Renegades of Gor

18 The Landing

"Hail, Captain!" called the young fellow with the crossbow, near the gate leading out onto the landing, from which a walkway gave access, across a stretch of harbor water, some two hundred yards in width, to the piers. Beyond the piers, and beyond the wall of rafts, chained together, with which they had closed the harbor, the Cosians had their ships, five of them. In the harbor, within the wall of rafts, there was the burned wreckage of ships, and in some places masts emerged from the water, of ships of Ar's Station, burned in port. "Hail, Captain!" called others, lifting their swords.

The landing was crowded with women and children. Some, too, already, had made their way out to the piers.

"Hail, Commander!" then cried the fellows there, spying Aemilianus. "Why do they call you Captain?" asked Aemilianus.

"He commanded on the wall!" cried a man. I remember him from the wall. He had been there.

"It was you who held the wall so long?" asked Aemilianus.

"I and a couple of hundred of your stout fellows, like these," I said, indicating the elated young men at my side.

"There are Cosians on the interior walls, overlooking the landing," said a man. I looked up. I saw them. Some had their helmets off, cooling their heads in the breeze, more to be felt at that height.

"They can fire into the crowd," said a man.

"But they have not done so," said another.

"They are waiting for the camp commander," said another.

"I will not go to Cos, naked in a cage," said Aemilianus to one of his men, one of the two who had stayed with him. "At the end, then, you know what to do." "As you will, Commander," he said, his voice thick with emotion.

"How many are here?" I asked one of the fellows about. The landing was packed with women and children. More were out on the piers.

"Who knows?" he asked. "I think there must be two to three thousand women and children, and perhaps some four to five hundred men. I do not know."

"Of all the people of Ar's Station?" I asked.

"Some fled months ago," he said, "some even when it was learned the Cosians had landed at Brundisium, others when it was rumored they were marching on Ar's Station. Many escaped before the investment lines were closed. Some bought their way out, which you could do, in the early days, before the Cosian casualties were high."

"Still, I said, "there must have been thousands in the city when the investment lines were closed."

"There were," he said, bitterly.

"And this is all that is left?" I asked.

"There were desertions," he said.

"Still," I said.

"Many perished of hunger or disease," he said. "Doubtless, too, many perished in the fires."

I regarded him.

"Many could not reach the citadel," he said. "Many streets were cut off, even districts."

"I understand," I said.

"Why did the relief of Ar not come?" he asked.

"I do not know," I told him, though I thought I knew.

"It is said the Cosians did much butchery in the city."

"Perhaps," I granted him.

"Beneath the walls of the citadel," he said, "they paraded loot carts, and lines of our women, stripped, and trussed as slaves."

I nodded. I had not been able to see this from the cell, of course, but I did not doubt but what it was true. It was a touch not untypically Gorean.

"Doubtless even now hundreds of them are packed behind the bar of cage wagons, being taken to Brundisium, there to be shaved, and then shackled on the tiered shelves of slave ships, to be embarked for Cos and Tyros."

"Perhaps," I said. In actuality, of course, I surmised that many would be distributed to continental markets, if only to take a quicker profit on them and avoid deflating the market on the islands. I did not doubt, however, that many of the most beautiful would indeed find their way to Cos and Tyros, if only as examples of prize loot. Such, too, might well grace the triumphs of the victors. Beautiful, naked women look well being marched in golden chains before the war beasts of masters. Doubtless many would march before Lurius of Jad, Ubar of Cos, in some grand triumph, though in the fighting he would not have stirred from his palace in Telnus.

"Still," he said, "there are many here."

"Yes," I said, looking about, at the crowded landing, and the piers out toward the river. "There are."

"It will be a terrible slaughter," he said.

Aemilianus was sitting on the landing near me. A man supported him, holding him about the shoulders.

I looked up at the interior wall.

"Commander," I said to him, "many of your people are within missile range from the wall."

Indeed, it would be hard to fire into the crowd without scoring a hit.

"I am tired," he said.

"Many are afraid to go to the piers," said a man. "They are afraid of the Cosian ships, that the walls of rafts will be opened, that they will attack. They fear to leave the landing, the shelter of the wall of the citadel."

"What shelter?" I asked, angrily.

"Many others," said a fellow, "fear to tread the walkway."

"There are sharks about," said one man.

"See the fins in the water," said another. "There, there are two!" "Blood has carried down to the delta," said another bitterly. "River sharks have come from as far west as Turmus. The bodies of delta sharks, leaving the salt water of the delta, bloated, litter the shores between the delta and Ven."

"There is even a greater reason to avoid the walkway," said another man, bitterly.

"What is that?" I asked.

He did not explain himself.

Suddenly Aemilianus looked at me. "What did you say?" he asked.

I crouched down beside him.

"Move your people out to the piers," I said. "The walkway can be destroyed behind them. Then the Cosians can approach only by water."

"There is no food there," said a man.

"There is none here either," I said.

"It makes no difference," said Aemilianus, wearily.

"It is the militarily appropriate action," I said.

"It is hard to see," he said, suddenly.

"Make a litter," I said. "Carry the commander to the piers."

"I have a net," said a fellow.

Two spears were thrust through the net, about two feet apart, and Aemilianus was placed on it.

He opened his eyes.

"There are Cosians on the wall!" he said.

"They have been there," I said.

"Why have the people not been withdrawn to the piers?" he asked.

"The orders have not been issued," I said.

"Where is Marcus Tulvinius?" he asked.

"Here," said an officer.

"Withdraw to the piers," he said.

"It cannot be done," he said.

Aemilianus struggled to focus his eyes on him.

"The walkway has been interdicted," he said. "The people on the piers made it there earlier, before the Cosians came to the inner wall. You can see the bodies of some of those who tried it later. Make a move toward it, and it will covered by a hundred crossbows." "It seems," said Aemilianus, "that we may choose to die here, or there."

"I would choose to make matters less convenient for Cosians," I said. Aemilianus smiled.

"The situation is hopeless," said the officer. "I shall treat for terms." "With Cosians?" smiled Aemilianus.

"Look!" cried a fellow. "On the wall!"

We now saw a tall figure there, behind the ramparts, one whose helmet was surmounted by a crest of sleen hair. There were standards held behind him. "It is the camp commander!" cried a fellow.

"Commander?" asked the officer.

"Do as you will," said Aemilianus, wearily.

The officer turned about and, drawing from beneath his cloak a white sheet, which he had apparently concealed there, lifted it, and approached the base of the wall.

This action seemed to be greeted with derision from the Cosians. One could see no reaction from the fellow with the helmet, with its crest of sleen hair. "Aemilianus asks terms!" called the officer, up to the wall.

I saw the fists of Aemilianus, in the improvised litter, clench.

There was laughter from the wall.

"Let your women strip themselves stark naked," called a fellow down from the wall, "and present themselves one by one at the gate for our appraisal." "Perhaps some will be found pleasing," said another fellow.

"The throats of the others will be cut!" laughed another from the height of the wall.

The tall figure on the height of the wall, the standards behind him, betrayed no emotion. He surveyed the scene below him. smoke was rising from somewhere in the citadel.

"Aemilianus himself agrees to surrender his person into your hands!" called the officer.

Aemilianus lay back on the litter, on the stone of the landing, his eyes closed. "Terms!" called the officer. "We ask terms!" The figure on the height of the wall lifted his hand, a small gesture. "No!" cried the officer below.

He stepped back, the hand which held the white sheet lowered. "No!" he cried. At the gesture of the commander on the wall two of the fellows flanking him, crossbowmen, had set quarrels into their bows.

"No!" cried the officer below, backing away.

I saw the two quarrels leave the bows like metal birds. The snap of the cable and its vibration carried even to the landing.

"Shield wall!" I cried. "All with shields here! Form the wall!" Men with shields hurried to where I stood, lifting the shields, overlapping them.

I forced my way among them, sometimes literally thrusting shields into position. Quarrels struck about me. I saw in one wild instant the officer who had addressed the wall now facing us, he having turned about. He had a look of dismay, of disbelief, on his face. Then he fell, the two quarrels in his chest. "Back!" I cried to the screaming women and children, "Get as close to the wall as you can! Back! Back!"

But many fled toward us.

I saw a fellow tumble from the wall, a quarrel in his chest, though it was not finned. It had apparently been only a sharpened rod. I saw the young fellow who had had the this penning the people below between the water and the wall, holding them there, like verr for the slaughter.

I crouched down behind the shield wall. "Take the commander, shielded," I said, "to the piers."

"I will remain here," said Aemilianus. "You will command," I said, "from interior lines."

"I will stay here!" he said.

I gestured to the bearers of his litter, who lifted it, the two fellows with the spears thrust through the net, Aemilianus stretched his hand toward me, and I clasped it. The bearers, then, crouching down, behind four fellows holding shields between them and the wall, hurried toward the walkway.

The women and children closest to the wall were in little immediate danger from quarrels. It was hard to strike them with quarrels from the height of the wall. I looked wildly to the height of the wall. The commander was no longer visible. I then sent forth men from the shield wall, singly, and in squads, to ferry the women and children, one at a time, or the women carrying children in their arms, beneath the cover of their shields, to the walkway. Once they were beyond quarrel range they hurried back to conduct still others to temporary safety. There were cries of rage from the wall.

I saw the young crossbowman, under the cover of a shield, held by his friend, the other young fellow from the front wall, harvesting quarrels from the walkway. There were fine quarrels, crafted by metal workers, not sharpened rods, not blunt sticks, fit for stunning birds. He distributed these to cohorts behind the shield wall, neglecting not to retain some for himself. He was young but his aim was fearsomely accurate. He had been trained on the wall, in a hundred assaults.

I looked at the gate. It was at the end of the corridor we had followed, which had led out, to the landing. Some men were guarding it. Naturally it opened inward, to the advantage of the citadel. We had no adequate way, given the time and materials at our disposal, of barring it from the outside.

Now some of the fellows on the wall were hurling stones and tiles down on the figures huddled below.

I saw one fellow doing this suddenly pitch back, his hands clutching at the shaft of a quarrel. Its passage upward through his head had been arrested by the back of his helmet.

The young fellow with the crossbow set another quarrel to his weapon. I sent some men forward, to try to shield the huddled noncombatants, before they could be conducted away from the wall, but it was of little use. Many of the noncombatants broke and ran.

Many were cut down before they could reach our shield wall.

"Stay closer to the wall!" I cried. "Get closer to the wall!"

I saw another fellow, his hands on a large stone, it held over his head, turn and fall within the rampart, struck by a quarrel.

The young crossbowman set yet another quarrel to his weapon.

"It is harder for them then they would like," said a fellow.

"They will be pouring through the gate in a moment!" said a fellow. "And over the wall," said another grimly.

He had hardly spoken when the interior gate, leading out to the landing, swung inward, and a stream of Cosians waiting within, a moment later, helmeted, with shields, thrusting with spears, slashing with swords, pressed out against the defenders. At the same time a hundred ropes, along the wall, were thrown downward and men, one after the other, began to lower themselves to the landing. The women and children then, suddenly, screaming, panic-stricken, fled away from the walls. The shield wall was disrupted, the frightened women and children rushing through it, tearing at it, plunging toward the walkway behind us. As shields were turned and lifted quarrels sped down from the walls and men screamed, twisting, hit.

"Forward!" I cried, seizing up the shield of a fellow fallen. "To the wall!" Behind us we heard the screams of women and children, crowding toward the walkway. We heard, too, the sounds and screams of those swept, as by a flood, from the landing, and from the sides of the walkway, striking into the water. In the panic most of the women and children had fled from the wall. Whereas this more exposed them to the fire from above it also, for us, cleared a killing space. A fellow dropped from a rope before me, and before he could regain his feet, he was dead. Another screamed, his legs hacked. Another leapt from the rope onto the spear of a fellow near me. He was kicked from it. The spear was then driven into another. Butchery at the foot of the wall occurred. Some tried to descend with one hand, fighting with the other. Sometimes two men seized an end of the rope and swung it out and back against the wall, dashing men from it. Cosians feared then to lower themselves into the waiting blades, like steel teeth, waiting for them. Some tried to press down, past others who, seeing what awaited them below, clung ever more desperately to the rope. Men fell to the foot of the wall, to be cut to pieces. Some tried to climb back up the rope but could not do so for the others above them. Some, reaching the crenelation again, were struck back by the jabbing spears of their own men, screaming at them. In their fall they not unoften took others with them, the some seventy feet or so, to the landing, the wall lower on the harbor side then the land side.

Others clung wildly to the ropes, unable to move. Of these flighted quarrels, at the leisure of calm marksmen, took bloody tolls. Some men below stood even on bodies trying to reach men above them on ropes. More stones and tiles rained down. I saw a fellow struck to one knee by a tile hitting on his shield. For a moment he seemed in shock. Then he struggled up, again, unsteadily, to guard his yard of wall. More quarrels were flighted over us. They hit the walkway like hail. "Back to the wall!" I supposed that many of the bowsmen on the wall, from the safety of the crenelation, were continuing tenaciously, following their original orders, to seal off, as they could, the walkway, keeping the pen closed, so to speak. A child ran screaming past me to press himself against the wall, cowering there. In a moment he had been overtaken by a woman who crouched down, wrapping him in her cloak. We were buffeted by women.

"Get out of the way!" cried one of our men. A Cosian slid down a rope, shielded by the women. He thrust one aside, putting his blade into a fellow. Another, though, from the other side, caught him, and he backed against the wall, then turned, scratching at it, spitting blood. The child wrapped in the cloak, soothed by the woman, watched him as he sank to the foot of the wall. The woman was weeping. A glance about showed that the danger was at the gate where the Cosians, in their hundreds, were pressing out, swelling forth, onto the landing. I hurried along the wall, to the left of the gate, as one faces it from the landing.

"To the gate!" I cried to every other man. "To the gate!" Their swords bloodied they turned and sped to the vicinity of the gate. I hurried about the fighting there and detailed men from the right, as well, to the gate. In the layered leather of my shield bristled quarrels.

I returned to the wall. Few descended now the ropes. It could be seen from the wall even more clearly than from the landing, I suppose, the steady, blade by blade, stroke by stroke, expansion of Cosian territory below, its burgeoning from the gate. When it reached the walkway the walkway would be indeed closed. That was what I wanted most desperately to prevent. I was not interested in holding the landing itself, except in so far as it protected the walkway. My primary objective was to evacuate the landing and withdrew to the piers. Indeed, I myself would wish to close the walkway once this evacuation was complete. I seized two fellows and issued orders. I was surrendering the wall. One raced to the wall to the left, the other to the right. Two lines were formed, one to the left, one to the right, of fellows with shields. There two lines, converging, the fighting in the center, by the gate, between them, led to the walkway, and then out on the walkway, for better than forty yards.

The men in these lines crouched down, their shields between themselves and the wall, creating an open fence of shields, a poor, broken cover, given the paucity of their numbers, but better than none. Some fellows near the wall urged the women and children to stream behind these, trying to reach the piers. Crouching down many did, and, it seemed, all with children. I saw the one woman, still clutching the child in her cloak, darting from shield to shield. Other women chose not, either from fear or prudence, to risk this dangerous run. I saw some looking up, in fear, at the ropes, still dangling there, and pull away their veils, thrust back their hoods and put their hands to the collars of their robes.

A woman clutched at me, then sank to her knees beside me, holding me. I looked down, angrily. Her eyes, over the veil, looked up at me. It was Lady Claudia, in the provocative rags that have been designed by the former Lady Publia, that she might hope to be of interest to Cosians. A free woman, bundled in the robes of concealment, spit on her as she passed. "Slave!" she hissed. Lady Claudia looked up at me, clutching me. I pressed her away with my foot, to the landing. "Traitress!" I said to her. She crawled back to me and brushed aside her veil, to press her lips piteously to my feet. "To the piers!" I said to her. She leaped up, sobbing, and fled toward the walkway.

Now that the wall was freed I saw more Cosians descending on ropes. I saw, too, happily, some small boats from the piers, manned apparently by fishermen and others, fellows who had made it to the piers earlier, making their way toward the landing. I had little doubt that these were the results of the commands of Aemilianus, now out on the piers somewhere, hoping that they might, in their small way, aid in the evacuation of the landing. To be sure, for the quarrels, it would take great courage to bring these to the landing. I could see, too, the backs and fins of sharks crowded about the lower edge of the walkway, near the landing. They were so thick there it seemed they constituted a surface. It was almost as though one might walk upon them. Yet I could not have cared to tread that shifting, treacherous, churning surface. The water, close to the landing, by the walkway, was white with their thrashing. I think perhaps they attacked one another as often as those in the water.

I saw more than one woman, struck from the walkway, reaching out, seizing the walkway, pulled again, screaming to its safety, even in the midst of the frenzy at its edge. Among the free women running to, and on, the walkway, under the partial cover of the shields, I saw female slaves, too, barefoot and bare-armed, in their tiny skirts, their necks in their light steel collars. The heads of the women who were not hooded I could see were shorn and those of the slave females cropped the shortest of all. Among those hastening on the walkway I then saw a naked figure, stumbling, being dragged by a free woman behind her on a leash. The naked figure's wrists were thonged together behind her back. Her head was covered by a hood, improvised from a part of a man's tunic. The gag would still be in her mouth. It was she who had been Lady Publia. I recalled that she had not had her hair shorn until I had done it, with a shaving knife, in the cell. One could not see it under the hood, but I had made it slave short. It seemed to me then that most of the women who wished, or dared, to attempt the walkway had done so. It was will for the men were being beaten back, almost to the beginning of the walkway. I saw the snout of more than one shark rising from the water. Cosians pressed about. More swarmed through the gate to the landing. More descended on the ropes. I issued orders, dispatching the fellows nearest me to convey them to their respective destinations. The two lines which had to some extent protected the women and children now withdrew to protect the flanks of the center. Then I, standing at the walkway, man by man, as was opportune, sent fellows back along the walkway, retreating to the piers. These mostly backed along, protecting their retreat with their shields, making their way in a file between the fellows still in position on the walkway, on each side of it, those I had placed there to afford protection to the women and children. The lines thinned to the sides of me, and before me, and the Cosians pressed in, yet more closely.

I held my ground, as men of Ar's Station, one by one, backed past me, onto the walkway. I had been behind the fighting, directing it. Now I was but a line or two from the front ranks. There were screams from near the wall. Some of the Cosians, many just coming forth from the citadel, not yet entered into the fighting, indeed, not being readily able to reach it, for their fellows, had turned aside to attend to the females there. "They are taking the women!" cried on the fellows, a few ranks in the Cosian press. He, and some others, then back, turned back. There was a momentary hesitation in the Cosian advance. I took advantage of this to pull in the flanks and send them back over the walkway, and then drew the fellows before me closer, freeing some, the lines then being shortened, to follow their fellows back. I myself withdrew some ten feet or so. There were more screams of women from the wall, women being seized to be made slaves. Again the Cosians hesitated. "The women are being taken behind you," I cried to the Cosians, "taken by those who have not even nicked their steel!" "Forward!" cried a Cosian officer. "Forward!" "You are losing slaves!" I cried to the Cosians.

"There are more slaves before you lads, on the piers!" cried the officer. "See them strip themselves, eager to be made your slaves!" I cried. Some of the Cosians in the rearward ranks turned about. I ordered more of my men back. We did not press them.

"They are pretty!" I cried, "begging for their nose rings!"

To be sure, many of the women had torn away their clothing, and were now kneeling on the landing, by the wall, some with their hands clasped, others with them piteously extended, in various attitudes or petition and supplication. Among them strode men, some with bloodied swords. I saw small wrists being tied together and ropes being put on lovely necks. Those who were slaves were picked first, as most desirable, surely at least at the moment, before the disciplining and training of the others.

I saw one free woman backed against the wall, a sword at her belly. Then she pulled her robes away from her shoulders and breasts, and then, a moment later, at an impatient movement of the sword, which made her wince, thrust them down over her hips, and let them slip to her knees. Then she straightened up. The sword was then again at her belly, only now it was bared to the sharpened steel. She turned her head to the side, in misery, in terror, being assessed. Then, at a movement of the blade, and ordered, doubtless, she looked at the fellow. It seemed then she was suddenly startled. Then she began to tremble. I had little doubt she had seen in him her master. It is an interesting moment for a woman, the first time she finds herself looking as a slave into the eyes of her master. She quickly knelt, as though fearful of displeasing him. I saw her turned about, rudely and thrust up, closely, against the wall. Her hands were bound behind her. She was leashed. I saw more than one female slave, kneeling before a Cosian, her hands fastened behind her, put her head far back, to facilitate the insertion of the nose ring. I saw a free woman, similarly kneeling, similarly bound, watch this in terror, and then, quickly and exactly, imitate the action of the slaves.

Some of the women, in one fashion or another, were being marked, or tagged. Sometimes this was being done with a circular or oblong pin, rather like the temporary nose ring, put through the lobe of the left ear, from which a disk or tag dangled. Sometimes the disk or tag was affixed similarly but by means of a simple wire passed through the ear lobe, closed and twisted shut. Women so marked, of course, could later have their ears pierced. Some fellows fastened tags, or other devices, to the nose rings themselves, or to the looped cord dangling from the nose ring. With others, the cord itself is color coded. Some women were marked by as little as a tag on a thong, fastened about their neck, wrist or ankle. Others had their body itself written upon, as with a grease pencil. The marking is usually on the upper portion of the left breast. Slavers, too, commonly mark women in this fashion, for temporary purposes, for example, with lot numbers for sales, and such. Permanent markings are usually done with hot irons.

"You are losing slaves!" I called out, again, to the Cosians.

"The distribution will be made later!" cried the officer to his men. "To whom will they be distributed?" I asked. "To you fellows sweating in the front ranks, or to suppliers, officers, and agents? Who says there will be any distribution to you fellows, at all? If there is, will you get your pick? Will the best women be distributed? What of hundreds of wenches already on their way to Brundisium, and Cos and Tyros? Have they been distributed? Did you get your hands on them? I think you will have to bid on the leftovers in camp auctions! Is not that the way it has been done before? You are fighting for Cos now, not in a free company, whose captain will look out for you, who will see what beauties figure in your pay!"

"He says true," growled a fellow, drawing back.

"Forward!" cried the officer. "Forward!"

"Get them while you can!" I cried. "Some are still clothed, others have not yet been seized! They cower with their sisters by the wall, half hidden, waiting for you!"

"Do not listen to him!" called the officer.

"Some are doubtless quite attractive. They have not yet been marked or tagged!" "Do not heed him!" said the officer.

"Woe!" I said. "The fellows who have not fought are advancing on them even now!" The Cosians wavered.

Few quarrels fell now at the entrance to the walkway, for those upon the wall must now fear the striking of their own men.

There were more screams of women from the wall.

"Forward!" urged the officer.

Now clearly came to the walkway the moans, the weeping protests, the wailing lamentations of beauties finding tight bonds being placed on their bodies. "Back, back!" I said, softly, to the men about me. "Behind me! Back!" "There are less then two hundred left there now, lads," I called to the Cosians. I had the men of Ar's Station then, to my elation, on the walkway, drawing back on either side of me. I spoke softly. Those who had much fought withdrew up the walkway, between those who had shielded the women. These other men then, fresh, came forward, flanking me.

I saw a brunet, out from the wall, her wrists thonged behind her, weeping copiously, uncontrollably, as the spread prong of a nose ring was pressed through her septum, the ring then springing back into shape. She, nose-ringed, looked up at her captor, its cord looping up then to his hand. At the slightest of tugs she leapt to her feet, weeping, to follow him with perfection. I saw her being led away. Others, too, I saw being pulled to their feet, doubtless to be taken to improvised holding areas.

"Even now they are being led away, fellows!" I said.

"Draw back," said the officer, angrily.

He had seen the vacillation of his men, that we had gained the walkway, that fresh troops now flanked me.

Cosians, mercenaries mostly, broke free from their rearward ranks and ran to the wall, to claim females. So, too, the, backing away, then turning, did several in the forward ranks. The officer rallied enough regulars about himself to assure that we would not attempt to press forward.

"You use our own women as a diversion," growled a fellow near me, "as though they might be slaves!"

"Look at them," I said. "Aii!" he said.

"Draw back with me," I said, softly, backing away. The Cosians, regulars and mercenaries, responsive to the orders of their officer, advanced some yards onto the walkway. They did not follow us closely, however.

We saw a shark reach up to the landing, near the walkway, and drag a body, by the leg, back into the water.

"Go back, and tell Aemilianus that the evacuation is complete. He will know what to do.

The man beside me shuddered. It was no accident I had stopped where I had. From this point effective quarrel fire could not be directed to the piers.

"We will stay with you," said the young man with the crossbow, now beside me. His fellow, the other young fellow from the wall, the one with the shield, who had protected him in the fighting, was at his side.

"No," I said.

"Is that an order, Captain?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "Obey it."

He and his fellows hesitated a moment, then turned, and went toward the piers. "The rest of you," I said, "withdraw now."

"You cannot hold the walkway alone," said a grizzled fellow.

"Go," I said. I would not order, nor did I think Aemilianus would either, any to stand here beside me, not given what must be done.

"You will need skilled swordsmen," said the grizzled fellow, "preferably those of the scarlet tunic."

"Go," I said.

"Four or five will do," he said.

"I have four here, including myself," said a voice behind me.

"And I am the fifth," said the grizzled fellow.

Men were hurrying back down the walkway, toward the piers.

I turned about, startled.

"It would be an honor to die in the company of Marsias," said a tall fellow. "I am not Marsias," I said to him.

"That is a relief," he said, grimly, "for I was growing confused about the matter. You see, I had thought that I was Marsias."

"I recognize you now," I said.

"That is flattering," he said.

"How is your head?" I asked.

"Considering that it was struck with a large piece of building stone with great force at close range, splendid," he said.

I looked at one of the other fellows. There were three behind him. "I see that you have managed to find a tunic," I said to one of them.

"Yes," he said, "mine was stolen, in a cell."

"That is where I found mine," I admitted.

"We were roused by a guard," said Marsias, "who was checking the walls for ruptures which might allow access to Cosians. He found an excellent example of such a breach in a certain cell, as you might perhaps remember."

"Yes," I said.

"It was our intention to come looking for you immediately, as you might well suppose," said Marsias, "to settle accounts, so to speak, but Cosians, as seems their wont these days, interfered. We had to defend that break in the wall for Ahn. When the recall was sounded, we learned, somewhat to our surprise, as you might suppose, that I was a hero on the wall, at least according to some, and later, too, at the gate. These fellows, and I, decided to look into this, and now have done so."

"You have found me now," I said.

"And will fight beside you," said Marsias.

"I am grateful," I said.

"The small boats are coming," said one of the fellows.

"The Cosians, too, have seem them," I said. There was considerable excitement on the walkway near, and at, its end, and on the landing. I could now see, again, too, the standards over the wall of the citadel. The camp commander, he in charge of the Cosian forces at Ar's Station, had resumed his coign of vantage. In the boats, approaching from the piers, the same boats which had come earlier to help evacuate the landing, there were men with torches and axes. There were some small boats, too, at the landing, some perhaps captured, others which may have been there earlier, or perhaps within the citadel walls somewhere.

"I gather, from reports of those who were on the wall," said Marsias, "that you impaled the traitress, Lady Claudia."

"Perhaps," I said.

"Or was it our pretentious, nasty little warder, Lady Publia?" he inquired. "Do not concern yourself with the matter," I advised.

"That would have been an irony," he remarked.

"Doubtless," I said.

"And a waste," he said.

"Doubtless," I said.

"Many think that both Lady Claudia and Lady Publia needed to learn their womanhood."

"Lady Claudia," I said, "had already begun to learn it."

"Like those women on the landing," said a fellow beside us.

"Yes," I said.

The Cosians there must have taken at least four hundred women on the landing. At least two hundred of these were still there. Many were pushed up against the wall, in some groups facing it, in others with their backs to it. I had little doubt that the delicious loot even now was learning masculine domination. On the landing many were kneeling, or bellying. There was much licking and kissing. More than one had been put in a display position, and forced to hold it. I saw one girl cuffed, and another, one who had perhaps been slow to obey, lashed with a strap. Swiftly then, and eagerly, did she begin to lick an kiss her captor about the feet and ankles. Some were still being tied and tagged. Others were being lined up, their hands tied behind their backs to form coffles, ropes being put on their necks. Some, among these many others, were serving even now on the landing, being put to use by impatient masters. We could see their squirming bodies, their subdued, thrashing limbs, hear their cried, cries with which they responded to, and registered and recorded, their ravishments, cries mostly, at this point, of protest and lamentation, but, too, in instances, of astonishment and wonder, and sometimes, even so soon, of sudden, frightened acquiescence, of eager acceptance, of grateful yieldings, dreams coming true in thongs.

"Yes, too," he said, "many claim, interestingly, to have seen the same female, she who was supposedly impaled, whoever she was, later on the wall's walkway, and later, too, with the women and children."

"Surely that seems unlikely," I said.

I noted one girl on the landing. From the way she held her hands behind her back I could tell that she was in thumb cuffs. These are handy devices. They are light and take up little space in a warrior's pack. I myself, thinking sometimes that thumb cuffs are perhaps a bit cruel, generally prefer, if slave bracelets are not available, a simple thong or a short length of binding fiber. A woman, of course, may be bound in a large variety of ways and with a large variety of materials. For example, one might use strips, cut and rolled, from her own clothing, particularly as one will probably be removing the garb from her anyway. If she is naked, she might even be bound with short lengths of her own hair. two or three horts of hair suffice to tie her thumbs behind her back, and another two or three will suffice to tie he two large toes together.

I might mention two possible reservations pertaining to thumb cuffs. First, many feel that they are must less secure than, say, slave bracelets, because of the diverse ratios involved, of wrist to hand, and of upper thumb to the thumb joint, at their location points. To compensate for this, of course, one can make the thumb cuffs tighter, but this produces greater discomfit in the wearer. It is harder for her to attend to her lessons, naturally, if she is in pain. I generally feel that pain, at least generally, should not be inflicted on a slave unless it is meaningful. There can, of course, be a point to generalized discomforts, even of a rather trivial nature.

For example, when a woman has been slept naked on a hardwood floor without covers, she is likely to come to a much better understanding of the value of a slave blanket. Second, if the woman is in thumb cuffs, and she becomes hysterical, it is much easier for her to hurt herself. Accordingly, just as one would not wish to secure a sleen or a kaiila in a way in which it might inadvertently hurt or injure itself, so, too, one might not wish to secure a slave in such a manner. The slave, too, is a domestic animal, and like other domestic animals, has a specific value. Accordingly, thumb cuffs, if used on a slave, in my opinion at least, should be used only under close supervision. To be sure, under such supervision, they might be helpful.

Certainly it is hard for a woman to wear thumb cuffs and not understand her helplessness. Some masters favor them early in a girl's training, thinking that it hastens their progress. Whereas I have occasionally introduced a woman somewhat rudely into the realities of bondage, I generally prefer to ease then into it, giving them time to develop and gradually understand their new feelings and sensations, giving them time to accommodate themselves to their new life and destiny. Accordingly, thought I might put a girl into thumb cuffs for an Ahn or so, perhaps early in her training, perhaps in the process of informing her as to the nature of various bonds, their textures, and such, I generally do not use them. I think of them, like close chains, more as a punishment than a restraint. That she knows they exist, and could be put on her, by my will, like close chains, in itself has its salutary effect on her. And what seems to me generally sufficient.

The major point of the restraint is to restrain, not hurt. Indeed, pain can interfere with many of the diverse subsidiary values of restraints, physical and psychological. It can be distractive. Pain is a bit like the whip. The slave is subject to the whip, and truly subject to it, but this does now mean that she is necessarily whipped; that she could be whipped, and will be whipped, if she is not pleasing, is what is important, not that she need be whipped. Why should one beat a pleasing slave? To be sure, there are no bargains, contracts or arrangements in these matters, and the slave may be beaten whenever the master pleases, with or without a reason. She is, after all, a slave. Similarly, along these lines, to be perfectly honest, I have upon occasion used thumb cuffs on females, when it has seemed to me there was a point of doing so, or when it pleased me to do so.

"She was naked, hooded, and thonged, and on a leash, in the keeping of one or another free person," he said. "That sounds like a slave," I said.

"Yes, it does," he said.

We heard the small boats behind us, drawing up, near the pilings beneath the walkway.

"It is my supposition," he said, "that no female was impaled."

"That is an interesting supposition," I granted him.

"If it is true," he said, "Lady Claudia, whom I suspect is somewhere about, probably in the rags of Lady Publia, is still entitled to look forward to her impalement."

I saw that the woman in thumb cuffs was now on her knees on the landing, and that her head was pushed down to the stone. The cord from her nose ring was lying beside her head on the stone. She was then put to use. I saw her wrists lifting, her fingers, beside her confined thumbs, jerking, opening and closing. Then she was pulled to her feet by the cord on the nose ring and hurrying after her master.

"Do you not think so?" he asked.

"They are marshaling at the end of the walkway," I said.

I heard axes behind us, attacking the pilings of the walkway.

"Do you not think so?" he asked.

"You are certainly a zealous fellow," I said. "I have seldom encountered so single-minded a devotion to duty."

"Obviously, if you did not impale her," he said, "you did not wish her impaled, and you have done service to Ar's Station, whatever may be your own Home Stone. That is one reason I am beside you now, that I may guiltlessly evade, if possible, my very unpleasant duty, but clear duty, in that matter."

"I do not understand," I said. "I am sorry."

"But if we should survive," he said, "you understand that we must attempt to apprehend the prisoner and see that the sentence is carried out upon her, even if it means only weights on her ankles and a sharpened pole on a pier." "The Cosians!" I cried.

Then, with shield and sword, with the ringing of metal, with shouts, with cries of war, the six of us, I, Marsias, the grizzled fellow, and the three who had come originally to the cell, struck by charging Cosians, almost swept back, struggled to hold the walkway.