Langoisse could see, however, that this would be far the more dangerous passage, for here were two great galleys, not turning an inch as he came to meet them, and their sides were crowded with Dragulya’s musketeers. Their culverins were in the bows, but stations had been made for esmerils between the oarsmen, so these ships could make some measure of reply to the blasts of his own cannon. He felt a cold sensation in his breast as he realised that the enemy had made this preparation to meet him, and knew that those gunmen would be the best Walachia had. He had hoped to find this hastily-assembled warfleet ill-fitted for the conflict, but contests between trader galleys and neatly- sailed pirates had been going on for far too long, and the masters of this armada had anticipated the threats which they had to meet.
In all the years he had been a pirate, harrying merchantmen in the Mediterranean, Langoisse had never met an enemy with such a sting as this, and though the best of his men were used to assaults against heavily-defended ships, they could never have faced the kind of fire that would now be directed against them. Had Langoisse the seahawk seen a prize as well-defended as either of these ships, he’d have let it go, with only a tear of regret, but he was not fighting now for spoil.
As the Spitfire swept into the passage between the galleys Langoisse marked how huge they seemed, and how crowded. He cried to the snipers in the rigging to get down, for it seemed all too likely that there was no good they could do, and they would make too ready a target for Dragulya’s men. His artillerists were all uninjured, and the shots from the galleys’ guns which hit the ship did little damage, but when the broadsides were fired all hell was let loose.
The Spitfire’s cannonade did terrible damage to the lower oar-decks of the great ships, but the men on their upper decks had hardly flinched, having anticipated that Langoisse would fire low across the water. A hail of shot was launched from both sides, peppering the decks of the caravel, and though the ship took hardly any damage from the musketballs, the men were by no means so fortunate. His own artillerists could manage no more than a single blast to either side while Langoisse took the Spitfire through the corridor between the ships, but the enemy had musketeers by the hundred, and two or three weapons to every man.
Leilah fired at the galley which was to port, but her pistols were useless at the range she had, and Langoisse grabbed her by the shoulders to force her down below the barrier to the side of the bridge. He ducked too, but had to leave her when the helmsman, despite the protective screen around the wheel, was struck in the neck and fell without a sound. Langoisse knew that there must be marksmen aboard the galleys who had been allotted this target, but there was no alternative save to take the wheel himself, so that he could bring the ship to port as soon as she was in open water again.
He looked wildly about, trying to gauge the damage that his own fire had done, and was glad to see that great holes had been ripped in the sides of both galleys. He knew that dozens of oarsmen must be slain, their oars broken, but he also knew that those ships would have oarsmen to spare, and that the destruction he had wrought might easily prove futile, unless they began taking in water too quickly. He laughed aloud at the thought of the consternation which would spread among the clever musketeers if their ship did begin to go down, but he knew that hours must pass before that could happen, and he knew that there might easily be plenty of time to take the gunners to another ship, unless la Valette could bring forward his bigger ships to sink the stricken vessels.
While the Spitfire was safe for a while, running again before the wind, near a mile in front of the third rank of galleys, Langoisse called out for a report on the condition of his fighting-men.
The news, when it came, was not good. Though the ship, hit only twice by cannonballs, was hardly hurt at all, he had lost fourteen men, either dead or too sorely wounded to do their work even though they were made of vampire flesh. One more passage like the last might leave him too few cannoneers to man the guns. One man, sent scurrying up the rigging, called down to him that he could see a ship afire, but that her blazing sails marked her for a friend, and that he could see two ships locked by a spur. From this, Langoisse judged that those who had sailed with him were faring no better than he, and probably worse.
He knew then that the battle would be lost. Of the four ships upon which he had fired, none could certainly be counted out of the subsequent action – it was entirely possible that all four could continue to Malta, in reasonable formation, and there land troops wherever the Lionheart and the Impaler wanted to deploy them. It was possible that one or two of the other lighter ships had caused greater distress, but the likelihood was that la Valette’s galleons would have to face the might of the galleys virtually intact.
The ships of the armada would not find it so comfortable to face the galleons’ broadsides, but if they followed the same strategy they had shown just now, their musketeers would surely win the day for them. Although the galleys were slow and ponderous by comparison with the sailing ships, they were well enough armoured to defend themselves against all that la Valette could do. Langoisse did not doubt that the Knights of St. John would give a mighty good account of themselves at sea, but there could be little doubt now that the real defence of Malta would rage around the walls of the Grand Harbour, and eventually about the walls of Mdina itself.
‘Take the wheel!’ Langoisse commanded Leilah, and when she had done so he leapt to the deck to muster his men, bidding seamen to the unattended guns, making ready for one last co-ordinated blast. He jumped up to a position in the rigging to measure the progress of the ship, and shouted to Leilah to make a steady passage between the two great galleys which lay before them.
This time, though, the galleys deliberately came apart, so that he would face only one when he went between them. This gave him a choice, and he elected to attack the ship on the port side, because his guns were slightly stronger on that side. It also allowed him to bring a full complement of artillerists to those guns, but the move was not all to his advantage, because he knew full well that this might be his last real chance to cripple a ship, and he would rather have fired at two close together.
Cannon-shot carried away part of the lateen sail and brought down part of the rigging, but too late to keep the Spitfire from her line. The bronze cannon boomed in ragged sequence, their shot tearing yet again into the hull of the galley. Then the musketeers struck back, and his own men began again to fall. Langoisse himself was scored in the left side, and though his vampire flesh could not be too badly damaged by such a blow, he knew that it was a sign of the end. Almost all of his injured men were vampires, but even vampires could not fight on if they were hit full in the body or the head, and almost all would lapse eventually into the deep sleep which was necessary for their artful bodies to make repair.
Langoisse controlled the pain in his scratched ribs, then slashed at his flesh with a dagger to remove the musket-ball before forcing the wound to close with insistent fingers. His senses reeled, but he took hold of himself and made himself move about the deck to take stock of the damage, showing himself to his men to seal their resolve.
Leilah, meanwhile, was trying to turn the ship to port again, perhaps intending to loop around and bring the Spitfire back alongside one or other of the galleys in the third rank, to fire yet another broadside. But with the ropes and sails so damaged, the caravel was limping in the water, and might be easy prey even for a galley’s gunners. She could make speed now only if she ran before the wind, and Langoisse called for more square sail, shouting to Leilah to run to the west, and bidding the starboard gunners to fire at the bows of any galley whose course they crossed.
Then he began to go to the wounded, one by one, to see what might be done to ease their condition, and to see whether he had men enough to repair the damage, and put the Spitfire back in fighting trim.
He bent over a common man who was shot in the belly, lying on his back on the deck. Strangely, the poor fellow seemed to feel little pain, though he did not have the vampire tric
k of command. His eyes were open, and he stared unblinking into the bright-lit sky.
‘Is it over?’ he asked, when he saw the face looming above him.
‘Nay,’ said Langoisse. ‘By God, it is not over, nor will it be while I’ve a gun to fire or a blade to swing. But I beg your pardon, for I fear you’ve lost your chance at immortality.’
‘Aye,’ said the man, ‘but I had the hope, and that was more than I was born to.’
Langoisse stood up, and left him, running back to the bridge and shouting as he went. Even as he ran, though, he knew that the fervour which still had him in its grip was not exultation, nor lust for blood, but a desperate kind of fear.
He had lost the knack of lying to himself.
But the man is right, he told himself, and he hath a better wisdom than my traitorous feelings will allow to me. I have the hope, and more than I was born to, and I will not own this fear which tries to hurt me. I’ve business yet with these enemies of ours, and I’ll have the measure that they owe me, if I pay for it in vampire blood!
FIVE
While the biggest galleys that Italy and Spain had lent to his use were bombarding the walls of the Grand Harbour, drawing fire not just from Valetta but from Fort St. Angelo and Kalkara, the advance guard of Dragulya’s army was taken by smaller ships into the harbour at Marsa Mxett, past the guns of Fort St. Elmo and Fort Tigné. The fire to which these two fortresses subjected the invading ships was by no means slight, but these vessels had sustained relatively little damage in the battle at sea, and Dragulya’s captains were under orders not to hesitate in sending his musketeers, even his vampire knights, to help with the oars during the critical hour of their passage.
From his station by the spur of the galley Cockatrice the voivode watched impassively as the cannons blazed in ragged sequence on the ramparts of Tigné. A great cloud of purple smoke roiled around the towers, soaring at first from the guns in the updraft above the cliff, then swirling and sinking as the particles cooled and moved into stiller air. Aboard the ship, the battle seemed all noise: the whine of cannonballs hurtling through the air; the splashing of shot which hit the water, sending up great sheets of spray; the splintering of wood where the missiles struck home. His own cannon made no reply, but his snipers in the rigging fired upwards at the cannoneers. Dragulya could see that there was little chance of hitting such targets, but the musketfire made the artillerists anxious, and helped a little to spoil their aim.
For the time being, there was no doubt that the Cockatrice and her companions had the worst of it; while she ran under the guns of the forts she was a target, and must stand up to the bombardment. The cannon-shot was taking its toll upon her upper decks, where the sailors bore the brunt of it, but most of Dragulya’s fighters were shielded, waiting below with the oarsmen, and the bronze cannon of Tigné had not the weight to smash the decks to smithereens, as some of the bombards of the Grand Harbour might have done.
The mainmast was shattered by a lucky shot, and sent wreaths of rigging everywhere. Half a dozen of his musketeers were sent flying, to land on the deck, dead or wounded. Dragulya was little troubled by that, but he cursed the panic which then broke out among the horses of his troop, which had to be on the deck ready for the assault upon the waterfront. Though they were educated not to waver under fire, the animals did not like the shifting decks beneath their feet. When they broke the rope which confined them on the deck they pranced back and forth, causing great confusion to the seamen and the soldiers alike. There had not been space aboard the warships for the ostlers who normally tended the animals, and the voivode shouted orders now to bring more soldiers from below, to help restrain the maddened beasts.
While Dragulya watched the drama unfold he saw a huge bay leap from the deck into the troubled water, where it struggled to swim, its forelegs beating the brine into foam. Mercifully, few others followed its example; crazed as they were, the horses were more afraid of the water than the littered deck.
The ramparts of the forts, high above the decks of the ships which slid between them in tight-set single file, were shadowed now that the sun was setting over the island. Their crenellations stood out in sharp silhouette, and every time a cannon fired the flash of the powder seemed all the brighter, and the roar of the gun all the more ominous.
The Cockatrice was passing now from the most dangerous zone, surging through into calmer water and cooler air. To Dragulya, it seemed that the harbour ahead was curtained with thin wreaths of descending smoke released by the dying wind. According to the legends of the Greeks, whose nation marked the southern boundaries of the Khanate of Walachia, this was supposed to be the mouth of one of several rivers which girdled that underworld to which the dead must go. As the Cockatrice made slow headway toward the darkened creek which fed the bay, the voivode could understand why credulous men might fancy that to be the case. To him, though, the dark and shrouded waters ahead were welcoming, a gateway not to the afterlife but to the damnation of the rebels of Malta.
Three galiots had already passed the guns of the forts, and were drifting now from the mid-channel, waiting for more ships to come through to gather for the landing. One at least was in a parlous state, lying very low in the water, her castles shot to pieces, but Dragulya could see his fighting men lining her upper deck, all the more anxious to depart the ship and run riot along the shore.
He looked towards the shore, measuring its extent in the murky light. As he had expected, the wharves and piers were thick with men, but he knew that they would be a thin line of defence. The island was too large, and its fighting men too few. Were he facing half or a third of the Order of St. John it would have been well-nigh impossible to land, but with all their forts and bays to guard, there could be no more real fighters arrayed against him here than a twelfth or a fifteenth part of their total force, perhaps augmented by some of Cordery’s new vampires and certain Gaulish traitors who had taken refuge here when the island broke from the empire.
There was no way to tell in this light how many of those he must face might be vampires, but Dragulya could see contingents of cavalry to either side of the bay, with pitched banners which bore great crosses after the fashion of crusader-knights. Which of the eight pillars of the order was directing operations against him Dragulya could not tell, but he did not care. What concerned him more was the order of his own troops, who might have to fight on foot en masse if the horses could not be sufficiently calmed. He scanned the decks of the galiots, but they had few horses aboard, and he had to call to the sea-captain on the bridge to ask what difficulties they had aboard the ships now under the guns. He waited while messengers ran back and forth, but was glad to see that the animals on the Cockatrice were under better control.
The voivode called for the musketeers to come to starboard and form ranks, ready to fire upon the north shore when the moment came for the Cockatrice to run into the shallower water. For the moment, the oarsmen were resting easy, no doubt believing themselves to be in the final stages of exhaustion. They knew by now that they were out of the firing line; and had come safely to the end of their hazardous journey. The fear which had lent its force to their efforts was spent now, and the greater number of them would be collapsed like broken dolls. They had a few more pulls to make, to guide the galley closer to the shore, in the face of musket-fire, but more ships would have to come through before the assault began.
Dragulya leapt down from the spur, and ran the length of the deck to the stern of the vessel, where he could see what progress the following ships were making. He clenched his fist as he watched, his eyes following the line of vessels as it marched dutifully into the range of the spitting cannon.
He hoped that the pilots who had been brought to him in Naples, claiming to know these waters well, had given advice which could stand the proof to which it now must be subject as the shipmasters struggled to bring the leading vessels into formation, edging closer to shore. His vampires wore very light armour, but his common men were more heavily clad, and co
uld not go through the water. He knew that the balance of power here was more likely to be settled by the firepower of his common musketeers than the courage of his knights.
In all likelihood, his vampires would be evenly matched against the vampire knights of St. John. He had to keep in mind, too, that the defending forces would have more young vampires, who had learned to fight in a modem way. His own batallions had still a great number of vampires who had first learned their skills in a world of swords and arrows, though his forces were not nearly so ill-equipped for contemporary warfare as Richard’s men, who were hamstrung by their education in an out-dated code of chivalry, and still did their mock-fighting with lances. He knew from his own experience how difficult it was for a fighting man to adapt his reflexes to the changing arts of combat. He did not believe, however, that the new knights of Malta had guns enough to have become expert in their use, and when he measured the fire that was coming now from the nearer side of the bay he was confirmed in this opinion. Malta had not the armaments to defend itself, no matter how many of its people had tasted the alchemist’s elixir.
The Cockatrice wheeled slowly in the water as the sea-captain and the steersman made way for other ships coming up astern. Most of the oars were still laid to rest, the remainder gentle in the water. Dragulya called to his men to fire when they had the range, to sow what consternation they could along the shore. The ship must wait until the following vessels were almost upon her, so that the invading fleet could discharge the greatest possible number of men at one time, rather than dispatching a trickle of soldiers at well-grouped and steady opponents, but the galleys must not become too crowded in the water. If one vessel were to go down, to block the channel with a waterlogged hulk, it would create great difficulties for the remainder. Dragulya knew the virtue of patience, yet he dared not wait too long, and his gut seemed twisted with the tension of the wait.
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