The ballista bolt had been snatched from the mast by the weight of the yard and sail. Hidden but not suffocated, the oily rag had ignited the sail. Perennius had not expected his makeshift fire-arrows to do serious damage. He had hoped for a diversion which, had it occurred early enough, might have permitted the liburnian to run past the pirates as Leonidas had planned to do. Perennius had his diversion now, though it was probably too late.
One of the Herulians snatched up the bucket which lay
in the shallow bailing well aft. He turned and the sling bullet took him on the point of his hip. A trifle low, but the angle was tricky . . . and it would serve for the time, as the man bled and screamed and tried with both hands to compress the shattered bone into unity.
A spear thrust at the agent over the tower parapet. Perennius skipped back, putting the frame of the ballista between himself and the German who wanted his life. The remaining Herulian amidships was the only one of the pirates who seemed to retain an interest in his own ship. He was short-gripping his spear to probe at the sail with the point in an attempt to find the source of the smoke.
“Fire, you donkey-fuckers!” Perennius shouted, hoping Germans from the Danube migrations could understand the dialect he had picked up on the Rhine. “Your ship’s burning!” He shot the Herulian seaman through the center of his boiled-leather breast-plate, just as a Goth stabbed the agent from behind in the right thigh.
There had been a brief struggle as Marines on the catwalk tried to throw back the pirates climbing aboard. The Germans were handicapped by their need to scramble up oar-shafts with their shields slung and a hand for their spears. They had both numbers and fury, however. The angle gave them an unexpected advantage as well. The German spears tended to be longer than the eight-foot javelins issued to the Marines. When the pirates thrust up from their deck or a shifting perch among the cars, their points passed below the Roman shields. Three Marines crashed down with their calves pierced before the rest hopped back onto the deck proper. Germans leaped after them, pushing the defenders back further by sheer weight.
Perennius threw himself forward with a cry. The weapon that had pierced his leg was a poor grade of iron and not even particularly sharp. It had the strength of a hulking, two-hundred-and-fifty pound pirate behind it, however. Blood leaped after the black iron as the agent drew himself off the point. The pirate grunted and raised his weapon to finish the job.
Flat-footed on deck, the Goth was as tall as the fighting tower. To thrust over the parapet, he had to raise his spear overhead with both hands, but that awkwardness was slight protection to Perennius. The German wore silvered chain mail, but his head was bare. His blond hair was long. It was gathered on the left side by a knot close to the German’s scalp, so that it streamed like a horse’s tail past his shoulder.
The agent’s sword lay somewhere on deck. His shield was packed in the cabin with his body armor. With a bullet in its cup, the sling would have been an effective flail even though the range was too short for normal use. And any thought of further retreat ended with the crunch of iron against the mechanism of the ballista behind him. The German who had driven Perennius to the back of the tower had not forgotten the slinger either.
If Perennius jumped forward, the Goth would spit him on the shaft of his rising spear – but the agent might get close enough to kick the bastard’s brains out. Perennius tensed, and the Goth tensed, and the boat-pike Calvus swung like a flail dished in the side of the pirate’s skull.
Sabellia and Calvus had appeared around the swollen belly of the sail. They held pikes from the rack on the mast. The Gallic woman was screeching as she thrust at another pirate around the corner of the tower. Her pike thumped his breast plate, leaving a bright streak on the bronze disks and a scar on the leather backing when it skidded off. The point did not penetrate.