Renegades of Gor (41 page)

truth, thereby alleviating her acute mental conflicts, and her sufferings,

attendant upon its concealment, and by another, as she has no legal power in the

matter herself, be restored to freedom. To be sure, there are risks involved in

this sort of thing. For example, when she kneels before him, his slave, perhaps

he will then simply order her to the kitchen or to his furs. No promise made to

her has legal standing, no more than to a tarsk. In this way, she, ostensibly

seeking her freedom, may find herself plunged instead into explicit and

inescapable bondage, and will doubtless, too, soon find herself properly marked

and collared, to preclude the possible repetition of any such nonsense in the

future.

“Yes,” whispered Lady Claudia, not taking her eyes off the small figure

suspended on the spear, on the battlements over the gate.

(pg.276) I looked over the wall. The towers had now stopped, aligned, some

twenty yards or so from the wall. They would overtop it. When they advanced,

they would do so, together.

“You had best go now,” I said.

“I do not want to leave you,” she said.

“When the towers spill their troops onto the wall,” I said, “I do not thing they

will be stopping to make slaves. Go, hide. Perhaps later, when the citadel is

burning, when resistance is ended, when the blood lust has to some extent

lessened, you may receive an opportunity to strip yourself for captors.”

“What of her?” she asked, pointing to the former Lady Publia.

“The slave?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“She is already stripped,” I said.

“True!” she laughed.

“You had best leave,” I said.

“You never intended to impale her, did you?”

“Not on the spear of execution,” I said.

“I see,” she said.

“Unless perhaps she might prove displeasing or in some way uncooperative.”

“I understand,” she said.

“There are, however, many other forms of impalement quite suitable for such as

she,” I said.

“Doubtless!” she laughed.

“And for you,” I said.

“Yes,” she said, “for me as well!”

“Go,” I said. “The towers will advance at any moment.”

“Why did you let us believe you would impale her?” she asked.

“Surely the genuineness of her terror added to the effectiveness of our

disguises,” I said, “as did you own authentic concern.”

“You manipulated us as women and slaves!” she said, her eyes flashing.

“And you are a clever woman,” I said, “biding your time here against my will.”

“I am a free woman,” she said. “I think I shall remain here, by your side.”

(pg.277) “Free woman or no,” I said, “I wish I had a slave whip. I would teach

you docility and compliance quickly enough.”

“And I would offer them to you without the whip,” she said, “—Master.”

“Fortunate for you that you are not a slave!”

She laughed, merrily.

“I would you were naked at my feet, in a collar,” I said, angrily.

“Ah,” she said, “I would that I were there, too, my master, but I fear that that

pleasure, if pleasure it be, seeing me so, having me so, will go not to you,

but, if luck be with me, to a Cosian.”

“That is not unfitting,” I said. “You are a traitress. You declared for Cos. It

seems not unfitting, then, that you should belong to a Cosian.

She tossed her head, angrily.

“Go,” I said.

“I do not want to go,” she said.

“I will not be able to protect you here,” I said, “nor, in a few moments, will

these others.”

“I will remain here,” she said.

“Here you will be in the way,” I said. “You would jeopardize others, concerned

for you.”

She looked at me, her eyes angry.

“Go,” I said. “You do not belong here.”

“And do you?” she asked. “You are not of Ar’s Station. You are not even of Cos!”

“Go,” I said. “The work of men is soon to be done in this place.”

She knelt down before me, though she was a free woman, and lifting her veil,

pressed her lips to my sandals.

She then lifted her head to me, tears in her eyes. “I would that I were at your

feet as a true slave, my master,” she said.

“Go,” I said.

Her eyes regarded me, piteously.

“Go,” I said. “I would, if I were you,” I said, “while any of Ar’s Station are

about, with a sword in their hand, keep my veil.”

She nodded, frightened. She then looked once more at the former Lady Publia, now

a roped slave, suspended on a spear, and then again at me, and then hurried from

the wall.

(pg.278) I then turned to look across the twenty yard or so of space between the

somber, looming towers, aligned, and the wall of the citadel. I could see cracks

in the wood. Through some of these I could see numerous shapes, on various

levels. The hides hung profusely about the outsides of the towers, especially on

the frontal surfaces, were dark with water. The ram was still pounding at the

gate.

The men on the wall, others coming up to join them from below, prepared to meet

the onslaught. Groups bunched before each tower. Others scattered down the wall

to meet the grapnel crews and the scalers, with their ladders. Weapons were

unsheathed. Tridents were readied. Buckets of oil on the long poles were

ignited.

I would have thought Aemilianus, commander of the citadel, would have come to

the wall, but I did not see the helmet with the crest of sleen hair.

It occurred to me that I had not much business here, really. This was not my

fight. I was no lover of Ar nor of Cos.

The trumpets would surely sound any moment.

The sky was calm enough, oblivious of a pending tumult beneath. The clouds would

be indifferent to the blood that would be split beneath, dark in their racing

shadows. What occurred here would surely be insignificant in the face of the

universe. What small expanse of meaning was this, compared to the magnitudes of

space? How tiny the disturbances and exertions of the afternoon must seem,

compared to the dissolution and formation of worlds, and the turmoils wrought in

the depths of incandescent orbs? Yet there was feeling and consciousness here

and they, flickering it seemed in the darkness, tiny and frail, seemed to me in

that moment to blaze in dimensions unfamiliar to the physicist, and in their own

world and way to dwarf and mock the insensate placidities of space. Should the

eye which opens on the awesomeness of the universe not apprehend as well the

awesomeness of its own seeing? In man has the universe not come to

self-consciousness, surprised that it should exist?

Where then was Aemilianus?

It was not my fight. I should go below. Surely in the citadel, somewhere, I

could find other garments. My accents could not be confused with the liquid

accents of Ar or those (pg.279) so similar, of Ar’s Station. In the ingress of

victors I should mingle with them.

It was not my fight.

Where was Aemilianus?

How dispirited seemed the defenders! How listlessly they stood! How resigned to

their fate! What preparations did they make for the towers? Did they think they

now faced only fellows on ladders, fellows climbing ropes, the clinging,

climbing, creeping, shouting swarms, stinging with spears and blades, that they

knew from a hundred trails in the past? They would be swept aside like dried

leaves before the descendent blast of Torvaldsland. Were Cosians not to know

their swords had been warmed and nicked in their romp?

“Ho, fools!” I cried, striding down the walkway. “The bridges will drop and you

will think an avalanche of iron has spilled upon you! How shall you meet it? Let

it spill on your heads? Clever fellows! Bring poles! Bring stones! You, fetch

grapnels and ropes. The crews to the catapults, now! Yes, to the engines! You

men there, you can see where this tower will come, there by the stairs. Break

away the stone there! Open a great gap! You there, bring tarn wire!”

“Who are you?” cried a man.

“One who holds this sword!” I said. “Do you want it in your gut?”

“You are not Marsias!” cried another.

“I am assuming command,” I said.

Men looked at one another, wildly.

“The wall cannot be held,” said a man.

“True,” I said. “I do not lie to you. The wall cannot be held. But what will it

cost the Cosians?”

“Much,” said a man, grimly.

“Those who have no stomach to stay,” I said, “let them hide themselves among the

women and the children below.”

“Life is precious,” said a man, “but it is not that precious.”

Suddenly there was a blast of trumpets from the foot of the wall and the eleven

towers, with a lurch and groan, began to creep forward.

“Hurry!” I cried.

“Bring stones, poles, tarn wire!” cried men.

17
   
Battle: We Will Withdraw to the Landing

(pg.280) 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 (pg.281) 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, (pg.282) 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