Enry made a small, appalled sound. Esmond nodded. “Numbers?”
“Fifteen hundred, sir.”
The blond Emerald slapped Enry on the back. “Not to worry. That’s the local commander, trying it on in case this is just some sort of pirate raid. Your militia ought to be able to see them off; there’s seven or eight thousand of them.”
“If they turn out,” Enry said, taking a deep breath.
* * *
“Wait for it,” Adrian said.
“Sor,” Simun whispered back, “why don’t we have the arquebuses up here? They’re such lovely targets!”
technological surprise, Center whispered. you may define this as—
“Because we don’t want them to know about the arquebuses until we really need them,” Adrian said.
“They’ll have heard.”
“That’s not the same thing as seeing something for yourself.”
The landward edge of Preble had a narrow strip of sand studded with crags and boulders below the city wall, which was big ashlar blocks, enclosing a concrete and rubble core. It was crowded with men now, crouching down below the crenellations or behind the tarpaulin-covered torsion catapults. They were keeping surprisingly quiet, for civilians; nervously fingering bows, spears and slings, but not talking much. Esmond’s Strikers probably had something to do with that; they’d kicked and clubbed a few noisy ones into unconsciousness to begin with.
Adrian turned his eyes from the mass of robed figures, from gleams of starlight and moonlight on eyes, teeth, the edge of a blade, out to the sea. The Confed flotilla was led by two light war galleys, each towing a string of barges; for the rest there were fishing boats, small coastal traders, a merchantman or two. They were crowded with men as well, probably the local coastal garrison; this area had been taken away from the Islanders by Marcomann only a decade or so ago, and it still resented Confed rule.
He turned to his brother. “Wasn’t there a military colony around here?”
Esmond nodded. “Paid-off Marcomann veterans,” he said. “Allied Rights settlement. I wouldn’t be surprised if the governor had mobilized them.”
Adrian nodded in turn; that was what a military colony was for, after all. They’d be ready enough, too; a successful revolt would let locals who’d had their land confiscated to make farms for the ex-soldiers get their own back, literally and metaphorically.
The ships were close enough to hear the rhythmic grunting of the oarsmen under the creak of rigging and wood. Adrian peered into the darkness, and suddenly it took on a flat silvery-green light.
“They’ve got ladders on those galleys,” he said. “And on the barges—ladders with iron hooks on the ends. And what look like modified catapults. I’d say they’re rigged to throw grapnels with rope ladders attached.”
Esmond grunted. “Standard operating procedure,” he said. “Looks like the local commander really is going to chance the walls being lightly held.” He cocked a sardonic eye at the militiamen. “Enry has earned his corn—I hope King Casull is paying him generously. He’s had agents out all day, pointing out to the locals exactly what’ll happen to them if the Confeds retake a city where six or seven hundred Confed citizens were massacred.”
“Forward, sons of the Emerald! You fight for your homes and families, for the ashes of your fathers and the temples of your gods!”
The poet had said that about the League Wars, when the Emerald cities had turned back the Kings of the Isles. It was just as true here. In the open field, all the determination in the world wouldn’t have stopped the Confed’s armor and discipline; but fighting behind a wall, all the militiamen really needed to do was not run away.
“Ready,” Esmond said. “Ready . . .”
The barges were coming forward, awkwardly, the oarsmen too cramped to pull efficiently. The square raftlike craft dipped at the bows, as armored men crowded forward with the ladders.
“Now!” He stood, waving a torch—three times, back and forth.
Brass trumpets rang along the wall. The men of Preble—sailors, craftsmen, shopkeepers—stood and shot. Arrows hissed out towards the Confed troops in a dark blurring rush, hard to see in the faint light, but appallingly thick. Flights of javelins followed, not very well thrown but very numerous, and sling-bullets, rocks, cobblestones. The Confed troops roared anger and surprise, with a chorus of screams from wounded men under it. Shields snapped up in tortoise formation, overlapping. At this distance some arrows drove right through the thick leather and plywood; rocks broke arms beneath them, crushed helmets. The catapults on the wall and its towers fired their four-foot arrows, pinning men together three in a row. A rock hurler sent a fifty-pound lump of granite skimming over the quarterdeck of one of the galleys, taking off the head of the captain as neatly as an axe and crushing the steersman against the tiller.