Hawkwood's Voyage

“Let us hope he will not turn tail like he did at Aekir,” someone muttered.

Martellus’ eyes turned that pale, inhuman shade which always silenced his subordinates.

“He will do his duty.”

J AN Baffarin, the chief engineer, came scuttling like a crab through the low-ceilinged bomb-proof towards Corfe and Andruw.

“We’ve repaired the powder lines. There should be no problem now.”

He was shouting without realizing it, as they all had been for the past day and night. The huge tumult of the bombardment overhead had ceased to seem unusual and was now part of the accepted order of things.

The bomb-proof was large, low and massively buttressed. Five hundred men crouched within it as the shell and shot rained down on the fortress above their heads. Dust and fragments of loose stone came drifting down when there was a particularly close hit, and the air seemed to shake and shimmer in the light of the shuddering oil lamps. “The Catacombs” the troops had wryly labelled their shelter, and it seemed apt. All around the bodies of men sprawled and lolled, some asleep despite the unending noise and vibration. They looked like the aftermath of the plague, a scene from some febrile nightmare.

Corfe roused himself from the concussed stupor he had been in.

“What of the guns?”

“The casemates are intact, but Saint’s love, those are the heaviest calibre shells I’ve ever seen. The gatehouse is a pile of rubble, and the walls are in pieces. They don’t have to attack. If they keep this up they’ll reduce Orma

Andruw shook his head. “They can’t have the ammunition and powder, not with their supply line as long as it is. I’ll wager a good bottle of Candelarian that they’re ru

A particularly close explosion made them wince and duck instinctively. The granite ceiling seemed to groan under the assault.

“Some show,” Baffarin said dubiously.

“Your men know the drill,” Corfe said. “As soon as the rearguard is across the bridge you touch off the charges, both on the bridge itself and in the barbican. We’ll send the whole damn lot of them flying into the Thurians. There’s a show for you.”

The engineer chuckled.

The bombardment stopped.

There were a few tardy detonations from late-falling shells, and then a silence came down which was so profound that Corfe was alarmed, for a second believing that he had gone deaf. Someone coughed, and the noise seemed abnormally loud in the sudden stillness. The sleeping men began rousing themselves, staring around and shaking each other.

“On your feet!” Corfe shouted. “Gu

The catacombs dissolved into a shadowy chaos of moving men. Baffarin grasped Corfe’s arm.

“See you on the other side of the river,” he said, and then was gone.

T HE devastation was awe-inspiring. The eastern barbican was like a castle of sand which had been undermined by the tide. There were yawning gaps in the walls, mounds of stone and rubble everywhere, burning timber crackling and shimmering in the dust-laden air. Corfe’s meagre command fa

Corfe clambered up the ruin of the gatehouse and surveyed the Merduk dispositions. Their batteries were smoke-shrouded, though a cold breeze from the north was shredding the powder fog moment by moment. He glimpsed great bodies of men on the move, elephants, regiments of horsemen and lumbering, heavy-laden waggons. The hills were crawling with orderly and disorderly movement.

A gun went off, as flat as a hand-clap after the thunder of the heavy-calibre ca

The five hundred Toru

The warmth of the sun was bright and welcome. Men wriggled fingers in their ears to let out the ringing aftermath of the artillery, then sighted down their weapons at the advancing enemy.

“Easy!” Corfe called out. “Wait till I give the word.”

A gun barked from one of the upper casemates, and a second later a blossom of blasted earth appeared on the slope before the Merduk formations. Andruw testing the range.

They came on at a slow walk, the high-sided waggons trundling in their midst. The northern and southern hosts had more of these elephant-drawn vehicles than the one which was aimed at the barbican. Corfe strained his eyes to make out the strange loads, then whistled.

“Boats!” The waggons were loaded with shallow-hulled, puntlike craft piled one on top of the other. They were going to try and cross the Searil to north and south whilst engaging the garrison on the east bank at the same time.

“They’ll be lucky,” a nearby soldier said, and spat over the battered wall. “The Searil’s swollen after the rain. It’s ru

There was a spatter of brief laughter along the ramparts.

Andruw’s guns began to sing out one by one. The young gu

But the ranks reformed, and the Merduks came on again faster, loping along at a brisk trot, leaving the waggons behind. Corfe could see that the lead elements of these men were in shining half-armour and mail. They were the Hraibadar, the shock-troops of Shahr Baraz.

The formation splintered and spread out so that the shellbursts took a lesser toll. As they jogged ever closer Corfe rapped out orders, pitching his voice to carry over the rippling booms of the Toru

“Ready your pieces!”

The men fitted the smouldering slow-match into the wheel-locks of their arquebuses.

“Present your pieces!”

He raised his sabre. He could see individual faces in the ranks of the approaching enemy, horsehair plumes, panting mouths underneath the tall helms.

He swept his sabre down. “Give fire!”

The walls erupted in a line of smoke and flame as nigh on five hundred arquebuses went off in a single volley. The enemy, scarcely a hundred yards away, were thrown back as if by a sudden gale of wind. The front ranks dissolved into a mass of wriggling, crawling men, and those behind faltered a moment, then came on again.