The Conqueror (22 page)

“
Two miles, sire. Ah—maybe
a bit less.”

The captain’s voice carried the length
of the ship. A quick mutter went through the men before their
serjeants settled them down again.

“
All right. I’d better get
ready.”

“
Sire.”

“
No, Kann. You have your
orders.”

In the event of disaster there would
be, must be, leadership that would be obeyed.

Kann didn’t argue, knowing it would
only irritate his king at a time when Lowren needed all his wits
about him. That’s not to say he didn’t have a peculiar look on his
face as they quickly grasped hands and Theo stepped in for a quick
hero’s-kiss.

“
You’ve got a fine lady
there, my friend, my brother.”

Kann couldn’t speak.

Lowren dropped carefully down the
steeply-angled short ladder to the duckboards below the
helm.

There were soldiers here
too.

“
Sire.”

The one on the right handed him his
helmet. The one on the left had his sword and buckler, with
Lowren’s arms, a golden eagle on a black field displayed. Everyone
else looked ready and with their weapons and equipment in good
order.

He heard a voice up above.

“
One mile, sire. Our
fire-ships are about to engage.”

Lowren raised his voice.

“
Gentlemen.”

There was not a moment’s
hesitation.

“
Sire!”

He didn’t care who heard him now. With
men slapping him on the arms, slapping him on the butt, slapping
him on the back, he stumbled and lurched to the front of the ship
with the two young soldiers right behind. A ragged babble came from
off to the right and there was the sound of booms coming down and
oars hitting the water. Men were shouting to the right and from up
ahead now as someone up there on the battlements caught
on.

“
Ladder.”

“
All set to go,
sire.”

He grabbed a man.

“
Out of the way,
son.”

The fellow snarled at him, but then saw
who it was and hurriedly dropped his case.

“
Sire!”

“
It’s all right, boy.
You’ll get your chance.”

“
Yes, Lowren!” The kid had
tears in his eyes.

“
Half a mile, sire!” The
captain meant to be heard.

“
Who are we?” His voice
rang out into the night, and the first echo of it was coming back
from the hard walls ahead of them, when the stunned troops around
him recovered from the shock.

“
We are the soldiers of
Lemni!”

“
Windermere!
Windermere!”

Off in the distance came
snatches of song and the clearly made out word
Heloi!

Similar calls and battle-cries came
from behind and all around them now as the men on the fire-ships,
the bravest of the brave, gave it their all.

Torn on the wind, there were further
shouts from the ships behind. There was a commotion off to the
left, as the first fire-ship rammed itself into a fat merchantman
and the two ships, one big and one ridiculously small, shuddered in
a death grip. It would be an uneven battle.

The wind was gone and the captain was
barking orders.

The men on the oars dropped them into
the water and threw their backs into it. The mate and a trio of
boys dropped the boom. The sail settled over the heads of a few
oarsmen in the centre of the boat and the ship slowed as if
confused.

There were curses and shouts all around
now as they struggled to get the sail and mast stowed, or at least
out of the way, the rowers trying to keep time as one of them
shouted out a song of defiance and Lowren took one last
look.

There was the captain, there was the
helmsman clinging desperately to his rudder, white and pale in the
face, with the predawn light making him seem bigger than he was in
his oddly light clothing.

Theodelinda was staring up at the tall
stone walls of Sinopus, practically hanging over their heads,
clinging to the captain’s arm, and Kann was in front of the mast
now, directing someone on the ballista. They had it elevated and
pointed at a guard tower just to port of their bow. A boy struck
flint and steel expertly. He lit a brand and as it blazed up,
touched it to the point of the projectile. They were all fully
exposed now.

“
Hey! Wake up in there!”
Kann’s eyes and teeth gleamed and the other man yanked the lanyard
as the boy ducked away.

“
Ten pieces for the lad!
You have the honor, son!”

There was a loud spanking sound as the
spring-catch was tripped and a heavy javelin hummed away, to twang
off of the highest of the battlements.

Krump.

The second of the fire-ships hit home
and grappling hooks were tossed, the ships were pulled in close,
the ropes were tightened and tied off.

Men were yelling and screaming and
jumping overboard already—it was a seaman’s worst nightmare, a fire
at sea. There were many slaves below decks, and many a man that had
been impressed into service. More than one would fight
half-heartedly, or so they felt reasonably assured...

Krump, krump.

Krump.

Orange blossomed and the harbor lit up
on an instant. There were a few fires going now. Another blazing
mob of ships were coming in…the shouting had become a continuous
thing.

The harbor was unprotected by a chain.
It had been dislodged by the Horde themselves, and the city’s
engineers had pronounced it unsalvageable before the spring. Spring
had sprung, but they hadn’t made any sort of a start on it, as
spies had revealed. It was amazing, literally amazing what a few
gold pieces and a little hate could do for a liberator. This was
especially true if the right people knew you were coming and could
keep a secret. The sort of people, who once bought, stayed bought.
They had a plan to overcome any chains of course, but this was
almost looking too easy.

An agonized glance revealed the hot and
predatory shapes of more fire-vessels coming into view, the glare
lighting up their sails and forepeaks and the small golden
glow-worms in the mizzen-decks foreshadowing an ugly fate for any
ship they managed to entangle. Even as he watched, the fires in the
midsections flared higher. The shapes of men dropping into the
boats were perhaps more sensed than actually seen...

“
A hundred
yards.”

Something hissed past the gunwale and
plunked into the cold, dark sea. Another hit the deck and someone
jumped in their surprise.

There were heads bobbing around on the
top of the wall.

“
Archers!
Loose.”

Bows bent, they were ready and waiting
for the order.

The men all around Lowren
began emptying their quivers of arrows, swords in their scabbards
and bucklers handily lined up along the inner gunwales in the front
of the
Cygnus.

The twang of the bowstrings and the
thrum of arrows and quarrels filled the air in pulsing
waves.

“
Ladder—ladder.” Four men
dropped their bows and began shoving it upwards, desperately trying
to clear the obstruction of the stem and its dragon-head
decoration. “More men! More men!”

Lowren was almost blinded by something
in his eyes, a suspicious moisture that spurted when he heard Kann
and Theodelinda calling his name and the name of his country. He
used his free left hand to guide the ladder past his head. They got
it to the upright position as a total of six husky soldiers sweated
and cursed and others yanked ropes and lines out of the way. They
had it up vertical and one man looked at him...

“
Go! Go! Go!” The captain
was yelling and the men were cussing and with a crunch the ship ran
aground a good twenty feet before the base of the walls. She only
got a little further. The battlements were about twenty-four feet
high along this part of the shoreline, fronted by a small beach of
gravel and dead seaweed.

It was high tide and this was as close
as they were going to get.

The bow sat with her nose on the gravel
and the men, not unnaturally, were hesitant to let the ladder fall
down. It would be impossible to recover.

“
Ladder! Ladder! Damn it, I
need the ladder.”

Run hard ashore as they were, there was
nothing for it but to let it drop...

The ladder fell forward, and Lowren
could hear men’s voices and running feet and the clink of weapons
and steel up above as someone pounded him on the back. There were
men on each side of the ladder, stabilizing it. It was a sublime
moment when he realized the ship was almost silent and the men up
above were shouting in pure consternation, looking out at the
harbor and yelling their fool heads off. The ladder leaned crazily
upwards, slanting slightly to the right but oh, well.

“
I’m right here,
sire!”

“
Good for you, son. Good
for you! Lowren comes! Lowren is coming! Prepare to die, you
wretched foes, for Lowren himself now comes this way!”

Gripping his sword in his right hand,
and with his small round buckler pulled hard on its strap as far as
he could up the left arm, Lowren took the rung strongly in his left
hand and carefully with the fingertips of his right hand. With the
sword gleaming in front of his face in its rhythmic movement,
Lowren, King of the Lemni began to climb.

Chapter Sixteen

The archers focused their efforts on
the battlements at the head of the ladder, with the clinks and
snaps of hard maple arrows hitting and throwing sparks from their
steel heads as he came to the last few rungs. The ladder was a foot
and a half short. If the boat had hit a little farther out, it
would have been a damned difficult climb to get up and over. As it
was, they were lucky.

The sounds of men shouting orders and
observations from right up close, and the gleam of weapons was all
he needed to see. He paused, hunkering there, and another volley of
arrows smashed into the cold white stones of the crenellation he
was aiming for. His ladder was just short, and there was no way for
them to know it was there, if not for the ship below. They seemed
rather reluctant to stick a head out and have a proper
look...

A serjeant down below him told them to
mind their targets and their king.

Someone up there screamed, mostly in
fright, as an arrow bounced off the inside of the firing slot and
went on, striking home somewhere off in the distance even as
another volley was loosed upon it.

A glance to the right showed at least
three ships, tucked right in against the walls, each a hundred feet
apart, and Lowren picked out at least one man almost as high up a
ladder as he was. Even as he watched, another ladder went
up...shouts and cheers came on the light morning breeze.

There was a whole line of ships coming
in and his heart exulted in the madness of their success so
far.

He looked behind and saw the eager
faces.

“
Watch him! Don’t hit the
king!”

Lowren waved his sword, shrugged his
buckler down into position, exhaled and sucked in cold, clean air.
His powerful upper legs, all trembling in the knees as he was,
forced him up over the edge and into the clear view of the man
right there.

The man had his shield up, he had his
head down, and yet he was still peeking around the corner of the
big stones, trying to get another look at the ships and the
situation below. He was also blinded by the glare of the now
roaring fires off to his immediate right.

“
Oh! Ah! Ye Gods.” The
fellow reared up and back as Lowren gave one final kick, hoping the
ladder didn’t fall and that he didn’t follow it.

He was up on the wall and there was no
going back now.

“
Here I stand. I is I,
Lowren, King of the Lemni!” He jumped at the dim paving stones
below.

The man was backing up and heading to
the left as fast as he could go. Beyond that, it was a long drop to
the ground below.

The walkway was a good eight feet wide.
Spinning in place, Lowren saw it with a corner of his awareness. He
kept the wall as close to his left as he dared, shield up, even
then hearing more feet drop over the wall fifty or a hundred yards
further to the southeast. The man pulled and yanked and finally
cleared his sword...

There was nothing for it but to keep
shouting, keep shoving forwards, and begin a furious slashing
attack even as the sound from the harbor side dropped and then it
was just him and that other man.

There were others behind the enemy
trooper, all madly shouting and clearing their weapons…

Lowren had him on height, weight and
reach and the fellow was desperate to get away. The man had this
sick look of desperation on his face as he weakly parried Lowren’s
blows. He slammed into the next soldier, who clearly hadn’t been
paying attention, and shrieking as Lowren ran him through. Another
wild-eyed white face was shouting hoarse words and defending
himself from a similar fate. Two more men of Lemni appeared at his
side. The clang of steel rang out all around him. There was someone
with a crossbow was on the top of the wall. They were giving a good
account of himself, as man after man ahead of Lowren dropped before
he could even really get to grips with them.