Renegades of Gor (45 page)

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 (pg.300) 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.

(pg. 301) “Stand, slave,” said the other fellow to the girl. She stood and her

leash was taken in his grasp. She could not see, of course, confined in the

hood, but he had looped the end of the leash. It was long enough, thusly, to

serve as a disciplinary lash. In a moment the two young men, and the slave, had

disappeared through an interior portal at the far side of the courtyard. I

myself took one of the smaller portals at the far side, to follow an interior

corridor to the vicinity of the main gate. The great interior gate, leading into

the courtyard, like the covered way, some forty feet in length, had been backed

with debris. This was, indeed, the debris to which we had descended by means of

the rope. Provisions had been made, too, I supposed, for closing the corridors.

In the corridor I met retreating defenders.

“We are abandoning the gate, Marsias,” said one of them. “Come with us!”

I nodded. It was only later that I realized that he had called me “Marsias.” One

of the fellows on the wall, I remembered, had asserted that I was not Marsias.

Yet they had followed me. Marsias, then, surely, was the name of the fellow whom

I was impersonating.

I then emerged into the closed area between the outer and inner gate. There was

a huge hill of sand, rock and such, packed against the lower portions of the

outer gate. The ram could not be well turned within the covered way.

In this covered way, men passing him, from various parts of the citadel, taking

their way through the sheltered corridors, presumably to the harbor area, on a

piece of stone, broken from the inside of the way, his head in his hands, sat

Aemilianus, bleeding.

There was a great splintering of wood from above us and, over the hill of sand

and such, packed behind the door, suddenly, bursting wood apart, there

protruded, black, over five feet thick, and of solid iron, like some

mythological monster, a great form, with curled-back horns, cast in the likeness

of an adult verr ram.

I had never seen such a thing closely. I drew my sword and scrambled up the

debris behind the gate to examine it, but, as I approached it, it, in its

rhythm, swung back. I caught sight of figures on the hill outside, just

movements, parts of bodies. (pg. 302) I, now on the summit of that small,

artificial hill, suddenly drew back, shielding my yes, as the huge form smote

again through the gate, splintering wood about. I put out my left hand and

touched it. This time, as it swung back, I could see, along its shaft, the

interior of the inclined shed that housed it, and how it was fifty feet long and

slung in leather cradles, and the many ropes that controlled it, and the men

drawing on the ropes, surely more than a hundred of them under that long shed,

men stripped to the waist, sweating, and as it drew back this time a figure

suddenly leapt forward, to enter and I parried and slipped my sword into him

perhaps as startled as he was and he was pulled back, bleeding, and I heard

shouts outside, and then, again, I drew back, covering my eyes, and the great

head splintered inward again.

I stood near the opening but this time, following its retreat, none rushed

through. Again I saw the shaft of the ram, the shed, the men, the ropes. A

quarrel sped past. I heard a tumbling of stone behind me and the western

corridor was closed, props struck from beneath a scaffolding of masonry.

Aemilianus, with two retainers, remained where he was, below and to the left, he

bleeding, sitting on the piece of stone. “Hurry!” I heard someone call, I

suppose to Aemilianus. “We are going to close the east corridor!” I heard a

trumpet from somewhere toward the harbor. “It is the recall!” cried one of the

fellows with Aemilianus. “It sounds by your own command. Come, Commander!” The

citadel then was being abandoned. But Aemilianus did not move. I could smell

smoke from somewhere. Another fellow from outside suddenly appeared in the

opening, high in the ruptured gate. We crossed swords in the opening three

times. Then he stiffened in the opening, his guard down. I flung myself back and

the ram smote through again. Another fellow then, flanked by two others,

appeared in the opening. Steel struck steel, sparks leaping forth. He tried to

climb over the jagged portal. “Look out!” cried someone from outside. I could

see as my opponent could not the coming forward of the ram. He must have

realized the danger but had not anticipated being held at the threshold. He

turned away from me, and his two fellows leaped from him, but too late, and the

ram, as I drew back, caught him and carried him, on its snout, tearing him

against (pg.303) the side of the opening, for five feet, until he tumbled from

it, to roll to the bottom of the hill. Two bodies now lay there, or a body and a

part of a body. The head of the ram now was spattered with blood, as was, too,

the side of the portal. I saw other men marshaling outside, to enter.

“Hold the ram!” I heard. A spear thrust at me through the opening. But the ram

came forward again. I seized the spear behind the point. Then it was splintered

like a twig as the huge head burst again inward. I threw the bit of spear away.

The head of the ram was so constructed, and the horns on it so curved back, that

it was unlikely, given the forces involved, that it could become lodged in the

door. I could not, thus, in any simple fashion, even with the beams and planks

about, in the rubble, thrust anything behind it, crosswise, say, behind the

horns, to prevent its withdrawal. The sand was useless. The rock, however,

suggested a temporary expedient. “Hold the ram!” I heard, from outside. But it

must come again, at least once! Men hesitated to rush forward. I then saw the

great iron head seemingly become smoothly larger and larger as it swept forward.

The bloody metallic configuration burst through again and this time, as soon as

it had entered, before it could swing back, I rolled a rock from the debris

between it and the lower edge of the rupture. There was a grinding of iron and

rock as it swung back and then reared up, against the top of the rupture, and

was still. The men on the ropes had not the leverage to swing it back, though

they could try to pull it back. They would, of course, attempt to swing it in

further, gain leverage, and then try to draw it back again. In this, however,

they would lack the momentum generated by the full movement of the ram,

utilizing the full arcs of the leather cradles.

A blade thrust through between the head and the wood, and then a spear thrust

through, similarly. I saw the great head inch forward and then back, and again

stop. Spears tried to force the rock from its position. There seemed to me no

point in staying where I was. As soon as the ram was free of the opening, it

would presumably be held back, in place, and then men would could through the

portal, one by one, or in twos and threes. I could not well defend it, not

indefinitely, not against quarrels, as well, with no shield. I saw the head move

again, and again stop. I then sheathed my sword and (pg.304) half slid, half

ran, down the slope of the debris and reached the stone flooring of the covered

way. Aemilianus looked up at me, dully. There were men at the props of the

scaffolding holding up the masonry that, when it fell, would block the east

corridor. I did not care to be trapped here, between the gate and the rubble in

the corridor, when the Cosians entered.

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

“Go,” said Aemilianus. “I will stay here.”

“I shall carry him, or you shall support him,” I said to the two fellows.

“Who are you?” asked Aemilianus.

Just then there was a cry from above, and the huge stone, forced from its place

by spear butts, rolled down into the covered way. At the same time the great

head drew back.

“Stop!” cried Aemilianus, but his two fellows had seized him, one by each arm,

and, putting his arms about their shoulders, hurried him toward the east

corridor.

I looked up and saw some four or five Cosians creep through the opening at the

height of the artificial hill.

I backed toward the eastern corridor.

“It is dark here,” said one of the Cosians.

But two men pushed past him, squinting into the dim covered way, from the height

of the hill within the gate.

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

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

“Take them from the sides!” I shouted, as though to men ensconced in an

ambuscade.

The ten or twelve Cosians now through the gate crouched down, suddenly,

arrested, looking wildly about.

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

As I did so the final blows were struck at the props supporting the scaffolding

of masonry and with a tumble of dust and stone the rocks fell.

I had hardly gone ten paces down the corridor, following the others, when I

heard the rubble of masonry being torn away from the outside. Undefended I did

not think it would take them more than a few Ehn to open a passage through it.

In an Ihn or two I had caught up with the others, Aemilianus, (pg.305) the two

fellows supporting him, and the two who had waited behind to block the passage.

Suddenly swords were drawn for men blocked the passage, come doubtless from the

walls.

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

armloads of blue.

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

I took from the pouch I wore golden coins. These were the coins which had

belonged to the former Lady Publia when she was free, when she could still own

things. I had relieved her of the burden of their weight in the cell. She had

intended to use them to bargain for her life with Cosians, begging to purchase

it from them, even at the frightful cost of Gorean bondage. I then cast the

coins behind the fellows, and to my left, into a side passage.

“Gold or steel?” I inquired.

“Why not both?” asked a man, stepping forward.