«Swebon's canoes are coming down the river toward the ships,» Kuka said. He grinned, showing all the gaps in his teeth.
If Blade hadn't already been fully awake, he would have come alert now. He leaped up with a shout. Kuka started and the sentry at the head of the balcony stairs dropped his spear with a clatter.
Blade armed himself and followed Kuka down the stairs and through the gray streets of Gerhaa. The darkness hid most of the piled filth and the damaged buildings. It didn't hide the fear on the faces of the few people abroad at this hour. The battle they were facing today not only had to be won, it had to be won decisively enough to smash the Protector and end the siege. The people of Gerhaa had endured too much already. They might not be able to endure much more, and it would be no disgrace to them if they couldn't, merely a disaster.
As Blade and Kuka approached the riverside wall, the streets became so littered with wreckage that it was hard to get through. Some of the stones and timbers were being piled into barricades. In the shadows of these barricades the men of Blade's assault party were already waiting. As they saw their leader approaching, some cheered and were immediately cuffed or cursed into silence by Kuka. They fell in behind their leaders and headed for the wall.
Blade scrambled up the half-ruined stairs inside the Blue Bird's Tower and came out on the roof. Keeping low, he peered through a hole in the battlements that gave him a good view of the river.
At the west end of the harbor, the water seemed to be solid with the canoes of the Forest People. The small patches of open water were white with foam from prows and paddles. As Blade watched, one cluster of canoes swarmed around the western fort on the island, concentrating on the side closest to the water. The rest of the canoes came on steadily, like ants scenting something sweet. One ship was already surrounded, men were falling in the canoes around it, and other men were falling on the ship's deck. Blade strained his eyes and made out Swebon standing up in the bow of one canoe, with what could only be one of the new bows in his hands.
Some of the ships were beginning to move now. The smaller ones had sweeps out and looked like spiders crawling across the water. On the decks of the larger ships Blade saw men frantically swinging axes to cut anchor cables. Enough of the current of the Great River ran through the harbor so that a drifting ship would slowly creep down toward the eastern end. There they might find help-from the Protector's galleys, the Emperor's sailing ships, or simply through being able to flee downriver if the wind rose. At the moment there wasn't a breath of air stirring.
Blade looked back down the inner side of the wall at the men waiting there. The grappling hooks and rope ladders were all ready. Kuka looked up inquiringly. Blade shook his head and gave a thumbs-down signal. It wasn't time yet. Sooner or later the canoes would break through to the cliff and the assault party could climb down and join the fight. Even if the canoes didn't come, the current might push one of the drifting ships within range of the wall.
As Swebon's canoe passed the first of the stone houses on the island, he saw the attack on it begin. Men stood up in the bows of canoes, whirling ropes with iron hooks on the ends around their heads. Then they let go and the hooks shot up like arrows from bows, to grip the top of the stone house. As they gripped and held, men started to climb up the ropes.
The Sons of Hapanu had archers on top of the stone house, shooting down at the climbing men and the canoes. Swebon saw several men fall into the river. A canoe suddenly shook and broke in two as a stone landed in it.
Now the first man to reach the top of the stone house swung himself up and over the wall there and started fighting the Sons of Hapanu. From the fact that he was using two war clubs and no shield, Swebon knew the man was Tuk's oldest son. Four Sons of Hapanu went down in front of the swinging clubs, but a fifth drove his sword into Tuk's son from behind. The swordsman shouted in triumph and leaped on top of the wall. Swebon raised his bow, put an arrow in place, drew, and shot. The Son of Hapanu went down on his knees, dropping his sword, then bent forward and fell headfirst into the river.
Someone was pounding Swebon on the shoulder with one hand, shouting at him to «Look, look, chief!» and pointing with the other hand. Swebon looked, and joined in the shouting.
The current had drifted one of the enemy's ships up against the cliffs below Gerhaa's wall. It was a ship with a strange tall house of wood standing on it. A man was standing on the city's wall, looking toward the top of the wooden house on the ship. Then he leaped into the air like a great fish and came down on top of the wooden house.
The mist was almost gone now and though the day was going to be cloudy, there was plenty of light. Swebon recognized the man who'd made the leap from the wall as Blade.
The leap from the wall to the top of the ship's siege tower was a long one, even for Blade. He nearly went through the railing on the far side of the platform on top, and felt planks groan and creak under him. For a moment he was at a disadvantage if anyone attacked, but the one man on the platform was too surprised. Before the man could recover, Blade whipped out his sword, split the man's unhelmeted head, and pitched his body down on to the deck below.
The first two men to climb the stairs inside the tower died nearly as quickly. Blade knocked the first one on the head with a loose plank, then stabbed the second in the throat as he climbed over his stunned comrade. This gave a third man the chance to get up on to the platform beside Blade. He wore a scale-mail shirt and a helmet.
Blade stepped back, to give himself room to swing his sword hard against the man's armor. The moment he'd opened the gap, there was a wsssht-thuk and the man staggered to the railing, a crossbow bolt in his chest. He slumped to the platform, face showing a mixture of outraged indignation and pain, then died. Blade turned to see Kuka and half a dozen archers standing on top of the Blue Bird's Tower. All along the wall to either side of it, men were throwing rope ladders over the walls and grappling hooks into the rigging of the ship.
The archers on the ship's deck picked off a few of the assault party as they climbed down. A few more died in the fighting on the ship's deck. But the ship's defenders couldn't do a thing to cut the ladders or the grappling lines, so they were quickly overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers. Blade stayed on top of the siege tower until he'd seen everything he needed to see, then came down. By that time the ship was firmly in rebel hands.
By that time also Swebon's canoe was alongside. The chief came up the side of the ship with a broad grin on his face and blood all over chest and one arm. «It is not mine,» he said in reply to Blade's look.
«Good. There is much more work for you before this day is over.»
«I hope so. I do not care to let the Sons of Hapanu go easily, now that we have them in our grip.»
Blade nodded. «We shall not let the Protector's men go, but I do not know about the Emperor's.»
Swebon looked skeptical. «I know they are all our enemies, and that is enough for me.»
«I do not know that, Swebon, and I have seen more of what is happening in Gerhaa than you have.» Blade lowered his voice as he said this, not wanting to anger Swebon into a quarrel but desperately needing to make his point.
«What is happening in Gerhaa, then?» asked the chief.
I think I'm guessing right, but I'm still guessing, Blade reminded himself. If I'm wrong… If I'm wrong, I'm not likely to live long enough to feel guilty over it!
«The Emperor's men have kept themselves apart from the Protector's ever since the fleet came,» he said. «Last night the Emperor's ships dropped downriver, and they are now several miles away. What is more, they're staying there. They aren't joining the fight. If we leave them in peace, perhaps they won't.»