The Forlorn(60)

As quietly as possible, men jumped from its sides and spilled like ink across the white stone of the South Mole. Then the second galley arrived, and its reivers leapt off onto the other mole. The third, fourth, and fifth galleys quickly followed, now sacrificing silence for speed. There were nine vessels between the moles, the oarsmen rowing as hard as possible to reach the inner harbor and beach, or run up alongside the quay. The running vanguard surged ahead along the moles and struck against the breastwork and its wall of pikes. In the stilt-mounted pavilion behind the pike line, Leyla waited until the attack was a thick and clustered mass of swearing men hacking against the spear points. Those behind were pushing their leaders onto the thicket of sharp points. Her calmness seemed to spread across the archers. "Aim at the mass, after that, pick your marks." The sound of stretching bows and indrawn breaths was audible in the silence of the pavilion. "Loose."

Across the channel the same scenario was being enacted.

"Like shooting ducks in a barrel," commented one archer as the mass attacking the pike line was suddenly turned into a rout of screaming men. A rending crash, and the sound of splintering timber drowned his words. The lead galley ripped her bottom out on the heavy sharpened logs that had been anchored just below the water line. The next two galleys were only yards behind her. The momentum of the leading galley had borne her onward, until the weight of water in her shattered bow abruptly stopped her. There was no chance for the two behind to avoid collision. The fourth steersman was more alert. He managed to avoid the first three ships in a scream of wood and shattered oars. But the ship's inertia carried her forward, inevitably, onto the waiting logs.

There were fifteen vessels between the moles when the first struck. Of these, eleven had hit either each other or the hidden obstruction. Several of the vessels began to break up. The channel rang with desperate shouts and screams, the sound of rending and tearing wood, and frantic splashings. The few undamaged vessels were unable to move effectively, and men in the water scrambled towards them or the mole embankments. Another four galleys attempted to come in from the sea and their crews jumped, pouring onto the mole.

"Beywulf. Now!" The three catapults sprang and the casks of whale oil and naphtha flew to shatter into the channel. Two minutes later, when the oil was spreading in a greasy sheen across the water, the lit tar-candles in their net-float containers followed. Some went out. Some floated harmlessly amongst the wreckage, emitting clouds of foul black smoke . . . and one spat a fat spark into the naphtha fumes.

The channel erupted into a chaotic inferno. Hashvilli raiders leapt desperately from their burning ships onto the shelterless mole, where the arrow rain fell in heavy sheets. The tide and the night wind carried the wash of flames out and around the harbor mouth, isolating those already on shore from the remaining vessels.

From his duty point, Keilin watched in fascinated horror. Surely they would surrender, or run now? This was butchery, not war. But it seemed not. At the end of the South Mole, beyond the range of all but the heaviest bows, the surviving captains had a hurried council of war. The Hashvilli live close to the sea . . . and they swim like fish. If they could get past the breastwork and tear down the arrow platforms, it would be all over.

Men began pouring into the water outside the moles. How were they to know that the blood of all the domestic livestock of the town had chummed that water for the last two hours? And the deep channel between the outer reef and the mole had always been a favorite hunting ground of the great carcharinids. It was here that the blood and gurry from the whale flensing ran, rather than into the harbor. After the first, and then abruptly the second screaming man was ripped under, the rush for shore became frantic. The cries of "Sharks! Sharks!" were loud enough to carry even above the other horrible sounds of battle. Nothing their captains could do would force those men back into the water.

But those on the North Mole had seen what their companions on the South Mole were doing. The north channel between the reef and the mole was shallow and sandy. Now, at low tide, you could wade neck-deep along it. There was one deep hole, but that was near the shore, behind the breastwork. It too had been chummed, but less successfully here.

Keilin saw them coming, their topknots visible between the waves. Now that it had finally come, he found himself detached and ready. The first axe-wielding raider rushed out of the surf. His face was a grinning mask of hate, and he shouted in triumph. Keilin waited patiently. In the shallow surf gill nets had been spanned in a foot-tangling mess. As the raging marauder splashed forward to meet the boy, he stumbled. Keilin's assegai plunged. Blood gushed into the water.