They did see some local peasants doing the same. They scattered the moment they saw the horses, leaving their goods and fleeing. "Real fighters," said Gjuki, disdainfully. Svanhild kept her own council; the peasants they saw were armed with next to nothing, and certainly not mounted. How could they even hope to accomplish anything by standing and fighting? Except to get killed, of course.
"Why are they running away?" wondered Olaf, looking at the disappearing backs. "We could use some guides and we mean them no harm."
"Don't be more stupid than you have to be," snapped Bjarni at the lanky duniwassal. "We're riding cavalry chargers, and we are plainly foreigners. How many blond heads have you seen here?"
"Oh. I hadn't thought of that."
"Your trouble is you seldom think."
"It's going to make finding shelter difficult."
Bjarni swore. "Fandens osse! I hadn't thought of that."
Svanhild bit her lip. Suddenly, that nasty little inn, overrun with bugs and rodents, where she'd have had to share a bed with six other women she didn't even know, didn't seem so bad. "We'll manage, Bjarni," she said, stoutly. "We'll find something."
* * *
The riderless horse joined up with another troop of Magyar cavalry. The officer in charge of this detachment of looters looked at it carefully. And felt his heart sink. It had once belonged to Hegedes—the commander who had promised King Emeric he'd be proud of the looting campaign. That everything would go well. It looked as if he had been wrong. It also looked as if he wouldn't be around to take the blame.
* * *
The cannon roared, kicking back against the restraining ropes. "Venetian gunners aren't worth shit," said the high-voiced Knight bombardier, with dispassionate professionalism. He moved in, shouting instructions, cuffing heads.
The next shot hit the second of the galliots.
The stern cannon, bearing now on the closest galliot, began firing.
The nearest galliots' crews rowed frantically, pulling hard to close, to get near to the galleys so that the cannons could not be depressed enough.
Some fifteen of the galliots were close enough to pose a threat. Others were so far back that either they would never catch up or they knew they would arrive far too late for the looting; their crews had already stopped trying.
The gunners were now working as fast as the Knight's bombardier could drive them. And that wasn't going to be fast enough. The first galliots were already too close. Already burning, pitch-soaked arrows were being fired at the sails. Sailors scrambled with buckets of water.
The arquebuses began firing in volley from the great galley. Despite this, there were wild-eyed men standing up on the bows of the first galliot, grappling irons in hand.
Then the pirates weren't there anymore. They might have been safe from ship's cannon, but the bombardier had his own little two-pound cannon loaded with fragments of steel and ready for them. To Benito it looked as if some giant blade had abruptly scythed through the crew of that galliot.
But the second vessel was already coming. Plainly they had decided to concentrate their attack on this ship. The bombardier could not reload in time for that one. One of the Venetian gunners grabbed a cutlass.
"Put that down you fool!" yelled the bombardier. "Reload! There are still other ships behind this one. You sink those and we only have this one to deal with."
The knights still waited silently behind the rampart of crates and boxes. The raiders targeted the bow—as far from the poop deck as possible. Grappling irons came along with a bunch of yelling, gleeful, loot-hungry boarders.
Then the knights stood up behind the rampart, and the yowl that went up from the mob of boarders was no longer one of glee. Even in the wilds of Dalmatia they knew the armor of the Knights of the Holy Trinity.
To get to the knights they'd have to mount the rampart. The Narenta pirates were unarmored. They had boarding axes, a miscellany of swords and knives, and occasional pistols. The steel-clad knights with their broadswords were backed up by Venetian sailors with pistols and arquebuses. Manfred had positioned two further sets of ramparts up on the poop deck.
Benito had elected himself an exposed but potentially death-dealing position. The great galley carried four grenadiers, and an ample supply of black powder grenades. Out on the end of a wildly swaying main-mast spar, with a bag of grenades and a slow-match, he could pick his targets. So long as he could cling to the spar with his legs, he could virtually drop grenades into the attacking vessels.
"You'll be partly hidden by the bell of the mainsail, Benito," Manfred had said seriously, when Benito had suggested taking this position. "But you'll also be a good target. The canvas and the spar are no protection at all against arrows or gunfire. Also, if they succeed in firing the mainsail, you'll be fried. You work to my orders. Don't draw attention to yourself. Wait until the melee starts. No one will be looking straight up while they're fighting. Then you see if you can drop something directly into the attackers' boats.
"But not before—have you got that?" Manfred demanded, jabbing a forefinger—to the first joint, it felt like—into his chest.
"Yes, sir."
Erik snorted. "You can quit that right now. I don't know how well you'll fight in actual combat. But I do know you can climb things."
Manfred grinned. "Yes. I've seen him do it. Don't take company up there, hear."
Benito held his tongue. He'd never live that one down. But he was still thinking about it, despite the coming battle, when he reached the spar end.
He had a bird's eye view of the boarders from up here. He also realized the one fault with his idea: The sway out here was wildly magnified. He clung, lit, and threw.
Only he hadn't factored in the roll. To his horror, he saw that the grenade was going to hit the great galley, not the galliot alongside. He gritted his teeth and restrained himself from closing his eyes.
It hit the rail, and bounced harmlessly into the water.
He lit again, as fighting raged below him. Waited for the roll . . . realized how short the fuse was and hastily flung the grenade as far as he could, not worrying about where he threw it, just wanting to get it away.
It exploded in the air between two galliots. Not if he'd tried for a twelvemonth could Benito have used a single grenade so effectively. The explosion sent steel shards flying at those who remained on both galliots.
Lighting the third grenade took immense determination. Especially as a couple of shots were now being directed at him. But he knew when on the roll to light and throw now. It landed in one of the galliots. A brief shower of sparks . . .
And it failed to go off. He waited on the roll to light another. A shot burned across his shoulder, sending the slow-match spiraling downwards. He was left with a newly lit grenade in one hand and another four in his bag.
He did something incredibly dumb, but the bullet graze had both frightened him and given him a rush of pure insane strength. He dropped the lit grenade into the bag; then, in a smooth movement, drew his main gauche and slashed the strap with the other hand.
He flung the entire bag. It splintered into the storm-decking on the prow of the latest galliot to join the fray; and, a moment later, erupted and blew a smoking hole in the bow at the waterline. The little vessel started to go down almost immediately.