stronger bows and the height of the wall. But already more than three hundred enemy warriors plied their bows and began to score hits, even at that distance. The wagons still advanced.
An arrow whistled past Esk kar’s head. Totomes directed his men to target the men advancing the wagons. Men went down again and again, but others took their places.
Esk kar grimaced. Most of these were slaves, not even warriors, forced to labor until an arrow took them. To turn away meant facing the swords and lances of warriors behind them. At last the first of the wagons, one piled high with planks nailed together and showing scorch marks on its high sides, reached the edge of the ditch. The attack would begin in earnest now.
An arrow glanced off Esk kar’s copper helmet and a moment later another brushed his right arm, gouging the stiff leather. Grond pulled him down behind the shield, then ordered the archers to kill those who aimed at their captain. Esk kar saw a sudden flurry of activity behind the first wagon, already sprouting a thicket of arrows as defenders shot at every barbarian around it.
About twenty leather
— clad warriors ran alongside the wagon and grasped the topmost planks. They lifted a section and carried it forward into the ditch. Many went down with arrows, but enough stayed on their feet and managed to get the bridging section to the ditch and fling it down, before running back behind the wagons for shelter.
Another group of men tried to repeat the effort but this time Totomes’s archers stopped the second attempt with a wave of arrows that brought warriors, screaming in pain, to their knees before they reached the edge of the ditch. It proved only a momentary setback. More men rushed up to aid them, and they managed to grasp and lift the heavy platform once again and rush it forward, some leaping down into the mud, others dropping onto the first piece of bridge.
In their haste they failed to place the second section properly. For a moment no warrior would venture out to correct it. Instead they brought up more archers from the rear and a hailstorm of arrows drove the defenders beneath the wall for a few moments. Esk kar could only watch through the narrow gap between the two shields as two gangs of men rushed forward, one to straighten the second section and another to lift and carry the third section.
By now all the barbarian archers were shooting from behind some sort of cover, making it harder for Orak’s archers to hit them. Their enemies needed only to aim for the top of the wall to keep the defenders pinned down.
With the third bridging section in place, the barbarians had reached more than halfway across the ditch, even though the trench here stretched twice as wide. Esk kar turned to Gatus. “Get every archer you can fi nd up on the wall. I’m going to the gate.”
Without waiting for a reply Esk kar dashed away, Grond and the bodyguards following him. Esk kar ran down the tower steps, pushing past a constant stream of men climbing up to reinforce or resupply those already there. Emerging into the sunlight he took only a few steps before he found Corio directing a handful of villagers carrying three heavy clay pots.
“Good work, Corio,” Esk kar shouted. “Is this the oil?”
“All that’s left. The storehouse is empty.”
The lands around Orak held numerous pools of the oil — that — burns, but no such pool existed inside Orak. The countless torches needed every night had drained the stores of oil faster than expected. Esk kar’s fire raid had taken the rest.
Esk kar grimaced but there was nothing he could do about it. “We’ll need more than that. Find more. And send one jar up to the top of the gate.”
“Captain, be careful, we might set fire…”
Esk kar left Corio and climbed up the narrow wooden steps leading to the upper parapet. Several archers manning the slits had taken wounds, but a few cheered at the sight of their captain. He moved to the gate’s center, then pushed an archer aside to glance through the firing slit. The barbarians had placed another section into the ditch and looked ready to move up another. That one would completely bridge the ditch.
A burly villager bumped into Esk kar’s back, breathing hard and carrying the largest of the pots of oil. Esk kar took the vessel and almost dropped it, surprised by the weight.
“Fetch as many torches as you can,” he ordered. The man nodded, then swung over the edge of the platform and just dropped to the parapet directly below, before jumping to the ground.
The last bridging section had the farthest to go and again Totomes’s archers waited for the Alur Meriki effort. A wave of arrows from the defenders cut the first attempt short, hitting a half — dozen warriors before they could even take up the burden. Another attempt failed as well, until a horde of nearly fifty men rushed up and by sheer numbers carried the section down into the ditch and heaved it into position. Despite the heavy losses, a shout of triumph accompanied their success.
Esk kar turned to Grond, who’d stayed right behind him. “We’ll hurl this as far from the gate as we can. Understand? At the count of three!”
Together they lifted the clay jar, each holding it with one hand on the bottom and using the other hand to steady it. Esk kar took a deep breath and braced himself, nodded at Grond, then gave the count. “One… two… three!”
With a mighty heave they hurled the pot of oil over the top. The jar landed at least twenty feet away from the gate, bursting into a hundred pieces as it emptied its contents between the fourth and fifth sections.
Without bothering to look Esk kar seized the flaming torch that the laborer had brought and hurled it over the top. By the time he reached a slit, the torch had ignited the oil and a sheet of flames burned hotly wherever the oil had spread. Even the mud in the ditch caught fire.
Two arrows hissed through the slit and Esk kar felt his heart jump. If he’d stared an instant longer… Alur Meriki archers below now waited for any target. “Get another pot of oil, Grond. That should slow them down.”
Men crowded the gate now, its parapets sagging dangerously as ten more archers added their weight to the platforms. Another jar of oil arrived, this one smaller, and again Esk kar and Grond heaved it over the gate. It landed closer to the mud this time but shattered well enough to cover the burning wood again. A strange whooshing noise and a wave of heat accompanied flames that rushed into the air. The few warriors who had ventured out onto the platform quickly retreated. For a moment the conflagration rose even higher than the gate.
The last two sections of the bridge burned steadily, and nothing would put them out until the fire reached the muddy underside of the wood. The barbarians halted, surprised to find their own tactic used against them. The vicious exchange of arrows continued taking its toll on both sides. Grond readied the last pot but a quick glimpse told Esk kar it wasn’t needed yet.
He leaned over the edge of the platform and shouted down at Corio.
“Corio, we need more oil. Send women to gather every drop from every house.”
“Yes, Captain. We’ll find some.”
Esk kar turned back to the parapet. Alcinor had his workers pouring water over the top, nervous about the fire their leaders had ignited. A fire behind the gate might be disastrous. Then a cry from the tower made Eskkar take another quick glance through the slit. The barbarians had lifted another bridging section from a wagon and were gathering for a new rush.
Esk kar understood immediately what they planned. Placed on top of the burning ones, the new section would smother the fires and be even firmer underfoot. The warriors gave a shout as they braved the archers’ volleys to take up the platform on both sides and begin moving it toward the ditch. Esk kar picked up a bow from a wounded archer and strung a shaft himself. “Find yourself a bow, Grond.”
The big man returned in a moment, as archers crowded around the slits. Esk kar looked at him. “They’re watching the slits. We’ll shoot from over the top. Try to bring down the first man on your side.” This was dangerous. They’d have to expose more of their bodies. But Esk kar needed to stop the attackers now.
Warriors, stumbling under the weight of the new section but moving rapidly, had reached the halfway point of the ditch.
“Now!” Esk kar shouted. In that instant, both he and Grond leaned over the top of the gate, Esk kar firing as the rest of the defenders did likewise, ducking back not an instant too soon as a flock of arrows whistled into the space their heads had just occupied. A peek through the slit told Esk kar his shaft had hit the mark. The stricken warrior had fallen onto the man behind him. The whole section had crashed into the ditch. The warriors tried to pick
