"Certainly," said another.
"I, myself," said another, "will prefer waiting for the boats." "And why might that be?" inquired another of our number.
"I do not like getting my feet wet," responded the first.
We watched the fins moving about in the water. Here and there there was a stirring at the surface, as though there might be violent agitation some feet beneath. Too, in places the harbor water suddenly muddied, the mud from the bottom rising to the surface. These upswirling discolorations marked places, I supposed, where, below, unseen, a few yards beneath the surface, the long fish pulling and fighting, snapping and tugging stirred the mud. A small boat struck gently against the piling near us, to the left. There were now eleven of us on the walkway. Two were wounded. One of these was the grizzled fellow, who had been among the first to stand with me on the walkway. He had been wounded in the last assault, the fourteenth. So, too, had the other fellow. We lowered these two into the boat. Two others, too, joined them. The small boat rocked, and was almost swamped.
"Wait," said the fellow at the oars, alarmed, holding up his hand.
The rest of us, seven men, watched the small boat pull away from the walkway. It made slow progress back toward the piers.
"There are fewer fish about now," said a fellow.
"Stay where you are," I advised him. To be sure, he was right. Many of the fish had apparently departed. Indeed, I was sure that many of them, with bodies, and parts of bodies, in their jaws, had sped away, toward the piers, or had gone out farther in the harbor, beyond them, or had even returned to the river, perhaps sometimes followed by several of their brethren. It was, however, I was sure, still dangerous. Sometimes river sharks, like Vosk eels, hang about piers and pilings, in their shade, and are, I am afraid, often rewarded by garbage, or other organic debris. One could still see, here and there, streaks of blood in the water.
"Look!" said a fellow. He pointed toward the landing. There it seemed that a number of small boats was being mustered and not a few raftlike structures, doubtless improvised from materials within, and about, the citadel.
"They will be coming out to the piers to finish their work," said a man. "What we have done has been for naught," said another.
"The harbor is closed with Cosian ships and the chain of rafts," said another. "There is no escape."
"Apparently is it not their intent to starve us out, on the piers," said another.
"They are impatient fellows," observed a man.
"They have waited a long time," said another. "They would like to finish their business this afternoon."
"It should not prove difficult," said another. "It will be a slaughter on the piers," said a fellow. "There is no shelter there. They are open, exposed. What can a handful of shields do there? Little or nothing. They can do as they wish. They can pick their targets from boats, and rafts. They can attack in force."
"They will probably signal the other fellows, out where the harbor is closed," said a man, "so that they can attack on two sides at once."
"It is all finished," said another fellow.
"It will be done in two or three Ahn," said another.
"You two in this boar," I said to two of them, as another of the small craft touched against the piling. The oarsmen stood up, a fisherman, and extended his hand, to help the two fellows into the boat. We had overloaded the last boat. We, the five of us remaining on the walkway, watched this second small boat pull away, moving slowly toward the piers.
"I would like to say goodbye to my companion," said one of the fellows. "Perhaps she is still alive out there," said another.
"When do you think it will be over?" asked one of the fellows.
"By the fifteenth Ahn," said another, grimly.
"Good," said a fellow.
"Good?" asked the other.
"Yes," he said, "then we will not have to miss another supper." "How would you like to get your feet wet?" asked the grim fellow.
"No I," replied the other.
In a bit another one of the tiny boats had come to the walkway and the two fellows embarked in it.
There were then three of us left on the walkway.
"It is the women and children I feel most sorry for," said the fellow beside me, looking back toward the piers. They were crowded with noncombatants. I suppose there must have been somewhere between two thousand and twenty-five hundred women and children crowded on the piers. By now there were probably not more than two or three hundred able-bodied men. In a few moments another small boat arrived.
"No," I said. "Go." The two fellows then stepped down, carefully, into the small boat. I was then left alone on the walkway.
I saw a piece of the broken walkway, half submerged, off to the right.
I looked up, from where I crouched behind the shield. Then I rose up, lifting the shield once more.
A solitary figure, with no shield, but in helmet, and with sheathed sword, approached. It seemed a long walk, coming toward me, on the walkway. I could hear his steps when he came within a few yards of me. The water lapped about the pilings beneath the walkway. There was the cry of a Vosk gull overhead. I could see the smoke still lifting from the citadel, then drifting out, toward the river.
"Do not come closer," I told him.
"The day belongs to Cos," he said.
"Yes," I said.
"There remains to be accomplished only the slaughter on the piers." I did not respond.
"Thus what you have done here has gone for naught."
I did not respond. What had been done here, however, had been entered into the annals of reality. The meaning of history is its own terrain, its own mountains and summits, here and there, wherever they be found. It is not all prologue to a last act, following which comes nothing.
"It is speculated that you are not of Ar's Station," he said.
I shrugged.
He did not attempt to come closer.
"It is speculated that you are a mercenary," he said. "Cos has us of such. I come on behalf of Aristimines, Commander of Cos in the north. He is pleased with your work, through it has been to his own cost. I have here a purse of gold. Contract your sword to Cos and it is yours." He dropped the leather purse, drawn shut with strings, to the boards of the walk. He then stepped back. "See?" he said. "We do not cut at your neck, as you bend to take it."
"I am not taking fee today," I said.
"You are then, of Ar's Station, or Ar herself?" he asked.
"No," I said.
"With the gold," said he, "comes a command, and women, slaves trained to please men in all ways, domestic and lascivious."
"Aristimines is generous," I said.
"Your answer?" he asked.
"I am not taking fee today," I said.
"But what of the women?" he asked.
"I will take my own," I said.
He approached the gold, bent down and picked it up. He did not even watch me as he did this. I accepted this tribute to my honor He tucked the gold back in his tunic. "You are not a mercenary, then?" he said. "I did not say that," I said.
"Choose for Cos," he said.
"Not today," I said.
"Yet today, I think," said he, glancing out to the piers, "would be a good day to choose for Cos."
"Why did not relief come to Ar's Station?" I asked.
"It was not the will of Lurius of Jad, Ubar of Cos," said he.
"I see," I said. How lofty then, I thought, must be the heights of treachery within the walls of Ar.
"And the will of Lurius has not yet been accomplished in the north," said he. I did not understand this.
"I have brought you the gold of Cos," he said. "When I return, you understand, I must bring her steel."
"The walkway is meaningless," I said to him.