But the three cannon before the central gate had boulders and iron balls and fired at five-minute intervals, each shot striking the city gates.
How could they hold? It was amazing they lasted the hour. But when they began to crack worse and worse with each shot, the home guard gathered around, crossbows and pikes at the ready—so as the final shots crashed through the wood, splintering the huge panels, they didn’t hear the shouts of alarm from the few sentries left along the wall as scaling ladders slammed into place and grapnels bit into the top of the wall. Those sentries ran to push the ladders away, shouting for all they were worth, but they were too few, and the marines swarming up the wall to their grapnels were far greater in number than those on the ladders. In five minutes, Gar’s marines held the ramparts, and Gar himself was leading the assault on the gate from the west while Gianni led from the east. The defenders finally heard them coming, in lulls between purposeless cannon fire; they turned just in time for bolts and spears to bring them down. A few of them did manage to shoot a bolt or hurl a spear, and a few marines died, but the rest of it was slaughter until the soldiers threw up their arms, shouting for mercy.
“Hold!” Gar shouted, and his men froze in midstride. “Sergeants, send men to secure the prisoners!” he snapped. “Soldiers of Tumanola! You have fought well, but you have been outflanked! Lay down your arms and mercy will be yours!”
Warily, the soldiers laid down their pikes and crossbows, and marines stepped up to lash their arms behind them. Then, with the soldiers lined up against the wall and sitting, bound with a score of marines to guard them, the rest advanced on the castle.
“It looks formidable indeed.” Gianni shuddered, remembering.
“It looks so, yes,” Gar agreed, “but we know better, don’t we, Gianni? After all, we’ve been inside—and there can’t be more than a few score soldiers left to guard it, since most of them are with the prince at Pirogia.”
Gianni looked up in surprise, but when he saw Gar’s grin, he began to smile, too.
The only difficult part of the siege of the castle was bringing the cannon up the slope into firing position opposite the drawbridge. The defenders started a hail of bolts even before the gunners and their horses came in range—which gave the marines a convenient supply of ammunition as they moved up the slope ahead of the cannon, keeping up such a continuous fire that the defenders could scarcely lift their heads above the wall. The drawbridge fell as cannonballs broke its chains, and struck the shore with a boom almost equaling that of the artillery. Then the gunners sent buckets of nails over the parapets to keep the defenders down while Gar led his marines charging across the bridge, ramming spears through the arrow slits in the gatehouse and firing in staggered ranks, the back row finishing reloading and running to the front as the first rank retired.
The continuous fire kept most of the defenders prudently down; the few bold ones died with bolts in their chests. A few marines died, too, but their mates came up behind the defenders and grappled hand to hand, knocking them out. Then, in parties of a dozen, they went through the castle from top to bottom, until they were satisfied that it was completely secure.
“A whole city and its castle taken with only a hundred men!” Gianni was dizzy at the thought.
“Yes, but there were only three hundred defending it,” Gar reminded him. “We did lose twenty-three men, too.” At the thought, his face turned somber.
“My husband shall be revenged upon you!” the princess raged. “You lowborn upstarts shall learn the meaning of royal wrath! You shall be hanged, but cut down before you are dead, then have your entrails drawn forth before your still-living eyes! The end shall come only when your bodies are cut in four pieces and hung up as warnings throughout the city!”
“Perhaps, Highness,” Gar said with grave courtesy, “but until your royal husband comes, you shall keep to your apartments with all your ladies. Guards, escort them!” Still, it was he himself who stalked behind the princess, and one look at the determination in his eyes left her no doubt that he would pick her up and carry her bodily if he had to. She shuddered and turned away, lifting her chin and marching proudly to her chambers.
With her shut in and well guarded, and all the castle’s servants and defenders locked in the dungeons, Gianni finally asked, “How long before the prince learns his castle is taken?”
“He knows already.” Gar nodded toward the highest tower. “Remember the stone egg? I’m sure the princess used it before she came down to rebuke us. In fact, let’s go and listen.”
Puzzled, Gianni followed Gar up to the high tower. Sure enough, they found the egg already talking to itself, the heavily accented Lurgan voice alternating with the prince’s. “Leave at least a partial force to keep the Pirogians in,” the Lurgan voice pleaded.
“Why?” snapped the prince in his cultured (but infuriated) tone. “They come and go as they please in their confounded caravels! Take Pirogia yourselves, if you need it! I and all my allies go to take back my ancestral city and house!”
Gianni cheered, and so did the marines who heard with him. The cheering ran down the stairs and through the garrison, but Gar only stood watching the stone with glowing eyes.
He was up in that room now and then for the next few days, as they waited for the prince and his men. The marine couriers moved more quickly on the converted galleys, and the army of Pirogia moved just as quickly in more of the same ships. They came marching through the gates of Tumanola a full day before the prince and his troops came in sight. They drew up their lines that night, and thousands of campfires blossomed outside the city walls. Gar walked the parapets, reassuring his men; Gianni took his message to the rest of the defenders. “Be warned. Tomorrow, huge metal fish may drop from the skies and fire lightning bolts. Don’t be frightened, for a golden wheel will strike them out of the air.”
He didn’t believe a word of either promise himself, but he did ask Gar about it later. “Where could these metal fish come from, and how could they fly?”
“By magic,” Gar said, with a brittle smile, and Gianni could only sigh for patience. “As to where, they shall come from the Lurgan Company—and the golden wheel will be Herkimer.”
Gianni frowned. “You mean from this wizard Herkimer, don’t you?”
“No,” Gar said, and wouldn’t explain it any further.
The barrage began at dawn, but most of the shot fell short—the prince’s cannon were nowhere nearly as good as those of Pirogia, whose foundries had worked according to Gar’s advice. Gar’s gunners managed to shoot down their opponents methodically, one by one, and the prince, in exasperation, ordered his army to charge.
It was suicidal even at a hundred yards, for Gar’s gunners had all the buckets in the city now, and all the nails. The prince’s men died as they ran—but between cannon shots, the remnant came closer and closer. They faltered, though, as they realized they were being driven to certain death—and it was then that the metal fish came swooping from the skies.
“Away from the guns!” Gar shouted, and his gunners leaped back and kept running, just before lightning stabbed down from the bloated, gray metal fish shapes. Two guns disappeared in a gout of flame and a thunderclap. The Pirogian soldiers moaned with fear and scrambled to duck down behind crenels or shields—but on the plain below, the prince’s army gave a shout of triumph and charged forward.
Then the huge golden wheel came plunging after the fish.
CHAPTER 15
Beams of light stabbed down from the golden ship, striking one end of each of the metal fish. They plummeted, spinning crazily. Only a hundred feet above the earth, flame roared from the bottom of each fish, slowing its plunge—but only slowing; one struck the earth outside the city walls and one inside. The prince’s soldiers shouted with fear as they saw it coming and ran, any way as long as it was away from the bulbous, plunging gray shape. The fish struck, and was still.