by DAVID B. COE
Chapter 18
Landry peered over his shoulder at his companions. Tancrede, Godfrey, and the other knights appeared to share his alarm. He gestured for them to retreat around the corner, and followed when they did.
“Any suggestions?” Godfrey asked when they had gathered in a tight cluster.
“My men are good with knives,” Kad said, lank, dark hair framing his face. “Fighting and throwing.”
“Through bars?”
“If need be.”
“One missed throw,” Gawain said, “one blade that bounces off a bar, and we’re done. That’s a great risk to take.”
“What else do we have, Templar?” Kad asked.
The smell of burning wood tinged the air. Landry found Godfrey with his gaze.
“We haven’t much time,” the commander said.
“The knives, then,” Kad said. “At least let us try.”
All of them looked to Godfrey.
“Very well. How many knives do we have?”
Four of the knights and seven of the sailors produced blades.
Kad dipped his chin. “That should be enough.”
“Wait.” Landry slipped the knife from the bracer on his forearm and handed it to the sailor. “An even dozen.”
Kad grinned.
“We’ll get as close as we can,” Godfrey said. “And if we must, we’ll shield you from arrows.”
“With what?”
“With ourselves, of course.”
The sailor blinked. “You’re either mad, or the bravest men I’ve ever known.”
“We can’t throw,” Godfrey said, holding up his mangled sword hand. “The least we can do is protect you while you make the attempt.”
“I can throw,” Nathaniel said. “I’m pretty good, actually.”
Kad handed the young knight the knife Landry had just given him. “Then have at it.” He made certain that his men had blades as well. “We’ll need to do this quickly, but don’t all throw at once,” he said. “Two or three at a time until all four men are down.”
When all the sailors were armed, Landry and Godfrey led them back toward the gate. As soon as they could see the torch-fire again, they set their backs to the side walls and inched on. Light from outside spilled into the corridor, but only a few yards. The rest of the passage remained in shadow, and with Redman’s men in the torch glow Landry thought it possible that they would be unable to discern much beyond the reach of the light.
The pirates lingered in front of the gate, speaking among themselves. Two of them laughed at something.
Landry and the other prisoners closed the distance between themselves and the cutthroats.
“Do you smell something?” one of Redman’s men asked the rest.
“Smell what?”
“I don’t know. Smoke?”
“There have been fires burning all night, in every corner of this place.” The man who said this laughed, as did the other two.
The first pirate stepped closer to the bars, sniffed, and pointed. “This is coming from in there.”
“Now,” Kad murmured.
In one fluid motion, Kad stepped away from the wall, cocked his arm, and threw his knife.
A rustle of air, a dull thud, and the first pirate toppled back, Kad’s knife buried to the hilt in his chest.
For an instant, the other three pirates stood stock still, mouths agape, wide eyes fixed on their dying comrade.
Three more knives flew. One clanged against a bar. One cleared the gate but hit no one. The third took a second pirate in the neck.
The two survivors unslung their bows, nocked arrows to string, and fired. Kad’s sailors ducked. As the pirates reached for their quivers again, three more men threw their knives. One of the pirates spun and fell, a blade in his shoulder. He cried out in pain.
The last man standing loosed another arrow. It soared past, clattering against the curved wall behind the knights and sailors.
Two more of Kad’s men threw their knives. One glanced off a bar and missed the pirate. The other embedded itself in the man’s thigh. He dropped to one knee, but launched another arrow.
A scream from Brice reverberated off the tunnel walls. The knight fell, clutching his leg.
The last two men – Nathaniel and a sailor – hurled their weapons. Both struck true and the pirate fell onto his side, knives jutting from his chest.
The wounded pirate continued to cry for help.
“Get that gate open!” Godfrey said.
Landry raced to the bars, flung himself to his knees, and reached through the bars for the lock. He dug out the key he had used to free Kad and the sailors. It didn’t fit in the keyhole.
“Damn!”
He remembered the second key, the one that had opened his own cell and those of the other Templars. This one didn’t fit either. Shouts echoed from elsewhere in the compound; he couldn’t tell from which direction they came, but he had no doubt that the pirate’s screams would draw men from everywhere.
“Draper! The sliver of iron I gave you! Tell me you still have it!”
Draper hobbled to him and pulled the sliver from within the gathering of his hair, which, as always, he wore tied back.
Landry took it from him with a huffed laugh. “Serves me right for not wearing my hair longer.”
He worked the spike into the keyhole, and twisted it much as he had when trying to free himself from the cell. Holding the lock in his hand, being able to see what he was doing, made this a far simpler task. In seconds he defeated the mechanism, unlatched the shackle, and pushed open the door.
Tancrede strode through the door and to the pirate, who shied away from him. Tancrede set his blade to the base of the man’s neck. The pirate ceased his screams. Draper joined Tancrede, and the two of them hoisted the man to his feet and pulled him back inside. In short order, they bound and gagged him.
“Take him deeper into the tunnel,” Godfrey said. “Bring back our torches; leave him there. Alive.”
“Awake?” Tancrede asked.
Godfrey eyed the man, shrugged. “I’ll leave that to you.”
Tancrede and Draper started away with the man.
“We haven’t much time,” Godfrey called after them. To Kad, he said, “Which way?”
“Left out the gate, then left again toward the main entrance to the fortress. As far as I know, that’s the only way out.”
“That would also be where we’re likely to encounter the bulk of Redman’s crew.”
Kad’s expression darkened. “Yes.”
Tancrede and Draper returned, bearing the torches. “The tunnel is filling with smoke. We have to go now.”
“There has to be another way out of here,” Godfrey said, taking a torch from Draper. “No fortress has only one egress; that would be folly.”
Kad took a torch as well. “We don’t have time to find another.”
“Don’t we?” Godfrey asked. “If it’s hidden – a sally port of some kind – Redman will assume we can’t find it. He’ll mass his men at the one gate we’ve seen, thinking that’s our only choice. All we need to do is find the other way out, and we can avoid his army.”
“And if they hunt us down first?”
“We fight, as we’ve planned all along. But do you honestly believe twenty-one of us can battle our way through two hundred?”
Kad’s silence was answer enough.
“Think, brothers,” Godfrey said, “where would we find a second gate?”
“Not so close to the main gate that soldiers can be seen leaving,” Gawain said. “But not so far that they can’t make a quick sortie against those laying siege.”
“East or west?”
Landry lifted a shoulder. “Who’s to say there couldn’t be both? One for use when the sun is low in the east, the other for use at dusk.”
“All of this is beyond me,” Kad said.
Godfrey started toward the gate, motioning for the others to follow him. “Just as talk of ships and sails is beyond me,” he said
over his shoulder. “Stay close. Make as little noise as possible. We turn right out of the gate, and make our way to the fortress wall. Friend, will you lead the way?”
“Of course.” Kad took his place at the fore and led them out into the night.
The sailors and knights didn’t worry about stealth as much as they had done in the tunnels. They made their way toward the fortress wall. If not for the Templars’ wounds, Kad and his men would have run. As it was, they walked at a brisk pace. Landry gripped his sword, gaze flicking from building to building, shadow to shadow. His swollen hand itched to grasp a weapon, but he didn’t think it strong enough to endure the force of blade-to-blade combat. Glancing behind them, he saw smoke rising from the barred windows of the dungeon building. He also saw men pursuing them.
“Godfrey!”
The others whirled.
At least twenty pirates advanced on them.
“They’re here!” one of them shouted.
Kad muttered a curse.
“Let us take the center,” Godfrey said, already positioning himself to do just that.
Kad matched him stride for stride. “You’re hurt.”
“We’re knights,” the commander said in a tone that put an end to their discussion.
Landry, Tancrede, and the other knights gathered with the commander, the sailors at their backs. Redman’s pirates reached them seconds later, with cries of battle and the clangor of steel on steel.
Landry found himself facing a brawny man, bald, about his height, with dark eyes and a sword stroke as heavy as a smith’s sledge. The man’s first blow nearly ripped the sword out of his hand. The second sent rays of pain through his arm and into his shoulder.
The third told Landry all he needed to know about the man’s tendencies. He tipped his head each time he drew back his blade, and though his attacks were powerful, they were slow.
Landry parried this latest stroke, and flicked out his blade, slicing the man’s forearm. The pirate hissed a curse. He raised his arm to hammer at Landry again. Landry stepped to the side, pivoted, drove his blade into the man’s gut. He pulled his sword free, and spun away, not bothering to watch the man fall.
He struck out at the next pirate. This one was leaner, quicker, with a longer reach. He lacked the first man’s strength, however. Landry parried and shifted, drawing on his own quickness. With his sword hand he might have battered the man into submission, but he didn’t have that luxury. They traded strikes, swords sparking in the darkness. Landry swung his torch at the man, forcing him to duck and then parry a sword strike. But for every attack Landry launched, the man countered with one of his own. Landry’s muscles, still sore from the torment Redman had inflicted on him, weakened by days of inaction and deprivation, soon tired. His reactions slowed.
This man should have been no match for him. He saw openings, opportunities for a swift and decisive victory. By the time he struck, though, the pirate had recovered enough to defend himself. Sweat dripped into his eyes. He brushed his brow with a swipe of his wounded hand.
The pirate attacked again, driving Landry back a step. This was intolerable. He bellowed his frustration and leapt at the man, sword descending, torch sweeping within inches of the man’s face. The pirate blocked the sword blow, but fell back in turn. Landry hacked at him again, and a third time. The pirate went down on one knee. Landry feinted another chopping attack. When the pirate raised his sword again, Landry altered his strike, sweeping his blade at the man from the side. The sword bit into the pirate’s shoulder. He cried out, his arm dropping. Landry finished him with a second sweep across his neck.
He turned again, expecting another assault. None came. Pirates lay dead at their feet. Godfrey’s chest heaved with each breath, and he bled from a cut on his brow. Tancrede dispatched a pirate with a thrust to the heart. Gawain struggled with a man as broad in the chest and shoulders as Landry’s first foe.
Landry and Tancrede rushed to his aid at the same time. The pirate backed away, regarding them both with panic in his eyes. He didn’t see Gawain hew at his neck until it was too late.
“Thank you, brothers,” Gawain said.
They paused to survey the carnage. All the pirates were dead. One of Kad’s men had been killed as well, and another had sustained a vicious wound to his arm. Draper attended to the man, but when Landry caught his eye, the Turcopole gave a subtle shake of his head. Landry didn’t know if his friend thought the sailor would lose his arm or his life. Either way, they had no time to do more for the man here.
“Come on,” Kad said, taking the lead once more. “There’ll be more of them before long.”
They ran on, bloodied swords held ready.
Tancrede fell in beside Landry. “You’re hurt.”
“I am?”
The lean knight actually laughed. “Your cheek and your shoulder.”
Landry glanced at his shoulder. It bled from a wound he hadn’t felt. He touched his cheek; his fingers came away bloody.
“They’re nothing.” Landry looked Tancrede over. “You’re all right?”
“For now. I’m weary already, and I shouldn’t be.”
“Yes,” Landry said, biting off the word. “So am I.”
They snuck around the back of a large stone building. As they cleared the far corner, another band of pirates set upon them: ten, this time. Too small a force to do much damage, but they caught the sailors and knights off guard. Kad ducked under a sword stroke that would have severed his head. He stumbled, and the pirate pounced.
The sailor parried desperately. Redman’s man gave him no chance to rest. He lashed at Kad again. His blade glanced off the sailor’s sword and sliced into Kad’s forearm.
Godfrey and Gawain stepped in front of the sailor to take up his fight. The pirate retreated, but Godfrey kept after him.
The other Templars and sailors engaged the remaining pirates. They had the advantage of numbers, though one of them had fallen and another was too weakened to fight. Landry battled a man on his own, hacking at him with his blade. First high, then low, then high again. The man blocked each strike, but he struggled with the third. Landry brought his sword down as if to strike low a second time. When the man lowered his guard, he spun toward the man’s off hand and aimed his attack high, at the pirate’s head. The pirate wrenched himself to the side, trying to parry. He wasn’t quick enough.
Landry tugged his blade out of the man’s skull and let him fall.
Gawain and Godfrey had killed Kad’s attacker. Gawain tied a strip of cloth around the sailor’s wounded arm.
Seven of the remaining pirates were dead or wounded. The last one fled. Two of Kad’s men threw knives at the retreating figure. One embedded itself in the man’s back just below his shoulder. He staggered, grabbed at the knife but couldn’t reach it. Still he stumbled on.
“Can you keep going?” Godfrey asked Kad.
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not really, no.”
They ran on. After only a few steps, however, Draper slowed and stopped.
“Do you smell that?” he asked.
Landry smelled nothing, and said so.
Godfrey returned to where the Turcopole stood. “What is it, Draper?”
“Oil. I smell lamp oil.”
As soon as he said this, Landry smelled it too. It was strong enough that he didn’t know how he could have missed it.
Draper turned slowly in place, stopping at last and pointing at a small wooden building a few yards away.
“In there.”
They approached the structure, which had no windows and a single wooden door.
It was secured, but Landry defeated the lock in no time. Opening the door, they gazed inside. One of the sailors thrust his torch into the space, no doubt to see better. Draper pushed his arm back.
While the stink of lamp oil was enough to make Landry’s eyes water, the vats of oil were not what drew his gaze. Rather, his eyes alighted on a haphazard pile of weapons and shields. Their weapons, their shields.
He took a tentative step forward, picked up his sword, and sliced the heavy air with a satisfying whoosh.
“Yours?” Kad asked.
“Yes.”
“Take them,” Godfrey said. “And whatever else you think we might need. Then we burn this place to the ground.”
The Templars reclaimed their swords and shields. Landry hooked the rusted blade he had been using in his belt, glad to have his own weapon once more. The knights left the building, except for Draper, who remained behind, his sword sheathed, a torch in his hand. He appeared nervous.
Seconds later, he emerged from the building limping at speed, a container of oil cradled in each arm.
“Move!” he said.
Landry and the others rushed to keep up with him. They hadn’t taken ten steps when the building exploded with a great ball of yellow fire. Flaming fragments of wood flew in every direction, and a cloud of black smoke rose into the night sky. Pieces of the structure rained down on adjacent buildings, setting at least one of them ablaze.
The knights and sailors stared for a moment.
“Well, now they all know where we are,” Kad said.
They broke into a run again. Voices echoed through the compound from every direction – Redman’s men, converging on the fires and on them.
“You have something in mind for those?” Landry asked Draper as they fled.
“I thought it unwise to use all the oil on a single building. I could not abide the waste.”
Landry smiled, as did Draper.
They came to another building, similar to the one they had destroyed: wooden, windowless.
“Open this one,” Draper said.
Landry mastered the lock and pulled the door open. There was no oil in this structure, but there was grain, rounds of cheese, and what appeared to be half a dozen barrels of rum. Draper set one of the vats of oil aside. He pulled the stopper from the other and tore cloth from his own shirt.
This he wadded down into the neck of the container, leaving a short tail of cloth hanging out. He set the vat in the middle of the building and lit the cloth with his torch. Then he reclaimed the other container of oil and hurried from the building, pulling the door shut behind him.
