Norman, John - Gor 23 - Renegades of Gor.txt

by Renegades of Gor [lit]

  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 (pg.283) 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

  (pg.284) 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 (pg.285) 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 ta
ken 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 (pg.286) 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 (pg.287)

  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 (pg.288) 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, (pg.289) 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