“What’s that over there?” I said.
“What? The lighthouse?” said Orgos, squinting in the direction I was pointing, but only getting as far as the round towerlike structure that dominated the harbor. “It’s used to guide ships into the port. ”
“No, further down the coast. It looks like another port.”
It turned out that the other port had been called Shelton. I say “had been” because, according to Duke Raymon, it was now a ghost town, and had been since the bay had been closed off to sea traffic by an immense sandbar. The people had just shut up shop and moved away. It was exactly the same as what had happened to Shale, but here the fishermen had just moved a couple of miles down the coast to Seaholme.
“It’s like the town here, but on a smaller scale,” said the duke. “Why?”
“I was just thinking,” I said, “that if the raiders were massing for an assault, they would need to do it in a place where they wouldn’t be noticed-”
“Will’s right,” said Lisha hurriedly. “We should ride over immediately.” She paused and added, for the benefit of the duke, “Don’t you think, Mithos?”
It took us less than ten minutes to ride over to the derelict port of Shelton. It was populated only by terns and gulls that swooped and dived at us as we walked our horses through its empty streets, fixing us with their hard, unafraid little eyes as if ensuring we were in no doubt as to who owned the place. The entire town was caked with the greenish white and grey of their droppings, and the air rang with their raucous voices.
We split up and searched the streets of silent shops. Garnet and I wandered along the harbor and poked our heads into decaying boathouses. The water had receded from the seawall and, farther out, you could see where it shallowed to nothing, barely covering a great reef of sand, dotted with the bones and split hulks of the ships that didn’t get out in time. We found nothing but puffins and razorbills nesting in the boathouse walls, and air heavy with the scent of rotting seaweed. We tried the lighthouse door. It was open, and we spiraled our way up the stone tower to the open top with its wood-filled brazier and its view of Shelton. There was nothing to see but the sister lighthouse down the coast in Seaholme. I leaned disconsolately over the guano-caked side, harried by hovering terns and great, screaming gulls. The noise was giving me a headache.
It was evening before we got back to Seaholme, where the dock-hands were amassing slowly on the quay and rolling out the wagons with studied caution. I had actually thought I was being useful, for once, but since we had nothing to show for our afternoon bird-watching expedition I resigned myself to my usual role: useless Bill, Will the waste of space.
The infantry had been sent in groups of ten to hold the main roads down to the harbor. The cavalry stood close by. Everyone looked anxious and a little bored, including the horses, which chewed on their oats, waiting for something to happen.
We dined in our tavern on local cod with rice and lemon juice. Lisha gave us a last-minute summary of the situation. “Mithos, you will oversee the loading of the wagons with me. Orgos, you stay with the infantry. Garnet and Renthrette, join the cavalry. Will, you are to carry messages between all the other units.”
Great. Will the errand boy. I looked out of the window, noting how quickly it had darkened. It was now half past eight and the last of the sun had disappeared ten or fifteen minutes ago. Mithos was talking: “There are two large barrels of seawater on the roof of each wagon. The raiders can’t expect to get away with a cargo like this, so they will probably try to burn it on the road. We should hack the barrels open as soon as the raiders appear and drench the coal: drown it. If one of those burning arrows gets in. What’s the matter, Will?”
“What?” said Lisha.
“Garnet and I went up the lighthouse today,” I said. “The one in Shelton. The brazier-”
“Had wood in it,” said Garnet, getting to his feet. He looked even paler than usual.
“The town is deserted,” I said, “but the lighthouse brazier is stocked with new, dry timber. The raiders aren’t going to attack the wagons at all.”
“They are going to lure the barges into the wrong port-” said Garnet.
“And wreck them on the sandbar,” I concluded. “They aren’t going to burn the coal. They are going to drown it.”
SCENE XXVI The lighthouse
Take the horses and get over to Shelton,” shouted Lisha, “except Orgos. I’ll send cavalry. The barges will be in sight of the lighthouses any minute now, so move fast. If they are going to light the Shelton beacon, they’ll also have to keep the Seaholme lighthouse dark. Orgos and I will deal with that.”
I rode as fast as I could, but I couldn’t keep up with the others. By the time I reached the foot of the lighthouse they were waiting, holding the door slightly ajar. I dismounted shakily, and Garnet nodded silently towards six horses trimmed with crimson that were tethered in the dark by the tower.
There was a sudden flare and I looked up to see the beacon atop the lighthouse ablaze. Moments later the bright orange spot of light that flickered farther up the coast, the light that was to guide the barges into Seaholme, died.
There was only one door into the tower, and we had no idea if the raiders knew we were here. There was only one way up: the tight, dark, and easily defended spiral staircase.
“I wish Orgos were with us,” Mithos murmured as he pushed the door open. “All right, let’s go. Quick and quiet. Hand-to-hand weapons only. I’ll lead, then Garnet. Then Will. Renthrette, cover the rear.”
At the top the fire roared, drowning out all other sound. I looked over Garnet’s shoulder into the tower and up the staircase. It was dark and narrow in there.
Mithos vaulted up the stairs and was quickly around the corner and out of sight, Garnet at his heels, his ax blade sparkling dully. Then I went. Then Renthrette. We were halfway up when I heard a door below us open, its shrunken timbers scraping on the stone floor. Renthrette glanced up at me and gestured to keep going. I pushed into Garnet and urged him up the spiral. There was a cough from below, and a snatch of conversation resounded up the pipelike stairwell. Two of them behind us. At least.
Renthrette slapped at my legs, pushing me higher and faster as the voices began to ascend. And then we came to a halt. Above me, Mithos readied himself, touched by the yellowish light of the beacon that fell down the first four or five steps. Garnet raised his shield and huddled closer to him, the muscles of his calves taut, his knees bent and ready to spring. Below, Renthrette took one more step up and then turned her back on me, her sword arm drawn back and ready.
The first soldiers rounded the corner below at about the same moment that Mithos leapt out of the top of the stairwell. I felt Garnet pause for a moment before he followed him out with a wordless cry of fury. Below, I saw a crimson-crested helm appear in the dark as Renthrette lunged. The tip of her sword glanced off the raider’s armor, and, as he hesitated, I dragged at her tunic from behind, pulling her upwards after me. If there were four of them on the top, then Mithos and Garnet would need all the help they could get. And anything was better than being trapped like a rat in the dark stairwell, enemies above and below.
I’d only gotten two steps higher when the soldier below recovered from his surprise and came after us, drawing his weapon. I took another step up and found my head in the open air, my ears suddenly filled with the roar of fire and the confusion of combat. I leapt up the last few stairs, my sword and shield extended in sudden terror. Maybe I should have stayed in the staircase after all.
One of the raiders lay crumpled by the wall, his cloak spilling out like blood. Garnet was hacking at one who was parrying with his scyax. Two others had pinned Mithos against the raging brazier. I moved towards one of them cautiously and he turned, heaving his huge axlike blade at me. I dived to the side and the weapon swung wildly, catching Mithos’s other adversary in the waist. The wounded man doubled up and Mithos sprang past him, seizing the scyax-wielder by the throat.
Garnet made a feint attack with his ax and then cut at his enemy’s shoulder, but the raider dodged and struck out with his scyax. It caught Garnet’s forearm and opened up a long gash that made him cry out and drop his ax. Renthrette, who was emerging from the stairwell backwards, wheeled and released a shout of anguish.
