Then Gar was beside him, flame flaring in his hands, and Gianni saw a long string of some sort vanishing into the cannon’s touchhole. The big man caught up Boraccio, slinging him over a shoulder as he snapped, “Carry the wounded and leave the dead! Flee as though the devil were at your heels!” He turned and charged into the midst of the soldiers facing him, bellowing like a bull. The raiders shouted and charged after him, carrying three wounded men between them—but leaving four others already dead.
The sentries recovered and shouted, chopping at the raiders—but their blows fell short as they pulled back, frightened by the wild men from the darkness.
Then a huge explosion blasted the night. The shock wave bowled men over, raider and soldier alike. “Cover your heads!” Gar shouted, but the raiders had run far enough; the rain of iron fragments fell short of them. Soldiers cried out in pain and shock, but before they could recover, the raiders were up and running again.
Gar led them off into the darkness, circling around to the beach again. All pretense at stealth gone, they struck down any soldier who rose to bar their way, then finally leaped back aboard their boats and shoved off—but only two boats out of three.
A hundred yards out to sea, Gar called a rest. The men leaned on their oars, gasping for breath and staring back at the fire on shore, amazed.
“So much for the cannon,” Gar said. He looked down at the unconscious form at his feet. “Now for the gunner.”
Gianni was sitting on a dock post, watching dawn over the sea, when Gar came up and joined him. “You fought well this night, Gianni.”
“Thank you,” Gianni said, gratified at the praise. “What of the gunner? Did he answer your questions?”
“Yes, and without the slightest hesitation,” Gar said. “It’s almost as though he thinks his answers will frighten us as badly as his gun did.”
Gianni frowned. “Did they?”
“Not a bit; they’re just as I thought they would be. He’s a young knight who’s very progressive. He does admit that they have only one such gun, and only he knew how to aim it, being the only gentleman who was willing to learn his gunnery from the dour and dowdy foreign traders—the Lurgans, of course. They not only taught him to shoot, but also taught his armorers how to make a cannon that could fire so accurately—but it took their smiths three months to make it, and two were killed testing earlier models, so I don’t think we need to worry about the lords making more.”
“Not considering how quickly we destroyed it,” Gianni agreed, “though I doubt we could do it again.”
“You may doubt it, but the lords don’t. Still, our raid may discourage them from making more. If they do, though, they’ll guard them better.”
Gianni glanced at him out of the corners of his eyes. “And you’ll be thinking up better ways to overcome their guards?”
Gar answered with the ghost of a smile. “Of course.”
Gianni relaxed, letting himself feel confident again. He turned to see another ship come sailing in, and was delighted not to hear a cannon boom. “So it seems we won’t starve, after all.”
“No,” Gar agreed, “we won’t starve—but the lords may.”
They didn’t, of course—each lord was supplied by the crops and livestock his soldiers stole from the peasants nearby, most of whom were safe in Pirogia. But they had to ranger farther and farther afield each day, and the idle soldiers who stayed in camp began to quarrel among themselves. The prince set them to making ships, but his shipwrights knew only the crafting of riverboats, and the new vessels were scarcely launched before Pirogia’s caravels swooped down to scuttle them, or to bear them away with all their troops. Still the prince forced his soldiers to build, but more and more, they saw the uselessness of their work, and grumbled more and more loudly. Soon they were being flogged daily, and the grumbling lessened—but became all the more bitter for it.
In fact, morale in the besiegers’ camp was lessening so nicely, and any attempt at invading seemed so far away, that the defenders began to relax. In vain did Gar warn them that the old moon was dying, that the dark of the moon would soon be upon them, and that they must be extraordinarily vigilant when the nights were so dark—in vain, because the sentries knew that if they could not see to spy out the enemy, neither could invaders see to attack. So, though they tried to stay alert, that little edge was gone, the edge that makes a man start at shadows and hear menace in every night bird’s call—but that also makes him look more closely at every extra pool of darkness in the night. They relaxed just a little, until the night that the cry went up from the walls, and the alarm sounded.
Gar and Gianni bolted from their beds—it was a lieutenant’s watch—and shouted for lights as they caught up swords and bucklers and ran for the docks. Black-clad men were pouring in from the sea; even the heads of their spears and halberds were painted black, even their faces. By the time Gianni and his men reached them, they were streaming into the plaza, and there was no sign of the Pirogian sentries.
They had served their city well by crying out before they died. Gianni shouted, “Revenge! Revenge for our sentries!” and threw himself into the middle of the advancing mob, sword slashing and thrusting. Finally the attackers shouted in alarm and anger; pole-arms swept down, but Gianni was too close for any blade to strike him, leaping in and out, shouting in rage, thrusting with his sword as Gar had taught him. Behind him, his men blared their battle cry and struck the invaders, alternating between stabbing and striking with the butts of their spears, quarterstaff style—again, as Gar had taught them. Men screamed and died on both sides, but still the attackers came on.
There seemed no end to them; the black-clad men kept coming and coming, and Gianni’s arms grew heavy with thrusting and parrying. But there was no end to the Pirogian soldiers, either, and they were fighting for their homes and their loved ones, not just for pay or fear of an officer.
Light flared with a muffled explosion; the fighters froze for a moment, all eyes turned to the source—and saw flames billowing high into the night.
“The caravel!” Gianni screamed. “Anselmo’s Kestrel, that was tied up at harbor! They have burned our food, they would starve us! Have at them! Hurl them into their own fire!”
His men answered with a shout of rage and surged forward. Gianni sailed before them, borne on their tide, thrusting and slashing with renewed vigor, pressing the attackers back, back, out of the plaza and onto the docks, then back even farther, off the wood and into the water.
The lords’ soldiers cried out in fear and turned to flee into the harbor. Gianni froze, scarcely able to believe his eyes. The invaders were standing out there on the water, helping those who swam to climb to their feet! More amazing still, they seemed to be going without moving their legs, drifting away …
Drifting! Now Gianni knew what to look for—and sure enough, the light of the burning ship showed him the balks of timber beneath the soldiers’ feet. They had come on rafts, simple rafts but huge ones, painted black. They had hidden against the darkness of the water itself, and guided themselves by the city’s blotting out of the stars until they could see the lights of the watch fires!
“Archers!” Gianni shouted. “Stand ready! If they seek to come back, let fly!”
But the archers didn’t wait—they sent flight after flight against the men on the rafts, who fell to the wood with shouts of fear or cries of pain. Some knelt on each raft and began to paddle furiously. Slowly, the cumbersome craft moved away from the docks.