Terrible Swift Sword Read Free Page A

her mother.
    Above the mad confusion the nargas continued to cry out. The Merki artillery lifted its range, bursting shells over the water in their eagerness to cripple the ships, as if the people upon the beach were no longer worth the effort.
    A ripple of shots snapped out from the ships—the Suzdalian musketmen firing over the heads of the crowd in a desperate bid to hold them back.
    "Hamilcar!"
    Githra was looking straight at him.
    "We must get to the boat!" Elazar shouted, trying to push him forward.
    "Drisila!" he roared, trying to fight his way back up the beach.
    "My lord, get Azreul to the boat!" Elazar shouted.
    The survival of his only living child suddenly forced out all other thoughts. He turned aside, pushing back toward the ship, clawing his way through the mob. A contingent of sailors were over the side of the ship, waving their swords, trying to keep the crowd back, the water already pink from their efforts.
    A shell detonated almost directly over the ship, snapping with a glowing brilliance, and as if by some divine guidance its breath cleared an opening in the crowd, as bodies dropped into the surf. Hamilcar leaped forward, holding Azreul over his head with both hands, the child screaming with terror.
    The ring of sailors stepped past him and he held the child up to the side of the ship, Githra reaching down and sweeping the boy up on board. There was a dull snap of sound and, stunned, Hamilcar looked at the quivering arrow buried in the side of the ship. An instant later a sheet of feathered death rained down, rattling against the ship and striking dozens. Men tumbled back into the vessel, others over the railing and into the mob.
    "Get on board!" Githra shouted.
    Hamilcar turned away.
    "Drisila!"
    From the corner of his eye he saw the flat of Elazar's blade coming down.
    "No!"
    The blow slammed him up against the side of the ship.
    "Get him aboard!" Elazar screamed.
    Stunned, he struggled weakly, as he was half pushed and half dragged into the ship. A continual hail of arrows swept down, the barbed points acting as prods, driving the mob into an hysterical frenzy.
    "Back oars!"
    He tried to regain his feet, but stronger hands forced him back down, a coil of rope going over his shoulders. The world was a dizzy confusion, a blurred memory of a wide-eyed man hanging to the side of the ship, swordsmen screaming with an inner torment as they struck down their own people, wild shouts of panic, a severed hand clinging to the railing, and then ever so slowly the ship backing away, rolling low on the water.
    And the nargas continued to cry out. Coming up to his knees he felt Elazar holding him tight, preventing him from standing. Several ships were trapped on the beach, one of them on its side, the oil from a lantern having spilled out, the bow of the vessel engulfed in flames that illuminated the nightmare. The beach seemed to be a shifting, writhing mass, as if it were a single living creature twisting and rolling in agony.
    The closing ring of Merki was visible, dim shadow-figures towering in the streets of the village. He could imagine their gloating joy. After all, they were harvesting cattle, runaway cattle who would all be condemned to the slaughter pits. Those who had died tonight would be on their tables by morning.
    Drisila . . .
    Bristling with rage, he looked back at Elazar, who said nothing, his bearlike arms holding him down.
    The rowers struggled at the oars, the men toward the bow powerless to move what with each blade jammed by desperate hangers-on. The cries of the thousands left behind rolled across the ocean like the mournful night-dream voices of the damned. A deeper boom snapped across the waters, the thunder of the heavy shot from the supporting ironclads rippling across the water. It was an impotent gesture.
    Hundreds of flaming arrows arced through the air, adding their light to the madness. Merki cannon that had pushed down to either side of the village churned the water with shot. In the