positions of marksmen assigned to kill him as he fired down at their charging comrades. Good luck, he thought, as he lined up the closest of the advancing Spanish and fired. The man went down, clutching his leg. Harry lined up another, got off a clean center-of-mass shot-and ducked, rolling behind the merlon and coming up on its opposite side.
At that same moment six, perhaps seven muskets roared from where Harry had seen the marksmen on the roofs of the other, lower towers. He popped up in his new position, took quick aim, and fired steadily at a spot on the east tower where dispersing gun smoke partially obscured motions consistent with reloading or exchanging spent weapons for fresh, preloaded ones. A surprised cry, a curse, sprawling bodies, moaning-and then Harry had to shift his focus back to swatting down the men charging the fortified walkway.
Too late: some had already arrived at the mouth of the narrow, stone chute-and Harry smiled as they discovered that it, too, was defended. Hunched low, and sheltering in the doorway of the lazarette, Turlough Eubank could not be seen beforehand-and could hardly miss the attackers: the walkway was hip high, and less than three feet wide. For a man to rush it, he had to enter that narrow tight space. And three of the Spanish did just that before the rest realized that not only was the walkway directly defended, but that the weapon doing so was like the one on the roof: it could apparently fire endlessly. Two more of the guards closed on the walkway, but with less eagerness than had those now piled up at its entrance. Harry took advantage of their hesitation: he put a round into each one’s chest.
Behind him, Lefferts heard the cable-whine that signaled the approach of the third man of his element-the Hibernian-descending in the bosun’s harness. The whine ended with a thump, a curse, and then the sound of a weapon being unslung. “Just in time!” Harry called over his shoulder. “Join the party.”
On the Castell’s main roof, the charge was wavering, particularly among the Spanish closest to the apparently unassailable walkway-and Harry knew he had them. Double-tapping each one quickly, he fired at those in the front, forcing them to either die or-in the case of the lucky ones who were not hit because of the darkness and his hasty shooting-flee. The Hibernian threw himself down into a crouch behind the adjacent merlon, raised his own SKS-a conventional model; no thirty-round clips for him-and began adding to the volume of fire.
It was impossible to know which finally broke the Spanish: their massive casualties, or the fact that there were now two of the demon-rifles spraying death down at them. Whichever it was, fewer than ten survivors managed to reach cover; perhaps an equal number lay on the roof, trying to stifle groans that would mark them for a second bullet. Harry could feel the lull in the action settle in, quickly swapped magazines, turned to the white- faced Hibernian. “Damn,” said Harry, just to keep the mood light, “I sure could go for a smoke about now.”
If anything, the Hibernian became more pale.
Sergeant Alarico Garza ducked as another bullet chipped away at the rim of the gallery. The nonstop thunderclaps on the roof above were not a good sign; there were a few musket discharges mixed in, but almost as afterthoughts. It sounded like a one-sided slaughter up there.
And for the first time in over twenty years, Garza hit a fork in his decision pathway for which he was not prepared: What now? If our men lose the roof, then Experience reasserted: Do your job. And your job is to hold this level. And right now, that meant holding the staircase that the enemy had just probed, and suppressing their activity in the arms yard.
But to counteract his enemies successfully, Garza needed to know more about them-and he knew almost nothing, other than that their weapons all seemed to be copies of, or actual, up-time firearms. How many were there? How much knowledge did they have about the Castell? How did the ones on the roof get there? Sergeant Garza was compelled to admit that each of these urgent queries was also utterly imponderable and so he lacked any hope of acquiring answers-which was not a good sign.
His corporal returned, crab-walking low with a small box.
“You found more grenades?” Garza asked.
“Four,” replied the corporal.
“Good. Get them over to the men watching the staircase. Are they ready, otherwise?”
“Yes, Sergeant-but they were hasty responding to the probe. Too many of them fired.”
Garza swore at himself: Yes, because you weren’t there to enforce discipline, to make sure that only two fired at first, and then two more when there was a clear target, and so on. “What are they down to?”
“Two loaded muskets. But all the pistols are still charged.”
Garza shrugged. “That is not so bad; pistols are better at these ranges. You’ll never get a chance to reload, anyhow. So, pistols, swords, grenades.” He mused. “Against these devils, knife range would be best, but we can’t hope for that. Now, off with you-and remember: no quarter asked or given.”
“No quarter,” repeated the corporal with a gulp before he continued on toward the staircase.
Owen Roe O’Neill finished giving his men their instructions and made sure their assault order was precisely as he had directed. “Now,” he said, “let’s to it.”
It had been a long time since he had uttered a war-cry-his Netherlands employers considered it a sign of irremediable Irish barbarity-but he loosed one now, to stiffen his own nerve. Because he had insisted upon being first around the corner-and knew exactly what that meant.
But his adversaries didn’t, not this time. Before charging, he stuck his pepperbox pistol around the corner and fired blind; several muskets sputtered back. Cocking the pepperbox again he heard angry orders in Spanish about wasting ammunition-and at that very moment he charged out, heading to the left.
The firing resumed as he emerged from the staircase into a cross-fire from doorways to both the right and left. But the Spaniards’ fire was ragged. And to add to the general confusion, Matija leaned around corner to hit the right-hand doorway with his twelve-gauge shotgun. He fired without precise aiming, emptying the weapon with a rapid pumping action that made it sound like a long, pulsed roar of thunder. The incoming fire from that side-lively at first-tapered quickly. But probably not for long, Owen knew.
As he took his first charging step along the broad walkway of the upper gallery, he ignored the second, further doorway on the left-where most of his adversaries were-and instead swung tight to the left again, into the first stairway, which led up to the roof. As he did so, two weapons from the further doorway discharged; one ball rushed past his unhelmeted brow in the same moment he felt a deep, hot, pain in his right thigh.
But the events piled up too rapidly for him to keep track of; Owen did not bother to aim as he came around into the new staircase. He fired blind, then slashed his saber in tight, fast, serpentine arcs until a pistol roared. He saw the outline of a Spanish helmet as the hammer blow of the pistol ball crashed into his cuirass.
Not the worst way to die, he conceded, as his back smacked down on the paving stones.
Matija tossed the shotgun, swung the SKS off his shoulder and started hammering rounds back to the left, just as Owen disappeared into the stairwell that led to the roof.
As his shots reverberated in that tight space, more of the assault team emerged; the Wild Geese were running past, firing on the move and staying close to the wall. The longer they stayed out of Matija’s field of fire, the longer he could suppress the defenders in the doorway that was their objective. But his magazine was just about dry He saw Spaniards going down as they exposed themselves to fire, saw one of the Wild Geese take two balls at brutally close range and topple over-and finally, saw two objects, each roughly the size and shape of a pomegranate, arcing out of the enemy-held doorway. He also noticed that they were trailing smoke and sparks.
“ Grenades! ” yelled Matija, charging forward, heading away from their probable point of impact behind him.
Apparently the defenders knew about counting down fuses: both grenades went off where Matija had been standing a second and a half before. He felt lancets of pain cut into his back, his buttocks, and the rear of this thighs. The shock of the blasts, while diffuse, shoved him sharply forward into one of the gallery’s arch supports head first; he rebounded from it, the world spinning. His head was suddenly full of a strange coppery smell and he reflected, Damn and shit, I thought death would hurt more than this. Why did I spend all that time worrying about it…?
As Thomas North came to the head of the stairs, he almost tripped over the body of a Hibernian: the only man who had been killed outright by the grenades. He took a quick, professional glance at the walkway just beyond; two more of his men were down and motionless, Matija and one of the Wild Geese-little Dillon, from the look of his gear. The stairway up to the left was quiet, but that was not necessarily a good sign. Insofar as Owen had been bound that way, and was not in sight, it could be a very bad sign indeed. The further doorway-the one where they had expected the most resistance-was littered with Spanish bodies, and the last four Wild Geese were charging
