course, were much narrower than the walkway, and could be held by ewer men in the retreat.
'Ho!' I called to the Cosians to the left and right, lifting my sword. I saw men pointing to me. I had little doubt that some of them, at least, would have seen me on the upper battlements, and would realize I had been commanding on the wall. Too, I stood next to a well-roped woman who, though hooded, and much covered in the upper body by ropes, would be likely to intrigue them. She had lovely legs and the contours of the ropes about her upper body would not leave much doubt that luscious slave curves were the helpless prisoners of their coarse, serpentine coils.
I sheathed my sword.
It must have appeared to most of them that my escape was cut off, that I was somehow trapped between the two stairways.
Doubtless we would seem prizes in diverse ways to the Cosians, the commander of the wall and a female who might hopefully, when unhooded, be found to have a face to match the excitements of her figure. Too, if she were in the keeping of the wall's commander, did this not, in itself, suggest that she might be worthy a cord and nose ring?
Too, my sword was sheathed. Did this not suggest that I might regard myself as trapped, as I seemed to be, that I might regard my position as untenable, that I thus might choose not to offer resistance, that I might be prepared to surrender?
Almost at the same time one or two scores of fellows, from both sides, began to race toward me. Others stood back, near the heights of the stairs, to watch. These things, I assumed, would drawn much pressure from the stairways. My defenders would probably be able to withdraw more easily, close portals and block passages.
I thrust the slave to her right and she tumbled off the walkway. There was suddenly, she losing her footing, knowing herself unsupported, her head jerking wildly in the hood, her legs moving wildly, treading on nothing, beginning to turn to her side in the air, starting to plunge downward, a wild, tiny, terrified, prolonged noise from within the hood, what perhaps a shrill, terrified scream might have been, if it were to be compressed within the latitudes permitted by a Gorean gag, emerging then as a small, helpless noise, one not likely to disturb masters. But in an instant she had gasped and was jerked up short by the coils of rope, her plunge arrested, but then, again, almost instantly, the rope began to uncoil from her body and she, spinning, the rope unwinding, in a series of wild jerks, awkwardly began to descend, riding the uncoiling rope downward. In an Ihn or so she had struck the hill of debris and then, still moving, still descending, the rope still uncoiling, turning over and over, tumbling, rolled toward the bottom, toward the courtyard. For an instant it had been hard to get my hands on the rope, it was moving so, over the edge of the walkway, but, a moment or so after she had struck the hill of debris, I had it in my hands and began to descend it, rapidly, hand over hand. I would not slide down the rope, incidentally, because I did not have protection for my hands. Sliding down such a rope for even forty feet or so can burn the flesh from one's hands. One can be crippled for weeks. Under certain conditions, this may be an acceptable cost, but it is not likely to be so if one expects to have use for the sword in the near future.
As soon as I reached the hill of debris I had my feet under me and then, even more rapidly, half sliding and jumping, holding the rope, hurried down the hill. When I reached the bottom of the hill I turned and looked upward. Mainly I wanted to see if there were any crossbowmen on the walkway. There were none. One or two fellows looked as though they might be thinking about following me down the rope, but they did not do so. On the hill of debris they would have poor footing. At the foot of the rope they would be in the courtyard, perhaps isolated. They could come down only one at a time. all in all I did not blame them.
'Well done,' said a young voice.
I turned about. It was the young fellow who had the crossbow.
'I thought this might be your plan,' he said, 'when you had me put the slave at the ring.'
'You are a clever fellow,' I grinned.
'And so I came to cover your descent,' he said.
I smiled. I had not realized this additional reason for not following me down the rope. The fellows on the walkway had seen him. I had not. It was true, of course, that he had only one quarrel for his bow. Yet who, still, would wish to be the first down the rope?
'You are a brave young fellow,' I said, 'to have come here, for such a purpose, with but a single quarrel for your bow.'
'I shall find others elsewhere,' he said.
'Thank you,' I said.
'It is nothing,' he said.
The other young fellow, he who had been my messenger to the eastern walkway, emerged into the courtyard. He looked up at the walkway. The Cosians were now leaving the central walkway, and hurrying to the stairwells, those to the east and west.
'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.
