Chapter 12: Pirates III

What we were planning was a sucker trap for the pirates. Whether they attacked our men or not, we were planning to leave the gate open after they marched out. Why? Who knew? Maybe we wanted to give our men a safe place to run back to, if our attack failed. Maybe we were idiots and simply forgot that the pirates could rush in.

While the Captain’s force was drilling one last time in the morning, we were going to assemble barricades inside the gate. I had cheerfully volunteered the shop’s two wagons for this. Turned on their sides, they made a pretty good barrier to a swordsman. Other wagons, rock piles, tables, whatever was handy would be used. After the battle we would reclaim what was left of them. If we had to repair them we could do it.

When the Captain’s force marched out, we would man the barricades. The Captain would march his formation in whatever direction our cavalry scouts told him to go, and before long they would be clear of the bridge and the roadway.

If the pirates attacked our men, the pirates would all die unless our men panicked and left the formation. That was our only concern. As long as they stayed in formation the pirates couldn’t defeat them, and the whole time they were in range our archers would be killing them as fast as they could nock an arrow, draw the bow, and shoot.

A lot depended upon the pirates’ attitude. Would they see the formation as an insult to their fighting ability and accept all the casualties it took to swarm them over? If so, we were sure that they would run out of men before the Captain did. It would be bloody, but unless the shield wall completely collapsed the spearmen and archers could keep killing pirates until their arms fell off from exhaustion.

Or, they would attack the formation, realize how badly they were getting massacred, and withdraw to go look for easier prey.

Either way, we assumed that the pirates would see that we had left the gate open and that our men were too far out of position to cover the gate. Hopefully, they would remember that they were here to sack the town, and they would all run to be the first one to rape the mayor’s daughter. Not that we even had a mayor, the town was governed by a council, but we were sure that they would find someone to rape if they got loose.

If there was a large enough group on the road, I wanted to greet them with a catapult load of stones. The Captain knew what we planned, and he had orders to make sure his force was well clear of the roadway as quickly as possible.

Then, as the pirates crossed the bridge, we would fire our arrow-engine down the length of the bridge. Hopefully, that would cause some more casualties and slow them down. Whether we had time to pull the arrow-engine back to safety and repairs or not would depend upon how many pirates survived and how close they were.

As they got over the bridge and ran for the gate, they would come under fire from our strongpoints, the two defensive ‘towers’ on either side. They would be manned by every archer we had left and guarded by spears to stop anyone from climbing up and killing the archers.

The instant that the first pirate crossed the gateway, the catapult was supposed to greet them with gravel. The defenders were all supposed to duck for this, as we’d already proven that the gravel went everywhere when we did this, but I knew we’d get some casualties from people who just had to see what was happening, or who were struck stiff in fear.

Last, any pirates who made it past the gate should see barriers in every direction, manned by men and women with spears and crossbows. Sure, the barriers were flimsy and could easily be climbed or torn down, but not with spears in their faces. They should be in a killing zone, with nowhere to go for safety except back out again, back past the two towers which should still be full of spearmen and archers.

The last piece of the trap was our attack force, which was going to try to move back to the road to prevent any retreat once all the pirates were in the trap. We would take some casualties at the barricades and in our attack force, but we should be able to wipe out any pirates who attacked the Captain’s force or who crossed the bridge.

We could depend upon the townspeople, plus what was left of the guard and the militia, to defend the wall and the barricades. The only thing we were concerned about was the Captain’s attack force. If they stayed together, they should be fine. If they broke apart and fled, though, they would probably all be killed.

We desperately wanted to provide better leadership for each individual squad, but there was no time for that. In the future, maybe we could come up with a better way to do things but for now we had to go with what we could organize overnight.

Our attack force had another drill session in the early morning, then after a rest break they marched out the south gate, across the bridge and down the coastal road towards Cowford. 3rd squad went first, marching straight down the road until they were well clear of the bridge. 2nd and 4th followed, then when clear of the bridge they turned to line up beside 3rd. Last came 1st and 5th squads.

While all the squads were forming up with each other, our ‘cavalry company’ rode out to scout for them. One job we’d assigned the cavalry was to try to contact the scouts we’d left in the woods. Another was to send riders to Cowford and Epper’s Mill, if they could, and see how they were doing. Mostly, though, they were out there to scout for the attack force.

As soon as everyone was clear we finished setting up our barricades. When we were done, the only thing in the open space behind the gate was our arrow-engine, its crew, and me. I’d appointed myself the guy who decided when to fire it. That was mostly because I wanted to make damn sure it didn’t get cocked until our people were out of the way.

Sure, it was loaded, it had ten large arrows laid in their troughs, but the bow wasn’t drawn back until our attack force was away and gone. The men in that force had to be a little shaky. Most of them had never participated in this kind of fight and were already scared enough. We really didn’t need to shoot them in their backs with our own weapons.

Once the road was clear and we’d cocked the arrow-engine, we had nothing else to do until the pirates came. We would only get to fire it once. Once we’d fired it, we were supposed to climb over the barricades and join the defenders. We wouldn’t be able to use it again until we’d replaced the clamp, so there was no point in trying to get it back behind the barricade if there were more pirates coming in.

Down there at the gate, I couldn’t see what was going on outside the wall. We could hear noise, and the people up on the strongpoints called down news as they saw things, but we were mushrooms down there.

If the town had been all alone on a featureless plain, we could see everything that happened, where everyone was and what they were doing. However, probably half of the town was outside the moat. Shops, homes, and farther out farms with all their buildings. It didn’t take long at all for the attack force to get out of sight from the gate. Once they were gone I nodded to the crew captain, and they cocked the bow.

We could hear noise, cries and orders and screams, but we couldn’t see what it all meant. Just to occupy my mind I started drawing in the dirt, trying to come up with a way to split one of those squads into smaller teams. Each squad had twelve shields and fifteen spears, plus some archers. Maybe three fire teams of four shields and five spears and two or three archers? A fire team of ten or so men and a front of just four shields would be a lot easier to maneuver than a whole squad with thirty or forty men.