“It certainly looked like enough,” Abraham said. “Do you think they can hold the wall?”
“No,” Winter said shortly. “We need those ships ready to sail, with everyone on board. Fyotyr said the sails and oars were taken to the keep. Abraham, do you think you can talk to the refugees? There must be a few sailors here. Get as many as you can to help you get those ships ready.”
“I... can try,” Abraham said, taken aback. “There’ll be a rush to get aboard once they know what we’re doing.”
“Let them. But no cargo, only the people. We’re getting everyone out of here.” Winter glanced over her shoulder at the wall, now wreathed in smoke. A white-?coated Murnskai soldier pitched backward off the wall walk with a scream and landed hard in the mud, and others scrambled to take his place. “Alex, go with him in case anyone tries to get in the way. Do not let those ships leave until everyone’s aboard.”
“Got it.” Alex pointed to the keep. “Come on. Let’s find some oars.”
“Won’t they have everything locked up?” Abraham said.
Alex rolled her eyes. “Greatest thief in the world, remember?”
The two of them ran off. Winter turned back to the wall, watching the flashes of musketry, waiting for the inevitable.
“They’re coming over!” one of the Haeta shouted. Hands appeared above the edge of the log palisade, spindly, underfed figures lifting themselves over the barrier. The Murnskai troops converged with bayoneted muskets, driving them back, but soon more red-?eyes were reaching the top at another spot, and then another.
Come on, Dobraev, Winter thought. You have to see this isn’t going to work. Under normal circumstances, a soldier at the top of a wall had a considerable advantage over one at the bottom. But this wasn’t a stone fortress wall, or even a ditch and scarp as one might find on a modern fortress, just a set of lashed-up logs. It was an easy climb for anyone with a knife or a hatchet. The defenders were harder to hit than the Beast’s musketeers lined up below, but the attackers were indifferent to wounds or casualties, and outnumbered their opponents several times over.
Making matters worse, the circuit of the wall was too long for the relatively small numbers Dobraev could call on. He had no reserve, nothing to plug a breakthrough. The first penetration of the Murnskai lines would be the end of the battle.
Unless we do something about it. One of the attacks was being pushed back, but at another spot, to the left of the gate, the Beast had made a lodgment on the top of the wall. The musketeers outside were concentrating their fire there, bringing down the white-?coated soldiers who ran to drive the attackers back, and the few who made it found themselves struggling hand-to-hand with vicious red-?eyes. More of the Beast’s bodies dropped from the wall walk into the courtyard, their path into the fortress blocked by only a handful of soldiers.
“Vess!” Winter shouted.
She expected another argument, but Vess was smarter than that. The girl raised her spear and pointed, and the Haeta charged with a roar. Winter drew her saber and went with them, reaching the knot of red-?eyes just as the last of the Murnskai were cut down.
The enemy were armed as variously as they were uniformed, carrying everything from sharpened sticks and cudgels to muskets and swords. They turned, fluid as the singular creature they were, to face this new threat, but it did them little good. The front rank of Haeta girls hurled their spears in mid-?sprint, a volley that hit hard enough to punch men off their feet. The warriors had time just to grab another spear from their quivers before they met the red-?eyes, a solid line of spearpoints against which the Beast’s creatures hurled themselves as uselessly as the wolves had days before. Unlike the Murnskai, the Haeta had fought the red-?eyes and knew their strengths. Winter, trotting up behind the line, watched as the girls carefully finished each downed opponent, knowing that the Beast’s creatures could ignore wounds that would cripple a human.
There was the sharp crack of a musket. A girl stumbled, clapping a hand to her throat, then collapsed in a heap. The shooter was on the wall, where a dozen red-?eye musketeers were loading with inhuman speed. Another group was pushing down the stairs beside the gate, shoving the Murnskai soldiers back. The red-?eyes were willing to accept a bayonet thrust to the gut to get their hands on an opponent, disarming the enemy with their own bodies. The Murnskai wavered, and Winter saw Lieutenant Dobraev running to steady them.
“Byr!” The scream came from Sergeant Gorchov, engaged in his own desperate fight above the gate itself. He struggled to cut himself free, but red-?eyes swarmed over the wall on both sides.
Winter gestured with her sword, then charged, hoping Vess and the others would follow. She reached the stairs alongside Dobraev. The Murnskai soldier in front of her slumped to the ground, groaning, and a heavyset peasant woman with a long stick bulled right over him. Winter deflected her downward stroke with one arm and ran her through, then kicked her back into her fellows. A young man with sunken cheeks and carrying a boat hook came forward to take her place, and Winter hacked at him wildly, driving him off-?balance. Dobraev, fighting beside her, managed a strike to his throat, and the young man sank to his knees with a gurgle.
A half dozen Haeta arrived, and Winter grabbed Dobraev and spun out of the way as the spearwomen pressed the red-?eyes back up the stairs. The rest of them were attacking the musketeers on the wall walk with thrown spears, or climbing up the rickety shacks that backed against the wall to get a handhold and pull themselves up to the palisade. The first girl to make it got a bayonet in the eye and dropped back to the ground, where she lay twitching, but two of her companions grabbed the bearded red-?eye who’d stabbed her and pulled him forward, too. He hit the ground headfirst, but the Haeta below took no chances, descending on him with knives flashing.
Winter turned Dobraev to face her. The lieutenant looked dazed, blood spattered across his face, pupils tiny pinpricks in a sea of white. She took him by the collar and shook him roughly, and he gasped, a little color returning to his cheeks.
“Get your men off the fucking wall!” Winter shouted.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about—” the lieutenant began.
Winter snarled. “I am a goddamned division-?general, and I have been in more battles than you have ever fucking heard of. Now give the order before I bash you on the head and give it myself!”
Dobraev took a deep breath, pulled away from her, and shouted.