Chapter 45

We ended up back at the fortification on the isthmus at the mouth of the bay. It was a good thing that we did because the men we had left there were under attack.

I was the first to realize what the situation was and as such, I was the first to go into action. We'd ended up in the centre of the battery facing the barracks that had held the garrison and where Elsa had left her guards watching over the men that she'd captured. That structure was under attack by a couple of dozen men. The men were all big and burly and they were dressed in leather armour and they had studded leather skull caps. A group of them had an improvised battering ram in their clutches and they were trying to bash down the door to the barracks.

Our arrival hadn't gone unnoticed; however the men who did see us arrive were just as surprised by our arrival as we were of their presence. In the end it came down to who snapped out of it first and since my people had just been preparing to face a cavalry charge of armoured knights, we reacted first.

I fell on the man closest to me, striking him down with my longsword while bashing another out of the way with my shield. That man fell to Nimue's blade. After that it was a free for all. Nimue fought to my left and Dork fought on my right. Those with bows stepped back and picked off anyone outside our reach who wasn't engaged with any of the rest of our fighting force. In seconds we had the unknown attackers overpowered and overwhelmed. Those who didn't die to our sword strokes or by the bite of an arrow quickly threw down their weapons and surrendered.

Once we had everyone tied up and secured and we were able to speak to the men Elsa had left behind to stand watch, we quickly learned what had been happening here. The attackers turned out to be a band of Vikings. The Norsemen had been attacking a village on their Earth when they had been suddenly transported to the fortification. The Norsemen had fallen on the two guards who had been mounting a watch on the ramparts when they had arrived. The cries of the dying men had alerted the other sentries and they had been able to barricade the door of the barracks before any of the Norsemen got it into their minds to storm the building. Since then the Norsemen had been trying to get in and the men inside had been sniping at them with crossbows, slowly whittling the attacker's numbers down.

It was about then that I realized that my party consisted of only half our attacking force. I was there with my people and James Talbot's strike team, but we were missing Elsa Mueller, Glenn Dupree, James Danvers and their strike teams. That got me worried and I knew that we needed to get back to the palace as quickly as we could. First however we needed to deal with a couple of matters that I had planned to leave to later but I decided to deal with then and there. Of course I needed the help of the consortium once again.

"I want the ships moved now," I shouted out into the air, "and all of the cannons here at the fortification."

At that, one by one the ships at the jetty disappeared in a blink of light. A second later I and my people watched as the cannons did the same thing.

I didn't stop there. We had wounded that needed tending to and fallen that needed to be taken home. We'd lost another man in our attack on the Norsemen to add to the two dead that they had killed upon their arrival. We also had two men with wounds that needed looking after. I sent them all back with Felicity to Oak Hall. As for our prisoners, of thirty Norsemen that had arrived but a short time ago, only nine were still alive and some of them were wounded as well. I sent them back with Felicity and the guards that had been watching the garrison. Now that we had taken the cannons, I wasn't overly concerned with these men. We'd leave them tied up and hopefully someone would find them after we'd left.

The last thing I did before rallying my troops to get back to Elsa and the rest of our party was to go through the munitions bunker. I could have just demanded the contents to be shifted but I wanted to see what was there before I did that. Considering that we'd lost the element of surprise, I wanted to see if I could find something that would give us an upper hand in the coming battle that I was intending to start. Amazingly I found exactly what I needed within minutes of going into the bunker. The garrison had grenades.

There were about four dozen of them and they were divided up in six cloth satchels. Obviously they had been provided to the garrison to help drive off anyone who was able to force a landing beneath their guns ability to engage them. They looked nothing like any grenade I had ever seen before but they were still recognizable. I quickly grabbed them all and handed them out to people who I knew were familiar with high explosives.

I ended up relying on the consortium once more. I had them put us back onto the walls of the palace, overlooking the courtyard and the enclosure. It took only a blink of an eye and we were there. What we found were two pitched battles. The two strike teams that had been left behind were now fighting as a single unit. They were in the back corner of the enclosure, holding the high ground against a much larger force of Wu Chin soldiers. While that battle was being played out another was going on in front of the palace. By now most of the knights had been unhorsed and a couple had been killed. Still they were holding their own against a second force of Wu Chin soldiers. These soldiers were being led by a man dressed in lacquered armour who was standing on the steps of the palace barking orders.

Immediately I dispatched William and his men along the wall to relieve our other force. While he did that I directed my attention to the forces gathered before the palace. It didn't take us long to get into position.

We were back in the towers that guarded the main gates. While my party covered Dork and me, we started lobbing grenades into the men fighting before the palace. The big guy and I were the strongest of everyone there and I figured we could lob the grenades the furthest. I told Dork to aim for the Wu Chin warriors first and we would deal with the knights last. I then handed him a disposable lighter and showed him how to light the wick on the grenades. I then had him lob the first grenade. It went up and over the battling warriors and dropped down into their rear rank, essentially unnoticed. We watched and waited and then waited some more. I was about to curse that it was a dud when the grenade finally went off. The explosion was deafening and it startled everyone including my people.

I didn't wait for the smoke to clear. I lit a second grenade and tossed it towards the mass of startled men. My throw did not go as far as Dork's had, but it still went far enough that it fell amongst the middle ranks of the Wu Chin soldiers. As my grenade plopped down amongst them, Dork's second grenade went arching over the courtyard. Just as his hit the ground, mine went off. The explosion ripped a hole in the locals and caused a panic. As men started to flee, Dork's second grenade went off. It just added to the chaos and the panic and the result was that the local's defence started to crumble.

The grenades packed a larger punch than anything I knew from my past lives. The grenade was an iron ball the size of a five-pin balling ball and it was obvious from the destructive force being released when they went off that they contained a few pounds of packed in gunpowder. The three grenades that we'd thrown had killed or wounded at least a couple of dozen local soldiers. The last blast had even knocked down a couple of the fully armoured knights and they were floundering on their backs trying to roll over and get back on their feet. It never happened. A couple of local pikemen who hadn't panicked completely took the opportunity presented them and they quickly dispatched the two knights. Of course the two pikemen died a few seconds later when the surviving knights fell upon them and took their revenge; none of which mattered to me and my people. Dork and I threw another couple of grenades into the dispersing mob that had recently been a coherent fighting force. More death and destruction resulted from the grenades and what survivors that were left standing ran for it. As they did, my party thinned them out with arrows.

The leader of the locals was stunned by what had happened. He was surrounded by a small guard of a dozen men, all of whom were dressed in armour similar to his and all were armed with swords. The man was so shocked by the collapse of his forces that he wasn't even able to shout at the fleeing men to halt and regroup. It took the sight of the knights who were still standing in the courtyard to startle him out of his befuddlement. The knights, of whom eight were still standing, were slowly walking towards him and his guard. Amazingly the man turned and ran and his troops did the same. They quickly ran up the steps of the palace and into it. As they did, they didn't even stop to close the doors behind them. The knights took this as an opportunity to give pursuit.

"Well," Dork said questioningly, glancing over towards me, "what are we going to do?"

"We're going to follow," I replied with a knowing smile, "but we're going to do it at a safe distance."

By now I was getting reports back from both William Talbot and Elsa Mueller, thanks to the translators that everyone was wearing including me. Talbot's relief force had done basically the same as we had done up at the main gate. Talbot and his men had struck the locals from the rear and the left flank and the grenades had decimated their formations. Within a couple of minutes half the locals strength had been either killed or severely wounded and with no hope of counterattacking, the locals had decided to flee. As they did, they were hurried on their way with arrows that dropped anyone not fast enough to get out of the way. Learning this I left Elsa Mueller and her people the job of mopping up while I stormed the palace from the front and Talbot and his team took the place from the rear.

We moved out after that. I led everyone down from the towers that guarded the gate and took them past the gatehouse that was still secure. We took our time crossing the courtyard as we approached the palace. I kept everyone in check for two reasons. I didn't want to get surprised by Onyx Network again and I knew that getting into the palace wouldn't be as easy as it looked. When we got to the steps of the palace I had everyone go either left or right with blatant instructions not to step in front of the open doorway. My mates stuck to me while Dork and Goiania took the other side. We quickly worked our way up to the exterior wall and put our backs to it. Then while everyone watched me, I had a quick peek around the corner.

An arrow flew towards me a second later. Thankfully my enhanced abilities made me jerk my head back before the projectile hit me. As I pulled back out of sight the arrow flew out the open doorway to fly past and drop harmlessly a good fifty feet out into the courtyard. I watched it go and smiled, ignoring the alarmed looks of my mates and friends. Then I gave them a quick briefing.

The entrance to the palace opened on a long corridor that ran into it for about two hundred feet. There were no obvious doors on either side of the corridor and the passage ended in a flight of wooden stairs that led up to the next floor. The arrow had come from the stairs. As I explained to my people, palaces like the one we were attacking, back on my world, had boltholes and defensive systems built into them to allow the defenders to ambush anyone attacking the palace. In the case of this palace, there was a bunker under the staircase where archers were hiding. I told everyone that there were two more knights dead in the corridor and that I had also seen a dark gap standing open in front of the stairs. That to me suggested a pitfall trap and I told them that I would put money on it that we'd find another dead knight in it. I then showed them how we were going to deal with the predicament without losing anyone in our group. I pulled out another grenade.

I got Dork to toss this grenade. I had him light the wick and then we counted down together. We had already determined that the fuses on the grenades were slow burning so I wanted to ensure that the fuse had burnt down at least half way before Dork threw it. We started at five and counted down to zero. On zero Dork lobbed the grenade the length of the corridor. It landed high on the staircase leading up and then it started bouncing down the steps. It didn't get too far. A couple of seconds later the grenade went off with a massive explosion that shook the walls of the palace. As it did I prepped a second grenade and lit its wick. Again I counted down from five and then I threw the explosive down the corridor. I didn't throw it as hard as Dork had. Instead I dropped the grenade about a dozen feet in front of what was left of the staircase. The grenade rolled about for a second and then came to rest against the left hand wall of the corridor. Then the grenade went off and there was smoke everywhere. That's when we moved.

I led the way with Dork and Nimue right behind me. I had my shield up and ready just in case there was somebody still standing who wanted to cause trouble. Kola and Caitlin followed us in a second or two later along with Goiania. The three women were still armed with bows and I had them covering our backs while we pressed on. I had no desire to get attacked from behind if Onyx decided to get stupid again.

The staircase had been obliterated as had the people who'd been hiding under them. The left hand wall was also gone and as I'd suspected there was another bolthole behind it. Most of the men in it were dead by the time we got to it; however a couple were still stirring. Dork and I dispatched them quickly while Nimue covered us. I then took a quick look about. By then the smoke had started to disperse and the dust thrown up by the explosions was settling. I noted that as I had expected there was a pitfall in front of the stairs. It was the width of the corridor and about six feet across and it was filled with spikes, upon which a knight lay impaled. I also noted that there was a ladder against the back wall of the bolthole that led upwards. Leaving Goiania to cover the corridor and our backs, I led the remainder of our team to the ladder.

I took care climbing the ladder. I popped the hatch with my blade first, holding my shield in front of me just in case there was somebody above us. When nothing happened, I hopped on the ladder and scaled it. It took only a couple of seconds. Unfortunately in those couple of seconds all hell broke loose around us.

There was a thud that shook the palace and then another and then there was a massive crashing sound that startled me and the rest of my party. We could hear wood splintering and the cries of panic coming from ahead of us and from above. Then there was another thud followed by the voice of Elsa Mueller screaming into her translation device.

"Charles," Elsa shrieked frantically, "you've got incoming on your location. There are massive rocks appearing in the sky over the palace. Some have crashed into the grounds surrounding it but one just smashed through the back wall ripping a humongous hole in it. You need to get out of there quickly or you'll all be dead."

I didn't need to be told twice. I shouted at my party to get out of the palace and to head back to the relative safety of the towers. As they turned to go, I dropped back down into the bolthole and then I followed them. As I did the building was hit once again. The whole place shook like it had been hit by a freight train. Wood beams already weakened by the blast of the grenades snapped under the new assault, dropping the floors that they were supporting down into the level below. Luckily my enhanced speed and agility saw me through the worst of it and I was able to clear the palace long before the whole place came down. To my horror, I ended up watching helplessly from the steps leading up to the towers by the main gate as boulder sized rocks appeared out of the new dawn's sky only to crash seconds later into the palace and the grounds surrounding it. The barrage went on for a total of fifteen minutes until the entire structure was destroyed.