A second volley cut down more of the pirates, and the ragged army of brightly colored natives, armed only with swords except for a few with axes and shields, curled around toward their tormentors, presenting their flank to MacKinnie.
“Now, men. March out. Follow me and stay in good order. Brett, you and your companion remain behind the shield wall until I tell you.”
The pirates were now caught between the two small detachments. Their leader shouted orders, and they broke into smaller groups and hurled themselves toward Stark and his men.
“With me, troops!” MacKinnie shouted. “Keep your ranks. Watch the men to either side and stay next to them.” He trotted his group away from the bow, angling away from the ship but moving sternward, keeping the pirate group between the two parts of his army. Some of the enemy turned to face him now. Others continued their charge toward Stark.
Hal fired one more volley of crossbow bolts and his men dropped the weapons. They bent to seize their javelins. As MacKinnie’s group closed with the pirates, Nathan shouted, “Now, Hal.” Stark’s group ran forward, casting their slender weapons, tearing holes in the ranks of the pirates, and then MacKinnie was upon them, his pikemen thrusting their weapons forward, as Hal and the Samualites fell on them with sword and shield from the other side.
On either flank a group of pirates now fought MacKinnie’s troops, but the main body held back, unwilling to enter the dangerous area between. Then they suddenly broke directly toward MacKinnie’s force, charged forward, ducking under the spear points, closing rapidly with the unarmored men, slashing with shortswords. Two of the young Jikarian sailors fell, opening a gap in the line of pikes.
On the other side of the formation the pirates made no headway at all against Hal and his Wolves. Unarmored, with inadequate shields, they did well to hold Stark back, but by sheer numbers were able to do so. A third group darted forward to leap for handholds along the ship’s railing.
MacKinnie charged into the gap in the line of pikemen, his sword slashing, shouting to his men to hold firm. A shortsword thrust at him, and he parried, beat hard in quarte, following with a cut to the pirate’s neck. His enemy fell and Nathan brought his sword in a whistling moulinette to drive back a second attacker. The gap was too wide to hold with his saver alone, and another enemy tried to circle to his left, only to be impaled by the pikemen, his last stroke falling weakly on MacKinnie’s mail. Nathan frantically shouted orders to close the line.
The Jikarians awkwardly moved closer to each other.
“Shield to shield!” MacKinnie shouted. “Close it up!” When they had filled in the gap he was able to turn his attention to the group which had charged the ship.
The pirates were stopped at deck level by Longway, who stood sword in hand, thrusting at the face of a pirate who had managed to raise himself almost to the level of the thwarts. MacLean stood with him, whole Loholo, shouting in mad fury, jumped to the sands below with an enormous two-handed sword. The native captain sent the weapon whistling around his head and screamed oaths.
“Subaois mine!” he shouted. “Filth, slime of the sea, spawn of unwashed carrion eaters! …” He lopped off a pirate’s head at a blow, then stood with his back to the ship, holding the rest at bay with the fury of his attack.
The pirate chieftain, his rank marked by bright gold bands around his neck and ankles, shouted commands to his men, breaking them away from combat to re-form and make use of their superior numbers.
MacKinnie waited until they had broken off the battle. Then he signaled Brett. “Now!” he shouted.
Brett screamed strange curses. He and Vanjynk spurred their mounts forward and thundered toward the pirates, wielding their great swords to crash through feeble attempts to parry as the enemy tried to avoid being trampled by their mounts. The beasts themselves fought, rearing up to strike with sharp hooves, crashing down to crush men to the sand. A group of pirates broke and ran as Hal and his shieldsmen closed swiftly in a disciplined formation from the other side to hew down the outer ranks. MacKinnie held his own detachment in place, their spears held out toward the pirates, forming a wall of points, while Loholo continued his mad rush, his great sword singing. The last of the enemy turned to run toward their ship.
Brett and Vanjynk pursued the enemy across the sands, but when a group aboard fired on them with crossbows, MacKinnie shouted them back. He re-formed his little command behind Subao again and left them to rest easy in ranks while he surveyed the battlefield.
He had lost two native troopers, killed when the pirates broke ranks. Several others had deep cuts, and one had a throwing knife through his shoulder. In addition, MacLean had caught a wicked cut across the back of his hand from the dying efforts of a pirate Longway spitted. The others were unharmed. The Haven detachment had been always on the attack and the pirates had little chance of closing with them, nor were their weapons heavy enough to do much damage through chain mail unless given more time than Hal had allowed them.
There were thirty-four bodies on the sand between the two boats. Some wriggled feebly. Most lay well away from Subao, cut down in flight by Hal’s men or the cavalry in pursuit.
“It’s always like that,” he explained to Longway and MacLean as he climbed back on board. “I’ve never seen a battle where at the decisive moment the loser didn’t have enough strength to turn the table. Once they lose the will to fight, they’re finished. More men are killed in pursuit than battle every time.”
“But it seemed so easy!” Mary Graham said.
MacKinnie turned, surprised to see her on deck. “I told you to stay below,” he muttered. “As to easy, it wouldn’t have been if they’d caught us on our decks. If they’d swarmed aboard with our troops not in formation and no room to maneuver, they’d have won. They were fools to fight on our terms. What can you serve my men for lunch, freelady?”
She swallowed hard before she replied. “Will they come back?” she asked. “It will take time to prepare.”
“I doubt they’ve the stomach for it.” He turned to Loholo. “Will they try to attack again after we’re afloat?”
“Loholo shook his head. “We’ll both have enough trouble staying off that shore, Trader. There won’t be much time for fighting when the water wall comes.”
MacKinnie noted that while they had been fighting, the officers had broken out one of the ship’s anchors.
MacLean had it carried out and laid in the sand on the seaward side of Subao. “We’ll need that,” he explained. “Without it, the ship might be washed ashore when the tide returns. This ought to hold us until we can sail off.”
“Will the pirates have one out?” MacKinnie asked.
“If they have any sense.”
“I see. That gives me an idea. I’ll have to speak to Brett.”
There was no further action, but Nathan kept his crew in ranks on the sand. They ate in place. An hour before the tide was due in, Vanjynk’s horse was swayed aboard, and the rest of the crew then took their places behind the ship, leaving only Brett and his mount on the sand behind the ship. A few pirates approached to within a hundred yards, but the sight of Brett thundering around the side of the ship toward them put them to flight, and Brett returned to his post as Vanjynk fumed in the waist.
“We’ll have need of you, Vanjynk,” MacKinnie said. “You stand by to carry out your orders.” They waited.
“I see it!” Loholo shouted from the masthead. “The tide’s coming.”