DELUGE (38 page)

“Chiara!
Sbrigati!”
I cried, waving her forward.

She took a faltering step and then another, her filthy hand going to her lips.

“Gabi, is that Chiara
Greco
?” Mom asked, alarm filling her voice as she joined me in the doorway.

I didn’t answer. I knew that if she stayed out there much longer, I’d see the child pierced. I ran, feeling an arrow miss my head by inches. The sky was filled with them, our men mostly taking cover in the face of them. How many Fiorentini were out there?

I paused, my left eye catching sight of an incoming arrow, and that pause saved me. I wrenched the child’s arm, pulling her up and into mine, even as I ran back to the Great Hall.

Panting, I looked at Mom and Dad, who stared at me and the girl.

“Are the Grecos
here
?” Mom grit out, frustrated, torn. She worked at a wounded knight’s back, breaking off the head of an arrow as he groaned in agony. Given that we’d successfully kept out every outsider for more than two years, I thought she was showing remarkable restraint. Maybe because our infiltrator was all of five years old.

“Nay. She was rescued by our scout, who died out there,” I said, nodding to the courtyard. “I don’t know what’s become of Rodolfo or Alessandra.” I knelt in front of Chiara again and tried to get her to look into my eyes. “Sweetheart, please tell me. Is your mama alive?”

She nodded. “I…think so.”

“Where? Where is she?”

“In the woods,” she said. “She told me the bad men would follow her. I was to run to the village.”

“What did you see there, Chiara? Were people sick? How many knights were there?”

She only stared at me, silent. She was in shock. Stunned. What had she seen? What had left her unable to speak?

I took her hands in mine. “Where is your papa?”

Still, nothing but silence. Just fresh tears, breaking my heart. I pulled her back into my arms.

“The scout,” Mom said, still working on the knight. “Where had he gone?”

“Cavo,” I said dully. “He went to see why we’d received no word from Siena. And now we know why. Firenze is on the move. They’re cutting us off.”

“But how would they know?” Dad asked. “That we’re not receiving carrier pigeons?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe they don’t. Maybe they’re taking out any men between us and Siena. I just have a really bad feeling. A really bad feeling…”

This attack. So soon after Marcello and Luca had left for Siena.

No doubt the Grecos were under similar attack.

Lia arrived in the doorway, breathless.

“They need you,” I said to her. “Up on the wall with your bow. Take as many out as you can, Lia. As many as you can. Because I think…” I paused, staring at the child. “I think they’re here for us.”

Castello Greco.

Castello Forelli.

The She-Wolves of Siena.

And
…The thought of it brought me up short.
Fortino
. My precious boy, all dimples and brown eyes with his low chuckle. What might they do to him to get to us? I remembered the cage, the taunts, my near-death experience in Firenze.

It would be the triumph of the decade for our enemies if they were successful. Sacking our castles. Capturing any one of us. A distraction in the midst of the devastation the disease wrought. A centering. They’d claim God’s favor.

And perhaps they’d be right in doing so.

CHAPTER FORTY

~EVANGELIA~

So…having morning sickness and trying to be a She-Wolf archer was a harder combo than I thought. Bile rose in my throat, and I nearly blacked out when I saw what approached us from all sides.

Hundreds of Fiorentini.

But I made myself stop, breathe a prayer, and in a few moments I knew I felt sharper than I’d been in years. Since Venezia, really.

Attentive to every movement, every sound.

Perhaps it was the spark of battle, real threat, not just endless practice or exercise, that brought it all into focus…

Captain Pezzati insisted I stand mostly behind a stone barrier. But I still managed to take down at least twenty men in the first hour of our attack, while five of ours had either been wounded or killed.

I edged over the corner of the parapet, trying to get a grip on what we faced. I was still a bit stunned that we were facing warriors at all. How had our enemy fielded an army while fighting the plague, too? I knew that Firenze hadn’t been as hard-hit as Siena, but…this?

I studied them, making quick calculations, wondering just how many were at our walls. I leaned down low, crouching against the parapet, making my calculations. I’d seen fifty men. There were likely five-times more beyond them, held in waves. Luca and Marcello had taken twelve men with them. We had thirty-six others.

Thirty-one now.

Part of me wanted to just shout at all the guys to take cover. But that wouldn’t work. If we didn’t actively guard the wall, they’d attempt an ascent.

The squires arrived, arms full of enemy arrows they’d collected below. They dropped piles off beside me, and the other archers and I grinned at the sight. There’d be something especially sweet about taking down our enemy with their own weapons.

“Castello Greco has been breached!” cried a man.

“Greco’s flags are down, Fiorentini flags in their place!” cried another, firing an arrow.

My heart surged with terror. Where was Rodolfo? Was he dead? Or worse, captured? Had Alessandra somehow escaped and gone to her father’s house? Castello Greco and her knights were strong. If she could be breached, so could we…

An iron claw shot over my shoulder, arced down, and clattered against the stone wall inside. I tried to wrench it away before it grabbed hold, but failed. The rope grew taut. On the other side of the castle, I saw a second claw had been shot across that wall. And to our south side, too!

A moment later, the claw scratched its way upward until it caught on the far side. Otello lumbered over to me and crouched across from me on the parapet. “You take out a man or two and I’ll work on sawing through this rope.”

I nodded once, rose, turned and aimed, but could only let one arrow fly before ducking, since three others were aimed at my head. I let out a cry of frustration and fear. Otello was only halfway through the rope. How were others doing on their sides?

Concentrate on this one alone,
I thought.
One at a time. Just do this and move on.
I hitched up my skirts and crawled five feet to the side, hoping I might surprise them and gain a couple of seconds to get a second arrow off.

“Stones!” Otello bellowed to the nearest squire. “We need stones!”

I saw it, then. What had alarmed him. The rope was moving.

There were men on the rope, climbing!

I rose and fired one arrow and ignored the three archers below, turning as one to target me again. I was rewarded by seeing my first arrow sink into the chest of the first climber and was pretty sure that my second probably found its target too—one of the enemy archers.

Two squires arrived, arms full of stones, faces taut with a combination of fear and glory.

“There,” grunted Otello, gesturing with his head to right below the rope. He was still sawing, three-quarters of the way through. “Let them have it, just as we practiced. Drop it atop them and then take cover,
fast
.”

“Yes, sir!” they cried. On the count of three, they rose and pelted a man below with their rocks. We heard a cry and then a volley of arrows shot over their heads as they stared at each other, wide-eyed with glee. I rose at that moment and got two arrows off as the archers reached into their quivers.
This could work,
I thought.

“Again, boys, again!”

We repeated the exercise, and finally, finally Otello got through the rope. We heard the cries of two men falling. I wanted to give Otello a high-five, but he was already surveying the other ropes and claws.

“Come with me to the eastern wall, boys!” he cried over his shoulder to the squires.

The boys hurriedly grabbed their remaining stones and ran behind him.

Dad arrived, grim-faced, but I thought I saw an edge of relief in his eyes to see me, alive. Hunched over, he went from one downed man to the other, passing two dead before he found one wounded. This one he dragged by the feet toward the turret door, then picked him up across his shoulders, squeezed through the tiny doorway, and disappeared. I assumed he and Mom were setting up a medical triage room. But if it got any worse, we might soon need them up here with us.

I resumed my shoot-and-take-cover mode, relieved to spot those at the south wall repelling their attackers. Across from me, Otello and the squires had reached the eastern wall. With luck, they’d take care of it as they had the others.

Another of our knights took a particularly brutal arrow, into his eye and out the top of his skull. Baldarino screamed and backed up, then fell over the inner wall to the courtyard below. I winced, swallowed back the bile rising in my throat and let out a cry of rage. Rising, I drew an arrow and began running down the wall, shooting arrow after arrow after arrow, pausing only to kneel, fill my quiver again, and then resume my run. I made it to the other side of the castle, all the way to the gate. Then turned and repeated my run.

The men cheered as I passed, chanting
She-Wolf, She-Wolf, She-Wolf,
as they continued to unleash their own arrows upon our enemies. I smiled, even as Fiorentini arrows got so close to me that I could feel them
whoosh
past my head. When I got back to the western wall, Gabi was waiting by the turret. She handed me a skin of water and gave me a small smile.

“This preggers thing is working for you,” she said under her breath. “Looks like your mad ninja skills are better than ever.”

“Hope you’re right,” I said, after swallowing. “Because we’re going to need it. Take a look.” I gestured over my shoulder.

“As bad as I thought?”

“Badder,” I said.

Gabi edged her nose around the corner, pulling back when an arrow shot past her. “How many?” she asked quietly, any trace of humor gone.

“I don’t know. They keep to the trees, but I’m guessing by the numbers in these forward forces that they might have close to five hundred.”

Having caught my breath, I nocked an arrow, ducked around the corner and shot it, then returned to face her. “Gabi…” I reached out to touch her arm. “It looks like Castello Greco fell.”

“What?” she asked, her brown eyes flying northward. She licked her lips, and I knew she’d seen the Fiorentini flags. “No! No, no, no…” she groaned, her face a mask of pain. She knew what I did…the Grecos would be lucky to die in the attack. If they survived, if they were taken to Firenze…their deaths would be agonizingly slow.

She rubbed her temples, and her eyes moved to me, panic within them. “We have to go and find them…figure out…”

I nocked another arrow, turned, aimed and shot it, then returned to face her. “I know. But we kinda have our hands full
here
, Gabs.”

She swallowed hard, her face paling. “They’ll kill them,” she whispered. “If they don’t have them already…Alessandra might have escaped.”

“Let’s hope she went far.” I resumed shooting, letting her come to the conclusion I had. If they’d kill them now, it’d be a mercy compared to what they’d face. And they were coming for us, too.

I paused after I glimpsed a man below who appeared to have a bruised face. Turning, I dared to peek at him again. Then, as the arrows came at me, I crawled a few paces down the wall and dared a peek at another.
There
. Buboes. Black, bulbous, hideous lesions along some of their necks.

Only their intense hatred could fuel them to move beyond the confines of their disease.

I sat down, my back to the wall, trying to piece it together.

Then I looked at Gabi.

“Gabs, they’ve hired dying men. They’re all sick! Infected!”

New horror entered her eyes. It was her turn to look…and look…and look again. Like me, she put her back to the wall and sank down, thinking.

“They must have promised them something. Or their families something, if they did this,” I said. I nocked another arrow and then another and then another, shooting the men below. I noticed now that some were a bit slow to react. Sluggish. This was why I’d taken down a man with nearly every arrow I shot. Not because I was some freakin’ awesome She-Wolf. But because my enemies were sick. Probably feverish and dizzy.
Slow
to climb the ropes.

A clamp came shooting over my shoulder and grabbed hold of the inner wall. Gabi immediately set to sawing it through with her blade. “So if they’re sick…” she said, “then all we need to do is hold them off for a few days.”

“Sure, no problem,” I grit out, turning to take aim and shoot, then whip out of range again. Five arrows sang through the gap in the wall. “Except some of them seem to be faring better than others.”

“They’re using the sickest,” she said, a piece of her curly hair falling in front of her face as she sawed, “to weaken us. They know they’re dying anyway…why not die in glory, trying to take us down?”

I turned and looked down the wall, wondering where the squires and their rocks were. Where the men were. And then I saw. Five new claws had sailed across the wall. Everyone was busy. How long could we keep them from breaching the castello?

I eased up, peered over the edge, and let out a little scream. There was a man just three feet below me, his eyes red-rimmed and hollow. He raised a battle axe and made a hasty attempt to cut my head like a Tuscan melon, but I dodged him, and his axe struck only the stone beside me. Holding the rope with only one hand sent him awkwardly twisting to one side.

“Now that’s not nice,” Gabi said, slicing his hand.

I heard men shout below him and suspected my sister had managed to take them all out.

“Nice work,” I said, offering her my fist.

She brushed my knuckles with her own, panting, as arrows soared over our heads. Then she positioned her sword behind her and rose, swinging at the rope with all her strength, a beautiful arc that had to have left her hands and wrists aching. All but the last strands gave sway to her strike. More arrows came past us as she knelt. She shouted at the nearest squire.