Even as he spoke figures spilled out from behind the mantlets, running forward towards the ruined wall of Kalksthorpe under the cover of the ar rowstorm and the globes of napalm. Those lifted as they swarmed screeching up the rough slope, arching higher to fall safely behind the first rank of the defenders. The crest seemed to sprout armed men as the survivors of the bombardment rose to meet them. Faint with distance he could hear the screams of the Bekwa, and a deeper chant: ?Cut! Cut! Cut!?
The Moorish pirates had slung their bows; they formed up in two solid blocks behind the sloped siege shields, waiting and still. Tall poles or spear shafts held green flags over their heads, with a squiggle of some unfamiliar script in silver on them, visible as the sea wind streamed them out. The bleak light glinted on their spearheads, above the dun mass of their tall almond-shaped hide shields. Here and there ostrich-feather plumes danced on a helmet or jewels glittered, oddly cheerless in the light of northern winter.
Odard hissed between his teeth.?I suspect that they?re not all blood brothers out there,? he said.?It?s after you, my friends. No, no, I insist, after you!? ?You are a cynic, my lord Gervais,? Father Ignatius said; he was on the other side of Mathilda from Rudi.?I fear you are right this time, as well. Your Majesty?? ?Wait. Wait,? Rudi said, even as another long guttural shout rang out, this time from the corsairs: ?Alllaahuuu Akbaaaar!? ?Wait… not quite yet…?
The green flags waved and the rover crews ran forward towards the thump and clatter and screams of combat beyond the broken wall. ?God is Great,? the priest murmured.?So He is indeed. But men, alas… Father, forgive us for what we are about to do, and forgive us that we can see no better way. Lord who blessed the centurion, bless us also this day. But Thy will alone be done, for Thy judgments are just and righteous altogether.? ?Holy Mary, Lady pierced with sorrows, Queen of Heaven, intercede for us, now and at the hour of our deaths,? Mathilda added soberly; she held up her sword for an instant by the blade, kissed the cross the hilt and guard made, then tossed it up and caught it ready.?For us and for our foes.? ?Amen,? the Christians said.
Tension grew, with a taste like hot copper and salt at the back of his throat. For a moment Rudi thought the wings beating above were in his mind. Then he realized they were two real ravens, launching themselves from a tall spruce. They soared upward, circling above the town. He felt a chill worse than the sweat congealing on his flanks under the armor and padding. Then a great calm, and under it a lifting current of hot anger. ?Yes,? he said.?It?s time, Victory-Father.? Louder:?For Montival! Follow me!? ?Artos and Montival!? his companions called.
The wedge of them trotted out into the open ground, snow floating up around them like dust to the pounding of booted feet. ?No!? Abdou al-Naari snarled, cuffing a man over the head with a gloved fist.?I?ll castrate the first man who plunders before the battle ends!?
The crewman staggered, dropped the golden necklace he?d been pulling off a body and picked up his shield again. An arrow struck quivering in it a moment later with a hard dry thunk and the man?s eyes rolled in shock.
Abdou coughed; the whole town wasn?t burning, but there was enough smoke to lie thick. And it was a maze of lanes and log houses with steel shutters over their doors and lower windows; from the upper ones came arrows and spears, rocks and jars of burning lamp oil. Bodies of pagans and corsairs and their allies littered the trampled mud and dirty snow of the street, in a mess of blood and broken weapons and men who shrieked or whimpered or tried to crawl aside and bandage themselves.
Spears and axes waited behind a rough barricade of carts and furniture a little farther down; he could see the tiered roofs and gilt and painted dragonheads of the pagan temple beyond. If they took that, only the boat sheds and docks remained. ?Shields!? he called.
The Bou el-Mogdad?s crew rallied, raising a wall of wood and leather ahead and overhead as well. Under that tent he looked around for his bosun, shouting the man?s name: ?Falilu!?
The man looked up, and Abdou pointed to a well-placed house larger than the others with his sword. ?That one. Clear it and get us some covering fire while we storm the barricade.?
The man nodded, grabbed a dozen hands who were all archers. They slung their bows, lifted a thick timber and began beating in a door; it gave off a thudding bang like a huge drum as they rammed their way through. Then it fell inward, and they drew their blades and charged in; screams came out then, but only a few clashes of steel on steel. ?The rest of you, with me. God is great!?
They charged the barricade with their tall shields locked together against missiles. Those rattled and thunked and banged off the protection until the moment they had to climb the obstacle; here and there a man fell, silent or screaming or cursing, but the others closed ranks and kept up the rush. Steel probed for his life as the wild corsair charge struck. He knocked the spearhead aside, slicing up it at the wielder?s fingers; a snarling face loomed out of the corner of his eye and a huge two-handed ax swung towards his head. Another man?s shield put itself in the way; Abdou could hear it crack beneath the force of the blow.
He slashed at the pagan?s face and he fell backward in a spray of blood as the ugly yielding feel of thin bones breaking flowed up wrist and arm. Grown men and boys and elders and even shrieking women were in the crowd facing the corsairs in a heaving, stabbing, shoving mass. Then they turned and pulled back as a shower of black cane arrows came slashing down from the house, driven by powerful whalebone-backed bows.
Abdou braced the point of his scimitar on a broken cart and his weight on the pommel for a moment to sob for breath, waving his free hand to Falilu, who grinned from the second-story window before he loosed another shaft.
Then a choked-off cry of pain drew his notice. Ahmed was crumpled at his feet, trying to get the broken shield off his arm. Abdou helped his son, and though the youngster was silent his teeth brought blood from his own lips. ?Not broken, dislocated,? the father said. Then, in a sharp bark: ?What?s that??
The boy?s head jerked aside to see what had brought the cry of alarm. In the same instant his father grabbed the arm, pulled and twisted. The joint went back into its socket with a click audible as much by feel as through the noise of combat. Ahmed made a stifled sound, but the rough treatment was over before he could shift his attention back to it. ?And you saved my life.? Abdou grinned into the pain-sweating face. After a moment the younger man grinned back.?Now stay close. That arm will be too sore to hold a shield for days.?
They pushed on over the ruins of the barricade, and the houses drew back on either side. The triangular open space before the silver-worked and gilded doors of the idolater?s temple-even then a brief what a place to sack! went through his mind-was crowded, but the fight was shaking itself out into lines after the chaotic scramble through the streets. His crew linked up with that of the Shark, and Jawara was there, grinning like the predator itself. ?We have them, I think,? he yelled.
Abdou nodded and let the battle surge past him; his head went back and forth. The pagans were still fighting, but they were outnumbered now… and most of the casualties on his side had been the weird allies the Marabout had found, not his own folk. Which was just as he?d planned.
A cry came from behind him; in Wolof, and not just the sort of screaming-usually for their mothers-that men in unendurable pain made. He turned, and his eyes went wide in alarm. It was one of the men held left as a rearguard at the broken wall. Two gray-fletched arrows stood in the back of his steel-strapped cuirass of doubled hippo hide, and his left forearm and hand were a dripping mass of ruin through which bone showed pink-white. His right held the broken stub of a sword.
The man fell forward into Abdou?s arms, and the captain turned and laid him down gently on his side. Blood bubbled out across his broad dark face, and his eyes were blind as they hunted about. It was a younger cousin of his, not much older than Ahmed. ?What is it, Dia?? he asked. ?Too many,? the man mumbled.?Couldn?t stop them. They come. Warn the skipper! Hurts!? ?You have warned me,? Abdou said.