The Conqueror
Page 19
“Not at all, not at all. There’s more than enough to go around.”
They spoke in hushed voices. All of the oars were muffled, wrapped in rags at the steel pivots, each of which had been well and truly greased. The sound of breathing around them was like that of some gigantic and unknown animal.
Lowren shivered against the chill, and the gloom, and the sight of the Horde’s fleet dully illuminated against the false glow of the pre-dawn hours. A thin ribbon of cloud on the eastern horizon glowed salmon pink, backlit by the sunrise.
A man on his left handed him a horn as the sailors called it, and he drank some of the resinous stuff, a dry and very rough red. A quick shudder went over his body. With a nod, he indicated that Vaeomon must have a drink too.
Sniffing suspiciously, eyebrows raised, he took a gulp.
“Wow.”
“You can say that again—but please don’t.”
Vaeomon passed it off to the boys. They appreciated the gesture judging by the reaction.
The Sicurri chattered quietly amongst themselves as the joke was shared. There were eight or ten of them on the aft section duckboards. Things clicked and rustled as they unlimbered their weapons and notched arrows to bowstrings.
With their low draft, and their masts and rigging removed, the Lemni ships were little better than large rowing boats—and that was exactly the intention of their design. Hugging the shore as they were, the barren hills above would screen them with their dark backdrop. They were three hundred yards out, practically invisible. The shoreline was undulating, going back and forth due to small bays and projecting headlands. They were coming from the west and the sun was in the east. The Lemni ships were all dark planks, heavily oiled on the inside and thoroughly caulked on the bottoms. It was only the wet wood above water that could give them away with the odd glimmer. There was enough noise up on the land. They could hear the calls of men, the neighing of horses. The crowing of cocks and the sounds of hoofs and wagons came distinctly on the breeze, setting off from shore as it did.
Whether the Horde would attack Kthmarra today was an unknown. A major attempt before the end of the season was expected as a matter of course. But there would be some kind of military operations set for the day, and like all such encampments, the place could never really sleep. Simple routine would keep the battle going, insofar as sieges were, typically, long periods of total boredom punctuated by the occasional big push or brainstorm on the part of the commanding generals.
The mental state of the attackers was one of man and material superiority. Their troops all knew they were backed up by a big fleet and an endless supply chain. Their transports were still successfully running between Kthmarra and Artesphihan, and numerous other ports.
His own force was considerable, without being unmanageable in terms of a quick raid.
The real question was how quickly they could get off under while under attack from the rear.
While the incentives were obvious, they all knew they were going to take some dead and wounded.
Fifty-two ships, forty rowers per ship. Each ship with thirty or more well-equipped troopers along for the ride. With their cargo of small incendiaries, they were stuffed to the gills with men, weapons and equipment. Even then, they drew a bare eighteen inches or maybe two feet of water. On some kind of inspiration, a suggestion from one of their naval engineers, they had installed additional oar positions before and after the regular stations. The joke was that they could get out of trouble just as fast as they could get into it.
This morning there was to be trouble.
Lowren leaned over to the kid.
“From quiet contemplation comes chaos.”
The lad looked up.
“Aye. I’ll remember that, sire.”
Straightening, Lowren and the older ones grinned.
They were in a large bay, with highlands directly to the southwest, where the prevailing winds blew from most regularly, and especially at this season. One would have thought, in fact many a captain had argued, often over a glass or two of something, that it would have made more sense for the winds to come from the northwest, this late in the season, for that was where winter ultimately came from.
People said the world tilted over on its axis, and that it took a while for the air and the winds to catch up as the world slowly toppled…this was what the philosophers called a theory.
But, just as no man could swear what lay a few short miles over the horizon, and the west was truly unknown, no one would ever be quite able to account for the weather. In this case, it was sufficient to know what it was, what it was likely to be, and to use it wisely.
The King of the Lemni had committed every ship available for his part in what was more of a grand raid as much as anything else.
Vaeomon hissed, more fearful now that strong voices could be heard from their immediate right. Plunder was one thing, glory and a name were another, but the enemy had tens of thousands of troops right over there—and their full fleet lay but a mile or so off the port bow.
“Can they see us?”
“Yes—most likely.” Lowren and the small party of Sicurri nobles were on the deck just ahead of the poop aboard Cygnus. “To them we’re just another supply column—albeit one coming the wrong way.”
They stared at the shoreline, and beyond that the anonymous pale bulk of the Horde’s fortress. The dawn light and shadow revealed that it was all earthen embankments, log revetments, stone bastions, formidable outer-works, stout low towers at the corners and the gates, with the contrasting materials of one type and another visible even from here.
As the light grew, men and guards with weapons on their backs stood watching along the shoreline, their tall spears just thin pale streaks, barely visible against the low straggling underbrush behind and up-slope.
With a strange smile on his face, Lowren looked right back.
Some wag on the boat behind them gave a long, and very loud wolf whistle.
It was like everyone froze on deck, except the rowers, who chuckled and muttered, even the more so when the faint sound of laughter and what must have undoubtedly been a rude response came from the people on the beach. They relaxed, and breathed again.
“Perfect.”
Captain Rollo spoke in a low tone.
“Here come the Heloi.”
Mouth open, heart picking up to almost an uncomfortable level, Lowren turned, just in time to see the spectacle of the Grand Fleet’s deployment.
***
It wasn’t much at first. It was just a couple of galleys, bristling with masts and sweeps, and behind them, up through the fog stuck the flags and pennants of those following.
The heavy bank of fog across the mouth of Kthmarra Bay ensured that little could be seen, but the first three or four ships were out in the clear as the men in the long ship Cygnus began to talk and mutter amongst themselves.
“Slow, slow.”
The boat was perceptibly picking up speed as the rowers in some unspoken agreement leaned into it ever harder. The bow went down as soldiers crowded forwards…
“Stick to the cadence, lads.” The captain addressed Lowren. “Their timing is good, sire.”
Presumably he referred to the Heloi.
There was a slight jerk and then they were all on their stroke again. A man at the front set the pace with a series of low grunts.
“Huh.”
“Huh.”
“Huh.”
Cygnus skimmed the waves. The helmsman was intent upon his mark and his purpose.
The others watched in breathless quiet as more ghostly ships came out of the fog-bank, bearing down on the long, straggling line of vessels anchored against the vast, curving sweep of the Kthmarra peninsula. They were still a good two miles off, but under sail and oar. Their speed was remarkable.
The captain spoke, startling them with its loudness and cutting through their sick fascination with events to the northeast.
“All right boys. Put your backs into her.”
In spite of the Cygnus being the flagship and the presence of their sovereign, at least two other lean shapes were close in on the right, cutting a tighter starboard curve. Really moving, they kept stroking madly and soon swept out in front.
Lowren laughed at the sheer impudence of it and now the people on shore were really waking up.
Someone off to their stern port quarter was shouting at the tops of his lungs, a solitary enemy sailor aboard a ship out there, and sounding terribly futile as the rest of the fleet was seemingly caught dead unawares…
“Pull, lads, pull.”
Pull.
Pull.
Pull.
They were only three or four hundred feet out from their beach now, with small wavelets lapping on the fine golden gravel. There were landing stages and piers straggling out into the sea. They angled steadily inwards, and with a glance over his shoulder, the captain made sure there was no one else there.
“Hard a starboard.”
“Yes, put us in, put us in, sir.” Lowren’s heart was beating hard, up about his throat somewhere…
Men were running down to the beach, and at least some of them had weapons. Even as Lowren watched, clutching his sword, even as the first Lemni arrows were launched into the soft morning air, one of the more intelligent enemy soldiers, a man in a shiny silver helmet and a long blue cloak with grey epaulettes, turned and pelted off up the hill, creamy sand spurting up from the soles of his boots as he did so.
The puff of dust that came when a half-pound of steel and hardwood punctured a man right in the middle of the chest was always going to be a little bit surreal.
The shock of the dying man’s nearest companions was considerable, and yet they still looked on in complete disbelief even as more arrows landed among them.
Men on shore started screaming and pointing and running about in all directions.
“Well. That’s torn it.” Vaeomon’s accent and the flat, unemotional tone cracked up the small party around him. “We are in a lot of trouble now.”
The rest of the men up and down the shore remained in straggling little groups, as if not quite sure of what they were seeing.
“They’re ready to unload for us, sire.”
“Yes, good lad. Now stick with our group, all right?”
Vaeomon’s two sons, Berchtold with a large axe and the younger one, Jaellyk, holding a short pike with their animal-headed flag just below the point, were poised and looking rather eager for action.
“All righty then, brace yourselves. Oarsmen, remain at your stations—I repeat, oarsmen, remain at your stations!” Captain Rollo had no intention of losing them the instant he hit the beach.
“Ah. Here we are.”
The prow of the dragon-headed ship Cygnus ground to a halt on rippled sand, in about two and a half feet of water.
Two young enemy soldiers waded out as if to grab the bow or something, but stopped abruptly on taking a closer look…their mouths opened and they stood there.
The sight of angry, shouting men jumping out in large numbers, brandishing swords and spears was a bit too much for them to take in all at once.
The boat was still forty feet out, and while there were tents and shacks and quite a few people about, it seemed there wasn’t much to oppose them. Men on the ships behind and beside them now engaged with their ballistas. The hum and whap of heavy darts came to their ears as various voices barked orders, trying to keep the boats from grounding. They needed to be able to withdraw on a moment’s notice. Lowren and his party ducked in reflex as their own men took the first shot, sending enemy soldiers flying back up the beach if nothing else. There was a quick tangle all about them as the small reserve party of oarsmen switched seats, facing in the opposite direction now.
They would have the best seats in the house, as someone had said. Sooner or later, they would have to leave, as all such raids went. Time, and surprise, were of the essence.
Putting a hand on the gunwale, Lowren leapt out, with the splashes of other men all around him and then he was striding onto the beach, shouting his battle-cry and rallying the men.
For surely where the king was, the action would be hottest.
***
At the head of a long column of ships as they were, Lowren and his troops were at the left or southeastern end of the beachhead. It was a wonderful place for a landing. The Hordesmen had chosen it well.
There were two empty boats their left, their men streaming ashore, and the others were either all aground or grounding was imminent in a long wave to the right. More would come along in a second wave. Their prows were just rounding the end of the ship nearest to his right. A dull thud from the water came then, and it seemed as if the first of the Heloi had rammed her bronze nose, a vicious spike protruding just below the waterline, into a fat victim. It was too much all going on at once, to see everything happening at that moment. The crash of timbers and a mast scrawling madly at the sky as a boom fell drew the eye in a heartbeat. Burning javelins and smoke trails trailed across the sky as the bulk of the Heloi fleet entered the engagement with the full force of sail and oar.
“Yay!” Men all around were shouting, most of them not even sure why, only that their brothers were shouting and that so far things were going well.
The noise, more heavy crashes and thumping and the sheer clangor from the fleet side of things was gratifying indeed. It was a simple disruption, and half their mission would be accomplished.
The landing party had a job to do as well.
They were behind the enemy in their fortress, although it was but a half mile or so. The enemy’s fortifications, surrounding Kthmarra in what must be a pretty thin line in places, was mostly inward-looking. While a few generals in history had continued a siege while under attack from without, those that had done so successfully had built fortifications with certain common elements. There were inner and outer walls along their line.
According to spies, the Horde’s circumvallation was competent enough.
This strip of beach was where the Horde unloaded their ships, and stores and stockpiles, animal pens and store-houses were all around them. Two white cows and a small herd of sheep milled around them for a moment, terror in their eyes, and then, turning, made off to the southeast again.
Men ran by him with burning brands and this glazed look on their faces that said they were slightly out of control.
“To me! To me!” Lowren, King of the Barbarian Lemni, had to find his way through the fearful jumble of the rather disorganized dockside unloading area, and get some troops out in front where they could meet the expected counterattack.
Spies had assured them that there was an open space between the port and the gates. Otherwise, things were going to get very sticky.
To fight in the built-up dockside area would be all small units, hand-to-hand, every man for himself kind of battle where the king would lose all control.
“To me! To me! It is I, Lowren, King of the Lemni!”
Several enemy soldiers, hearing the commotion but ignorant of the language, came sliding around the corner of a building and were promptly engaged by the sons of Vaeomon, who stood proudly at Lowren’s side as if daring anyone else to interfere. They rushed forwards to confront their panicked foes, spears not ready and yet useless before such behemoths.
“Good boy.’
Vaeomon remained at Lowren’s side, not needing trophies or validation, but just observing and probably being observed in his turn.
One Hordesman was quickly dispatched, the other was messily cut but yielded his sword on command. Vaeomon’s second son took proud charge of this prisoner. Leading him away with surprising tenderness, he immediately began dressing the wound. Other enemy troops turned and bolted at the sight of the beach parties, organized by their serjeants now. They came storming up th
rough the scattered buildings in clearly superior numbers.
A wave of heat and smoke washed over them as the first shacks went up.
A man went running by and Lowren bellowed at him.
He came promptly back.
“Stave in these barrels.” There were hundreds of them stacked up in flat-topped pyramidal heaps, with rows in between to walk through—or possibly to act as a break in case of fire. “Find out what’s in them!”
“Sire!”
“And grab a couple of men to help you. Open all the animal pens.”
“Yes, sire.”
There was a mob of Lemni and a lot of shouting at the end of the small street they were in.
Vaeomon plucked at his sleeve.
“Come, Lowren. I believe we are needed.”
Chapter Twenty
With a strong voice and his own pennant proudly carried along behind him, Lowren quickly established order. Several short blasts on the horn caught some of his men on the fly, but they broke off their pursuit and returned to the line he was forming.
There was a road leading a few hundred yards to the gate of the primary eastern bastion of the fortress. Choked with screaming men, wagons and teams, with drivers lashing their maddened animals furiously, it appeared the gate was still open over there.
Hundreds of heads lined the ramparts, which stood eight or ten feet above the ground, and the whole thing was on a rise which sat perhaps thirty feet above the level of the sea.
Barely visible through the open gates was a veritable sea of shining helmets and spear points sparkling in the morning sunshine.
Lowren turned to those closest.
“Right. The Sicurri shall have the place of honor.” Every one of the men there today had been fully briefed on what they were to do and what they were to expect in this morning’s little skirmish.
Of the oarsmen not on escape detail, or approximately half of his two thousand oarsmen, those not in the boats were lined up in three ranks on the right flank. Deployed from the northernmost ships, or the last ones to land, going up two hundred yards from the shore, that was one small division. They had their bows and two dozen arrows each. Lowren had backed them up with a hundred more experienced men-at-arms, which left him only fourteen hundred more. A good half of them were also guarding the boats and stopping them from broaching in the light surf.