Chapter 32: Battle for St. Sidryn’s
“We’re going to make it!” Omir Abulli exulted, as he neared the gate. Not that anyone heard him over the din of almost two hundred men running, the beat of their feet on the earth, the clanking of metal from armor and weapons, and the shouts of defiance as they neared the abbey’s main gate—still open! The islander rats were stupid to worry about saving too many of their people! All that much easier for the raiders! Now, even if they tried to close the heavy gate, it’d be too late.
Abulli led the initial charge at the gate, but by now half of his men had passed him, as they all raced to get inside the abbey walls. If he had wanted, he could have stayed closer to the front, but while he needed to be seen as leading his men, he didn’t have to be in the forefront. He let a few more pass to save his wind and put himself in a less exposed position for first contact. His scars and reputation dismissed the need to demonstrate his bravery, and being leader also meant not foolishly exposing himself.
His focus on the gate and the walls caused him to almost trip over an old couple huddled on the ground. The woman knelt with her head on her knees and her arms covering her head, the gray-bearded man draped across her as if to protect her. A rusty sword lay nearby. Abulli leaped aside and slashed at the man, cursing and yelling, “We’ll deal with you later!” as he continued on.
He couldn’t see beyond the opening in the wall; too many of his men were between him and the last of the fleeing islanders. He kept glancing at the abbey masonry wall, watching for the first flash of muskets. Still no firing by the islanders. Were they so timid to be mounting no defense at all?
The first of his men passed through the open gate. Still no firing. His elation ebbed, as instinct surfaced. Alarm flags hoisted, but there was no stopping. By the time he reached the gate, sixty of his men were already inside the walls. He needed to get to the front to see what was going on!
The first raiders rushing through the gate focused only on the islander women being chased, with only yards between the fastest raider and the slowest woman. It took several seconds for the foremost Buldorians to recognize what they found in the courtyard. Instead of a chaotic panic of islanders and an abbey open for looting, on three sides they faced the hastily constructed barricades, with heads and torsos of men and women facing them. Some of the Buldorians tried to stop, and a few recognized the danger and would have retreated, if not for the press of men behind them pouring through the gate.
Denes agonized over each flaw in their desperate plan. As each flaw passed without disaster, the next took its place. Thus, the worry that the raiders wouldn’t take the bait was replaced by the fear that they’d recognize the trap and stop outside the walls, which in turn was replaced by the possibility that only a few raiders would pass through the gate before they recognized the trap and retreated or warned the others. Hope surged when the first raiders stopped in the middle of the courtyard. It was the best of all actions for the Keelanders and the worst of all for the raiders. The raiders still coming into the courtyard saw only the backs of their countrymen. Seven endless seconds elapsed between when the first raider entered the courtyard and when Denes fired his musket.
Omir Abulli could see the movement of his men slowed. Why? As he pushed through his men, he heard a single musket firing, then a flurry of muskets from three sides. He felt the whisk and sharp whine of a musket ball pass his ear.
The mass of men blocking his view thinned as men fell. In a glance, he took in their wounds from musket balls and crossbow quarrels. His elation at breaching the abbey walls disappeared in shock when he saw the barricade and the islanders. Many were older men and women, some frantically trying to reload muskets, and others holding spears and swords. A fractional second glance behind him showed more men still coming through the gate. To stand still was death. To retreat back through the gate would be chaotic, as the islanders shot at their backs. His years of experience told him their best chance was to attack and break through the barricade. The islanders were short real fighting men, so once his men engaged face-to-face, they would prevail.
These recognitions, calculations, and the resulting decision lasted no more than two seconds. Abulli rushed to the front, knocking aside shocked men and leaping over bodies of dead and wounded, raised his sword, and screamed, “Shoot at them, you idiots, then drop your muskets and draw your blades. To me, for the glory of the Benhoudi!” He turned and charged a gap in the barricade, assuming correctly that his men would follow.
Denes had fired his musket at the closest raider. The ball hit the raider in mid-chest and knocked him on his back, unmoving. All of the other muskets and crossbows followed Denes. It wasn’t a simultaneous volley, but a rolling firing that lasted three to four seconds. Sixty-nine muskets and thirty-one crossbows sent their projectiles into the mass of raiders. Twenty shots went into the ground or over the heads of their targets. Ten projectiles, nine musket balls, and a single quarrel somehow passed through the raider mass without hitting flesh. One musket ball found the throat of an unarmed Abersford woman peering over the barricade on the opposite side from the ball’s origin. The other seventy projectiles hit raiders. Seven raiders were hit more than once. One unlucky raider was hit four times by musket balls and once by a quarrel. Of the fifty-three raiders struck in the first volley, forty-five of the hits were fatal or incapacitating.
Denes saw a grizzled raider shout, gesture with his sword, and lead a charge straight at himself, Carnigan, a cowering Yozef, and the opening in the barricade.
A second, smaller rolling volley followed from those barricade’s defenders having a second loaded musket, pistol, or crossbow at hand. Another thirteen raiders went down.
Yozef crouched behind the edge of the opening of the barricade. He had a perfect view to see what appeared to be an unstoppable mass of savage men screaming bloodlust and charging straight at him. His imagination envisioned blades lopping off his limbs or his head or cleaving him in half. Carnigan, Denes, and three other men filled the gap. One man went down without a sound, landing next to Yozef, a hole just above his right eye, both eyes staring skyward and blood running into the earth under his head. Yozef’s stomach contracted as if prepping to retch. He wanted to run. He wanted … to live! More than anything, he wanted to drop the spear and run for the back of the abbey complex. There were other gates, or he could drop on the other side of the wall from a rampart. He could go somewhere else in Caedellium and start over. Or go to the Narthani and convince them of his worth and maybe end up more secure and honored than here on this primitive island. He wanted to be anywhere else but here at this moment.
He didn’t know why he didn’t run. Maybe because he didn’t know where to run. Maybe because no matter how terrified he was, he couldn’t leave his friends. Carnigan. Cadwulf. The abbot and the abbess who had cared for him. His workers and their families. Brak and Elian. Dour Denes, who pretended to ignore Yozef most of the time but listened when it counted.
Even if he wanted to run, his legs didn’t feel strong enough to take him there. So he crouched, both hands death-gripped to the spear shaft.
Abulli felt his men behind him. They had a chance, though perhaps he didn’t, as he faced the enormous islander in the middle of the gap. He snarled, voiced an appeal and an acceptance at the same time to whatever gods there were, and swung his sword.