“Why arms, my lord?” Holiyi asked.
“Because they have things in their gowns,” Wallie said cryptically, and they all accepted that. There was another reason that he could not tell them, a promise.
The first sorcerer I meet, I shall spare for your sake
. Of course there was also the possibility of reprisals against the sailors or townsfolk, although he did not really expect that; but he might leave some of his force behind alive, in spite of his gruesome warning to Nnanji. They might fare better if no sorcerers had died. And he just wanted to avoid deaths if he could.
“Shonsu!” Sinboro was shouting from the masthead. “More coming!” He pointed toward the town. Wallie waved an acknowledgment. Then he took his small army over to the rail and ran through the drill twice.
Then another shout from the masthead warned him that the sorcerers were almost there.
††††††
He crouched by the top of the gangplank, sword in hand. Opposite
Sapphire
a ship had unloaded a pile of shabby brown bales and sailcloth in long, buff rolls to make an excellent roadblock. All the traffic detoured toward him to get around it; it also made good cover. Fala was sitting on a bale with a sword beside her, but her companion of a few minutes before had gone. Perhaps she had recognized the sword in its wrapping.
To his right, in the direction from which the enemy would come, the way was squeezed between a heap of grain sacks on the nearer side and a wagon loading crates on the other. Nnanji was squatting behind the sacks, sword in hand. That seemed an odd choice—why would he not have put himself at the city end of the ambush in case the sorcerers tried to run for it? Fala and Mata were beside the wagon.
To his left he could see none of his warriors, but his view was as much obstructed as the sorcerers’ would be by two more wagons, one piled high with yellow baskets and the other with warm red bricks. Another wagon bearing lumber was scraping through between them with loud exchange of insults. Leaning on his cart of glistening fish, an elderly hawker plodded past
Sapphire
. Two more wagons were coming from the right, and the sorcerers were behind those, a glimpse of yellow cowls above the crowd.
There were fewer people nearby as the swords were noticed and the wise departed. This was a loyalty test for the riverfolk and the citizens of Ov: Would anyone run to warn the sorcerers? Of course that was why Nnanji had gone to that side. If they were alerted, they would turn around and retreat with their prisoner. The thought gave Wallie goose bumps, for his plan to draw their fire would have been thwarted, and Nnanji would certainly pursue.
He made a last check of the deck and of his army, all crouching by the ingots, swords in hands, watching him nervously. He gave them the local equivalent of a thumbs-up sign, and then saw Honakura standing by the mast and smiling complacently.
“Go below!” Wallie yelled.
The old man pouted and shook his head. “I collect great deeds, as well as miracles!” He smirked.
“You’ll collect a thunderbolt, you flaming idiot! Go up on the fo’c’sle, then, and stay behind the capstan.”
The priest scowled, but sauntered forward.
Now the lumber wagon had made it through the gap and pulled up by
Sapphire
until the way ahead was clear. Fortunately for the ambush, the teamster was selfish enough to hog the middle of the road. The oncoming traffic would have to pass him on Wallie’s side. A spurt of pedestrians flowed through the gap and hurried by.
The first of the two wagons rumbled past the crates and then by the ship, its cargo of barrels sending out a strong smell of beer. The second followed, carrying a precariously high load of what looked like lobster pots.
Then came the sorcerers—yellows, a red, and browns. They walked in two lines of three, warily eyeing the ships and the crowd, every man with his arms in front of him and hands in sleeves. In the center was Katanji, tiny and barely visible. Wallie saw that his right arm was bandaged and in a sling. There was a rope around his neck and behind him, holding the rope, walked a very tall Fifth, keeping his eyes firmly on the prisoner.
Wallie’s pulse was pounding, and his mouth was dry. The lobster pots passed below him, and he got his first clear glimpse of the captive. Katanji looked shaken and pale and very small. He was keeping his eyes down to avoid looking at
Sapphire
, but his face was bruised and bleeding. The sorcerers had obviously done some preliminary questioning.
Bastards!
“Up!” Wallie roared. “Sorcerers! I am sent of the Goddess!”
He stepped forward to the top of the plank so that they could have a clear view of his blue kilt. He raised his sword.
The sorcerers’ eyes swung toward the shout. They saw a Seventh and a group of men with swords and they reacted instinctively, pulling their weapons from their sleeves. Seeing battle impending, bystanders and pedestrians screamed and started to run.
Wallie yelled, “Charge!” and hurled himself flat on his face.
Roar
!—a very loud and jagged explosion. He felt the ingots beside him shudder. Splinters of wood flew across the deck. He grabbed the foil with the basket and thrust it up over the rail to draw any more thunderbolts, but nothing happened to it. He scrambled to his feet and he did not die.
Chaos he had predicted, but not this. The amount of smoke from the primitive black powder was astonishing; the air was thick with it and full of terrified screams from people and horses. Especially horses, plunging horses, churning the crowd. The lobster pots were a lightweight load and that wagon had bolted straight left, into the beer wagon, and barrels were cascading down. The basket wagon came charging to the right, into the sorcerers, scattered them, plowed over the sailcloth, and toppled onto its side. Baskets bounded into the roadway among the barrels and milling civilians.
He was halfway down the gangplank when he saw Nnanji impale his first sorcerer. But where was Katanji? Then he caught a glimpse of red through the smoke, as the big Fifth disappeared around the beer wagon and headed toward the town. Wallie left the battle to his army and gave chase.
Now the barrels and baskets were a hindrance instead of a helpful distraction. He dodged and sidestepped and cursed until he was past the worst of it and had a clearer view. The Fifth, with his prisoner over one shoulder, was in the middle of a panic-stricken crowd streaming toward the town through a maze of goods and wagons and skittish horses. Wallie threw people out of the way as he ran, but the big man was a powerful runner, also, even with his burden, and it took long minutes to catch him . . . almost to the end of the dock. Then Wallie came up behind him and thrust his sword between the man’s legs.
The sorcerer fell headlong on top of Katanji, rolled over, and started to pull something from a pocket. Wallie was briefly conscious of a hate-filled face glaring up at him. He kicked. The first sorcerer Wallie had met was out of the battle then. Maimed perhaps, but probably not dead, so the swordsman had kept the promise he had made in Aus.
Katanji sat up shakily, looking dazed, saw Wallie, exclaimed, “Oh, Lord Shonsu!” and burst into tears.
Wallie glanced at the crowd ahead and saw cowls fighting their way toward him. He was almost into the reinforcements coming from the tower. He sheathed his sword, threw Katanji over his shoulder, and began to run.
The dock had emptied of people, and now he needed them for cover. He pounded down the roadway as hard as he could go, with his scalp prickling, waiting for more thunderbolts. He started to veer from side to side, even when there was clear space ahead, and he heard Katanji groan at the shaking he was getting. He saw
Sapphire
’s blue hull still a long way ahead along that cluttered avenue between the wagons and the heaps, an avenue walled by the sides of ships, arched over by the webbing of masts and rope and yards. It seemed to stretch forever.
There was shouting close behind him, very close. Then something kicked him in the back with the strength of elephants and proclamations of thunder. He was hurled forward and for the second time the unfortunate Katanji acted as landing pad for a large man.
All the breath went out of Wallie, and the impact rattled his bones from his feet to his teeth. Half stunned, he could only lie and gasp like a landed fish.
Then his arms were grabbed and pulled behind him and something cold went round his wrists with a click.
“A Seventh!” said a jubilant voice. A foot crashed into Wallie’s ribs. “Up, swordsman!”
He gasped and was kicked again. He was dragged to his feet, reeling and dazed. Every rasping breath was an agony. There were sorcerers of various colors all around, even a green.
“A swordsman of the Seventh!” the Sixth exclaimed, and then laughed. He smiled up at Wallie. “You are a welcome guest, my lord! We shall have much entertainment from you.”
Damned handcuffs! Manacles! He swayed and looked to see Katanji being hauled to his feet, also, although he seemed barely conscious and his sling was soaked with blood. “Let the boy go!” Wallie said.
“Hors d’oeuvre,” the Sixth said, a smallish, wrinkled face peering out of a green cowl. “You can watch him go first. Shonsu, of course? You are hard to kill, swordsman! But this time we shall make sure. There will be no haste.”
Then he frowned and turned to stare toward the River, and Wallie became vaguely conscious of a rumbling noise.
He struggled to focus sense out of a many-colored, whirling mist. A wagon was moving. Two men were standing up in front, one flogging the horses, and the other waving a sword. It carried a whole company of sword-waving figures. More men were jumping on it as it reached them. Swordsmen! They were pouring off the ships as it passed and being hauled aboard.
From a million miles away, from a million years ago, someone was shouting inside his head, very faintly. It sounded like Wallie Smith. The chief sorcerer started yelling orders in a shrill voice. Then Wallie made out that thin, far-off internal screaming: “Delay them! Distract them!”
His tongue was a dead fish in his mouth. “Honorable . . . Rathazaxo!”
The sorcerer paused and stared in surprise. “Well done! How . . . No matter. You will tell, later. Everything, you will tell.”
He turned back to consider the onrushing wagon.
Wallie flogged his mind and voice. “The tryst is come, sorcerer.”
This time he got a glare. “You could not know!”
“The gods told me. Did you think your pigeons could do better than the gods?” Everything was going round faster and faster. “Ink and feathers, little bits of leather?”
He had scored. Not only the green—half a dozen sorcerers were staring at him openmouthed. Their age-old secret?
“How do you know of that, Shonsu?”
“Sulfur . . . charcoal . . . horse urine . . . ”
Anger and fear showed within the cowls.
The rumbling grew louder. Then the Sixth awoke again to danger. He shouted orders. Wallie was shoved back to the side of the road. He stumbled and fell heavily on a pile of bales, and a flame of agony in his back dragged a scream from him. The rigging swayed before a darkening sky. He thought he would vomit . . .
Yet he hung on. He twisted his head to see. The hollow rumbling was growing louder, the wagon picking up speed, the shouting becoming clearer. Now the two men were distinguishable, even to Wallie’s muddled vision—the heavyset bulkiness of Oligarro driving the horses, yelling and whipping, Nnanji’s matchstick lankiness, whirling his sword as he yelled for swordsmen, his ponytail a banner of blood in the wind. The water rats were responding, leaping off the boats and coming to help against sorcerers. And armed sailors, also . . . even a few free swords in ponytails and kilts . . . Oligarro had not been the only liar in port.
Louder and louder came the juggernaut, gathering speed even as it gathered passengers. Then Wallie saw what the sorcerers were trying to do. He twisted and scrambled frantically until he got to his feet, his head a whirlpool of pain. Katanji was staggering about behind them, in the path of the coming destruction, too dazed to understand. Wallie backed up to him, grabbed his good arm with manacled hands and towed him to the side of the road, knocked him down yet again, and turned his muddled attention to the eight sorcerers lined up across the road. They were all standing with legs apart. They were all holding pistols.
“Ready!” the Sixth shouted, and the sorcerers raised their arms outstretched before them. The wagon was plunging forward, and in the midst of the dust and the noise and confusion Wallie registered the terrified eyes of the horses.
“Aim!” the Sixth shouted.
Then he opened his mouth again, and Wallie hurled himself bodily into the nearest man. He teetered and fell against his neighbor. Had Wallie had his wits and normal strength he might have felled the whole line, like dominoes, one into another. As it was, he ricocheted limply off and fell once more, thumping his head on the timbers as a hail of knives flashed over him and the pistols roared, squirting great clouds of smoke. Half the sorcerers fell, and the wagon plowed into and over the rest.
There were swordsmen everywhere, screams and swords and yells and knives and cheers and smoke and blood.
The smoke cleared, the noise stopped.
He was lifted more gently—but not much more gently—to his feet. Eight dead sorcerers . . . a crowd of swordsmen—free swords in kilts, water rats in breechclouts, sailors . . . Tomiyano and Holiyi and Maloli, even a few women. They were cheering and laughing. Then Nnanji threw an arm around him, grinning and exultant.
“We did it, brother! Wiped out the lot of them!”
“Well done,” Wallie whispered. “Oh, bravely done!” But he did not think he was audible.
Nnanji was. “
On To The Tower
!”
Cheers! “On to the tower!”
“No!” Wallie yelled. He lunged at Nnanji as he started to move away and then gasped again with the pain. The tower was booby-trapped. There would be cannons and grapeshot and shrapnel bombs . . . “You can’t take the tower! Back to your ships!” Gods! It hurts to speak!
Anger and disappointment rumbled around him. Wallie leaned weakly against Nnanji. “Back to your ships!” he repeated faintly.