Renegades of Gor

17 Battle: We Will Withdraw to the Landing

The bridges of the tower were still raised. These bridges were each about eight to ten feet in width. The towers themselves, which taper on the sides and back for stability, but are flat on the approaching surface, to make it possible to come flush with the wall, at that height were about fifteen feet in width. They were out from the wall, back from it, some seven feet. The lower sills of the bridges, from whence they would swing down, clapping, thundering, on the crenelation, were about four or five feet above the height of the wall. This permits a considerable momentum to the attackers without being so steep as to endanger the surety of their footing. There was no accident about the height of the towers. A simple geometrical calculation gives the height of the wall. We could now hear little movement within the towers, scarcely the clink of arms. They were, however, crowded with men.

"It is the waiting I do not like," said a fellow near men.

I lifted and lowered my sword. Men tensed along the wall. Fires were lit. It had taken the towers at least five Ehn to move the twenty yards or so to the wall.

They were now here.

There are many ways of meeting such devices. The most effective, but generally impractical, as it consumes much time and materials, is to raise the wall itself, building it higher, so that they can serve as little more than ladder platforms. What is more often done when time permits is to build portable wooden walls, some fifteen feet or so, in height, with defensive walkways and loopholes for missiles, which are then moved in the path of the towers. Sorties, the object of which is to fire the towers, are less practical than it might seem at first glance. Such towers are usually well defended, and are often not brought into play until such excursions are for most practical purposes beyond the resources of the defenders. Too, it is difficult to fire such objects, and the fires began on them by, say, small task forces are generally quickly extinguished.

At a singe blast of trumpets, the eleven bridges were loosened, rattling, to the crenelation.

As soon as the bridges struck down on the stone, at eleven points along the wall, from each of the somber, giant, looming, hide-hung towers, scores of men packed within rushed forth, spewing forth, erupting, like lave or steam and water breaking from the side of a cliff, racing, sprinting, descending the bridges, shields set, hurling themselves downward. Poles, and pikes, and stones, and wire, and steel and fire met them. At two of the towers great poles were used. One, a foot thick and twenty feet in length, managed by ten men with ropes, mounted at an angle of some twenty degrees on an improvised pivot of heaped stone, swept the bridge an instant after it struck the crenelation, then tumbled off, used once, to fall behind the parapet. Men, before its movement, were struck screaming to the ground, but others followed them, pouring over the wall, to plunge into coiled tarn wire, to stumble, to fall, to wade in it bloodied, to meet stones and steel. The second great pole was tied to two crosspoles and, by ten men on each crosspole, was thrust in place as soon as that bridge fell, and was held at an angle, like a railing, its sturdy barrier diverting the stream of attackers, causing many on the outside edge to be buffeted by their comrades to the ground below, a hazard in crossing such a bridge at any time under the conditions of battle. Many clung to the pole, as they could, and many strove to slip under it or climb over it. In the cleared angle of the bridge, the defenders mounted to the bridge itself an there, behind the barrier, and about it, stanched the flow of men upward, holding them on the planking of the bridge, between the tower and the wall.

At two of the bridges tiles and bricks, some two feet in length and six inches in height and width, met the attackers, not so much to stay the force of the attack as litter the bridge itself, that rushing men, not suspecting them, might stumble and fall. And in such cases there was always the press of men from behind, ascending the ladders, pushing the others forward. Tarn wire here, too, was set to enmesh those who came over the wall. I had had the rear portions of the two catapults propped up, that the angle of fire could be flattened. This, given the height of the openings, revealed by the dropped bridges, made it possible to fire at point-blank range, the shovel of one catapult containing a thousand bits of rock and metal, the shovel of the other a large boulder, weighing perhaps fifteen hundred pounds, requiring five men for its loading, trundling it up the ramp.

The first catapult slung its storm of missiles into the charging men, blinding them, denting shields, cutting clothing from bodies. The second catapult cast its load, its boulder, into the midst of startled men and had it not been for their smitten bodies, dashed back, cushioning the blow would have torn its way free through the back of the tall, shedlike tower. In both cases defenders then climbed to the bridges to meet the foe, driving him back, thrusting him down to the lower level, stopping the ascent at the ladders. At the termination of another bridge we had broken away an opening in the walkway, enlarging a gap about stairs. Here charging foes leaping from the wall found no footing but only an opening beneath them, half pit, half stairs. Men waited below for those who still moved, with axes. Another charge, rushing forth from the tower, unable to stop, pushed on by the masses behind them, plunged into flames, where we had heaped bundles of tarred sticks in their path, the sort that on wires and chains, flaming, are hung over the walls at night to illuminate ascending foes. At another bridge, Vosk fishermen, from the vicinity of Ar's Station, fought, perhaps men who had merely been trapped in the city when the Cosians had taken their positions, and, at another bridge, huntsmen, from the interior, perhaps similarly detained. The fishermen had a net with them, doubtless brought up from their small boat in the harbor. Such devices are rich in war uses. They can discommode scalers and grapnel crews. They can block passages. From behind them one may conveniently thrust pikes and discharge missiles. In the field they may serve as foundations for camouflage, for example, effecting concealments from tarnsmen. Questioned, eagerly had I assented to its use, pleased to have the unexpected and welcome aid of such an object. Nets, too, of course, are used at sea in the repulsion of boarders. Similarly, nets, often small and silken, but sturdy and cunningly weighted, are used in the taking of women. At both these bridges the charge was arrested by the bristling points of a braced, pike wall, two men to a pike. At the fishermen's bridge the net was cast, but its weights were not now stones. Rather was it weighted with two logs which, at it settled upon its catch, were toppled over the parapet.

At the bridge of the huntsmen loops of tarn wire were cast over the armed, halted efflux which the foe, to his horror, trying to extricate himself, felt draw tight and then he, too, snared, was dragged from the bridge. Huntsmen are skilled in the stringing and weighting of such devices. The wire, in its wide, supple loops, had settled about its victims, their legs and bodies. Its two free ends were weighted, secured about heavy posts which were then toppled over the parapets, this causing at one time the tightening of the loops and the dragging of the catch not now into the air, where it dangles helplessly, upside down, awaiting the convenience of the huntsman, perhaps to have its throat cut, but from the bridge. As with nets, with snares there is a great variety of types and uses. Some are fine enough to set for field urts and other stout enough for tharlarion.

At both bridges, following the success of the devices of the fishermen and huntsmen, the temporary consternation of hesitant successors permitted defenders to take their place, too, on the shaking bridge, where, in moments, they had pressed their way back even to the edge of the flooring, that of the highest level, beneath the roof, at the back of which would be located stairs or ladders, depending on the structure of the particular tower. At the last tower a simple garrote of tarn wire, almost invisible, had been thrust forth, secured between two poles. Such wire is usually handled with gloves. It can usually cut to the bone. It can take a wing from a tarn. I do not think the first fellows hurrying down the bridge even saw it. Their bodies, lacerated, impeded the flow of their fellows. Pikes thrust forth from behind the parapet, and at the sides, and over the planks, of the dropped bridge, where it projected beyond the crenelation on which it rested. While these things were going on hundreds of grapnels had looped over the wall and the ropes on them strained with swiftly climbing men, and the uprights of hundreds of ladders, like a forest, set themselves against the walls. Between the towers men hurried cutting ropes, and, where they could, thrusting back the ladders with the long-handled tridents. Oil was poured on screaming men ascending. Bodies aflame leapt from wood and rope. But Cosians came over the wall.

"We cannot hold them!" cried a man.

Fellows came then from below. The walkways behind the parapets were swarming with men.

In two of the towers defenders had won the top level and poured flaming oil about the floor and down the ladderways. On two others some, with axes, literally chopped away at the bridge, behind their fellows.

I saw quarrels discharged at point-blank range.

Blades rang.

A Cosian, twisting, fell back from the wall.

I saw one of Ar's Station run through, and slip to one knee, and then disappear back, over the interior edge of the walkway, probably to plunge to the rubble there, and then roll down to the court, behind the wall.

I saw a defender leap back from a tower, a torch in his hand. Smoke flowed from behind him, out of the opening. Such structures are easier to fire from the inside than the outside. I saw other fellows carrying bundles of flaming sticks and tar on their pikes into a tower. It was aflame.

Some defenders leapt back to the wall, and the bridge, cut in pieces, sagged behind them.

Cosians, sweating, their eyes wild in their helmets, reaching out from ropes, and ladders, struggled through, and over, the crenels.

The crew of one of the engines had set another great stone into its shovel. Their backs stained, turning the windlass, winding that huge torsion-powered device taut. I saw one of them, a quarrel in his back, fall away from the windlass. Then, suddenly, a lever thrown, the mighty arm of the engine went forward again a great stone burst against one of the towers. It was half turned and tottered, but did not fall. The draw bridge hung down, leading now only to the air.

At one end of the wall I saw Cosians coming through a tower. No longer were they impeded by tarn wire. They crossed it now literally on the bodies of their fellows fallen in it, and strewn over it, as one might cross a river on stones or a bog on planks. I dispatched the few reserves I had to seal off that portion of the walkway. On such a narrow path I hoped twenty men might hold against a thousand, for there the thousand could put against them no more than twenty. But the thousand were nourished and strong, and soldiers, not an aggregation of half-starved scions of a hundred castes, not one in ten of the warriors, not one in five trained in arms.

I had taken up my post above the main gate, on the higher battlements, where the impaling spear was mounted, and the flag of Ar's Station still snapped defiantly. This seemed to me the likely place for a command post. It was the most central location on the land wall. It was there I would have expected to have found Aemilianus.

More Cosians came over the wall. There were pockets of them, embattled, here and there along the walkway. The men I had sent to the west end of the land wall, past the west bastion, had actually sped by them. There are in battle, I have found, often oddities, which seem inexplicable, and yes they occur. I had sometimes seen a man walk among combatants, threading his way here and there, almost as though among crowds in a market, no one bothering to challenge him or pay him the least attention. But if eye contact is made, then there is not unoften a fight to the death. Also, I have seen two pairs of men fighting, those of each pair side by side, as though fellows, and yet they are enemies, and each engages another foe. The riderless tharlarion or kaiila, like the riderless horse in battles of Earth, can sometimes be seen whirling about, obeying the trumpet calls for charging, and retreating, and such, just as though his master were still in the saddle. Too, sometimes such animals may be found calmly standing about, or grazing, while the fiercest of fighting surges about them. I have seen, too, wounded men being carried to the rear, their bearers unmolested, through clashing ranks, and other fellows pausing to loot a body, blades flashing about them. Sometimes, too, in a moment's lull, one notices little things, to which one has perhaps hitherto paid scant attention, the movements of an ant, how rain water irregularly stains a rock, moving and spreading, depending on the texture of its surface.

I remember one fellow telling me about a man who had died near him, in a field. The man had been lying there, on his back. The last thing he said was, reportedly, "The sky is beautiful." My informant told he, however, that the sky then had looked much the same as it usually does. This is a hard story to understand. Perhaps then the dying man had seen it differently, or perhaps only then seen that it was beautiful. I now saw a fellow from Ar's Station on top one of the towers, on its roof. He was just standing there. He seemed to be admiring the view. I had little doubt it was somewhat spectacular. He waved to me. I lifted my sword to him, in salute.

Suddenly, on the approach from the right, a fellow, breaking away from a knot of embroiled fighters, raced up the stairs, toward me, sword drawn. It was his intention, I gathered, rather after the moment, to have had the honor of slaying the commander on the wall. This occurred to me as he spun about, blood gushing from beneath his helmet, falling back down the steps.

On the east, and nearer the center portions of the wall, four of the towers were aflame.

Not seventy feet away, a rope severed, men plunged screaming to the earth below. Along the wall, at two of the towers, men chopped away at the housings for the chains which controlled the bridges. Some of the bridges, but most not, were raised and lowered by ropes. One whose ropes had been cut had its bridge hanging down, against the front of the tower, useless. Cosians were trying to run planks out from the tower, to span the crevice between the tower and wall. I did not doubt but what, sooner or later, the towers might be brought flush to the wall. This is commonly not done, however, for various reasons. It more exposes the tower to the defenders, who might then tear the hides from it and smear it with flaming tar, or enter and attack it at their own choosing. Too, it makes it much easier to prevent the dropping of the bridges, by blocking them with beams or poles, or, in some cases, by fouling one or both of the chains, usually with metal pins. It is better for the attackers, usually, to have the tower isolated, back from the wall, and to be able to control its bridge without concern for the defenders. Thus they may lower it when they will and raise it when they will, perhaps after a retreat, transforming the tower then into what, in effect, is a small, inaccessible, impregnable keep, with its moat of space, a keep, however, whose bridge might then, suddenly, at any moment of the day or night, drop again, once more disgorging its onslaught of attackers.

I saw a fellow, aflame, running below, beyond the wall, then he fell and rolled in the dirt.

The pounding of the ram below continued. It had a different sound now than before. I did not understand why.

Men leaped back from towers to the wall, their work done on them. Two swung back on ropes and climbed through the crenelation, almost as though they might have been Cosians.

I thought I heard the scraping of a ladder against the wall near me. This startled me, as the battlements here, in the vicinity of the gate, were higher, surely, then even the long, bending single-pole ladders used along the wall. I saw more Cosians spew forth from a tower, over its bridge, and fall into tarn wire, and meet the pikes of defenders. From where I stood I could see, outside and below, hundreds of Cosians, and their mercenaries and allies. These fellows were back about a hundred yards. Many seemed at their ease, watching the walls, the ladders, the grapnel men, what they could see of the fighting.

In places along the wall defenders sought to get their poles under the bridges, between them and the crenelation, and, using the wall as a fulcrum, to lift the bridges back up. Sometimes Cosians and defenders, fighting, were on the very bridges being pried upward. At two towers the poles had thrust the bridges up and back. Men tried to hold them braced. But other men, Cosians, within, dozens, some with axes, half breaking the bridges apart, from the inside, forced them down again.

I heard the bellowing of an agonized tharlarion from below, and saw some led from burning towers, their harnesses cut. One, tearing itself free, heedless of the cries and blows of its keeper, ran blindly back toward the city, the men among the engines breaking apart, or climbing on the engines, to let it pass.

To my amazement then I saw two uprights of a ladder, a two-upright ladder, not one of the single-pole ladders, suddenly appear but feet from me. I ran to the place and thrust through the crenelation at a fellow, his hand already half over the wall. He tumbled back, into space. The next fellow had his shield before him. I could not get at him, nor he, because of it, at me. I crouched in the crenelation, bracing myself with my left arm. He climbed another rung and I kicked out, turning the shield to the side. He was half pulled from the ladder by the shield straps but he slipped down a foot or two, recovering himself. He looked up. I could not reach him. something, slipped past, hardly sensed, like a snake, leaving a thread of sound in the air. another thing cut the mask at the side of my face, like a knife.

One fellow was trying to climb past the nearest fellow on the ladder. This fellow, in one hand, grasped a spear. He was then on the same rung with the fellow with the shield, and then one rung higher. The spear blade thrust up, scratched the inside of the crenel. I seized the shaft behind the head. He held it with both hands. I wanted the spear. I could not get leverage from where I was, to move the uprights. He would not release it. Then he was pulled free of the ladder and hung in the air. a quarrel struck the outside of the wall a foot or so from my face. It was like an ice pick suddenly driven into ice, but what burst forth was not ice but stone. He hung tenaciously to the spear. Did he not truly, in that moment of terror, I wonder, comprehend what was supporting him, that it was not the spear, but I? Despairing of gaining the spear I released it. His hand reached out wildly then, belatedly, for the ladder, but his hand could not close on it. I drew back. Another movement sped past, like a puff of breath passing my ear. Below I heard yet another fellow trying to climb higher, and another. There were shouts. I looked through an adjacent crenel. The fellow with the shield hung half off the ladder. Another fellow had passed him and was almost up. I returned to my original place to meet him, but suddenly, just as he was coming within reach, I heard a sound like a fist striking leather, it came from his back, and he looked surprised, and then stiffened on the ladder and threw back his arms and head, and, twisting, plunged downward. I caught sight of a quarrel's fins protruding from his back.

Another fellow was behind him, and I met him. He blocked my blow with his blade. He blocked my blow again with his blade. Then he did not block my blow. Clutching the uprights, grimacing, coughing, spattered with blood, he slipped back some rungs, until he was a few feet below me. I looked about, wildly. I thrust my sword through my belt, to which were attached my pouch and knive sheath, both on the left side. I raced to the impaling spear, hoisted it up, some five feet, from its mount. The slave who had been Lady Publia, it burden by means of the ropes, the sheath and sword belt, twisting wildly, throwing her head about as though bewildered, as though she would try to see through the hood, uttered a tiny, terrified, questioning, miserable, helpless noise, her oral orifice, of course, remaining subject to the closure I had imposed upon it. I leveled the spear, then cast it to the ground. I was in a hurry. She was a slave. I then, lifting the spear up a bit, her head down, thrust her with my foot, in her ropes, with the sword belt and sheath, from the spear.

I then hurried back to where the ladder was. Another fellow had just appeared in the opening in the crenelation and I pushed out at him with the long impaling spear. Its point is a dull one, designed for an unpleasantly lengthy penetration. Even so with the force I slid it across the stone it jammed between his ribs, entered his body, and carried him out from the ladder. He dangled on it and then slipped from it, unable to cling to it with his hands. I think he struck the ladder again, some feet further down. I heard another man cry out, a few feet below. There was then a scream.

Armed with the spear, which is some fifteen feet in length, like a third- or fourth-rank phalanx spear. I reached over the wall and managed to get it behind the top rung of the ladder. No one was close to me then. Then highest fellow was the man with the shield, who had withdrawn earlier. He looked up, discarded his shield, started to climb madly toward the spear, then stopped. The ladder leaned out, a yard or so from the wall. I pried back further, and the ladder straightened, and then it leaned back further, held in place only by the friction with the spear. Some men leaped from it. Others tried to throw their weight against it, to force it forward again. Some dared not move. I slid the spear back and up. The ladder tottered. It must fall backward! But it did not. It crashed forward, against the wall. I pried at it again, and the top rung broke. I wished that I had had one of the tridents or one of the sharpened, steel crescents fixed on a metal pole, useful in such work. The fellow who had had the shield now climbed toward me. This time, however, the ladder leaning out from the wall, I managed to get the point of the spear free from under a rung and on one of the uprights itself. I could now push back. He tried to dislodge the point from the wood but I shifted and caught him under the arm and pushed back more. I hoped to use his own fear against him, his unwillingness to release the ladder, but before I could push back enough, past the center of balance, he released one hand and twisted, hanging to a rung with his free hand. But then, again, I managed to get the point on an upright. The ladder straightened, and I thrust out another foot, and then another, moving my hands on the spear, my hands sweaty, and then the ladder seemed, for an instant, to lean oddly back, away. For an instant I was not clear that it would fall. But then men were screaming and leaping from it, up and down its length, and I saw it turn on one upright, doubtless more from their movements and the shifts in weight than from anything of my doing, and then it fell back, and I heard it snap and break. At the same time I drew back, as a pair of quarrels flashed past. I think it probably that some had been fired at me when I had struggled with the spear for I saw at least one new, irregular scratch in the stone near where I had labored. Yes, oddly enough, though there must have been noise, I had not even noticed it at the time. it was only now, oddly, in recollection that it seemed to me I might have heard something there, cutting at the stone, and other things, too, like hissed whispers about me.

A young fellow, one of the two of a age to be lads whom I had seen on the wall, appeared on the steps leading to the upper battlements. He had only two quarrels left, one in the guide, the other grasped in his hand, with the bow, not really quarrels even, only sharpened rods. Even the blunt-headed wooden quarrels, suitable for stunning birds, were gone. I had used him, and the other, he between the command post and the west, the other between the command post and the east, as messengers, hoping in this way to keep them within the semblance of interior lines, our of the thickest fighting.

"They cannot hold on the west walkway!" he cried. "They give way!" I issued orders and he raced back. My plan, even if successful, would keep the walkway, nearer the command post, only for a few Ehn. I looked to the east. There more Cosians leapt from the bridge of a tower, clambering and stumbling over the bodies of others, tangled lifeless and wounded in the wire. Men struggled to meet them, with pikes and axes. I became aware them again of the blows of the ram below. The sound had been different for the last few Ehn. How had the ladder I had repelled managed to reach the height of the wall? I went to my left and bent over the crenelation, leaning over the wall. I saw then that the roof of the ram shed sloped upwards. A hill, literally, of debris, of sand, rock and bodies, had been built there, before the gate, and the shed thrust up this incline. This brought the blows of the ram high on the gate, presumably over the rocks and sand, and such, which had been heaped behind it by the defenders. That accounted for the difference in the sound of the ram. What effort it must have taken to force the long ram shed up this incline, how much more arduous must be the labor of those within the shed, hauling on the ropes, swinging the great ram upward! I could hear, too, between the heavy, periodic strokes of the ram, the blows of hammers and axes, and the smiting on punches and chisels, and the sounds of creaking metal, as men sought to cut and punch openings in the facing on the gate, then twisting and prying it back. Plates of facing buckled and were torn away. It was on this artificial hill, built before the gate, that the ladder which had reached to the height of the battlements had been mounted. From where I now stood, because of the shed, I could not see the remains of the ladder.

I went to my right then to survey what might be the case on the west. I watched. Then, suddenly the defenders there, holding the west walkway, withdrew. They had been fighting behind a breastwork of fallen bodies, those of both Cosians and defenders. The Cosians seemed for a moment bewildered, but then, with a great cry, swarmed over the bodies in pursuit. Scarcely were the defenders drawn back than the great cauldron of oil now ignited, now aflame, into which the buckets on long handles had been dipped, was overturned with poles and flooded the walkway behind them. The bulk of the Cosians stopped at this wall of flames some forty feet in width. Some, however, raced into it. Of these some perished in the flames. Others, half fire, screaming, turned about, fleeing back to their fellows. Some crossed it, and were cut down on the other side. This retreat, though it surrendered the western walkway, decreased the amount of area to be held, and, with these new numbers, increased the defenders there. The Cosians then within the wall, in the center, were much harder pressed. Some withdrew, even, to the towers, some of which were aflame. I saw the bridges, burned through, collapse beneath some of them, plunging them to the ground. I went again to my left. There, on the east, I saw that the Cosians had gained yards, and that they were now beyond the wire. The defenders, foot by foot, were being pressed back. More Cosians leapt from the bridge of a tower, down onto the bodies and wire, climbing over them, hurrying to join the fray. The east walkway could not be long held.

I went, wearily, to where the roped, ankle-thonged, naked, gagged, hooded slave lay, on the stones. With my foot I turned her to her back. I unbuckled the sword belt from about her, and then, crouching beside her, turned her to her stomach. I withdrew the sheath from between her back and the ropes. It was distended, where it had received the spear, almost to the bottom. I pressed it as flat as I could, with my hands and foot. The blade then, again, but not well, fitted into it. I rebuckled the belt and put it about me, the strap over my right shoulder, the sheath at the left hip, as one wears it on the march. That is a stabler carry. The advantage of the left shoulder carry, the sheath at the left thigh, is the ease of discarding the belt and sheath, thereby ridding oneself of a possible encumbrance.

The young fellow with the crossbow climbed to the upper battlements. He now had only one quarrel left. "The flames on the west walkway are lessening," he said. He looked down at the slave. "She is still alive," he said, puzzled. "Yes," I said. "How can it be?" he asked.

"How do you think?" I asked.

"A trick?" he said.

"Yes," I said.

"But I saw her on the spear," he said.

"She was hung on it," I said, "not mounted up in it, not impaled with it." "Are you going to kill her now?" he asked.

"No," I said, "at least not immediately, unless perhaps she should be in some respect displeasing."

"You speak of her as though she were a slave," he said.

"Are you a slave?" I asked the girl. "Whimper once for "Yes, twice for "no. " She whimpered once.

"Do you desire to please men?" I asked.

She whimpered once.

I patted her. "Show us," I said.

She lifted her behind, piteously, placatingly.

"That is not Lady Claudia!" said the young fellow.

"No, it is not," I said, But I smiled to myself as I said it. Did he not know that Lady Claudia would have been quite as quick, if not quicker to lift herself, hoping to please?"

"Who is it?" asked the lad.

"I have not yet named her," I said.

"Who was it?" he asked.

"Do not concern yourself with the matter," I said.

"Where then is Lady Claudia, the traitress?" he asked.

"I do not know," I said.

"It is as Calendonius said," he said. "You are not Marsias."

"No," I said. "I am not Marsias."

"Who, then, are you?" asked he.

"One whom you have acknowledged as your captain," I said.

"Yes, Captain," said he, lifting his bow in salute.

I issued orders, with the injunction that he should, when they were delivered, return to the upper battlements.

He hastened down the stairs to the right.

I then returned my attention to the slave. I unknotted the thong by means of which her small, fair ankles had been so securely bound, the one to the other. I looped the thong in and about the ropes at her back. At that moment the other young fellow, who had seemed so mature, who was serving as my messenger to the eastern walkway, gasping, ascended to the upper battlements.

"We are giving way!" he said.

I had been waiting for him.

He, too, seemed startled to see the slave. "It is not Lady Claudia," I said. "It is only a nameless slave."

"They are calling up from below," he said, paying the female no more attention. "The gate is being sundered!"

I issued him orders, orders parallel to those I had given the other young fellow, with the injunction that he, too, after their delivery, return to the upper battlements.

I then went to the wall and looked out, once more, on the vast panoply before me, across the burned, leveled ground, at the engines, the troops, the hulks and shells of buildings in the distance. In the eastern part of the city there was still smoke. There had been fires in the city for days. I could even see the outside wall, far off. It seemed a long time ago, now, that it had been breached. I then, slowly, drew down the flag of Ar's Station from the citadel. That would not be done by Cosians. I did not raise another cloth in its place. "We have withdrawn to just west of the west gate stairs," said the young fellow, reporting from the western walkway.

"Take the slave," I said, "and put her on the central walkway, behind the upper battlements. You will find slave rings there, in the wall. Fasten her to one, kneeling, by her leash." Such things are common conveniences in Gorean cities, in public places, and such. Even when the slave it seldom attached to one, she sees them, and this has its psychological effect with her. She knows that they are for the tethering of such as she. Here, within the citadel, of course, such rings, though usually called slave rings, could serve a large variety of purposes. They are not merely for girls chained there on furs in the moonlight, for the use of strollers, off-duty guards and such. They may be used, for example, for such purposes as anchoring war engines, to keep them, in their reaction, from backing off the walkway, restraining guard sleen, and securing prisoners. "The return to your fellows, and watch for my signal. It will be delivered from the central walkway, behind the upper battlements."

"Yes, Captain," he said. "On your knees, woman," he said.

The slave struggled to her knees.:On your feet, woman," he said.

She who had once been Lady Publia rose unsteadily to her feet. It was hard for her to stand. She had not stood for some times, and her ankles, for some time, had been closely bound.

The young fellow, seeing her difficulty, took her leash close to the collar, that he might, if necessary, steady her, and keep her from falling. He then drew her along quickly, she stumbling, after him. he was in age no more than a lad and she was a mature, fully grown, beautiful woman but in accord with nature's decisions, given the differential parameters involved, those of his size and strength, contrasting so markedly with hers of slightness, delicacy, softness, and beauty, he handled her with ease.

I watched then descending the steps to the central walkway. She half fell once, losing her footing, striking against the right side of the stone stairwell, but he kept her upright, his hand then literally about her thick leather collar, and then, in a moment, now again on a short leash, I saw her drawn about the corner, toward the line of rings below and in back of the upper battlements.

I turned about and the other young fellow, he who was my messenger to the eastern walkway, climbed to the upper battlements from the eastern stairwell. "The flag!" he cried.

I handed it to him.

"Keep it," I said. "One day it may fly again."

There were tears in his eyes.

"Return now to your fellows," I said, "and watch for my signal. It will be given from behind the upper battlements."

He hurried away.

I looked to the western walkway and saw the other young fellow with the fellows there. He was behind their lines, facing the central walkway. His presence there informed me that the slave, her upper body so wound about with ropes as to almost conceal her beauty, would be at a slave ring, behind and below the upper battlements, kneeling there, hooded and gagged, fastened to it by her leash. I looked to the eastern walkway. I saw the other young fellow there now, clutching the flag in his arms. He, too, was looking back, toward the central walkway.

It was important to me to coordinate the withdrawal of both wings, to keep balance in the positions, to prevent flanking movements. Too, I thought I might buy some time for them by seeming to offer the Cosians an enviable prize, the capture of the wall commander. I thought this might be of particular interest to them, given the losses they had suffered this afternoon.

From below, in front of the wall, I could hear the buckling and tearing of plate on the gate, the pounding of the ram, the groaning and cracking of wood. I then descended to the central walkway. There were bodies there, as elsewhere about the walkway, those of Cosians, those of defenders. A Cosian, wounded, seeing me, tried to struggle to this feet. He was a mass of blood. It was dried in his beard. His helmet was gone. He could hardly lift his black.

"How are things in Cos?" I asked him.

"Well," he said.

"Put down your blade," I suggested.

He thought for a moment and then shrugged. He could scarcely hold it.

I then kicked it away from him.

"It seems the day is yours," I said.

"That it is," he whispered.

"Rest," I said to him.

He slumped back against the rear of the upper battlements, not far from one of the rings there.

I could hear the ringing of swords, the clash of metal on shields, from both the right and left.

I then went to the slave, kneeling on the walkway, facing the stone backing of the upper battlements, tethered there. Her head was actually turned sharply to the left she was fastened so closely to the ring by the leash. I saw that the young fellow, though he might be young, had an instinctive sense for the handling and owning of women.

I took the thong which had originally bound her ankles, which I had earlier removed from them on the upper battlements, and looped it and about the ropes on her back, and put it beside me on the stone. I then, holding her wrists, and by means of them, moving them back and forth, as she whimpered, and drawing them more closely together, slowly worked her arms more behind her under the ropes. I then, when I could, crossed her wrists and tied them with the thong, her arms still under the ropes. I then loosened one end of the long rope bound about her body and tied it to the ring. I then loosened the other end, too, and tucked it loosely in among the lower coils, near the waist. She whimpered piteously, questioningly. I then freed her leash from the ring, where her neck was held so closely to it. I then drew here to her feet and, turning her a few times, unwrapping some of the rope, stood her near the edge of the walkway. She stood unsteadily.

"If I were you, I would not wander about just now," I said. "Do you understand?" She whimpered once. "Stay," I told her, making certain of her compliance, giving her a command common to slaves. This informs them they are to remain where they are until moved, or given permission to move. She whimpered once, once again. She did not know it but she stood but a foot from the drop to the courtyard. To be sure, now, with the interior debris below, the drop there was only about forty feet, but then there was another distance, longer, given the angle, down to the courtyard, down the hill.

I then turned to the left and right, and made certain that I had the eye of my messengers, the young men on the left and right. I then lifted and lowered my sword. Immediately following this signal the defenders on both the left and right began an orderly withdrawal, rear lines first, front lines backing, fighting, down the stairways closest to them, the two gate stairways, one to the west of the gate, the other to the east of the gate. The stairways, of course, were much narrower than the walkway, and could be held by ewer men in the retreat.

"Ho!" I called to the Cosians to the left and right, lifting my sword. I saw men pointing to me. I had little doubt that some of them, at least, would have seen me on the upper battlements, and would realize I had been commanding on the wall. Too, I stood next to a well-roped woman who, though hooded, and much covered in the upper body by ropes, would be likely to intrigue them. She had lovely legs and the contours of the ropes about her upper body would not leave much doubt that luscious slave curves were the helpless prisoners of their coarse, serpentine coils.

I sheathed my sword.

It must have appeared to most of them that my escape was cut off, that I was somehow trapped between the two stairways.

Doubtless we would seem prizes in diverse ways to the Cosians, the commander of the wall and a female who might hopefully, when unhooded, be found to have a face to match the excitements of her figure. Too, if she were in the keeping of the wall's commander, did this not, in itself, suggest that she might be worthy a cord and nose ring?

Too, my sword was sheathed. Did this not suggest that I might regard myself as trapped, as I seemed to be, that I might regard my position as untenable, that I thus might choose not to offer resistance, that I might be prepared to surrender?

Almost at the same time one or two scores of fellows, from both sides, began to race toward me. Others stood back, near the heights of the stairs, to watch. These things, I assumed, would drawn much pressure from the stairways. My defenders would probably be able to withdraw more easily, close portals and block passages.

I thrust the slave to her right and she tumbled off the walkway. There was suddenly, she losing her footing, knowing herself unsupported, her head jerking wildly in the hood, her legs moving wildly, treading on nothing, beginning to turn to her side in the air, starting to plunge downward, a wild, tiny, terrified, prolonged noise from within the hood, what perhaps a shrill, terrified scream might have been, if it were to be compressed within the latitudes permitted by a Gorean gag, emerging then as a small, helpless noise, one not likely to disturb masters. But in an instant she had gasped and was jerked up short by the coils of rope, her plunge arrested, but then, again, almost instantly, the rope began to uncoil from her body and she, spinning, the rope unwinding, in a series of wild jerks, awkwardly began to descend, riding the uncoiling rope downward. In an Ihn or so she had struck the hill of debris and then, still moving, still descending, the rope still uncoiling, turning over and over, tumbling, rolled toward the bottom, toward the courtyard. For an instant it had been hard to get my hands on the rope, it was moving so, over the edge of the walkway, but, a moment or so after she had struck the hill of debris, I had it in my hands and began to descend it, rapidly, hand over hand. I would not slide down the rope, incidentally, because I did not have protection for my hands. Sliding down such a rope for even forty feet or so can burn the flesh from one's hands. One can be crippled for weeks. Under certain conditions, this may be an acceptable cost, but it is not likely to be so if one expects to have use for the sword in the near future.

As soon as I reached the hill of debris I had my feet under me and then, even more rapidly, half sliding and jumping, holding the rope, hurried down the hill. When I reached the bottom of the hill I turned and looked upward. Mainly I wanted to see if there were any crossbowmen on the walkway. There were none. One or two fellows looked as though they might be thinking about following me down the rope, but they did not do so. On the hill of debris they would have poor footing. At the foot of the rope they would be in the courtyard, perhaps isolated. They could come down only one at a time. all in all I did not blame them.

"Well done," said a young voice.

I turned about. It was the young fellow who had the crossbow.

"I thought this might be your plan," he said, "when you had me put the slave at the ring."

"You are a clever fellow," I grinned.

"And so I came to cover your descent," he said.

I smiled. I had not realized this additional reason for not following me down the rope. The fellows on the walkway had seen him. I had not. It was true, of course, that he had only one quarrel for his bow. Yet who, still, would wish to be the first down the rope?

"You are a brave young fellow," I said, "to have come here, for such a purpose, with but a single quarrel for your bow."

"I shall find others elsewhere," he said.

"Thank you," I said.

"It is nothing," he said.

The other young fellow, he who had been my messenger to the eastern walkway, emerged into the courtyard. He looked up at the walkway. The Cosians were now leaving the central walkway, and hurrying to the stairwells, those to the east and west.

"The citadel is being evacuated," said the newcomer.

"We shall withdraw to the harbor area," said the fellow with the crossbow. "Then the slaughter will take place."

"We have fought a good fight," said the second fellow.

"I think so," said the first.

I went to the slave. She lay on the lower slope of the hill of debris, her head down, her legs higher, up the hill, her right leg flexed. The end of the rope was a few feet above her, on the hill, where she had come free of it, and then rolled further downward. Her hands were thonged behind her. There were rope marks on her body, the signs of her spinning, jerking plunge to the hill, and then her tumbling downward, rather to her present location. She was trembling, uncontrollably. I supposed it had been frightening for her, she helpless in the hood.

I took her by one arm and drew her to the level, at the foot of the hill, and knelt her there.

I then bent her back, one hand on a thigh, the other on the back of her collar, in a slave bow, for the inspection of the young fellows.

"She is pretty," said the first.

"Yes," said the other.

I released her. "You are in the presence of men," I told her.

Swiftly she bent forward and put her head down to the ground.

"Take this slave," I said to the fellow without the bow, "and put her with the women and children. If you meet Cosians throw her to them. If they stop to take her in tow you may escape. Similarly, in the vicinity of the women and children, she might serve similar purposes, being used for a diversion or something." "We would rather stay with you, Captain," said the fellow with the bow. "The women and children will need you," I said.

"What of you?" he asked.

"I would see what is going on by the gate," I said.

The young man with the bow lifted it in salute. "Stand, slave," said the other fellow to the girl. She stood and her leash was taken in his grasp. She could not see, of course, confined in the hood, but he had looped the end of the leash. It was long enough, thusly, to serve as a disciplinary lash. In a moment the two young men, and the slave, had disappeared through an interior portal at the far side of the courtyard. I myself took one of the smaller portals at the far side, to follow an interior corridor to the vicinity of the main gate. The great interior gate, leading into the courtyard, like the covered way, some forty feet in length, had been backed with debris. This was, indeed, the debris to which we had descended by means of the rope. Provisions had been made, too, I supposed, for closing the corridors. In the corridor I met retreating defenders.

"We are abandoning the gate, Marsias," said one of them. "Come with us!" I nodded. It was only later that I realized that he had called me "Marsias." One of the fellows on the wall, I remembered, had asserted that I was not Marsias. Yet they had followed me. Marsias, then, surely, was the name of the fellow whom I was impersonating.

I then emerged into the closed area between the outer and inner gate. There was a huge hill of sand, rock and such, packed against the lower portions of the outer gate. The ram could not be well turned within the covered way.

In this covered way, men passing him, from various parts of the citadel, taking their way through the sheltered corridors, presumably to the harbor area, on a piece of stone, broken from the inside of the way, his head in his hands, sat Aemilianus, bleeding.

There was a great splintering of wood from above us and, over the hill of sand and such, packed behind the door, suddenly, bursting wood apart, there protruded, black, over five feet thick, and of solid iron, like some mythological monster, a great form, with curled-back horns, cast in the likeness of an adult verr ram.

I had never seen such a thing closely. I drew my sword and scrambled up the debris behind the gate to examine it, but, as I approached it, it, in its rhythm, swung back. I caught sight of figures on the hill outside, just movements, parts of bodies. I, now on the summit of that small, artificial hill, suddenly drew back, shielding my yes, as the huge form smote again through the gate, splintering wood about. I put out my left hand and touched it. This time, as it swung back, I could see, along its shaft, the interior of the inclined shed that housed it, and how it was fifty feet long and slung in leather cradles, and the many ropes that controlled it, and the men drawing on the ropes, surely more than a hundred of them under that long shed, men stripped to the waist, sweating, and as it drew back this time a figure suddenly leapt forward, to enter and I parried and slipped my sword into him perhaps as startled as he was and he was pulled back, bleeding, and I heard shouts outside, and then, again, I drew back, covering my eyes, and the great head splintered inward again.

I stood near the opening but this time, following its retreat, none rushed through. Again I saw the shaft of the ram, the shed, the men, the ropes. A quarrel sped past. I heard a tumbling of stone behind me and the western corridor was closed, props struck from beneath a scaffolding of masonry. Aemilianus, with two retainers, remained where he was, below and to the left, he bleeding, sitting on the piece of stone. "Hurry!" I heard someone call, I suppose to Aemilianus. "We are going to close the east corridor!" I heard a trumpet from somewhere toward the harbor. "It is the recall!" cried one of the fellows with Aemilianus. "It sounds by your own command. Come, Commander!" The citadel then was being abandoned. But Aemilianus did not move. I could smell smoke from somewhere. Another fellow from outside suddenly appeared in the opening, high in the ruptured gate. We crossed swords in the opening three times. Then he stiffened in the opening, his guard down. I flung myself back and the ram smote through again. Another fellow then, flanked by two others, appeared in the opening. Steel struck steel, sparks leaping forth. He tried to climb over the jagged portal. "Look out!" cried someone from outside. I could see as my opponent could not the coming forward of the ram. He must have realized the danger but had not anticipated being held at the threshold. He turned away from me, and his two fellows leaped from him, but too late, and the ram, as I drew back, caught him and carried him, on its snout, tearing him against the side of the opening, for five feet, until he tumbled from it, to roll to the bottom of the hill. Two bodies now lay there, or a body and a part of a body. The head of the ram now was spattered with blood, as was, too, the side of the portal. I saw other men marshaling outside, to enter.

"Hold the ram!" I heard. A spear thrust at me through the opening. But the ram came forward again. I seized the spear behind the point. Then it was splintered like a twig as the huge head burst again inward. I threw the bit of spear away. The head of the ram was so constructed, and the horns on it so curved back, that it was unlikely, given the forces involved, that it could become lodged in the door. I could not, thus, in any simple fashion, even with the beams and planks about, in the rubble, thrust anything behind it, crosswise, say, behind the horns, to prevent its withdrawal. The sand was useless. The rock, however, suggested a temporary expedient. "Hold the ram!" I heard, from outside. But it must come again, at least once! Men hesitated to rush forward. I then saw the great iron head seemingly become smoothly larger and larger as it swept forward. The bloody metallic configuration burst through again and this time, as soon as it had entered, before it could swing back, I rolled a rock from the debris between it and the lower edge of the rupture. There was a grinding of iron and rock as it swung back and then reared up, against the top of the rupture, and was still. The men on the ropes had not the leverage to swing it back, though they could try to pull it back. They would, of course, attempt to swing it in further, gain leverage, and then try to draw it back again. In this, however, they would lack the momentum generated by the full movement of the ram, utilizing the full arcs of the leather cradles.

A blade thrust through between the head and the wood, and then a spear thrust through, similarly. I saw the great head inch forward and then back, and again stop. Spears tried to force the rock from its position. There seemed to me no point in staying where I was. As soon as the ram was free of the opening, it would presumably be held back, in place, and then men would could through the portal, one by one, or in twos and threes. I could not well defend it, not indefinitely, not against quarrels, as well, with no shield. I saw the head move again, and again stop. I then sheathed my sword and half slid, half ran, down the slope of the debris and reached the stone flooring of the covered way. Aemilianus looked up at me, dully. There were men at the props of the scaffolding holding up the masonry that, when it fell, would block the east corridor. I did not care to be trapped here, between the gate and the rubble in the corridor, when the Cosians entered.

"Assist me," I said to the two fellows loyally with Aemilianus.

"Go," said Aemilianus. "I will stay here."

"I shall carry him, or you shall support him," I said to the two fellows. "Who are you?" asked Aemilianus.

Just then there was a cry from above, and the huge stone, forced from its place by spear butts, rolled down into the covered way. At the same time the great head drew back.

"Stop!" cried Aemilianus, but his two fellows had seized him, one by each arm, and, putting his arms about their shoulders, hurried him toward the east corridor.

I looked up and saw some four or five Cosians creep through the opening at the height of the artificial hill.

I backed toward the eastern corridor.

"It is dark here," said one of the Cosians.

But two men pushed past him, squinting into the dim covered way, from the height of the hill within the gate.

I heard the sound of mallets on wood behind me, heavy blows.

"Do not let them escape!" called a Cosian pointing downward.

"Take them from the sides!" I shouted, as though to men ensconced in an ambuscade.

The ten or twelve Cosians now through the gate crouched down, suddenly, arrested, looking wildly about.

I then backed quickly through the portal of the eastern corridor.

As I did so the final blows were struck at the props supporting the scaffolding of masonry and with a tumble of dust and stone the rocks fell.

I had hardly gone ten paces down the corridor, following the others, when I heard the rubble of masonry being torn away from the outside. Undefended I did not think it would take them more than a few Ehn to open a passage through it. In an Ihn or two I had caught up with the others, Aemilianus, the two fellows supporting him, and the two who had waited behind to block the passage. Suddenly swords were drawn for men blocked the passage, come doubtless from the walls.

Those men I saw, however, did not wear the blue of Cosians regulars but only armloads of blue.

"Ho, lads!" I called to them. "Behold the glint of gold!"

I took from the pouch I wore golden coins. These were the coins which had belonged to the former Lady Publia when she was free, when she could still own things. I had relieved her of the burden of their weight in the cell. She had intended to use them to bargain for her life with Cosians, begging to purchase it from them, even at the frightful cost of Gorean bondage. I then cast the coins behind the fellows, and to my left, into a side passage.

"Gold or steel?" I inquired.

"Why not both?" asked a man, stepping forward.

Then he was dead in the corridor.

"Gold," said one of his fellows, grinning. Then he, and the others with him, backed down the passage down which I had flung the coins. Then, in a moment, they had turned, and were scrambling in the dim light for them.

I wiped my blade on the tunic of the fellow who had opposed us.

"You are not Marsias," said one of the men with us.

"No," I said. I also relieved the fellow of the contents of his purses. He had carried three.

One of the men with us closed the door of the passage down which I had flung the coins.

In a place such as the citadel, under the conditions of war, one is normally very careful about closed doors. One usually either opens them very carefully, or flings or kicks them open, standing back from them, waiting. One does not burst through. One does not know what is on the other side.

"Let us continue," said another man.

"I smell smoke," said one of the fellow, supporting Aemilianus.

"There are looters behind us," said the other.

There was a movement in a side passage.

"Wait," I said. A fellow there swiftly leapt up from a naked woman, one with richly blotched skin and helplessly erected nipple.

"Kneel," he said to her.

She scrambled to her knees.

Her eyes were wild. She could not move her hands together. They were held apart, by her waist. The current position of her left hand was just about her left hip, and of her right hand, just above the right hip. A single narrow cord bound her. The tie is accomplished as follows: One wrist is tightly encircled by the cord and bound within it, about eighteen inches in from one end of the cord. The longer length of the same cord is then taken about her belly and the other wrist is then tied within it, on the other side of her body, leaving some eighteen inches of cord on the other side of the tie. The cord is then drawn back about her belly and the two free ends tied together behind her back, this being done in such a way that the bond is quite snug. The result is that her hands are held apart, on opposite sides of her body, and that neither hand can reach a knot, either at a wrist or behind the back. This tie, it might be noted, positions a girl's hands quite near areas of likely predation by a captor. But, too, because of it, she finds that she is absolutely incapable of interfering with any attentions to which he chooses to subject her. The waist tie, too, of course, in a female, given her marvelous beauty, the flaring excitements of her hips and breasts, cannot be slipped. It is a common capture tie. She looked up at us, gasping. A circular, overlapping pin had been spread and one end inserted through her septum, drawn through and allowed to spring back, forming a nose ring. From this dangled a looped, closed cord, the loop about eighteen inches in length.

The fellow, crouching, now faced us, sword drawn. "I took her fairly," he said. She squirmed in the bonds.

"Was she a free woman?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Did she submit herself to you?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Keep her," I said. "Of what interest to us is a slave?"

We then continued on our way. "There is light at the end of the hall," I said. "The gate is open there."

"That is the gate to the landing, and thence to the walkway, leading to the piers," said one of the men.

I did not think about it at the time, but if he had thought me of Ar's Station I do not think he would have said this. I would have known it.

I suspect now that more than one of these fellows suspected who I might be. "You should have left me to die by the gate," said Aemilianus.

"Would you not rather die in the sunlight," I asked, "in the fresh air, under the blue sky, the clouds, in sight of the harbor, the river?"

"I would rather die in sight of the walls of Ar," he said, "that I might spit upon them."

"The reinforcements were never intended to arrive," I said.

"Let us continue on," said the fellow, he who had also spoken earlier. "I hear the press of pursuers."

"I hear women and children," said another.

"It is shame that I should die before them," said Aemilianus. "Leave me here, that I may for a time, while I can hold a sword, detain our pursuers." "Bring him along," I said, and continued toward the gateway.

"And who are you?" asked a fellow.

"One, at least," I said, "who may be thinking a bit more clearly than others this afternoon."

"And why should that be?" asked a man.

"Perhaps I was better fed," I said.