Chapter 26: The Ship and the Spear
As a result, after galloping for a while, Gawain clearly felt that Sabina's feet were weakening, and he realized that he was now wearing heavy holy armor, as well as a variety of weapons such as riding spears, halberds, phosphorus and fire swords, and iris shields.
Gawain patted Sabina's neck, and the other party understood, "Hold on a little longer, my beauty." ”
In the crooked bushes that obscured his vision, Gawain straightened his spear and lowered himself to hide, and by the way told Sabina to rest, while Theognes and Muzafiadin followed, while the pirates were screaming all over the hills, chasing down the servants who had mixed with the people, and the people on the watchtower on the hilltop were hiding and trembling in fear.
The catcher jumped on the rock, and behind him Muzafiadin hurriedly presented the arrow, and Diognis drew his bow and shot it, and a climbing pirate stood on his back, grabbed it with his hand backwards, and rolled down the hillside, and then Muzafiadin shouted, "The believer cannot kill the creed directly, I don't count as killing, I don't count as killing," and handed another arrow to Theognes.
As a result, Diognis instantly fired eight arrows in a row, killing four pirates and wounding the rest of the men and horses, and one of the leading pirates swung his knife and shouted at the catcher who had released cold arrows at them, and immediately a dozen barefoot and flying fellows, holding shields to cover themselves, rushed in the direction where Theognes was.
"Sabina, on!" Gawain shouted, then stood up, and immediately stirred up clouds of flying smoke and dust from the bushes that were lying in ambush, like red lightning that split the dark clouds, and stabbed diagonally towards the group of pirates who pounced.
The arrows whirred above his head and on both sides of Sabina's head, Gawain shouted in a low voice, and at the moment of approaching the enemy, the Byzantine spear was leveled, and the horses, arms and spear tips were three points and one line, and they pierced into the crowd of pirates, and in a fraction of a second, the tips of the spears were bent and exploded, and the heads, shields, and armor of the three or four Turkic soldiers who stood in front of them were also shattered and splashed, lined up in a straight line, and flew straight out in the direction of Gawain's assault.
Gawain's men and horses, straight in the middle of the small group of pirates, stood out a furrow of flesh and blood, trampled the corpse, and galloped over, fortunately he took off his spear early, and then, after rushing a few steps, pulled out his halberd, turned Sabina's horse's head, and then turned to cut it left and right, and immediately several more helpless Turks were cut to the ground.
Gawain then jumped off his horse, stood up with his shield, and ran towards the rest of the pirates, who flinched back, the leader waving his sword and shouting for his men to take him on board.
"Help Lord Earl!" At this time, the military servants who had been fleeing in all directions, when they saw Gawain fighting bravely, summoned up a lot of courage, they waved the sling, stood on the foot of the mountain, and fought back with their heads and faces, and beat down many pirates who continued to climb. Then the little leader of the pirates felt that something was wrong, so he and the rest of the men scrambled to the bottom of the cliff near the sea, climbed into the light boat, and prepared to row away and flee for their lives.
Gawain stood there, and saw a majestic mast moving down the reef on the edge of the cliff, and then the pirate's light boat was smashed into powder by the bow of the Amalfi warship, and Gawain saw the Amalfi flag with a white cross on a blue background fluttering on the mast, so he beckoned his hand to salute.
The sailors attached to the mast also waved to Gawain.
This is the only Byzantine warship, which had been hidden in a huge cave on the cliff by the sea, and now rushed out as a key substitute.
This time, a thick crossbar continued to be tied to the mast of the Amalfi warship, but this time the crossbar was tied to a huge barbed iron ball, so more stones and weights were added to the tail end to balance it, and the sailors kept shouting and cheering, and the oars were fast, and Gawain turned to look, and the speed of the ship became faster and faster, and soon bypassed the beach and reached the pirate fleet.
Then, with an earth-shattering bang, the entire mountain of the headland trembled and trembled—the Amalfi sailor passed the pirate flagship sideways, slashed the rope with the weight at the end of the crossbar, and immediately carried the huge iron ball at the end, and smashed the pirate flagship's Cambridge into a bloody plank, and a huge smoke rose in the shape of a small mushroom cloud.
"Oh, oh, oh!" Then the Amalfi sailors shouted angrily, armed with short blades, axes, and scythes, and jumped onto the deck of the pirate flagship from the gangplanks and masts they had erected, and began a scuffle.
"Fight back!" Gawain rushed back to the camp on the promontory, and then he pulled the red hand flag, and the thirty most precious Varangian warriors in the camp immediately rushed out with two-handed axes and Viking swords, injecting supreme power into the line of the Italian soldiers, and the pirates under the front fort could not resist this counterattack, and began to cry and turn from the wooden fence side to the other again, especially when they saw that the flagship's mast, bridge, tower, and crescent black flag had been destroyed by the raid.
The other six ships anchored one by one away from the shores of Elainus, and many of the pirates could not escape, so they held their planks on the beach and swam in the direction of the desert island opposite, and the Tekopo mercenaries and the Amalfi sailors on the ships took the opportunity to catch up, and shot them with bows and arrows, and soon the tide swept the corpses and blood in layers. At this time, the entire Elainus Mountains and camps were barred, and the cheers of the people who came to watch the battle to help were earth-shattering.
"Gawain, look, they did go against the current and entered the Helispont!" At this time, Theognes pointed in the direction of the six remaining ships.
"The soldiers have been fighting for so long, they need to rest, and they can't catch up." Then, Gawain muttered to himself, "It's up to Frankisko and Tetisius, especially the general who has no nose." ”
There, amid cheers, Amalfi's warship sailed into the mouth of the Elainus with ropes and the broken pirate flagship, and the dead and wounded of the Turkic pirates were constantly abandoned, and finally the whole scene reached its climax when the bloody and bloody body of the commander Emir was found and hung from the mast.
"I'm going to cut off this guy's bloody head and send it to the imperial capital! that the infidels may see what will happen to them in this business. I don't know which of the Varangian warriors raised their battle axes and shouted this, and then hundreds of thousands of people echoed.
Only Gawain and Theognes stood side by side on the terrace of the camp, looking at the rest of the pirates who had escaped in the strait over there, and they both understood that the murderous pirates would inevitably seek revenge on the rest of the region.