but I cannot catch it… Mazsan demands something of Admiral Hrundikar. Everybody takes a drink… Now a sailor brings in a sheet of something—parchment or paper. They spike it to the bulkhead; each of the four chieftains drives his dagger through one corner of the sheet. With a piece of charcoal, Mazsan draws a two-foot circle on the sheet. He marks a spot in the center. He makes a set of marks around the edge of the circle. He draws an arrow, starting at the center and pointing to one of the marks…"
"Which mark? Which mark?" demanded Jorian.
"It is on the right-hand side of the circle… My vision is blurred."
"If it were a clock, what time would it tell?"
"Ah, I see! The clock hand points to the third hour. Now the scene grows wavery, as if their wizards had returned to their task…"
Nedef's voice trailed off. The scryer slumped in a faint and rolled off his bench to the floor.
"Dear me, I hope he have not damaged his brain," said Karadur. "That is a hazard of his profession."
"His pulse seems normal," said Jorian, bending over the fallen man. "So now we know: the foe will attack at the third hour of the morning —or the Hour of the Otter, as we say in Novaria. They will time their assault by watching the Tower of Kumashar through telescopes."
"We know not the day of the attack," said Karadur.
"True, but we had better assume it to be tomorrow. I must get word to the king and the commanders."
"I cannot leave poor Nedef in a swoon…"
'Take care of him, then, whilst I go about my business, which brooks no delay."
"Go you first to the king?"
"Nay, I think I'll drop in first on Chuivir to pass the news."
"What chance have we, with a few hundred guardsmen against their tens of thousands?"
"The chance of a pollywog in a pond full of pike. But the militia can push over ladders if nought else. Still, 'tis a muchel of city wall to cover with a small force. All they need is one good foothold…"
"I suppose we could stop the clocks in the Tower of Kumashar. Then they would lack means of coordinating their attack."
Jorian stared. "You're right, old man. But, by Heryx's iron yard, you've given me an even better idea! Each of the four parties plans to attack a different side and use a different one of the four clocks, does it not?"
"I suppose so."
"All right, you succor Master Nedef; I'm off."
When he had reported to the king, who was eating a late evening snack, Ishbahar asked the same question that Karadur had already posed: "What chance have we, lad, with their twenty or thirty thousand against our four hundred-odd guardsmen and a few thousand militiamen?"
"Not much, Your Majesty," said Jorian. "I do, howsomever, have an idea that may well throw their attack into confusion."
"What is it?"
"Ere I tell Your Majesty, your servant would like to beg a boon, in case my scheme work."
"Anything, my boy, anything! If it work not, none of us will have further use for material possessions anyway. An we defeat this siege, we have plans for you."
"All I ask, sire, is your copper bathtub."
"The gods bless our soul, what an extraordinary request! No cartload of gold? No high office? No noble maiden for your harem?"
"Nay, sire; I meant just what I said."
"Of course you shall have it, win or lose. But what is your scheme?"
Jorian told him.
Chapter Eight
THE BARBARIAN SAVIOR
THE OVERCAST SKY PALED TO PEARLY GRAY, JORIAN told Colonel Chuivir: "The Fedirunis will attack the East Wall first, in about half an hour."
"How in the name of Ughroluk do you know?"
"Because at that time, the east clock will show the third hour."
"But will not the other clocks show the same—oh!" Chuivir stared round-eyed at Jorian. "You mean you have set them all to show different times!"
Jorian nodded, and Chuivir gave a command. Messengers departed on a run. Soon, nearly all the Royal Guard was assembled along the East Wall, with their armor gleaming dully in the gray light. Mingled with them were several companies of militia. Most of the militiamen bore either crutches or spears to whose buttends short crosspieces had been affixed. When all were in place, there was a man for every six feet of wall. A skeleton guard of militia was left on the other walls.
From the swarming, dun-colored camp of the Fedirunis, ram's horns gave their soft bleat. A flood of figures, robed in brown, sand color, and dirty white, poured out from the tent city and streamed towards the East Wall. They covered the earth like a swarm of ants. Foremost among them came hundreds of pairs of men, each pair carrying a ladder. Others gathered in knots and unlimbered the powerful, double-curved compound horn bows of Fedirun.
"Keep your heads down!" shouted Chuivir. The command was passed down the line.
The Fediruni bows twanged, and sheets of arrows shrieked up from their line. Some shafts soared over the battlements; others struck the stones and rebounded. A few struck home. Cries arose along the line of the defenders, and the physicians of Iraz ran up and down with their gowns flapping, seeking the wounded.
The swarm of foes flowed up to the wall. All along the line, hundreds of ladders were planted in the ground. Their other ends rose like the booms of cranes as the attackers pushed on them from behind with hands and spear points.
"Loose!" cried Chuivir.
All along the wall, arbalesters of the Royal Guard stepped out from behind their merlons to discharge their crossbows into the crowd below. Then they ducked back again to reload. Elsewhere, squads of militiamen placed boxes of heavy stones and cauldrons of boiling oil, molten lead, and red-hot sand in the embrasures and tipped them until the contents poured down on the heads beneath. Screams resounded.
Still the ladders rose until their upper ends, even with the top of the wall, came to rest.
"Wait until they are loaded, Colonel," said Jorian.
"Curse it, stop telling me how to run my business!" snapped Chuivir. "I was going to do just that." He raised his voice: "Crutch men, wait for the signal! How far up are they, Captain Jorian?"
Jorian risked a peek out an embrasure. "Three man-heights. Give them a little more… Now!"
As the heads of the most active climbers approached the top of the wall, the Fediruni archers ceased shooting for fear of hitting their own. Chuivir shouted: "O-o-over!"
All along the wall, militiamen hooked their crutches into the tops of the ladders and pushed. Here and there a man fell to a Fediruni arrow, but another took his place. The ladders swayed outward and fell, dropping their shrieking burdens into the crowd.
The Fediruni leaders dashed up and down, screaming commands and exhortations. Up went the ladders again. Again, swarms of brown-robed figures scrambled up them.
Jorian found himself next to an embrasure in front of which an Irazi militiaman had fallen with an arrow through his throat. The top of a ladder showed in the gap between the merlons. Before Jorian could gather his wits, a black-bearded brown face, surmounted by a white head cloth held in place by a camel's-hair rope, popped into the embrasure. Golden hoops hung gleaming and swaying from the man's ear lobes.
Jorian snatched up the crutch that the fallen Irazi had dropped. His first attempt to place it against one of the uprights of the ladder miscarried; he missed and almost hurled himself through the embrasure. Before he could recover and replace the implement, the Fediruni leaped like a cat through the embrasure and had at him with a scimitar.
Jorian threw up the crutch to parry a whistling cut, which drove into the wood and nearly severed the crutch. He struck at the man, but the crutch broke at its weakened point. The man slashed again; his blade clashed against Jorian's mail as Jorian leaped back.