seemed that word of the sacking of their camp had already reached them and they were going back, enraged. In the blackness we were unseen until we reached the wall itself, at the foot of a square tower at the northern corner of the city. We shouted at the walls, and a head appeared.
A moment later, there were other heads, and ropes snaked down toward us. We climbed, or were pulled, like so many hungry cats, in a great hurry indeed. We knew it would be only a matter of moments before we were seen, even with the Luck watching over us. The boy and the old man sailed up at the ends of ropes, like sacks of wheat; and last of all, myself, Caltus, and one more of the Count’s men grasped lines to climb.
At that moment there was a wild yell from a corner of the wall, and half a dozen of the riders came down upon us at a gallop, howling. Two were skewered by arrows from above, but four were still in the saddle as they slammed past us. A spear lifted my helm away; fortunately my chin strap was unlaced, or I’d have sailed away like a prawn on a fishspear. That one I unhorsed, with a stroke to his beast’s hind leg, and he went head over tail to the ground.