by Duncan Lay
*
Brasso reached the nearest jetty and reached up with a half-frozen hand for a tarred rope that hung down from the wooden platform. His feet and hands felt like lumps of ice and, blessedly, he had long since lost feeling in his balls. Yet his chest still hurt. He hung on the rope, panting, knowing that his strength was slipping away with every heartbeat. It was dangerously tempting to give up and let the cold claim him. But Captain Fallon was relying on him. The Kottermanis were in the harbor and, unless he raised the alarm, would be in the city soon after. With a cry that was half defiant shout, half agonized groan, he hauled himself up and out of the water, lying on the rough wooden jetty. Again he wanted to just lie there but he could not let the bastards win. Not when they had killed his mates, cut him and left him to die in the freezing water. He rolled to his feet and pushed himself into a rough trot. He had come this far. They would not beat him.
*
Bran had his feet up on the harbormaster’s table, enjoying the warmth from the fire and trying not to watch the sand trickle through the hourglass, which would mean he had to go out in the wind and the rain to check on the guards. It felt like a pointless guard duty but Fallon had ordered it, so there he was. The Kottermanis would not be out in this weather. They would be sailing for home. He did not want to go out in it, for Aroaril’s sake! He was tempted to close his eyes but that would be setting a bad example to the rest of the guards, who sat around playing dice. A few moons back he would have gone to sleep anyway, but that was before he met Fallon. Being punched in the throat by the Captain had been a wake-up call for Bran. He had despised most of the officers, especially the coward Quinn and the brutal bastard Kelty, both dead now. But Fallon had shown him something different, and now he was an officer himself.
His memories were abruptly cut short by a thump at the entrance, sounding like a body hitting it. He jumped out of his chair and threw open the door, the rest of his men abandoning their dice game, to see one of his recruits hanging on to the lintel. He was soaking wet, without any trews on, and his shirt was torn and bloodstained. His face was white and he was shivering violently.
It took Bran a heartbeat to recognize him. “Brasso! What happened? Get him something warm to drink and a blanket,” he snapped over his shoulder.
Brasso let go of the doorframe and lunged at him, frozen hands raking at his face and his breath coming in gasps. “Kottermanis. In harbor. Everyone else dead,” he gasped, then his eyes rolled up and he slumped towards the floor.
Bran lowered him to the floor but could not spare the time to take care of him.
“Get those lights out!” he ordered, darting out into the rain, blinking his eyes clear of the brightness and peering into the rain and the gloom. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust and then he saw a small group of lanterns down by the Kottermani jetty, waving up and down. He looked out to the harbor and saw white water: big ships were moving through where the boom should be. Already they were closing in on the jetties and he realized, without Brasso, the first he would have known of it was when the rowers burst through his door. He cursed himself but did not take too long doing so, because time was running out. He was tempted to race down and kill the men with the lanterns but realized with a sick sense of horror that the harbor was lost. The only chance was to try and save the city.
“What do we do, sir?” one of his recruits asked.
“Drag Brasso over by the fire and cover him with a blanket. If he lasts until the end of this, and if any of us are still alive, we will come back for him. You four, race to Captain Fallon and tell him there are hundreds of Kottermanis in the harbor. I’ll wake the guard company and block the main road to the castle, try and slow them down. Try to get back before we are all killed,” Bran said. “Go now!”
His fastest men raced off towards the castle while he led the rest to where a company of men was sleeping in a nearby warehouse. The plan was to have them meet any advancing ship with a hail of crossbow bolts, but it was too late for that. He wiped rain out of his eyes and ran hard. Brasso had given them a chance. They owed it to him to use it.
*
Bridgit was nestled into Fallon when the horns sounded. They had just fallen asleep, having talked long into the night, trying to tell each other all that had happened since that terrible night in Baltimore. At first she thought it was a dream, then he sat bolt upright and she realized the alarm was for real.
“What’s that?” she asked.
Fallon rolled out of bed, looking wide awake as he hauled on his trews. “That you were right and the Kottermanis are here,” he said grimly. “I need you to stay here with Kerrin.”
“I thought we weren’t being apart again? I can lead men. I destroyed the Kottermani weapons during our escape,” she said.
But he was not listening, instead running out of the room as he pulled a tunic over his head.
She cursed. Once she would have been happy to stay out of the way, but not now. Worse, it was obvious that Kerrin had spent far too much time with the recruits and even longer practicing his crossbow. He would be even more eager than she was to get into the battle. She cursed again and went looking for her son. On no account would he be allowed to join his father.
*
“Where are they?” Fallon demanded as he joined his friends and officers in the shadow of the gatehouse, where it was dry, even if still cold.
Gallagher pointed to four panting recruits, who leaned up against the wall.
“The harbor is lost. Kemal must have hidden men somewhere in the city. They opened up the boom and sailed in. Bran is slowing them down on the main road to the castle.”
Fallon did not waste time kicking himself. “You know what to do. Your men have trained there often enough. They will be looking to strike through to the castle. Get to the rooftops, hit them from all sides, just as we planned.”
“The roofs will be slippery. And the rain will slow down the bows,” Devlin warned.
“The same for them. Get into the city as fast as you can. I’ll take my company down and see if we can’t save Bran and buy you some more time.”
“Is that wise?” Gallagher asked.
“No, but I have to do it anyway. They want me more than anything. Once they see me, they will throw their main strength where I am. We can use that. And, besides, it will protect the rest of the city from them. See you down by the docks!”
*
Bran waited nervously. He had roused the guard company easily enough but the plan to block the main road out of the docks with burning wagons was doomed to failure in this rain. Instead the men had tipped the wagons onto their sides and then dragged barrels and boxes out to form a crude fighting step behind the shelter of the wooden vehicles. With most of his original squad and a hundred recruits, he had enough men to form a comfortingly thick barrier behind the wagons, but he had seen several ships breaking through the boom and Aroaril knew how many Kottermanis were coming.
The recruits were all nervous, while some were plainly terrified. They had been awoken abruptly and told they had to spend their lives holding this spot. He tried to encourage them but the rain was dampening spirits and strings on the dozen crossbows he had. Worse, they had woken some of the nearby people, who were watching from the shelter of doorways, despite his best efforts to get them away, or at least out of harm’s way.
The thud of boots on cobbles told him something was coming, then the rain seemed to take on a different sound. It took him a moment to realize why.
“Arrows! Take cover!” he roared, ducking closer to the dripping wagons.
Next moment the wagons shook and rattled as arrows thumped home, or bounced off the cobbles with a sharp noise. Then the screaming started: a handful of men who had been too slow or had not heard his warning and been caught in the arrow storm.
The wounded were dragged into shelter as more arrows fell. The rest of them hunched into the shadow of the wagons, which splintered and groaned at the assault. Then it stopped as abruptly as it started a
nd was replaced by cheering and the thud of many boots running.
Bran risked a glance over the top of the wagon to see a wave of Kottermanis flooding towards him.
“Up and at them lads!” he screamed, leaning down to haul up a recruit onto the barrel beside him.
Next second the Kottermanis struck the wagons, some of them trying to shove them over, others clambering up to slash and stab with swords.
But the wagons were too heavy to move and the Gaelish were higher up and most had spears, rather than swords. The recruit next to Bran lunged down, the leaf-shaped spearhead driving home into a Kottermani chest. The Kottermani shook and screamed and thrashed, nearly hauling the spear out of the recruit’s hands and Bran had to grab hold of the haft to help, until the man fell off the other end. A Kottermani reached up to grab the shaft but Bran slashed downwards, opening the arm to the bone and breaking the elbow.
The recruit thrust again, his spear opening a throat and silencing a challenge and Bran risked a glance to the left and right. His young charges were standing firm, thrusting their spears and swords down to knock Kottermanis back. A handful of Kottermanis tried to push through the space between two wagons but a pair of Gaelish triggered their crossbows and sent Kottermanis flying, then both sides jabbed impotently at each other with swords that could not reach flesh. Bran leaned over and hacked down, feeling the shudder as his sword struck the back of a man’s head, taking off part of his skull like a fresh-boiled egg.
To Bran’s right a group of Kottermanis was forming a pyramid to get on top of a wagon, and he leaped down to race across to help the defenders there. He hurdled up onto a thick wooden box just as a Kottermani appeared above him and rammed his sword up into the astonished man’s mouth. Hot blood poured onto hands made cold by the stinging rain and the Kottermani disappeared, only to be replaced by more. Bran hacked at knees, bringing one man tumbling down on their side of the wagons, where recruits rammed spears into his torso, despite his desperate cries.
One of the recruits rammed a spear into the groin of the Kottermani above him and the man’s terrible scream cut through even the furious noise of fighting.
Bran wiped his face clear of blood and rain, the thick taste and smell making him want to vomit, and cheered on the recruits. They were suffering too – he saw one Gaelish spear grabbed and the recruit behind it hauled over the wagons and into the crowd of Kottermanis to be chopped to pieces. Kottermanis who made it over the wagons were slashing around themselves like men possessed and any who tried to match swords with them were cut down. But the spears proved a decisive advantage and the last of the Kottermanis on or over the wagons were brought down.
Bran shoved a wounded Kottermani off the top of the wagon but, instead of landing on the men below, he hit the cobbles with a wet thump. Bran peered out into the rain and saw the Kottermanis pulling back, dragging some of their wounded with them.
The ground in front of the wagons was a charnel house of severed limbs, blood and brains, with wounded men moving weakly and crying out in different languages, while on his side of the barricade, a dozen recruits were begging for help as their lifeblood leaked out onto the cobbles.
“We did it! Get the wounded moving back to the castle, then get ready for the next ones,” Bran shouted.
The recruits cheered themselves, roaring out their delight at surviving and clapping each other on the back. Bran did not have the heart to tell them that worse would follow.
*
Kemal wanted his men off the ships as quickly as possible and, although they raced down the prepared planks to the empty docks, he still chafed at the delay. As soon as he had a company of about a hundred he sent them up the main road under the command of one of his boluk-bashi, leaders of a company, to scout the way.
He decided he would lead the main body up the road, while the second group was given over to his senior officer, or corbaci, a tough, seasoned veteran with an impressive moustache, called Nazim. Abbas and his men, fresh from their exploits in opening the boom, would lead them around the back, ready to come in at the castle from behind, or crush Fallon’s forces as they tried to fight back. This regiment had further to go and so he let them get organized first: a thousand of his best men, almost all of them with bows. The rest of his force, about fifteen hundred soldiers and sailors, would crash their way through from the front.
He finally had them ready, as Nazim and Abbas led the other wing off into a dozen small alleys and a maze of warehouses. But before they could begin, the scout company came straggling back, dragging a score of wounded men with them.
The boluk-bashi, Mahir, a hulking man with a thick beard and a scarred face, bowed his head. “High one, they have barricaded the road and in such numbers that they turned us back.”
“We cannot delay,” Kemal snapped. “Forward!”
He set off at a run, knowing his men had to stay ahead of him. The wounded were left by the docks and Mahir overtook him swiftly, others forming a thick line between him and any Gaelish.
“What is the barricade?” Kemal asked as he slowed down to a jog.
“Wagons, high one. We tried to push them over but could not move them.”
“They must be pulled down. One company to do that, one to keep the defenders occupied and the third to drop arrows down their throats,” Kemal decided.
“What of our men attacking the barricade? Should the archers not hold off?” Mahir asked.
“We do not have time. Every moment gives the Gaelish a chance to fight back. We have to break that barricade.”
“Your will, high one,” Mahir said, and snapped out orders.
A few doors and windows opened as they went past, people looking out at what was happening. As soon as they saw the endless stream of soldiers, the doors were slammed shut again. Kemal ignored them – there was plenty of time to deal with them later.
The barricade was hard to see in the darkness and it was the smell of blood and opened bodies that first alerted him.
He slowed down as one company raced at the barricade with a roar, while another sent arrows hissing down through the air. In an instant there was fighting all along the barricade, as Gaelish thrust at his men with spears and swords and his soldiers fought back, both sides falling to the arrows that sprouted like magic across the top of the wagons.
But he was more interested in the other company, the one that jumped up and grabbed the wagon wheels on their side. More and more men hung on them and hauled them downwards. The defenders tried to shove them away with spears but they were almost out of reach, and those Gaelish who exposed themselves were easy meat for the swords below.
With a roar, one of the wagons began to tip, and Kemal watched in approval as his soldiers flung themselves at the top of it to haul it over. Men fell as it toppled and several had their hands crushed under the wheels, but the barricade was open and his men swarmed through.
The Gaelish fought back briefly, slashing and stabbing, but those on boxes and barrels were hauled down and hacked up, and the rest ran, sprinting down the road towards the castle, a company of Kottermanis in pursuit.
“Clear this away,” Kemal ordered and his men hurried to obey.
“Their wounded, high one? Put them to the sword?” Mahir asked.
Kemal shook his head. “No. We will rule here. Killing their wounded might come back to haunt us later. Form up and press on. And have the archers watching the rooftops!” He remembered only too well what had happened when Fallon had trapped him before – the vicious hail of crossbow bolts that had slaughtered his guards.
He joined the middle of the march, acknowledging the men around him. The way to the castle was open and Fallon would not have time to stop him.
*
Bran looked over his shoulder, seeing the Kottermanis staying close. He had fought furiously to stop them pulling the wagon over but once it went, had bellowed for the Gaelish to run. Those too slow had been killed and he guessed he had barely sixty of his original number left. Most were spattered with
blood and gasping for breath but all still held their weapons. Which meant they could fight. Time to really test the training, he decided.
“Hedgehog!” he roared and skidded to a stop, turning abruptly.
For a heartbeat he thought they were going to keep running and he would be torn apart by angry Kottermanis but then they stopped and turned too, clumping close together the way they had practiced endlessly, creating a thick spine of spears bristling with sharp points.
The Kottermanis barely had time to be astonished before they ran onto the blades, sharp spearheads ripping through armor and into ribs, stomachs, chests and throats. Men screamed as they were forced onto the points, then the Gaelish ripped out the spears and turned to run once more.
The Kottermanis gave a roar of fury and redoubled their efforts, closing faster.
Bran looked left and right and could see his men were struggling to keep going. The fighting had left them exhausted. Some were slipping on the rain-slicked cobbles and soon the stragglers would be dropping behind, where they would be slaughtered by the Kottermanis. He could not stand that, so there was nothing for it but to form line and fight.
“Again!” he shouted and he thought his heart would burst with pride when they obeyed him instantly, even though they had to know this meant their death.
This time the Kottermanis were prepared, and slowed down before running onto the blades. They waited, their numbers increasing by the moment.
“Give up or die!” one of them shouted in thickly accented Gaelish.
“Bog off!” someone cried back and Bran grinned in the darkness, panting for breath, as they all howled it at the Kottermanis. It was a fine gesture, even though the Kottermanis could not know what it meant.
