"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 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. 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 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 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.