Thessalonica

tortoise broke up as the warriors inside realized they had to fight for their lives. Their pry bars and hammers were better weapons against stone than against soldiers. The big, heavy shields were more suited to warding off rocks cast from above than attackers at close quarters, too.

One of the Slavs swung at George with the iron bar he held in lieu of a sword. George got his shield in front of the blow. Pain shot up his arm, all the way to the shoulder. He cut at the Slav, then circled rapidly to his left, away from that part of the barbarian the shield protected. The Slav grunted in alarm and tried to turn with him, but the iron-faced shield weighed so much, it made him slow. And, in his desperate urgency, he tripped over his own feet and sprawled on the ground.

Bang! Bang! Menas’ silvered hammer came down upon his head. Had George dropped a pumpkin from the wall to the ground below, it would have made a sound like that when it hit. Blood sprayed. The Slav writhed, then lay still. Menas hit him again, to make sure that he was dead.

“Er--thank you,” George said, feeling such awkwardness as he’d never known at having to be grateful to the noble.

Menas exploded that gratitude as thoroughly as he’d ruined the Slav’s head. Swinging the hammer, he said, “I wish it had been you.”

George wondered if he could make Menas suffer an unfortunate accident out here beyond the wall. It would make the noble’s wife a widow, true, but, after being married to Menas, widowhood might look good to her.

Though such thoughts ran through the shoemaker’s mind, he had not the slightest chance to do anything about them. Nor did Menas do anything to him that would have given him an excuse to make the noble suffer that unfortunate accident. Both of them, along with the rest of the militiamen who had sallied from several gates, were and stayed busy battling the Slavs who had been assaulting the wall of Thessalonica.

Some of those Slavs fought as fiercely as any men George had ever seen, in spite of their makeshift weapons and clumsy shields. One of them came within a whisker of caving in his skull with a pry bar. Only the pointed tip slid across his forehead, slicing the skin so that blood kept running down into his left eye.

That was the last swing the Slav ever took; George’s sword slammed into the side of his neck a moment later. The barbarian let out a hoarse, gobbling cough; blood poured from the wound and from his mouth. Even as he began to topple, George ran past him. The shoemaker had been one of the first men out of the postern gate on the sally, and he’d come as far from it as any of his comrades. The farther he went, the more Slavs he could drive from the wall.

Not all the barbarians stood up against the unexpected Roman attack. More than a few ran away from the militiamen, some dropping their shields to flee the faster. Bowmen who’d stayed up on the wall shot several of them.

George let out a hoarse cheer every time he saw one fall.

The Slavic archers who’d been shooting at the defenders on the wall and at the sally parties kept their distance-- till mounted Avars showed up behind them and started shouting what had to be threats. More afraid of their overlords than they were of the Romans (a regrettably sensible attitude, as far as George was concerned), the Slavs ran toward the militiamen, whom they badly outnumbered.

“Back!” Rufus shouted. “They aren’t banging away at the wall anymore, and that’s what we wanted. Come back!”

George would have been delighted to do just that, but he and a Slav were busy trying to kill each other. Finally, as if by common consent, they turned and ran away from each other. George was appalled to discover how close other Slavs were, and how far away all his comrades had got.

There went Paul, back through the postern gate. There went Sabbatius. George hadn’t noticed him coming out. There went John, loping along with a bloody sword. There went Rufus. George ran harder. Not many Romans-- hardly any Romans--remained outside the wall.

There went Menas. The noble turned around and looked out at George. He smiled. Tm the last of us!” he shouted. “The very last!” He slammed the postern gate shut. The bar thudded down.

IX

From up on top of the wall, people shouted down to the men by the postern gate that somebody hadn’t managed to get in. Those shouts did George no good whatever. The gate didn’t open again right away, and what looked like all the Slavs in the world were bearing down on him.

George turned his face from the wall and ran for his life. Not quite so many Slavs were coming from the southwest, and the woods in that direction were fairly close. He slashed at a Slavic archer as he sprinted. The barbarian fell back with a howl of pain.

George was in among the Slavs now. No more arrows hissed past him. The archers most likely feared hitting their own comrades. If they closed with him, he was dead, and he knew it. But he was still swinging that sword, and they were armed with nothing better than bows and belt knives. That left them unenthusiastic about closing.

Breath sobbing in his throat, heart thudding as if it would burst at any moment, he got closer and closer to the woods. Now most of the Slavs were behind him, which meant they started sending arrows after him once more. He remembered they were in the habit of poisoning those arrows, and wished he could have kept on forgetting it.

Here was the brush. His boots scrunched on dry, fallen leaves. He groaned--how could he hope to go anywhere without giving himself away with every step he took? He wondered if the barbarians had let him get into the woods just to give themselves the pleasure of hunting him down. He’d watched cats playing with mice. Let the little creature think it can break free? Why not, especially when it’s blocked off from its hole?

“Sometimes the mouse does get away,” he panted, dodging between tree trunks. “Sometimes the cat ends up with a stupid look on its face.” Most of the time, the mouse got eaten. He knew it. Again, he did his best not to think about it.

From right beside him, a voice spoke in Greek: “Sometimes mouse gets help.” He had all he could do not to scream. He hadn’t thought anyone was right beside him. Some Slavs were coming through the woods after him--much more quietly than he could--but . . .

He turned his head. A satyr looked back at him, its amber eyes wide and amused, its phallus jutting out almost as far as his sword. Was it the one he’d met when he was out hunting, that day not long before the Slavs and Avars came? He thought so, but couldn’t be sure.

“Come,” the satyr said. “Not stay here long.” He didn’t know whether that meant the creature couldn’t stay so close to Christian Thessalonica for long, or whether it deemed staying so close to so many Slavs unsafe. Either way, George couldn’t argue with it.

The satyr hurried away. Leaves flew up from under its hooves, but it made no noise as it moved. None--as far as George’s ears could tell, it might as well not have been there. He blundered along as he always had, sounding like a herd of cattle being driven to market over a field of kettledrums, or so his racket sounded to himself.

But however appalling the racket he made, the Slavs didn’t seem able to use it to track him. He heard them shouting back behind him. Some of them peeled off to the left of his true track, others to the right. Both groups, by the excitement in their voices, thought they’d seize him at any moment. Meanwhile, he got farther and farther away from them.

Realization blossomed. “You’re doing this!” he said to the satyr.

“Yes. Hush. Not safe yet.” On it went, silent itself and using the noise George made as a ventriloquist uses his voice: throwing it in every direction but that from which it truly came.

Something small and winged peered out at them from the branch of a sapling. It made a piping sound that had words buried in it. They were not Greek words. All at once, both groups of Slavs behind George started moving in the right direction.

Snorting with fear, the satyr grabbed for the fairy. It flitted into the air, those dragonfly wings buzzing. The satyr grabbed again and missed again. “Kill this thing!” it called to George.

“Who, me?” the shoemaker said in surprise. Without much conscious thought, he swung his sword at the fairy. He started to pray to God to help him, but swallowed the words at the last instant: the holy name would surely make the satyr flee. And maybe God was helping him through the satyr, or would be if George let Him.

He felt no resistance when his blade, as much by luck as by design, passed through the fairy’s translucent body. But a tingle ran up his arm, as if lightning had struck close by. Light flared from the swordblade. Where the fairy had been was--nothing.

“Good!” The satyr groped for words. “That thing look, tell …” It ran a hand up and down its erection, as if it kept its brains there. George wouldn’t have been surprised; he knew some men who did.

He gave the satyr the word it wanted: “It was a spy.”

“A spy, yes!” The satyr’s smile stretched across its snub-nosed face. “Not speak much, not need many names for longish time. Now need again. You give.” Before George could answer that, the mercurial creature changed the subject: “You have wine? You give wine, like before?” It was the same satyr, then.

“No, I’m sorry. I have none.” George hadn’t bothered bringing a skin of wine up onto the wall with him. What point, when he’d be going back down again before long and could step into whatever tavern he liked? He hadn’t expected to go beyond the wall, to be trapped outside of Thessalonica, or to need wine to make a thirsty satyr happy.

Its pointed ears drooped. “No wine,” it said, as if summer had gone to winter in the space of two words. It trudged along with slumped shoulders. Now, for the first time, George could faintly hear its hooves moving through the leaves, as if the very aura of magic surrounding it was fading.

He knew how absurd it was to feel guilt at not having done something he couldn’t possibly have known he would need to do. He felt it anyhow. “I am sorry,” he said. “Here, how’s this? When we find a village, I’ll get some for you there.” He didn’t have more than a few folleis in his beltpouch, but they ought to serve. If they didn’t, he would trade work--shoe repairs, for instance--for wine. The thought made him feel better.

It didn’t seem to make the satyr happier. “Not find villages,” the creature said, stroking itself again. “Not for a while, not find.”

“What do you mean?” George said. “The hills around Thessalonica are full of villages. Why--” He paused, trying to work out the direction in which they’d gone. “There should be one over, over--” He started to point, then stopped. He tried again to get his bearings.

Eyes glowing, the satyr looked back at him. It looked amused. “You see now? Not for a while, not find.”

“Yes,” George said slowly. “Where are we, anyway?” He didn’t know if that was the precise question he wanted to ask, but couldn’t find a better one. As he ran through the woods, the ground on which he set his feet and the trees and bushes all around him seemed familiar enough: he would have seen their like had he gone out from Thessalonica to hunt in quieter, more peaceful times.

Their like, yes. But whether he would have seen precisely these stones, those oaks, that set of brambles … with every step he took, he grew more doubtful of that. For the life of him, he could not tell where he was in relation to the city. He couldn’t hear the Slavs coming after him, either. At first, he’d thought that was because he and the satyr had outdistanced them. Now… he didn’t think that was all.

As if picking the thought from his mind, the satyr nodded. “You not in hills you know,” it said. “You beyond hills you know.” It went on quickly, reassuringly: “Can go back. Go back now, be hunted to death. But can go back. Mortals go back, forth many times.” It hesitated then. “Not go back, forth so much now, on account of--” It could not say the name.

Despite its forced muteness, George understood. He was in the fairyland that had been receding from this country ever since men began following Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Christian men would reckon they could not cross into that world, that plane, whatever the proper term was, without imperiling their souls. He supposed he was imperiling his soul.

“Who does go back and forth these days?” he asked.

“Men, women follow old ways. Some yet, yes,” the satyr answered. “Up in hills, deep in hills, where … not come yet.” Again, the silence implied the new dispensation. After a moment, the satyr added, “Those others, the ones with wolves and such” --George presumed he meant the powers of the Slavs-- “they live in this kind of hills, too. They share with us a kind of being.”

God--the God George had worshiped all his life-- presumably either shared a kind of being (essence, the shoemaker thought, the word is essence--but what would a satyr know of theological terms, save perhaps for those dealing with fornication and lewdness?) with the powers of the Slavs and Avars or else altogether transcended those powers. George had always believed the latter; now he was less sure.

The farther he went, the stranger things felt. The strangeness did not lie in what he could see or hear or in the way the ground pressed his feet through the soles of his shoes. With every breath he took, though, he felt himself farther from Thessalonica, and that had nothing to do with getting away from the city stink. It suddenly occurred to him that Mt. Olympus lay only thirty or forty