The coast of the river estuary ran northwest-southeast here, with a hook of land protecting the site of the town. On the landward side was a wall of tree trunks, squared and sunk deep, bolted together with heavy steel rods and wound each to the next with metal cable. A little in from that was another wall, and the space between was tight-packed with rock and rubble to make a bulwark of solid strength. Blockhouses of large tight-fitted logs laid horizontally studded the wall, with two by each of the gates. The seaward approach was protected by more logs-but those were sunk in the seabed, angled outward, their ends tipped with vicious metal blades like the heads of giant spears. He could see some of them from here, frosted and menacing and bearded with icy tendrils of weed, but some were always underwater even at low tide. Only the dwellers knew the paths through them.
His own ships were anchored safely out of range offshore, their rigging half blocked from here by the rearing complexity of the pagan temple?s shingle roofs. Both were two-masters built in the Saloum delta of sapele and iroko, low fast snakelike craft designed for speed at sea and handiness around shallow coasts. The pagan war boats were formidable where they had room to move, but they couldn?t thread their way out through their own obstacles, not when they had to come slowly and in the face of catapults throwing globes of stick flame.
He?d come in out of the dawn three days ago and caught them tied up. That blockade duty pinned his ships down as long as he stayed here, though. Which also meant he couldn?t dismount more than a pair of light engines for besieging the town, not nearly enough to do significant damage.
The Marabout-Cheik Ibra, he was called-was in conversation with one of the strangers. They were too far away for Abdou to follow the talk, but close enough for him to hear that it was in English. That made his mouth tighten. How had Ibra learned that tongue? In the lands of the Emirate of Dakar only seafarers did, and of them only a few. ?Ahmed,? Abdou said, raising his voice slightly.
His son trotted over, proud in his fifteen years, a slim young man who already bid fair to be taller than his tall father someday. He was prouder still of being on his first foreign voyage. ?My father? I mean, Captain?? ?Fetch the learned Cheik for us.?
The boy walked over to the strangers with self-conscious dignity. He transferred his spear to the left hand that also held the grip of his shield, so that his right could touch brow and lips and breast as he bowed and murmured a polite formula. The perhaps-holy man nodded and walked over to the two corsair captains. ?I have good news, God willing,? he said cheerfully; he didn?t even seem to mind the vile weather here. ?God willing indeed,? Abdou said.?What could be good about this place except seeing the last of it, when that is His will?? ?Confounding the pagans and plundering their goods?? the Marabout asked dryly.?And then seeing the last of it??
Jawara nodded.?Yes, but how? Charging those walls would leave nothing but heaped corpses-and if I?m to be a martyr, I want to be a victorious one. And we can?t sit here long. Too likely a warship of the accursed English Nazarenes will come by, may God confound them. Their merchants put in here to trade every now and then, too.?
All three men nodded. In theory the Emir of Dakar had agreed to forbid these waters to ships from his realm after the defeat he suffered at the Canaries from the united kufr fleets a decade ago. Abdou and Jawara had both been there, fighting beside their fathers in their first real war, and had been among the lucky minority who escaped alive from the arrows and flamethrowers and the waiting sharks.
In practice the Emir had neither the power nor the wish to control the ships that sailed from the tangled swamps and creeks of the Saloum delta, looking for revenge as well as wealth. Their folk needed the salvage of the ruined cities, not just metals but gears and springs and glass and a hundred other things; and the English charged usurer?s rates for such. But the treaty allowed their navy to attack vessels in the exclusion zone on sight, which they did with ghastly efficiency.
The Mouride cleric went on:?These men-who are veritably followers of the Prophet-?
Abdou caught a glimpse of something he didn?t like in the man?s eyes then; something like mockery. He gritted his teeth and ignored it. There was work to do. ?-say they can build a trebuchet. There?s plenty of timber in the barns and outbuildings, and their savages to do the rough work. They need some help with tools, and our ship?s carpenters and smith, but they have an engineer who has erected one before and knows the proportions.?
The corsair leader rubbed his chin beard, shuddering a little as bits of ice condensed from his breath fell off it. The strangers had already built mantlets, thick sloped wooden shields on wheels that would stop arrows and bolts. The corsairs had brought two light pieces of deck artillery ashore; a rover ship was built for that sort of flexibility. But the six-pounders wouldn?t knock that wall down, not if they threw roundshot from now until the Day of Judgment or until the ships? ammunition ballast was all gone.
We might be able to set it on fire. Or the town. But charred ruins yield little plunder. A trebuchet could break down the timbers and spill the rubble core.
A trebuchet was the most powerful of war engines, and the simplest; a giant lever pivoting between uprights, with a box of rock fastened to the short end and a throwing sling to the long one. Given one of those and enough time they could batter their way through walls of well-fitted stone blocks, or even ferroconcrete, much less timber with rubble fill. A big trebuchet could throw a half-ton rock the better part of a mile, but they weren?t naval weapons-more a matter of fortress and siege warfare-and none of his carpenters and metalworkers were familiar with them.
But given time is the word to remember here. Risky! Still…
The plunder was tempting, and the chance to show the Norrheimer pagans that interfering with his people wasn?t a good idea even for battle-drunken madmen. If he had been a timid man, he wouldn?t have become a corsair. Growing peanuts and rice was much safer than being the skipper of a Saloum rover, and trading in cotton and indigo was almost as lucrative.
A big trebuchet can make a ramp out of that wall. By God and His Prophet, though, I know who?s going to lead the assault, when it comes-and it isn?t going to be my men.
The thoughts took only an instant.?We?ll do it. And let us not give the infidels the precious gift of time.? ?So, tell me about your betrothed,? Edain said quietly when the scouting party had stopped for the night.
Ritva gave him a look and slipped away to take the first watch. They?d made a cold camp here; no fire, of course, just rearranging some snow below an overhang and bringing in some spruce boughs for insulation between their bedrolls and the ground-as long as you were out of the wind it was the earth below you that sucked away the body?s heat. All that they had to do was unroll the sleeping bags, arrange their weapons close to hand, and huddle close while they gnawed on sausage and cheese and crackerlike rye flatbread. And kept their canteens in with them, to keep the water from freezing.