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“We have withdrawn to just west of the west gate stairs,” said the young fellow, reporting from the western walkway.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 is 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. “Then 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. I think she was terribly afraid. It seemed she could scarcely move. Much had changed in her life. She staggered a little. She caught her balance. Clearly it was hard for her to stand. I was afraid she would sink down, helplessly, to her knees.
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 them 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 his feet. He was a mass of blood. It was dried in his beard. His helmet was gone. He could hardly lift his blade.
“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.
He was Gorean.
I took the thong which had originally bound her ankles, before her seeming placement on the spear, that which I had later looped in 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 her 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 her to her feet and, turning her a few times, unwrapping some of the rope, stood her near the courtyard 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 fewer 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, th
ough 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 score 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 draw 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 I 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 side, to follow an interior corridor to the vicinity of the main gate. The great interior gate, leading into the courtyard, like the outer gate, in the wall, from which it was separated by a 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 there was a huge hill of sand, rock and such, packed against the lower portions of the outer gate. There were two side corridors, the east corridor and the west corridor, which were still open. Both had been rigged, and would be shortly blocked, with stone and debris from scaffolding. Once closed they would have to be opened by hand or small tools. The great ram could not be well turned within the covered way. Still, at best, it seemed these additional obstruct
ions would be unlikely to long impede the progress of our visitors.
In this covered way, men passing him, from various parts of the citadel, presumably taking their way 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 eyes, as the huge form smote again through the gate, splintering wood about. It was then, at the height of its swing, but a foot from me. 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 along 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 the 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 in 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 a 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 come 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.
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