Mamelukes

by Jerry Pournelle

  Warner glanced back at the squadron’s rearmost liburnian, grunted in acknowledgment, and stepped closer to Junius.

  “Fleetmaster, I think—”

  Junius was turning towards him when the crossbow bolt tore through the fleetmaster’s throat. He went down, choking and gurgling on his own blood, and three of the Roman crewmen bent over him.

  “Oh, crap!”

  Warner went down on one knee as well, but the Roman’s eyes, staring sightlessly up into the rain, told him all he needed to know, and he stood again, clinging to a safety line.

  “Now what?” he asked, looking at Martins. “Who’s in command now?”

  “Technically, one of the other captains, I suppose,” the lieutenant said. “Don’t really see how we can pass command, though. It’s a matter of staying in formation and following the flagship at this point. Which means, I’m afraid, that you’re in command, Mr. Warner.”

  Warner felt his heart sink, although it was hard to see how even his inheriting command could make things any worse. He swiped rain from his face and turned to peer forward again. He couldn’t make out a lot of detail, but—

  “Is that gunfire on San Lazzaro?” he demanded.

  Martins squinted his eyes, trying to shade them from the rain with one hand. He stared hard into the dimness for a second or two, then nodded once.

  “I believe it is,” he said.

  “Then that means the fort’s still holding,” Warner said. “It doesn’t look like the one on Lido is still in our hands, either. I say if we’re going to be forced into all that crap, we do it as close to friends as we can.”

  “By all means!” Martins actually smiled at him. “For that matter, I don’t suppose our chaps would be dreadfully disappointed if we turned up to reinforce them, either!”

  * * *

  “Still nothing from Warner?” Rick asked.

  “No, Sir.” Mason shook his head. “May just mean his radio got wet or the batteries went. Could be a lot of reasons.”

  “Including the possibility that it’s at the bottom of the Inland Sea with him,” Rick said harshly.

  Mason started to speak, then closed his mouth and simply nodded.

  I shouldn’t have sent him out there, Rick thought. I knew I shouldn’t have! He’s too damned important. And he’s my friend, goddamn it!

  A part of him desperately wanted to blame Baker and Martins—and Publius—for the decision, but he knew whose it had been in the end.

  And they were right. If we were going to stop them short of the city, enveloping them in the outer lagoon was the best way. But it didn’t stop them short of the city. They’ve got Cannaregio, Lido, most of San Lazzaro, and more galleys are still piling on from the north. Looks like two or three more of the big troop transports, too. Jesus, did we underestimate how big they were!

  “Should I tell Walbrook to light them up?” Mason asked.

  Rick bit his lip, staring down at the inner lagoon as the first wave of galleys through the Canale Gottardo Capponi suddenly accelerated, surging towards the Palazzo San Marco. He wanted to say yes. Wanted it so badly he could taste it.

  “Any more word on those transports?” he asked instead.

  Lieutenant Cargill had spotted the late arriving quartet of navibus onerārius from the fortress on San Lazzaro when Rick had been unable to see them in the worsening visibility. That was another worry. If this crap closed in much further, his observation post atop the bell tower would become useless. Hell, it already was, mostly! So what did he do when he couldn’t see anything?

  The troopships had been escorted by what Rick hoped to God were the last stragglers of the galleys. Their hundred-galley estimate had obviously been low. Badly low, in fact, and if the new navibus onerārius were fully loaded with troops, their original estimate of enemy strength had been even farther off the mark than their galley count. And he needed to know where those troops were headed.

  “No, Sir. Last report said they haven’t committed yet.”

  Of course they haven’t. But, damn it, the weather’s not going to let them stand off much longer. They’re more seaworthy than the galleys—the high-sided square-riggers were far better suited to stormy seas then the low-slung galleys—but they still have to find some place to call home pretty damn soon. And once I use Walbrook, I lose the shock effect. At least I’m not going to need him on the West Channel, too. But if I turn him loose before the transports commit . . .

  The first wave of galleys swept across what had been the Palazzo’s seawall and grounded on its paved surface, and musket fire sputtered from the barricade and flanking palaces as hundreds of men boiled over the galleys’ sides and stormed forward through the water. Dozens of the attackers went down, but dozens more took their place, and a second wave of galleys was right behind them.

  We’re at the breaking point. If we can hold San Marco, beat them back there, and then relieve the pressure from the North Channel, we’ve got a chance. But only if we can take out the rest of those goddamn troopships. If they put another five or six thousand men ashore in the wrong place at the wrong time, it’ll all go south. And this time, there’s no retreat. We lose it here, and it’s over. Not just for Nikeis but for everything Tylara and I ever hoped to accomplish.

  And it’s all on me.

  “No,” he heard himself say, eyes on the Riccigionan and Five Kingdoms marines and seamen storming towards the barricade. “Not yet. Contact Cargill again. Ask about the transports.”

  * * *

  Lance Clavell stood just inside the palace that flanked the barricade, watching the galleys drive towards the palazzo. He couldn’t hear McAllister’s rifle through the storm, but he saw two or three steersmen go down to mark the sniper’s presence. It wasn’t enough to stop them. It wasn’t even enough to slow them down, and the galleys shuddered as their keels grated on the square’s paving. Men leapt over the sides, splashed into the water, and turned to charge the barricade.

  “Ready!” Bisso’s booming voice could be heard over both the radio and the bullhorn he’d acquired from Baker, and the Gurkha riflemen rose and leveled their rifles across the parapet.

  “Ready!” Clavell repeated to his own musketeers in the palace.

  “Fire!” Bisso shouted.

  “Fire!” Clavell barked.

  The Gurkhas’ first salvo was a single, explosive crack of sound. Individual, deliberate shots followed, but Clavell couldn’t hear them through the roar of his own musketeers’ first volley. Choking powder smoke filled the palace. Empty muskets were handed back for reloading; fresh ones were passed forward. He heard another sharp, extended volley from the Gurkhas, and at least some of the muskets out there on the barricade were firing as well, despite the rain.

  “Ready!” he said, then paused for a three count. “Fire!”

  Minié balls and rifle bullets swept furrows of death through the charging attackers. He heard wailing screams in the interval between volleys, but they came on. It was conquer or die for them; they certainly couldn’t retreat from Nikeis with the storm roaring down upon them. Besides, they could see the containers they’d come to loot right in front of the Doge’s Palace, taunting them.

  “Fire!”

  Another deadly volley ripped through them, and Nikeisians rose on either side of the Gurkhas. Spears and halberds crossed the parapet, thrusting and chopping. Combat swirled madly, crashing up against the barricade. Some of the attackers tried to rip away paving stones or timbers to find a way through it while others lunged up it, some of them climbing mounds of their own dead and wounded to get at the defenders.

  Sheer weight of numbers was coming across it, Clavell thought as his musketeers poured fire into the attack wave’s flank. They were coming across, and—

  Passavopolous and the Bren gunner stood, threw their weapons’ bipods onto the prepared positions, and opened fire. They swept a torrent of bullets across the massed attackers, beginning in the middle and moving towards the flanks, and the entire front rank crumpled under its fu
ry. Then two more Gurkhas popped upright with the Milkor revolver grenade launchers Baker had described. The launchers coughed, lofting forty-millimeter grenades far back into the attackers. They spat their deadly missiles in timed fire, and the explosions came with metronome precision.

  The combination of machine-gun fire and grenades, on top of rifles and muskets, was too much. Hundreds of the attackers were down, turning the water around them crimson, and the survivors fell back, took shelter between and behind their beached galleys while they waited for the next wave to reinforce them.

  * * *

  “I thought they were getting all the way to the fort before they grounded!” Rick said, watching the first wave of attackers recoil. “Damned storm surge!”

  “Not quite,” Mason said.

  Rick heard McAllister’s rifle cracking and thought about telling him to cease fire. Good as the private was, he couldn’t pick off enough individual targets in that mass of men to make much difference. But then he shrugged. It wasn’t going to hurt anything, either.

  “Sir, you better take a look at the second wave,” Mason said, and Rick raised his binoculars, then swore.

  “Well, we know where at least some of the transports went,” Mason said grimly, and Rick nodded.

  The first wave of galleys had gone in with only their own crews aboard. Maybe they’d thought that would be enough to clear the square, or maybe they’d expected all along that the first wave’s grounded ships would simply provide cover for the second wave when it poured its men ashore. He didn’t know about that, but every one of the galleys in that second wave rode low in the water, heavily overloaded with scores of extra men. As Mason had suggested, they had to have come from transport ships that had gotten through to Lido or Cannaregio.

  “Should I order Walbrook to support the Palazzo?” Mason asked.

  Rick hovered on the brink of saying yes, but he didn’t. He looked down at that tidal wave of ships and men sweeping towards Palazzo San Marco, and he didn’t.

  “I think they can hold a little longer,” he said instead, harshly, wondering if he really did, feeling the consequences of his decision waiting for him. “Pass the word to get ready with the firebombs, but I’m not giving away Walbrook yet. Not till I know where those other damned troopships are.”

  He didn’t look at Mason. He was afraid of what he might have seen in the major’s expression.

  “Anything from Cargill?” he demanded.

  “Not yet, Sir.”

  Rick nodded curtly and watched the tidal wave surge onward.

  * * *

  “Hold on!” Richard Martins shouted, and Warner braced himself as Ferox drove down on a Riccigionan galley like a five-hundred-ton battering ram.

  The Riccigionans hadn’t seen them until the last moment. Probably because they’d been too focused on fighting their own way towards Isola di San Lazzaro. Someone finally had spotted them, though, and he saw marines and sailors racing towards their target from other ships.

  “Let fly!” Martins screamed and the seamen at the sheets loosed them. The sails blew out from the yards, horizontal and cracking like canvas thunder as they spilled their wind. And then Ferox’s ram smashed squarely into Martins’ chosen victim. The shock of impact knocked dozens of Romans from their feet, but—

  “Now!” Warner bellowed, coming back to his feet on the forecastle with the other mercs.

  A crossbow quarrel struck his flak vest with sledgehammer force, but it didn’t penetrate, and rifles crackled. Dozens of defenders went down, but it was the sheer shock of taking fire from star weapons that was truly decisive. The Riccigionans knew there were star men in the city; they hadn’t expected to encounter them aboard a Roman quinquireme coming at them out of the gale, and surprise flashed over into panic. They fell back, abandoning their own ship’s bulwarks, and Warner and the mercs stepped aside as Ferox’s marines charged past them. The rowers were right on the marines’ heels. They couldn’t possibly hold their own ship against the weight of numbers the pirates and their allies could bring to bear. Their only hope was to abandon the quinquireme, cut their way along the ship raft to the fortress on San Lazzaro.

  One of the surviving triremes slammed into the ship beside the one Ferox had rammed in a thunder of shattering oaken timbers, and its marines and the squadron’s second section of Gurkhas vaulted from its forecastle to join the flagship’s crew aboard the ship raft. Another struck home on the quinquireme’s other side, and a pair of liburnians slammed into the sterns of their consorts, their crews using the abandoned galleys as bridges.

  Warner leapt across to the raft himself, looking around through the rain and the wind while thunder bellowed like overhead demons and the mass of ships groaned in agony as the pounding seas slammed them into one another. They had a firm bridgehead, but the pirates were recovering from their initial shock. More than that, a half dozen enemy galleys were about to crash in right behind them. They couldn’t afford to let the other side do the same thing to them, and he pointed to the left.

  “That’s where we’re going!” he screamed through the tumult. “Now let’s go!”

  A hungry, baying cheer went up from the marines, and they charged.

  * * *

  A third wave of equally heavily laden galleys swept up behind the first two. Thousands of men boiled up out of them, and Rick shuddered as he remembered the slaughter at the Grand Battery at the Battle of Vis. Passavopolous was in the middle of this bloody madness, too, hammering away with his machine gun, but at least this time his M60 wasn’t alone. Baker’s Bren gun stuttered and flamed alongside him, and the Gurkhas’ rifles crackled in aimed fire.

  Waves of dead and wounded piled up on the flooded square, mounding above the water like gory islands, and musket fire ripped into the attackers from the palaces on the flanks. But that huge mass of men continued to surge forward, and crossbowmen and archers stood on the beached galleys’ forecastles, firing back despite the pounding rain. Their rate of fire was far lower, especially for the crossbows, but there were hundreds of them. The ballistae fired even more slowly, but when they hit, it was with devastating power, and defenders started going down, despite the parapet’s protection.

  It was pure, undiluted carnage, concentrated into a tiny pocket in time and space, and he was the one who’d engineered that killing ground. He was the one who’d decided to stand and fight, and he’d brought every single one of his men—and Baker’s, and Publius’ Romans—to this right along with him. And while they fought and bled and died, he stood up here on his godlike perch watching them.

  Disgust filled him, and he wanted to vomit, but he didn’t. Instead, he stood there and listened to someone else speaking with his voice.

  “Warn Bisso they’re going to flank him,” that someone else said as the fourth and final echelon of galleys peeled off, circling San Marco, looking for somewhere else to put their men ashore.

  “Yes, Sir. Not gonna be able to pull too much off the fort to do anything about it, though.”

  “Then we’ll just have to relieve the pressure. It’s time for the firebombs.”

  * * *

  Clavell shifted his musketeers’ fire to the missile troops on the beached ships’ bows. Ark, the Bren gunner, and the Gurkhas would just have to deal with the frontal assault. At least while their ammo lasted.

  Smoke jetted from the windows of the palace across from his position as the musketeers on that side of the square poured volleys into the carnage. Battle rifle fire crackled from his own palace, and he found himself praying that Ginarosa and Lucia and the other kids were safe.

  He shouted encouragement, steadying the men, keeping their fire coordinated. Even rifled muskets depended more on volume—on crushing volleys, delivered in a single devastating blow—than on accuracy, and they couldn’t afford—

  “Oh, shit!” he muttered as the next wave of galleys spread out instead of driving straight in. The bastards were circling, looking for another way in, and with everybody pinned down defending the f
ort . . .

  Some of the galleys disappeared from view, but he watched one ship take advantage of the high water and drive straight into one of the palaces that normally stood fifteen yards back from the waterfront. It struck between a pair of ground floor windows, the ram drove through the supporting stonework, and marines shoved a boarding ramp through the gap and poured into it.

  “Breach on the main island, east side of Palazzo San Marco!” he barked into the radio. Second Platoon’s going to have some close-quarters fighting.

  A red rocket roared up from Colonel Galloway’s bell-tower command post.

  “Wagon Box under attack.” Mason’s voice on the radio underlined the rocket’s meaning. “Time for the firebombs. Watch where you put those things—we have friendlies in contact.”

  Something thumped on the roof above Clavell’s head, and a bright, sparkling flame soared through the rain and wind. His eyes tracked the firebomb’s fuse as other ballistas fired from other roofs, lacing the air with streaks of fire. They rose in glittering arcs, curving as the wind whipped them, harmless looking as they flew.

  They seemed to hang for a moment as they reached the top of their trajectories. Then they swooped downward . . . and exploded in midair.

  Liquid fire cascaded from the heavens, falling across beached galleys and the men around them in a torrent of flame. Saxon’s additions to Nikeis’ version of Greek fire had produced an incendiary as viscous as napalm and men shrieked as they burned alive. Others simply collapsed where they stood, unable to breathe, and still others ran screaming, wrapped in clinging fire, and plunged into the lagoon.

  Clavell looked away from the carnage.

  God, please make them break and run! Haven’t we killed enough here yet?!

  * * *

  Corporal Jimmy Harrison stood in the window of a building that overlooked one of the two massive stone bridges between Isola di San Marco and Isola di San Giorgio. A militia formation armed with spears and shields guarded the San Marco end of the bridge below him, but they didn’t hold the other end.