The Red Cloak (p. 3)

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3. BOCHI ORRO

The noise was deafening. In addition to the usual crunch of boots and new corpses on the rocky soil, the jangle of harness, the skirl of steel on steel, and the agonized cries of the wounded, there was the metronomic boom of the battering ram and the roar of the most gigantic fIfe Zelmorzi had ever seen. Now that twilight was beginning to fall, the blaze transformed Bochi Orro's south wall into a confusing chiaroscuro of shadows. From time to time the hastily constructed malgonels on the ground outside the city whirled another package of pitch and hay, gift-wrapped in flame, into the city. General Roma had decided days ago that a fire in the smaller section of Bochi Orro that lay south of the River would do a great deal to impart terror into the Guipesans' hearts -- provided they had any.

Zelmorzi stepped onto the top floor of the siege tower and was immediately immersed in the patchwork scent of sweat, smoke, blood, and wet leather. He pressed forward, making room for the remainder of Cappel Rode's battalion.

Ahead of him, Rode led the charge across the narrow bridge to Bochi Orro's parapet The areas of his sword not scummed with blood glinted in the firelight as the captain stabbed at his adversaries. Guipesan defenders struggled to ward off the blows of Rode and those who fought beside him, while they struggled to push the bridge off with pikes. Zelmorzi didn't let himself think about what would happen if it fell. Cries of men whose grapnels were dislodged spoke far more eloquently than any estimate of the walls' height.

Several yards to the sides, Guipesan archers were drawing their bows. Zelmorzi instinctively ducked behind his shield, but he knew from the glistening black globs on the arrowheads that they weren't meant for the Morsine soldiers that filled the towertop. Once the pitch on the tips of the arrows was ignited, the shafts jumped to the sides of the siege tower. The hides that formed the outer shell of the siege tower had been heavily soaked before the battle, but time and enormous fires had a way of drying things out Zelmorzi sighed with relief as arrows fell away from the damp ox skins.

To the right, another tower was not so lucky. The men atop it, silhouetted by the fire within the city, fought frantically to obtain a foothold on the wall before their perch was consumed by the blaze.

Suddenly, the press of men around Zelmorzi shifted forward. He saw Cappel Rode standing behind the parapet, shouting something that was lost in the cacophony of battle. In response to the associated wave, the Morsine attackers rushed onto the walkway. Guipesans on both sides faded back to regroup.

Cappel Rode did not wait for them. He jogged forward to Zelmorzi' s left. With his red blade, he began to cut a path toward the gatehouse. As far as Zelmorzi could tell, theirs was the first Morsine presence on the wall.

Swinging his sword as well as he could in light of the narrow, crowded walkway and his heavy mail shirt, Zelmorzi followed his captain. Rode pressed ahead like a starved hound. Something in Rode's fierceness broke the Guipesans' will. They broke formation and scrambled back to the shelter of the massive gatehouse. Rode lunged after, grabbing for the door. Unfortunately, he was a step too late. The stout wooden door slammed shut. Though he couldn't hear it over the noise of fighting and the snarl of fire in the city, Zelmorzi was sure a lock was fastened, or a bolt was drawn, or both.

Rode slaInmed into the unforgiving iron-strapped oak. He stumbled back a step and regained his composure as the rest of his battalion caught up. Wiping a rivulet of sweat from the tip of his long, narrow nose, he yelled.

"Axe!!"

A heavyset man whose brawn pressed tight against his mail shouldered his way to the front, bearing a sturdy spike-backed war axe. Rode moved aside to give the man room.

After a careful practice swing, the soldier walloped the door with his weapon. The blade buried itself in the wood an inch from the doorknob. As the man pried his axe from the door, Rode's shout of encouragement was was buried by shouts and clangs from the back of the battalion, where Guipesans were launching a counterattack. Aside from a cursory glance backward, Zelmorzi kept his attention forward. He blinked sweat from his eyes as the soldier swung a second, third, and fourth time. The wood around the knob was taking on the look of a scarecrow in September.

The fifth strike was accompanied by a crack that momentarily overpowered the cries of the rearguard on the wall-wa1k. Gauging the door's condition, the robust soldier launched his bulk at it Another crack resulted, this one even louder. As the man stepped back, Zelmorzi could see that the door was sagging heavily. The soldier held his shield up for the final charge. There was a smack of wood on wood, and he disappeared into the gatehouse. Rode dashed after, followed by the rest of the Morsines. There was a brief scuffle before Rode's battalion overwhelmed the Guipesans. Zelmorzi noticed half a dozen alTows and crossbow bolts stuck in the axe-wielding soldier's shield that testified to his wisdom in charging shield-flfst.

Cappel Rode had located the controls for the portcullis before the brief skirmish had ended. Mercifully, nobody had cut the chains that operated the iron grille. Mumbling a prayer to the Goddesses, Rode joined several brawny men in hauling on the crank that winched in the chain that hoisted the portcullis. Within minutes, they were rewarded by the clank of iron on stone. Zelmorzi took advantage of this brief respite to unstrap his helmet and wipe the sweat from his brow. The inferno in the city had turned the gatehouse into a kiln.

With the portcullis clamped in place, Rode led the way down two flights of stairs to the entry tunnel. As he left the staircase, Zelmorzi looked out into Bochi Orro.

Mercurial swaths of orange, red, and yellow served as a backdrop for blackened skeletons of buildings. Flames reached out of the second stories to tickle each other across the broad avenue. In the street, mobs of people ran toward the river and the harbor. Since any residents would be long gone, these could only be Guipesan soldiers.

"Hmph, cowards know when it's too late," he remarked. Behind him, Morsines lifted the two huge bars that secured the heavy iron-strapped gates that hung horribly battered from their hinges. The doors of the city swung outward. The battering ram, visible for a moment against the newly fallen night sky , was quickly eclipsed by masses of Morsine soldiers entering Bochi Orro.

***

Cappel Rode related General Roma' s thoughts on the state of Bochi Orro as his three sergeants stowed their gear in the officers' room of an abandoned Guipesan barracks north of the river.

"Don Roma says this victory was planned by the Guipesans."

Zelmorzi let out a chortle of contempt. "Well, what can you expect from a Guipesan? Planning to get beaten!"

Rode continued as if Zelmorzi hadn't spoken. "Bochi Orro is too hard a city to defend. The walls are uncommonly low -- only about two and a half stories -- and they're not built on solid bedrock. And you don't even have to worry about the walls if you've got plenty of ships, because all you need to do is cut the boom, and you've got free access to the whole harbor. They only fought as long as they did to keep us from suspecting that they were retreating to a better position."

"What made Don Roma think they've run on purpose?" inquired Sergeant Melo, untying his bedroll.

"For one, there weren't near as many men on the walls as our intelligence reported were quartered here. Second, we know they were in the process of building a navy at the shipyard here. Yet there were no half-built ships in the harbor. They must've seen that we were coming, and finished off the ships they had started, so they could get away. Thirdly, all equipment in the barracks was gone -- bedrolls, rations, cookpots, everything. They packed up before the battle.

"So what do we do now?" asked Sergeant Melo.

"Well, we don't have enough ships to follow them. So we wait. Hopefully, we can fix this city up to be defensible before they come back to wipe us out at one shot. Better yet, if we find out where they're rallying, we could march out and destroy them."

Cappel Rode said that he was going to wait for the Guipesans or reports of them, but something in his tone suggested that he had no intention of being in Bochi Orro at that time.

***

The civilians who remained in Bochi Orro were naturally quite hostile to the Morsine army now quartered in their city. But in deference to the many swords and spears that the military carried, they confined their expressions of ire to spitting and ill-timed emptying of chamber pots.

The only thing Zelmorzi heard out of a Guipesan mouth the whole time he was in Bochi Orro was a madman's shout of "No earth ... No sky ... But snowflakes still fall." Zelmorzi was all too happy to reciprocate the feelings, but he did not violate Don Roma's injunction against drawing steel.

Cappel Rode showed a markedly different attitude during his stay in Bochi Orro than he had in Carseli. Whereas numerous things in Carseli had set him on edge, here his dominant attitude was indifference. Ever since the battle, he had been absorbed in private musings.

Between training drills and helping to repair the battered gate, Zelmorzi had little time to unravel the mysteries surrounding his Captain. On his weekly visit to Melia's temple (larger cities had a separate temple to each Goddess), Zelmorzi made sure to include Rode in his petition for guidance.

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