DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) (276 page)

“Go and eat, if you have not, and make your peace with God before you find your positions,” Stimson told the brothers. “Brothers, relax and understand that we still have hours at least before any battle will be joined.”

With that, the commanding monk took his leave, moving to the center of the ship and the war room, to join in the discussion with Earl DePaunch and the other leaders.

He found DePaunch in nearly as agitated a state as had been the young brothers, and that he did not view as a good sign!

“I will move to within three hundred yards before I turn right and sail about the island,” DePaunch explained.

“Three hundred is within the reach of some of their greater catapults, those set up high on the rocks, my lord,” remarked one of the other commanders, Guilio Jannet, an Allheart Knight who had served for many years under Duke Bretherford.

DePaunch nodded. “But hardly could they prove accurate at such a range,” he explained. “The back eight will be split, four escorting us and four swinging left about the island. No enemy ships will sail beyond our reach.”

“I would suggest you allow four to continue to sail past Dancard,” said Giulio. “In case some have already fled—or soon will now that we have likely been spotted.”

Earl DePaunch thought on it a moment, then nodded his agreement.

“Pardon, good Earl, but are we not presuming much here?” Brother Stimson interjected. “We do not even know if these folk of Dancard are friends or enemies.”

“They fly the flag of the Ursal line, not that of Aydrian,” said one of the other commanders.

“Do they even possess the bear and tiger rampant?” the reasonable monk replied. “Do they even fully understand King Aydrian and the legions he commands? These are Coastpoint Guards, after all. Will they not be persuaded that ours is the proper cause when they see Allheart Knights among us?”

“Are we to sail into the shadows of their deadly catapults?” Earl DePaunch retorted. “When four or five of these great ships King Aydrian has entrusted to me flounder in the waves, am I to then assume it would be proper to attack?”

“I only meant—”

“Their first response is the pennant they fly,” Giulio added. “If a bear and tiger greeted us from above Pireth Dancard, then we would have sailed in as allies.”

Brother Stimson recognized what was going on, and in truth, he had expected nothing different. Earl DePaunch was the most eager of young men, as was Giulio Jannet. Accepting Dancard as an ally to the throne would be a great gain for King Aydrian; defeating a hostile Dancard and forcing it under the flag of Aydrian
would be a great gain for the careers of DePaunch and Giulio.

The ambitious earl was spoiling for a fight.

When Stimson moved back out on the deck, he found that the ship sailing beside
Assant Tigre
had brought down their colors and the crew were now running up the more traditional flag of Honce-the-Bear, the bear rampant that had served as Ursal’s banner for more than a hundred years. The monk moved to the fore, beside his brethren, all of whom were watching the changing of the colors beside them.

“What does it mean, brother?” one asked Stimson.

The monk wanted to reply that it meant they would use that ship as a front in order to get close to the docks. He wanted to reply that it meant that they were going to get their fight, whether Pireth Dancard wanted it or not.

Instead, the monk just shrugged noncommittally. Marcalo De’Unnero had chosen him for a reason, he reminded himself. While he might not agree with the methods of Earl DePaunch, he surely agreed with the outcome of Aydrian’s rule, especially as it pertained to the Abellican Church—the wayward Abellican Church, by Master Stimson’s estimation.

The wind remained strong, filling the sails, and the fifteen ships remained under full sail, speeding for the island. Stimson and the others watched it grow and grow, until the tower set on the high rocks came into clear view, the pennant visible even without use of a spyglass. The island’s southern docks were set right below it, down a rocky slope that housed a few buildings, including one long warehouse right on the water level. That hill was sparse of growth, with only a few patches of grasses and a couple of small trees, but it was well fortified, with crisscrossing walls of piled rocks leading up from the docks to the tower. Off to the right-hand side of the island, on the eastern slopes, was a small settlement of stone houses, and there, as on the docks, a commotion was brewing, with many people staring out at the fast-approaching fleet.

Barely a thousand yards out, ten of the eleven ships dropped to half sail, battle sail, and as one, ten prows dipped lower in the water. The one remaining at full sail—the one to
Assant Tigre
’s right, flying the pennant of Ursal—sped on toward the long wharf.

“Be ready, Master Stimson,” came Earl DePaunch’s voice from behind. “When
Assant Tigre
makes her run, I expect you and your brothers to trace our glorious path.”

Stimson looked at the man, and at Giulio Jannet beside him, both grinning and nodding, obviously eager.

I
nto his early fifties now, Warder Constantine Presso was among the oldest and most experienced leaders of the Coastpoint Guards. And among the most proper, with his neatly trimmed moustache and goatee and traditional blue, red-trimmed overcoat, complete with a black leather baldric running right shoulder to left hip. He was a tall man, and stood impeccably straight, shoulders wide and back, eyes
never down. He had served at all of the major outposts of the rugged outfit, from Pireth Tulme to Dancard to Pireth Vanguard in the north. The man was well aware of the politics of Honce-the-Bear, and of the games that were often played by eager young commanders seeking a quick road to promotion.

Presso had been told immediately when the fleet had sailed into view, and had arrived at the tower’s top in time to watch their precision and training in action as they moved from an open sailing line to battle formation.

And now he watched them in this latest ruse, or whatever it was.

“She flies the Ursal bear!” cried a man from somewhere below.

It was true enough, Constantine Presso could see; the lone approaching ship was not flying the strange pennant that seemed to verify the rumors of a change in power in Ursal, but rather the more customary flag of King Danube and his predecessors. But, the warder noted, the ship was even then running a second pennant up her mainmast, the white flag of truce.

Presso wandered about his tower top, studying the catapult emplacements set among the stones left and right and the great swiveling ballista upon the tower top itself. He moved back to the lip overlooking the docks soon enough and called for his men to “stand ready.”

Then he again looked out at the fast-approaching ship, and the ten others gliding in behind it—and glanced west at the four others who had broken off from the back line and were moving at full speed about Pireth Dancard. Presso even offered a glance toward the north, where the two Dancard scout ships had long ago sailed, departing at the first sight of the approaching fleet as per their standing orders whenever a potentially hostile vessel approached the fortress. For Dancard was not built to hold out against a great foe, but rather to serve as sentinel to the mainland on the south and Vanguard on the north.

“What king do they serve?” came a confused cry from one of the Coastpoint Guards in position along the defending wall below the tower.

Warder Presso looked back at the leading ship, to see that both the pennant of Ursal and the white flag had been cut away from the fast-approaching warship. In their stead, the ship had run up the same flag the others were flying, along with a second fast-climbing the guide ropes: a white flag bordered in black and with a red X over the field.

In mariners’ terms in Honce-the-Bear at that time, that flag was one demanding surrender.

Presso noted that the ship’s catapult was set and ready to fire, pitch smoldering in its basket. He watched in disbelief as a great contingent of archers crowded the deck, all wearing the uniforms of Kingsmen. They dipped their arrows into unseen buckets below the rails and brought them up, tips aflame, and bent back their great bows.

Behind Presso, the ballista crew broke into action.

“Hold!” the warder ordered them.

Unfortunately for Presso and for Dancard, few on the island had been hardened
by actual battle. Presso recognized the ship’s movements as a goad and a ploy—the full sail and continued course gave her away—but some of the younger and more frightened Coastpoint Guards did not.

A few arrows arced out at the ship; one Dancard catapult fired, then the second.

A ball of pitch hissed as it fell into the cold water at the ship’s side, but the second found the mark, splashing across the unfurled sails and setting them ablaze. From that fiery deck came the response, fifty flaming arrows knifing across the docks of Dancard, followed by a returning ball of pitch that splattered across the lowest levels of the wall.

The wounded ship tacked and steered hard, bending low into a direct turn for the island’s docks.

Up on the tower, Warder Presso closed his eyes and shook his head, understanding more fully the tactic. Momentum would carry the wounded ship to crash into the docks, where her crack crew would be fast ashore.

He looked past that vessel to the other ten, and to the ten fiery balls arcing gracefully into the sky.

M
aster Stimson, too, watched those responding catapults, taking note that of the ten shots, only six had been aimed at the dock areas. The four longer-ranged shots from the trailing vessels climbed out to the east to land among the stone buildings, igniting all flammable material within their splash zones.

Including people.

Stimson closed his eyes as he heard the screams again, just as in the riots of his youth. Not the roars of battle lust that turned to grunts of pain, as with combatants; these were the shrieks of surprise and terror that arose from the confusion of innocents caught up in a fight they could not comprehend. Even the pitch was different, for among the cries coming from the small village were intermingled the screams of women and children.

The Abellican master glanced back at Earl DePaunch and saw that the man was not alarmed by the apparently errant shots. Stimson understood; DePaunch was goading Pireth Dancard on to a larger fight. He was leaving little room for common sense and a possible compromise here, little room for diplomacy. For now, suddenly, Dancard was fighting for her very existence. The soldiers were fighting not only to hold their docks, but to keep their families alive. Perhaps four hundred people lived on this island, but no more than a quarter of that number were soldiers, with the rest working as dockworkers and farmers and fishermen. And among those three-quarters of the folk were the family members, the wives and the children.

Stimson turned his attention back to the docks just in time to see the leading, wounded ship slide into the wooden pier. Great beams groaned in protest, on both ship and dock, and a section of the pier crumbled into the wash. Finally, the ship settled against the broken wood, burning and listing, but the crew didn’t immediately debark. They lined the deck behind the blocking high rails and continued
their barrage of arrows, great volleys sweeping across the docks.

Responding fire came at them from the rock walls, with a number of bowmen at least equal to the fifty archers on the wounded ship. The Coastpoint Guardsmen were well drilled, obviously, sending in volleys continuously, a third of them firing, then the second group, then the last, and back around in perfect timing. Many of those arrows coming out carried flaming tips, only adding to the confusion and devastation on the wounded ship.

A thrumming from above turned Stimson’s eyes to the tower top, to see a dark sliver flash out, a great ballista bolt diving down not at the wounded ship, but at one of the other approaching six. The shot was true, nearly, for the bolt skimmed the front of the boat to
Assant Tigre
’s far left, but glanced off the angled prow to splash harmlessly into the water.

Then came the second volley from the ships’ light catapults, this time with all ten flaming balls splashing about the area just beyond the docks and lower rock walls. The defenses were solid there, and the effect of the shot was minimal at best in terms of casualties. But the spreading bits of fire served the invaders well, for the defenders—slapping out smoldering pieces of splashing pitch or scrambling to find new positions away from the obscuring smoke—were clearly and necessarily distracted.

Some of the sailors on the wounded ship used the opportunity to continue their barrage, while others cut away the burning sails and worked to secure the craft more fully to the crushed dock area.

And the other six leading warships sailed in. The island catapults fired again, one scoring a hit high atop the mainsail of the ship immediately to
Assant Tigre
’s left. The fires hardly slowed the vessel, though, and the crew, intent on getting ashore, hardly paid the small flames high above any heed. Many rowboats hit the water all about the ships, soldiers scrambling down with practiced efficiency and taking up the stroke immediately to get ashore.

Only
Assant Tigre
kept its course, straight in to the docks, maneuvering directly opposite the wounded sister ship.

“Master Stimson!” came Earl DePaunch’s prompt.

“Focus your energies, brethren,” Stimson told his six Abellican companions. “The catapult left of the tower.”

W
arder Presso rubbed his face as he watched the continuing approach and battle below him. He had known from the start that holding the island against such a fleet, bearing so many warriors, would not be possible. He had hoped to thin the enemy ranks enough initially to slow down the progress until parley could be pursued, however, and fully expected that his well-trained men would do so.

Perhaps a catapult could put another two ships out of commission. Perhaps his archers would ward the docks for the remainder of the day—there was really only one safe approach to the island, and the long wharf would only accommodate two ships at a time. If he could win these first moments of battle, he would force
his enemy to come ashore wholly by rowboat, a much more difficult and time-consuming proposition.