by Duncan Lay
“Show them how a Gaelishman can die!” he cried as the Kottermanis moved in.
And then the horns sounded.
CHAPTER 54
Fallon wanted to sprint down to where Bran had to be fighting desperately but exhausting his men was not going to help them fight, so he just had them march fast. The rain made that easier too, for everyone instinctively sped up and hunched together.
Doors and windows opened as they trotted past and while he shouted at the first few townsfolk to get back inside and lock themselves in, they ignored him and he saved his breath. Dawn was approaching but it promised to be a dull and dark day. If he knew they would all see the sunset he would have been happy to be rained on. There was no chance to try and sit back and see what was happening: he had to get in there and trust that all the training they had gone through was drummed into his men’s heads and that they would fight as they had been taught. That just left him free to curse himself for not doing more to guard against a Kottermani attack. Kemal had fooled him and broken into the city. Thank Aroaril Bran had seen it and at least raised the alarm, but things were about to get desperate. The boom had been about giving him enough time to get his men positioned around the harbor so that when the Kottermanis landed, they walked into a trap. That chance was gone but the streets were still tight, tangled and in their favor. With luck he could still throw them back.
Shouts, screams and the clash of steel told him that Bran was close and he picked up the pace. “Sound the horns, let them know were coming!” he shouted. With no way to keep all the different groups in sight, they had instead worked on a series of horn calls to let all know what was happening.
Embattled shapes were materializing ahead out of the gloom, shadows cast across the cobbles by firelight from surrounding windows, obscured by fresh gusts of rain. He could see far fewer of his men than he had hoped, clustered together in a hedgehog. Drawing his sword he broke into a run, his favorite recruits tight at his shoulder.
Horn calls in the dark bellowed out their message and Bran’s man parted in the middle, melting back and away so Fallon could lead the charge through the gap they created.
There was a thick pack of Kottermanis on the other side, although they were not in any formation, and he struck them before they could rectify that. A man loomed out of the darkness and he stabbed ferociously, feeling leather armor resist for a moment and then give beneath the razor-sharp steel, the blade driving deep into stomach before scraping against the backbone. He sawed the blade and the Kottermani shook like a hooked fish, his mouth open in a hoarse scream. Fallon ripped the blade loose, blood following in a stream, then stepped on the falling man and jumped at another, hacking down this time. The Kottermani blocked his blow but Fallon elbowed him in the face and then slashed the sword across the exposed neck as the soldier’s head rocked back.
All around him, his men were tearing into the Kottermanis, the speed of their charge driving them deep into the enemy ranks. The surprise and ferocity made up for their lack of skill – this was not battlefield fighting but a cobbles brawl, where you were close enough to smell the spiced food on a Kottermani’s breath as you fought him. Men stabbed, slashed, punched, kicked and clawed at each other. You could not teach this but it came naturally to the Gaelish, who had had to fight for each meal since they had been born.
Then the Kottermanis broke and streamed away and Fallon skidded to a halt. “Form up! Sound it!” he roared, looking around for his men with the horns.
A handful of his recruits, their blood up and maddened by the slaughter, raced after the Kottermanis, heedless of his calls, and he knew he would never see them again. But he had bigger problems. Like where were the rest of the invaders.
*
“I have to know what is going on out there,” Bridgit said.
Padraig scratched his chin. “I will do what I can but it’s dark and wet. I doubt even Fallon knows what is going on.”
“Then find something. A bird perhaps, so we can watch what is happening,” she insisted.
He looked doubtful. “It would have to be a bloody stupid bird to be out on a night like this.” He sighed. “But of course I shall try.”
*
“Bran? Where are you?”
The sound of clashing weapons and shouting men died away but the wounded still screamed and moaned as they thrashed and bled. A wounded Kottermani drew a knife and lunged at Fallon’s leg but he saw the flash of steel in the firelight from a house opposite and stepped away, then kicked the man in the head, sending the knife flying.
The burly guardsman pushed through the ranks to his side. He was still heaving for breath and covered in blood, some of it his judging by the cuts on his arms and chest.
“They have more men coming. They had maybe three ships stuffed full,” he said.
“We have more as well,” Fallon said. “Can you fight?”
“Give me a few moments to catch my breath and I’ll be beside you,” Bran promised.
“Take your men to the back for now. Find some of the ones who have fought enough for now and have them drag our wounded back to the castle. We’ll tighten up and find where Kemal’s main force is. I have to let him know where I am so he comes for me.”
“You want him to come for you?” Bran asked, his face invisible in the rain and dark but the incredulity in his voice easy to hear.
“I don’t want him running off into the city. And besides, Gall, Dev and Brendan are nearby with their companies, ready to give Kemal a nasty surprise.”
He patted Bran on the shoulder and then formed the recruits up into tight ranks, with shields in front, ranks of spears behind that. This time he stood in the third rank, where he could see what was happening, while keeping Bran and forty of his remaining men as a reserve behind.
“Advance!”
This was slower but they had less distance to go, because the Kottermanis soon appeared out of the rain. Unlike before, when they had been chasing a broken foe and had therefore split apart, now they were in tight ranks also. As soon as they saw the Gaelish, they stopped.
From behind their front ranks, bows snapped.
“Duck!” Fallon yelled, unnecessarily, as the men at the front raised shields and everyone else hunched down.
Most of the arrows bounced off shields but a dozen men went down, crying out as the arrows sank into their flesh. A recruit next to Fallon fell, gargling blood with a shaft in his chest, but all Fallon could do was take his spear as he collapsed.
“Get close to them!”
His men needed no second bidding and hurried forwards, struggling to keep their order as another volley of arrows arched towards them. The tight ranks of the Gaelish began to fray as they hurried forwards, and Fallon worried that they would break apart on the rigid block of Kottermanis.
“Tight! Stay tight!” he shouted but they did not listen.
He felt fear then, that his men would die – and then a new noise cut through the din in the street. With a surge of relief he recognized it was the snap of crossbows.
“Get them!” he screamed.
*
Gallagher peered over the dripping roof, using one hand to keep himself steady. The wooden shingles were unstable at the best of times but the rain had made them treacherous. There was no choice, though: they had to help Fallon.
“Loose!” he cried.
From both sides of the street, his groups aimed crossbows down and triggered them. The rain was affecting the strings, making them harder to wind back and robbing them of their power, but at this range it made no difference. The tight block of Kottermanis seemed to crumple at the edges as the quarrels found targets.
Below, the Kottermani archers immediately changed their aim from Fallon’s men to the roofs above. Like the crossbows, their weapons were affected by rain and arrows pattered onto the roof with little of the brute force he had expected. Two of his men were hit, one in the arm, the other in the leg, but the Kottermanis were loosing blind into the dark, at men sheltering behind
the crest of the roof. By contrast, Gallagher’s men could just aim down at the street below and be sure of hitting something.
“Stay low! One more volley then we change to the next roof!” That was going to be a challenge, in the dark and the wet, but the shower of arrows landing around them said that staying there would be worse.
Then a cheer from the side streets told him the others were there.
*
Devlin held his men back, having them press tightly against the walls of the side street, so they could use the darkness. Men cursed as they stepped into unpleasant piles but he hissed at them and they kept their disgust silent. Ahead, he could see a solid block of Kottermanis. They were facing the other way and, although some were glancing down his street, there was almost no light to give him away.
When he judged they were as close as they could get without being seen he stepped into the center of the street and raised his sword. “Go!” he roared and led the charge.
They cheered as they followed him and, while the Kottermanis had the time to turn, they could not block him because he was striking at the right-hand side of the invaders’ column – and they all held their shields in their left hands.
The Kottermani flank crumbled as his men struck home, their soldiers unable to turn and defend themselves because of the press of bodies. Devlin rammed his sword into a man’s side and jerked it up and down before ripping it out in a gout of blood. The Kottermani next to his victim tried to stab him but a spear reached over Devlin’s shoulder and tore open the attacker’s throat. The Gaelish powered into the Kottermanis but Devlin could see the enemy soldiers were pressing forwards from either side of their alleyway, looking to cut off his men and then kill them.
“Back!” he shouted, his voice reaching over the screams, moans, ringing of steel on steel and butcher’s sounds of metal in flesh.
Devlin grabbed one of his wounded men by the tunic and hauled him backwards. A Kottermani tried to stop him but he lashed out, his sword ripping across the man’s face and tearing out his eyes. The agonized shriek gave his fellows pause and Devlin enough time to make it back into the side street. He almost threw the wounded man into the waiting men and backed away, calling his men into formation. As they had practiced so many times, the men with shields pushed to the front and spearmen stood behind. The street was narrow, only wide enough for a dozen men to stand side by side, and although the Kottermanis pushed after them, their greater numbers meant nothing in such close confines. The men with shields ducked down and covered up and let the spearmen do the damage, thrusting their long weapons into faces and bellies.
“Back it up, slowly now!” Devlin ordered, blinking rain out of his eyes. At least he hoped it was rain.
Then came what he was hoping for – one of Gallagher’s groups had seen the fight and now crossbows snapped above, loosing quarrels into the tight street, where they thumped into heads and shoulders and rang loudly off the Kottermani steel helmets.
The Kottermanis drew back and Devlin pulled his men away, moving to his next position.
*
Brendan could see the Kottermanis marching past him had all their shields facing his men and knew he had drawn the harder task. It would be a simple matter for them to form a shieldwall, but he was needed to break one apart. Getting back Nola and his girls had not stopped his lust for violence. He had seen the horror in his wife’s eyes when he showed her his hammer, encrusted with the blood and brains of men he had killed and, worse, he had seen the pity there. It made him even angrier. He just had to think of the foul Kottermanis dragging away his family and all the hatred bubbled back to the surface. He did that now, summoning his fury, then led his men in a screaming charge down the street into the Kottermani left flank.
They instantly crouched into a shieldwall, just their shining mailed heads showing above the line of wood but he was not there to jab swords at them. He swung his hammer from left to right at head height, taking out three men. The first had his head pulped, the second got a crushed skull and the third was stunned senseless, all three of them falling and dragging down the men around them. Before they could recover, Brendan brought his hammer back around from right to left, this time at chest height. One Kottermani tried to block it with his shield but the force of the blow splintered his shield, smashed his arm and caved in his ribs, throwing him like a rag doll into his fellows.
The other Kottermanis drew back as Brendan brought his hammer up and slammed it down, crushing a Kottermani helmet down into its wearer’s chest cavity. Now they really fell back and Brendan’s men poured into the gap he had created, stabbing and jabbing at everything they could see. Brendan cursed at not being able to reach a new victim but none wanted to face him. He lengthened his grip and swung it down onto a Kottermani locked in combat with one of his Gaelish recruits. The man saw it and raised his shield, only to have his arm and shoulder crushed. As he reeled away his Gaelish opponent finished him with a thrust to the throat.
“Back! Back!” Brendan bellowed and his men obeyed, just as the Kottermanis tried to cut them off from the safety of the dark street behind. Brendan strode away, daring the Kottermanis to come and get him. None took up the challenge.
*
Fallon rejoiced: the tight block of Kottermanis stopped and seemed to fall apart as crossbow bolts fell on them from above and Devlin’s and Brendan’s companies struck them from either side. Fallon held his men back, judging his moment then, when the Kottermanis appeared at their most distracted, led them forward again. The Gaelish lines had tightened up as the Kottermani archers switched their aim to Gallagher’s men on the roofs and they met the Kottermanis head-on.
For a few moments the Kottermani lines held, both sides snarling at each other over shields, pressed so close that they had no room to swing a sword. But the second and third ranks of Gaelish stabbed with spears and the Kottermanis had none of those – they began to fall, barely able to see the spears striking them in the dark and rain until it was too late, and the Gaelish pushed forwards, stepping over writhing bodies.
Fallon picked out a giant Kottermani soldier who was battering at the Gaelish line with sword and shield. He rammed his borrowed spear forwards, feeling it sink deep. The Kottermani fell, ripping the spear out of Fallon’s hands, and he let it go, pulling out his sword instead.
The footing became treacherous as blood, bodies, bowels, shit and brains combined with the rain to make a kind of human mud. And if you slipped, you became a fresh part of this mud. The stench filled the nose and was enough to make you vomit.
“Keep going! Push them back into the sea!” Fallon shouted. He felt like they could not stop him.
*
After what Abbas had told him, Kemal had expected the Gaelish to attack them from the rooftops and from the side streets. But he had not been prepared for the viciousness of the attacks, nor for the effectiveness of the crossbows. His men’s armor could not turn them back, despite the rain affecting their power. Yet he could not accept that the Gaelish were pushing his men back in a straight fight. That must not continue.
“Seal those streets off,” he ordered his boluk-bashi Mahir. “I shall go forward myself.”
“High one, surely it is better to stay back here, where it is safe,” Mahir said worriedly.
Kemal knew he had good reason to worry. If anything happened to the Prince, the boluk-bashi’s life would be forfeit, as would be the lives of his family. But that was not his concern.
“Nowhere is safe,” he said.
He drew his sword and pushed his way through the soldiers towards where the Gaelish fought his men, both sides spitting and screaming and slashing at each other. Some of the soldiers turned to protest but then saw who it was.
“Soldiers of Kotterman! Why do you retreat?” Kemal roared into the night. “Are we to be humbled by these barbarians? I go to fight them. Do I go alone?”
The men around him howled their answer and, as one, pushed forwards. The Kottermanis being pushed back by the Gaelish ran i
nto the men behind pushing forwards and both sides came to a stop, before the Kottermanis began to edge the Gaelish backwards.
“Do not stop, or I shall have to go forwards and kill them all myself!” Kemal bellowed and his men redoubled their efforts, hewing and hacking at the Gaelish with renewed vigor.
Kemal inspected them with satisfaction and looked around. Nazim should be in position by now. The Gaelish were brave but he had their measure now. Time to tighten the trap. He saw Mahir and beckoned the boluk-bashi over. “Take three companies and the last of Abbas’s men and swing around to our left to surprise the Gaelish there. You know the plan.”
CHAPTER 55
Devlin led his men in a fast march around the backstreets, aiming to meet up with the Kottermani advance further down and surprise them, perhaps even drive into the rear of their advance. He was more concerned about losing his way in the dark than anything else, so when the mass of Kottermanis poured out of the alleyways ahead, it took him a few moments to recognize them. They let loose with a volley of arrows that knocked over half a dozen of his men and made him realize how many of them there were.
“Back!” he shouted.
He raced away, hating having to leave wounded men behind, but knowing they could not rescue them and survive. Behind him, the Kottermanis poured through the streets in a silent wave, even more men than he had seen back on the main road.
For the first time that night, Devlin felt a touch of cold fear.
*
Gallagher saw the Kottermanis break cover and pointed them out to his nearest groups. “Sound the horns, we have to warn Fallon!” he shouted.
His men turned their crossbows on the new Kottermani advance but they replied with a huge cloud of arrows that forced the Gaelish to take cover. Men were struck and fell screaming. One group of a score or so was exposed on a roof where the Kottermanis could hit them from two sides. In desperation, the survivors broke and ran, ignoring the long ladders they carried and trying to jump to safety instead. Five made it, two more fell screaming to the street below to hit with a wet thunk that Gallagher heard over all the other battle noise. He leveled his crossbow and loosed, then waved to his men without seeing whether he had hit anything.
