‘Well done, Frakk,’ Caldason told him.
The sorcerer reddened bashfully.
A crowd of defenders, deeply in need of heartening, cheered when they saw the trebuchet.
Most of the islanders were stationed on a sweep of ridges that looked down onto the bay, and commanded the only road. The bay itself was illuminated by spiked lanterns, bonfires and glamour orbs, making it almost as bright as day, which was a necessity for invaders trying to establish a bridgehead. Barges were transporting men and siege engines from ships to shore.
There were four or five land leviathans on the beach. Like moving houses, or more accurately, small fortresses, they held men, perhaps as many as fifty in the larger examples, and teams of horses. The latter were yoked to ingenious mechanical systems that produced the motive force. Each of the contraptions was iron clad, and probably spell protected. There was nothing magical about their means of propulsion, unlike the trebuchet, but their armoury included magical weapons of destructive ferocity. They moved slowly but were notoriously hard to stop.
The islander’s main strategy was to rain arrows down on the beach. While it was difficult to see what else they could do, given their meagre arms, it was really no more than a hindrance.
Caldason had several of Darrok’s men with him, members of the personal army that originally policed the Diamond Isle. Several had used the trebuchet, though not in anger. He put them in charge of operating it, and ordered the machine brought forward. Frakk didn’t have to do a thing, since scores of volunteers heaved the brute into place. Its pitching arm was wound back and secured and the generous leather cradle was spread out. From the scrubby terrain, a rock was selected, big enough that it took eight men to move it.
‘What’s the target?’ an operator wanted to know.
‘That one.’ Caldason pointed to a leviathan freshly unloaded and making its cumbersome way up the beach. ‘And be ready to reload fast.’
The operators set to adjusting the Claw’s alignment by spinning wheels and depressing levers.
‘Fire!’ Caldason yelled.
The arm went up and over so fast it was a blur. Its rock spun through the air in a great arc, plunging towards its target. People on the beach scattered as the projectile descended.
It missed.
The rock landed mere feet from the leviathan, felling a handful of warriors but doing no harm to the siege engine.
Caldason bellowed, ‘Reload!’
The operators worked frantically to modify their settings. Arrows were winging up from the beach below, along with bolts of magical energy. The islanders replied in kind, though with less intensity.
‘Fire!’
The trebuchet whipped off a fresh shot. This time, it reached its goal. It wasn’t a direct hit, but in a way, something better. The rock struck the back end of the leviathan as it was negotiating a slope. The fortuitous angle, and the force of impact, flipped the tank as though it were a toy. As it lay on its side, men scrambled free, several leading wounded horses.
The islanders were quick to capitalise on their luck. They let loose a shower of flaming, tar-tipped arrows. Dozens streaked to the leviathan’s exposed and vulnerable underside, and almost immediately the machine was belching acrid black smoke and dancing sparks.
Flocks of arrows and sizzling energy beams again scoured the ridges. Once more, the islanders returned fire as best they could, and were cheered to see several invaders engulfed by flames.
‘New target!’ Caldason ordered, pointing.
They got off a couple more throws in fairly quick succession. The first was a dream hit, landing squarely on the roof of a vehicle with a deafening crash. For all its armour, the leviathan had little resistance to such a blow and was crushed to two thirds of its bulk.
Perhaps over-confidence accounted for what happened next. The second rock missed its objective by a considerable margin, though it did bounce into a wagon, wrecking it.
Looking for a fresh target, Caldason glanced out to sea. A barge was coming in, carrying two leviathans and a number of soldiers. He decided on a change of tactics.
‘Could you hit that?’ he asked the gang master.
‘It’s on the edge of our range. But we might make it if we use smaller rocks, and maybe we’d need to hit it more than once.’
Caldason told them to try.
In the event, the first shot scored well. By good fortune it came down on one of the few clear spaces on the barge’s deck. A shattering of timber was followed by an erupting spume of water. By the time the trebuchet had been reloaded, the barge was going down.
The second volley was another hit. It didn’t pierce the craft, as its predecessor had, but it did enough damage to hasten the sinking. The leviathans were sliding across the creaking deck, and men were jumping overboard. A cheer went up from the islanders.
Caldason organised teams to search out suitable rocks and transport them to the firing point in quantity. At the gang master’s suggestion, they tried shots consisting of mixtures of smaller stones and debris. Falling like deadly hail, they were remarkably effective, not so much for harming the leviathans, but as a good way of keeping the enemy troops pinned down.
A couple of hours after arriving at the cove, and with his crew firing off a constant bombardment, Caldason decided he could leave. He handed over command of the trebuchet to the highest ranking rebel he could find, then took a fast horse. Looking back as he left, he knew there was no hope of doing more than slowing down the landings.
His route took him inland, so he saw nothing of fighting, but he passed plenty of islanders on their way to beef up the defences; and plenty more, the old, the sick and youngsters, heading for various refuges. All along the coastline, the sky was red.
Caldason arrived at the redoubt in the dead of night. No one hindered his approach, and he was let in as soon as he was recognised. Although he wasn’t the only islander seeking shelter there, he was told most had made for the seafront fortress. He was given directions to the rooms Kinsel and Tanalvah occupied, and in the corridor leading to them, he found Serrah.
When they finished embracing, he briefed her on what had been happening, then asked, ‘What’s going on here?’
‘There’s a lot of activity but little actually occurring, if you know what I mean. Tan and Kinsel didn’t want to go to the fortress, which might be just as well, because we’ve had reports of successful landings there. It’s all pretty confused, but the place could already be under siege.’
He thought of the people he’d seen heading for the supposed sanctuary, and of Disgleirio, who was trying to protect it. In all probability their fate was already sealed. ‘We always knew they’d get ashore. All our defences are predicated on guerrilla tactics, not the impossibility of keeping them off the island.’
‘If there’s enough of us left to fight. Have you seen those fires or whatever they are along the coast?’
‘A lot of that’s designed to fill us with fear and awe, remember.’
‘I think I’ve got quite enough of both already, thanks.’
‘Well, just bear in mind that if we’re going to get out of this, it’s by using our heads.’
‘Are we going to get out of it, Reeth? Any of us?’
‘Maybe with a miracle.’
‘Oh, great.’
‘Don’t knock it; they happen. I met you, didn’t I?’
She smiled and squeezed his hand. ‘You’re a base flatterer. You know that, don’t you?’
‘I only speak the truth.’ He returned the smile. ‘Tell me, how’s Tanalvah?’
Serrah’s expression saddened. ‘She might be in the first stages of labour, or will be soon enough. I’m worried about her. She doesn’t seem like the Tan we knew back in Bhealfa.’
‘She’s been through a lot.’