“With all respect, friend September, I suspect they desire not merely to knock down a section of wall, but to make a clean breach large enough to drive a good-sized raft through.”
“You don’t think they’ll try to come in on rafts, do you?” September asked. “Not that we could change things now anyway.”
“No. That would require skillful handling indeed. Even a few good-sized rocks could catch a raft, tumble it, and block the breach. As we might try to do. But individual warriors could get through despite such obstacles, and before we could bring up anything to block the gap.”
“Think not encountering something like that will make ’em suspicious?” continued the big man.
“Sagyanak, or Olox, or one like those might be taken by such thoughts. But I do not think those murderers so brave that they will be in the front line of attackers. The simple warrior will see naught but open ice between himself and the defenseless city. For animals like these, that is an irresistible temptation.”
“Let’s try that flasher once again,” suggested September.
“Very well.”
There were two of the brightly polished devices at their observation position high up on the castle’s south parapet, in case one should fail or break. September gave orders to the two operators.
“Tell Williams there’s still no sign.”
Immediately the skilled communicators had the flashers in operation. Side mirrors brought the sun into the central reflector. An answer was blinking at them from down in the harbor almost before they’d finished.
“They acknowledge ‘very good and waiting,’ Sir.”
“Fine. Thanks,” replied the big man.
They had another hour to wait before the ram was sighted. The nomad soldiers were drawn up in their familiar crescent parallel to the harbor wall. As it had been days ago, the line was solid and unbroken. There was no indication of where the ram would come from. The concentration was, as always, heavier on the south side. No one expected the ram to come from the north or the east, into the wind. There would be no feint to this attack.
Despite the toll they’d taken among their tormentors on that first terrible day, the Sofoldian defenders were still badly outnumbered. But there were heartening signs in the barbarian line. It was still unbroken, but it no longer seemed to stretch to infinity as it had that first time.
As usual, it was Hunnar who made the first sighting.
“There! Over their heads by that dark spot on the ice.”
Ethan leaned over the wall, squinting. Almost immediately the enemy began to move away, split. A huge gap opened in the lines.
The ram was a tiny dot at first, but it grew rapidly larger. Soon it seemed as big as a stavanzer, though it was not nearly so. Still, it was plenty big, bigger than the biggest raft Ethan had yet seen. It sparkled oddly in the sun-glare.
“What’s that reflection from? Not the stone, surely.”
“It is and it isn’t, friend Ethan,” replied Hunnar evenly. “They’ve taken meltwater and poured it over the stones. Letting it freeze has turned the load into a solid, unbroken mass.”
There was silence among the Wannomian watchers, human and tran alike. The ram moved closer and closer with the deliberateness of an eclipse. No sound came from the distance, no pounding engines, no flaming rockets. The juggernaut moved mute.
Without turning, September spoke to the flasher operators. “Signal ‘standby’ to the wizards.”
The ram grew larger, seemed to leap into sharp focus. It passed through the waiting gap in the nomad ranks. Rocking with sheer speed, it came hurtling on at close to 200 kph. With a roar, the barbarian crescent started forward in its wake.
“Brace All!” sounded the cry from several places along the castle battlements.
The ram struck.
The concussion climbed the walls and threw men within the castle to the ground. Ethan could hear masonry falling in the inner rooms, an occasional tinkle of breaking glass. A section of wall two towers west from the main gate erupted in a shower of stone shards. The sound of damned stone crawled inside the head and battered ears from both sides.
A rain of rock and wood splinters descended and everyone covered as best they could. Large chunks were thrown all the way across the harbor into the far wall, taking pieces out of the interior side.
The ram slid two-thirds of the way across the harbor toward that interior wall on its five remaining runners, trailing two broken masts and a sea of shredded pika-pina sailcloth. Boulders and raped wood formed ugly blemishes on the clean ice.
A clear gap showed in the wall, broad enough for tran to chivan through twenty abreast. A close-packed mob of screaming, ax-waving barbarians, thousands strong, had followed close behind the ram. They reached the walls and the breach.
Dozens of grappling hooks and scaling ladders assailed the walls, ropes were snugged tight. Howling bloodthirsty cries, others swarmed into the gap, ready to overwhelm any attempt to close it.
Those at the walls climbed up, and over. They found only empty spear-slots, deserted battle-towers. Deafening cheers rose from the entire perimeter. The interiors of the great gate towers were gained. The Great Chain was melted into place, but the antipersonnel netting was cut loose and a fresh stream of angry warriors poured in via the main gate.
Ethan saw a gaudily armored officer gain the open gap, hesitate, and look about him uncertainly, clearly puzzled at the absence of the defenders. Ethan’s hand tensed on the castle parapet. But the cautious officer was swept away and into the harbor by the tight-packed river of attacking nomads.
Some of the barbarians began to run along the tops of the walls toward the castle and the city. They ran because the ice-paths had been melted and hacked into uselessness. They reached a point where the wall entered the castle itself—and were halted by a solid barrier of stone and a hail of arrows from above. A few began to batter ineffectually against the walled-up entrances.
Some tried to climb the raw stone itself. They were easily picked off by the archers above. Most turned and, spreading their wings, dropped in a semi-glide to the uncontested ice below.
The harbor was rapidly filling with screaming, thrashing warriors all milling about and looking for someone to fight. Confusion and uncertainty was beginning to take hold. The mass vacillated, shifted. Then, as one, they rushed on toward the undefended city with a horrible cry.
The entire remaining strength of the Sofoldian army met them at the shoreline.
Camouflaged barriers of rock and lines of sharpened stakes appeared, tied together by cables of barbed pika-pina rope. The tough, nearly unbreakable cord had been laboriously studded with sharpened bits of glass, wood, and metal. September and not Williams had been the one who had shown the locals how to make a fair imitation of concertina wire. A hail of crossbow bolts and arrows and spears felled hundreds of the surprised enemy in that first startling counterattack.
But it was only a last-ditch defense, screamed the nomad officers to their men! One more effort and the soft city-folk must surely collapse! The great wave swept forward again—to lose more hundreds to a barely covered deep ditch filled with sharpened stakes, tipped with vol dung and other poisons. The concealed moat was quickly filled with moaning, twisting bodies.
Yes again, urged the garishly garbed captains, the resplendent field officers! A last charge to sweep away the fatally weakened defenders! Yet a third time the nomad mass trundled forward, slammed into the Sofoldian line. Hand-to-hand combat sprang up at isolated points along the shore, the barbarian Horde gaining a centimeter at a time, the length of every spear and sword bitterly contested.