The Archer's Marines: The First Marines - Medieval fiction action story about Marines, naval warfare, and knights after King Richard's crusade in Syria, ... times (The Company of Archers Book 5) by Archer Martin

Author:Archer, Martin [Archer, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2015-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

My Marines and I are sweating heavily under the glaring midday sun as we leave the dock and begin lumbering towards the city gate carrying our longbows. It’s a hard slog because we’re all laboring under the weight of the half dozen or so leather quivers full of arrows each of us has slung over his back.

As we get closer to the gate a couple of the Marines in front of me stop running and begin launching arrows at the men they can see around the gate and on the ramparts above it. Others think that’s what they’re supposed to do and stop to join them.

“Don’t stop. Don’t stop.” I croak out with a gasp as I go past them. “Get to the gate. To the gate, lads. Run. Run.”

So far the wind looks to be somewhat favorable. Our fear, Harold’s and mine, is that the wind will shift so that some of our men will be trapped in the harbor on their prizes and unable to leave. That’s because we’re trying to take off the Moors’ sailing ships as well as their galleys. How long we have to hold the city to keep the Moors away from the sailing ships in the harbor and the galleys beached along the shore depends on the wind.

Within a few minutes we reach the city gate and sprint into the little square beyond it. The gate’s open and the area in front of it is deserted except for a couple of dead and wounded Moors, the men who went down from our archers’ brief spurt of shooting as we ran.

Most of the people we’d seen standing around in front of the city gate disappeared when our initial burst of arrows began falling. To our surprise there are still a few people standing around in the open area immediately inside the gate – they gape at us in disbelief as we run in. But they too quickly disappear.

Even before I can catch my breath I begin shouting orders to the archers who’ve beaten me into the little square – they’d gotten inside the gate and just stopped because they didn’t know what to do next.

“Get up those stairs; take the gate house and clear the walls in both directions. Hurry, all of you. Run. Run”

Before I can even finish giving my first order there are literally hundreds of wild eyed and panting Marines in the open space inside the gate. The sun is so scorching that they’re all huddled against the buildings seeking shade – and several doors are quickly broken down so men can shelter inside out of the sun.

It’s a good thing there are so many of us because streets and alleys run in various directions from the little square inside the gate and along the city wall. We need to block them all. There is not a moment to lose.

“Sergeant,” I shout at an older Marine whose name I suddenly can’t remember, “take your men and go down there to the next intersection and hold it” … “Hurry man.

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