'Pull me back,' he shouted. When this was done he laughed and added, 'I hit one of them, and I think I knocked in the side of their boat.'
'Good,' said Brian. There was a fumbling and scraping against the deck as he retrieved his pike in the darkness.
'Not good,' said the helmsman in a low, disapproving voice. 'If you've sunk their craft they will be angry, and will have nowhere to go except onto this one. Guard yourselves and speak your names. Tomas, Tomas, Tomas.'
Brian and Declan did so as they both moved a few paces to each side of him, and he heard their pikes tap sharply against the stern rail as they sought in the darkness for an aiming level for the blind thrusts they would shortly be making against the boarders. Declan did the same with the shaft of his long-axe. He had decided to use it like a heavy spear and jab rather than swing with it. That would render it less effective as a weapon but it would also reduce the risk of him accidentally killing his two companions. Every few seconds he spoke his name and jabbed into the darkness above the rail, without striking anything but the empty air.
From what seemed like one or two paces to his right there came the betraying sounds of leather scraping against wood and the scuffling of a heavy body scrambling over the rail. He was drawing back his axe for a jabbing thrust at the sounds when there was a sudden scream of pain, the splash of someone falling into the sea, and a burst of swearing in Brian's voice.
'Are you wounded?' said Declan, continuing his thrust into empty darkness and drawing back to make another. 'Where, and how badly?'
'No,' said Brian, swearing again. He went on quickly, 'I stuck one of them, in the face or arm, I think, because I felt no armor. But he grabbed my pike and took it when he went over the side. What the hell do I do now I've lost my bloody weapon?'
'Reach out your arm to me,' said Declan, changing to a one-handed grip on his axe shaft and reaching out toward the voice until he encountered Brian's arm. He gripped it loosely, slid his hand down to the wrist of the other's hand then moved it to the handle of his gladius.
'Use that.' he said. 'Jab, don't swing it. You'll have to fight closer, it's shorter than a pike but does more damage. If you lose it over the side I'll kill you myself.'
'Go ro mait agat…' the other began, but his thanks in Gaelic were interrupted by the sound of heavy feet jumping onto the deck all around them, and suddenly Brian was speaking Latin.
'Careful, fool!' he growled in an angry undertone.
'Strike to your left, soldier, you all but killed your own officer!'
'I'm sorry, sir,' another voice began in Latin, but it ended with the soft, soggy thump of a blade driving into flesh, a high-pitched grunt of pain and the sound of a body falling to the deck followed by the voice of Brian again speaking in Gaelic.
'I'm sorry,' he muttered in a voice devoid of sorrow, 'that pretense was most dishonorable. But then, I'm a diplomat, not a warrior. My tongue is supposed to be my strongest weapon.'
'Utterly dishonorable, and effective,' said Declan, laughing softly. 'But be careful in its use lest you be mistakenly slain as a Roman…'
He broke off because more feet were landing on the deck in front and to one side of him. Brian and the helmsman were still softly speaking their names out of the darkness. He moved backward a pace to a distance where he could swing rather than jab with his long-axe without endangering his friends. He went down on one knee, the better to avoid the attackers' body-level stabs and slashes, as he made the first wide, circular swing.
Declan felt a double shock run up the handle to his wrists and heard a scream as the heavy blade took someone's legs from under them, but the next swing met only empty air. Still keeping low, he moved forward and swung again. This time the handle was nearly jarred loose in his grasp as the outer point of the blade tore through leather and underlying flesh and bone of a head or chest, and that man crashed to the deck without making a sound. He was twisting the axehead free, a small part of his mind trying not to think about the terrible wound it had made, when suddenly he was able to see everything that was happening.
The wind had cleared a small area of sky that contained a few stars and a thin sliver of crescent moon. There was just enough light to show Brian frantically waving his gla-dius two-handed at an attacker while he tried desperately to fend off the thrusts of the other's spear, while beyond them the helmsman, Tomas, who was limping and at times hopping on one leg, was engaging another Roman with a shortened pike the first few inches of whose point had presumably been left in someone else. Declan shifted his grip and raised his weapon high before swinging it down to strike with the flat of the blade like a massive club onto the top of the first Roman's helmet. The man dropped to the deck as if he had no bones in his legs. Brian laughed his thanks and turned to attack the helmsman's opponent in the flank, and a moment later the Roman went down.
Declan saw a movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to see two heads, separated from each other by about three paces, appearing above the stern rail. He swung the axe in a wide circle and struck hard at the first one. There was the sound of a body splashing into the sea, although he could not be sure if the head was still attached to it. When the second boarder saw what had happened to his companion, he threw his sword awkwardly at Declan and pushed himself backward to fall into his boat. For the moment the deck was clear of attackers, at least living ones. Tomas pointed at the fallen bodies.
'Over the side,' he said. 'We don't want to trip over them in the dark. I can't help you. A leg wound.'
Quickly Brian retrieved the attackers' weapons, passed a spear to Tomas, and returned Declan's gladius because he now had one of his own. Together they lifted the bodies by their legs and shoulders and swung them high over the rail, hearing two splashes and then a splintering sound of one of them crashing down onto a boat. As he paused a moment to look around, from amidships came the loud twang and thump of the arbalest which now had moonlit targets at which to aim.
Too many targets by far.
Declan swore as he glimpsed upward of twenty craft, three of them large and loaded down with men and the rest small dugouts or skin-covered curraghs bearing three or four each. Now that they could see their quarry, the men in the boats were cheering, and those in the bows were whirling grappling hooks on long hemp lines around their heads to launch them slingshot-fashion at the ship. A few of the hooks clattered on board and found purchase on deck projections, but most of them became entangled in the antiboarding nets, tearing and pulling them down as the lines were pulled in. The boarders from the few craft that had been able to find them in the dark must have been repelled, although a few of them still hung from the nets like fat, black flies caught in a spider web. Suddenly the commanding voice of Captain Nolan rose above the enemy shouting, speaking aloud the very thought that was in De-clan's mind.
'Seamus,' he called, 'they are too many for us and we'll be over-run within moments. Raise the anchor and set the foresail. All portside oarsmen who can get blades in the water, pull and bring her around. Helmsman, head for the open sea and let the wind take her…'
His words were interrupted by the twang of another arbalest bolt being fired, followed by a small outcry from the target boat as it struck, and the rest of his words were spoken to someone close by him and too quietly for Declan to hear them. Not so the words of Tomas.
'Something is fouling the bloody rudder,' he said. 'Declan, see if you can clear it. Brian, help me here.'
While Tomas and Brian put their shoulder to the tiller and pushed with no effect, Declan moved quickly to bend double over the rail where he looked along the length of the rudder. The dim moonlight was shadowed by the stern overhang so that he could sense movement but saw only a large, indistinct mass that was probably a boat, and a thin line of lighter material joining the rudder with the ship's stern timbers. He jabbed at it with the head of his axe and heard the clink of metal. It might be a short sword with the hilt removed, he thought, that was being used to wedge the rudder immobile. He gripped the shaft of his axe in both hands and jabbed downward even harder and felt the metal obstruction bend and fall away. The rudder was moving freely again.
Declan was about to straighten up when he felt two things happening in the same moment: hands grasping at the shaft of his axe and a sudden, glancing blow striking the side of his leather helmet, delivered by what felt like a spear or sword point and all but knocking it from his head. He jerked the long-axe free, the only clear thought in his mind the saving of his best weapon, and staggered back with lights that were in his mind rather than in front of his eyes bursting all around him. Still dazed, he leaned against the tiller to steady himself.
'There's no need to do that, Declan,' said Tomas, 'it's working well again. But standing out to sea in this
