The teams adjusted and fired again, with similar results.
“What in the abyss is the matter with those fools?” Abban demanded. “Their entire tribe only has one skill! A Mehnding who can’t aim is worth less than the shit on my sandal.”
Qeran squinted, reading the hand signals of the men on the docks. “It’s this cursed weather. It was never a problem in the Desert Spear, but since coming to the green lands we learned the scorpion tension springs don’t like the damp and cold.”
Abban looked at him. “Please tell me you’re joking.” Qeran shook his head grimly.
While the Mehnding fell into disarray, the Laktonian ships grew ever closer. Watchers blew horns when they came in bow range, and the Sharum returned instantly to their formations, shields raised, locked together like the scales of a snake.
Arrows fell like rain upon the shields, most splintering or skittering away, but some stuck quivering. Here and there were cries of pain from men with arrowheads in their forearms.
In their other hands they readied spears. The boats would be drawing in to the docks in just a few moments. They would wait out the bowfire, then come out of the shield formation and crush the invaders as they disembarked.
But volley after volley came down on the warriors, with more and more penetrating shields or slipping through cracks that formed in the scales as men were hit.
Abban looked up to see that the ships had pulled up, staying just in range to strike at the docks.
“Cowards!” Qeran spat. “They are afraid to fight us as men.”
“That just shows they’re smarter than we are,” Abban said. “We will need to adapt, if we’re to survive till the Sharum Ka’s brothers arrive with reinforcements.”
Long-armed rock slingers were loaded on the Laktonian decks. There was a horn and all loosed at once, arching small casks at the Sharum, blind in their formation.
The projectiles shattered, spattering a viscous fluid across the shield scales. Abban’s stomach clenched in dread as another enemy slinger fired, launching a ball of burning pitch.
The ball hit only one group of Sharum, but as the liquid demonfire—another secret of the greenland Herb Gatherers—flared white hot, it seemed to leap along the dock, the slightest ember or spark lighting shields soaked in the infernal brew. Men screamed as the fire slid through the cracks and rained on them like acid. They broke formation, those on fire shoving—and igniting—their fellows as they raced for the water.
Just in time for another withering volley of arrows from the enemy ships. Without their formations, hundreds were struck.
“This is fast becoming an embarrassment for Jayan, rather than a victory,” Abban said. Qeran nodded, even as Abban began calculating how much of the tithe they could get away with if the town was overrun.
Many fell to the planking as more casks of demonfire were hurled in, spreading the fire so fast it seemed the entire boardwalk was ablaze, with the fire running fast toward their vantage.
An arrow pierced the glass, missing Abban by inches. He collapsed his distance lens with a snap. “Time to go. Signal the Hundred to gather as many grain carts as possible. We will head down the Messenger road and rendezvous with the reinforcements.”
Qeran had his shield up to protect Abban. “The Sharum Ka will not be pleased.”
“The Sharum Ka already thinks khaffit cowards,” Abban said as he moved for the door as quickly as his crutch would allow. “This will do nothing to change his opinion.”
There was a pained look on Qeran’s face. The drillmaster had worked hard to make the Hundred into warriors that would be a match for any Sharum, and indeed they were well on their way. This would not bode well for their reputation, but it was more important they escape alive. Abban would happily watch a thousand Sharum fall before risking one of his Hundred in a pointless battle.
By the time they made the street, there was smoke and fire abounding, but Jayan was not defeated. Hundreds of Dockfolk had been rounded up at spearpoint and marched to the docks, clutching one another in fear.
“The boy isn’t a complete idiot, at least,” Abban said. “If the enemy can see …”
They could, it seemed, for the rain of arrows ceased, even as the Mehnding began to return fire. The scorpion teams still struggled, but they were improving. Rock slingers began hurling burning pitch at enemy sails as the Sharum archers took their toll.
“Already fleeing, khaffit?” Jayan said, coming up to them with his lieutenants and bodyguard.
“I am surprised to see you here, Sharum Ka,” Abban said. “I expected you to be standing at the front of the docks, ready to repel the invaders.”
“I will kill a hundred of them when the cowards finally step off their ships,” Jayan said. “Until then, the Mehnding will do.”
Abban looked to the Laktonian vessels, but they seemed content to sit safely out on the water at the edge of bow range. Catapults continued to rain fire at any open areas of dock.
“The ships!” Abban cried, fumbling with his distance lens and turning toward the stretch of docks holding the captured vessels. It seemed there might still be time. The Laktonians had not yet attacked their precious ships, and there was movement on the decks.
“Quickly!” he told Qeran. “We must wet them, before …”
But then his lens focused, and he saw that the movement on the decks was not a bucket line, but Laktonian sailors, many of them shirtless and dripping, frantically working lines and unfurling sails.
There were bowmen as well, and the moment the Sharum noticed them, they began to fire, buying precious time as the moorings were cut.
The first ship away was the largest and finest of the lot. Its pennant showed a woman’s silhouette looking into the distance as a man holding a flower at her back hung his head.
A cheer came from the Dockfolk. “Cap’n Dehlia came back for the Gentleman’s Lament!” one man cried. “Knew she wouldn’t leave it in the hands of the desert rats!” He put fingers to his lips, letting out a shrill whistle. “Ay, Cap’n! Sail on!”
Jayan personally speared the man, his bodyguard beating down anyone who dared cheer with the butt of a spear, but the damage was done. Two more of the larger captured vessels sailed away, the sailors hooting and baring their buttocks to the Sharum as they went.
Warriors leapt onto the remaining vessels, ensuring that no more were lost. The sailors did not even bother to fight, shattering casks of oil and putting fire to them before leaping over the sides and swimming to small boats waiting nearby. The Sharum, none of whom could swim, threw spears at them, but it was an ineffectual gesture. In the distance, the other Laktonian vessels ceased fire, taking up the cheer as they turned away. Six stopped at the halfway point and dropped anchor as the rest sailed back to the city on the lake.
Jayan looked around, taking in the lost ships, wounded Sharum, and destruction of the docks. Abban did not wait to see who the Sharum Ka would vent his anger upon, quickly getting out of sight.
“This is a disaster,” Qeran said.
“We still have the tithe,” Abban said. “That will have to do, until we can beat some wisdom into the Sharum Ka.
“Have the men claim a warehouse we can fortify and use as a base,” he added. “We’re going to be here a long time.”