The Fallable Fiend (7 page)

“It might be worth the trying,” said a Syndic.

“Hopeless,” said another. “We should do better to clear out and flee to Metouro, leaving the Paaluans to loot an empty city.”

Another long wrangle arose. Some were for sending an offer to the barbarian ruler. Some protested that it would cost too much, to which the first replied that all the money in the world would do them no good when they were quietly digesting in Paaluan stomachs. Some favored a general flight; they hoped that if they could not defeat the Paaluans, they could at least outrun them.

In the midst of these wrangles, in came a militiaman, crying: “Your Excellencies! The foe is in sight!”

“In what sort?” asked Laroldo.

“Their scouts, mounted on beasts that look like huge, long-tailed rabbits, approach the wall of Ardyman’s Tower.”

“Well, so much for your scheme of fleeing the city,” said Jimmon. “Now must we stand, to do or die. Come on, everybody: let’s view these cultured cannibals.”

###

At the entrance to this cave-city, we found that Segovian, not waiting upon his official appointment, was already managing the defense. The main gate and the little portal above it had been closed and barred, and timbers had been propped against them to hold them shut.

We climbed the stairways up to the roof. The stouter Syndics went slowly, stopping to puff. At the top, we found a crowd of militiamen being ordered about by Segovian. He was placing one behind each merlon of the parapet with a bow, an arbalest, or a sling.

“Now hear this!” he roared. “Get your weapon ready to shoot, then pop out and discharge it through the crenel beside you. Linger not in the embrasure, lest you get a return shaft through your weasand, but duck back behind the merlon. No heroics, now; this is serious business. Pick your targets; waste not your missiles on the countryside—”

An arrow arched over the wall, to fall with a clatter on the flagstones. Segovian sighted the Syndics and bustled over.

“What are you fellows doing up here, without the least protection?” he yelled, unawed by his visitors’ wealth and station. “Everyone up here is to wear a headpiece and a cuirass, though they be nought but boiled leather!”

Jimmon cleared his throat. “We have come to inform you, Master Segovian, that we have chosen you our commander-in-chief.”

“Good of you, good of you,” snapped Segovian. “Now off you go—”

“But pray, General!” said a Syndic. “At least let us catch a glimpse of those we fight against.”

“Oh, very well; I suppose I can allow you that much,” grumbled the new general. He hustled them about like an angry sheep dog, barking at them if they held their heads too long in the crenels.

Down below, a crowd of yelling Paaluan scouts milled about on their bouncers, as we called their mounts. (The native name is something like “kangaroo.”) They shot arrows from short bows, but such was the height of Ardyman’s Tower that the shafts arrived with little force. Our missiles, shot from above, could have been much more effective, but our warriors’ inexperience made them miss. At last a crossbow bolt struck a Paaluan, who fell from his saddle. Thereupon the rest went bouncing off to a safer distance.

A vast cloud of dust in the distance heralded the approach of the main Paaluan army. The onlookers atop Ardyman’s Tower burst into cries of dismay as the dragon-lizards came in sight, swinging their limbs out and around at each stride of their lizardly, spraddle-legged gait. After them came rank upon rank of footmen, mostly pikemen and archers. They did not seem to have crossbows, which gave us some advantage.

So began the siege of Ir. Since there was now no more question of mass flight, we had either to beat the Paaluans or perish trying. At this time I thought of the Irians and myself as “we,” since my fate was linked willy-nilly with theirs.

###

Segovian proved a surprisingly effective general, considering the material he had to work with. Within a few days, Ardyman’s Tower was defended by another five thousand militiamen, even though most were armed with improvised weapons, such as hatchets and hammers. But the forges glowed and the anvils clanged day and night, slowly building up our stock of arms. Things like iron window gratings were melted up.

In accordance with the Syndicate’s policy of enlisting all slaves and bondsmen, promising them freedom after victory, I was enrolled in the artillery. Being so much stronger than the ordinary Prime Planer, I could crank the windlass of a catapult twice as fast as a pair of them, thus doubling the engine’s rate of discharge.

The Paaluans set up their camp just out of bowshot of the tower. When they had it all neatly built, Segovian ordered us to open on them with our longest-ranged catapults. The darts and stone balls we sent whistling into their camp, skewering and mashing their warriors, so galled them that after a few days they struck the whole camp and moved it back out of range.

Meantime, they extended a line of earthworks around Ardyman’s Tower, up Mount Ir behind the tower and down again. The hillside gave them an advantage in archery, which they were not slow to exploit. They showered us with shafts, shot from a height equal to our own, until Segovian erected a set of massive leathern awnings, like sails, along the parapet on that side to catch the arrows as they slanted down upon us. The Paaluan wizards sent illusions in the form of gigantic bats and birds swooping at our battlements, but our men learnt to ignore them.

The Syndicate sent out a messenger to go to Metouro for help. The man was lowered by a rope from the tower on a moonless night and tried to steal through the hostile lines. The next day, the sun arose to show the messenger tied to a stake in front of the camp. The Paaluans spent the day in putting the man to death with exquisite refinements.

A second messenger, commanded to try to break through to Solymbria, fared likewise. After that, it became hard to find volunteers for such missions.

The Paaluans began to build a catapult of their own, felling trees in the neighborhood for their timber. Their engine was a mighty one with a long, counterweighted boom. Segovian studied their progress through a spyglass. This was the only such instrument in Ir, since it was a new invention recently made in the far southern city of Iraz.

Segovian muttered: “Methinks I see a light-skinned fellow directing that crew. That explains how these folk, who were never known to use catapults before, can do so now. One of our Novarian engineers has gone over to them. If I ever catch the losel . . .”

I could not quite hear what it was that Segovian would do to the renegade engineer, but perhaps that was just as well. He went on: “They’re lining that thing up with our main mirror. Doubtless they seek to smash it, which would plunge our city in darkness save what light the lamps and candles can furnish. And the supply of those won’t last for ay.”

Luckily for us, the Paaluans—or their Novarian engineer—were not the most expert catapult builders. The first time they cranked up the device and let fly, one of the uprights holding the shaft on which the boom turned broke with a tremendous crash. Timbers from the wrecked machine flew hither and yon, slaying several Paaluans.

They began construction of a second and sturdier engine. Segovian called several hundred of his troops together and asked for volunteers to make a sortie and destroy this machine. When I was a little bashful about raising my hand, Segovian said: “O Zdim, we need your strength and toughness of hide. You are fain to volunteer, are you not?”

“Well—” said I, but Segovian continued: “That’s fine. Have you practiced with the hand weapons of this plane?”

“Nay, sir; it has not been demanded of me—”

“Then learn. Sergeant Chavral, take Artilleryman Zdim and try him out with various weapons to see which one suits his talents.”

I went with Chavral to the courtyard of Ardyman’s Tower. The courtyard had been converted to a training ground, since there was no room inside Ir for such activities. The place was crowded. One section was cordoned off for an archery range; another was used as a drill ground.

Chavral took me to the section where several thick wooden posts had been set up. The wielders of swords and axes tried their blows on these. In an adjacent space, pairs of fighters, heavily padded, fought each other with blunted weapons, while another sergeant barked commands and criticisms at them.

Chavral handed me a broadsword. “Take a good swing at yonder pell,” he said, pointing to one of the posts.

“Like this, sir?” I said, and swung. The blade bit deeply into the scarred wood and broke at the hilt, leaving me staring at the hilt in my hand.

Chavral frowned. “That must have been a flawed blade. A lot of this stuff is turned out in haste by amateur smiths. Here, try this one.”

I took the second blade and swung again. Again the blade broke.

“By Astis’ coynte, you know not your own strength!” cried Chavral. “We needs must find you a stouter armature.” After some examination of weapons, he handed me a mace. This was a mighty club, with an iron shaft and a head that bristled with spikes.

“Now smite the pell with that ballow!” he commanded.

I did. This time the post broke, and the broken-off part bounded end over end across the drill yard.

“Now you need some practice in giving and parrying blows,” he said. “Don this suit of padding, and I will do likewise.”

Chavral lectured me on how to hold one’s shield, how to feint, parry, circle, advance, retreat, duck, leap over a low swing, and so on.

“Now let’s fight!” he said. “Two out of three knocks on the head or body win the bout.”

We squared off with shields and padded clubs, weighted so that they did not much differ in heft from my iron mace. Chavral feinted and got a solid blow in against my helmet. He grinned through the bars of his helm.

“Come on, hit me!” he cried. “Art asleep? Art afraid?”

I feinted as I had seen him do and then aimed a forehand blow at his head. He got his shield up in time to catch it, but the wooden frame of the shield cracked under the blow, leaving the shield stove in. Chavral, suddenly pale, staggered back and dropped his shield.

“By Heryx’s iron yard, I think you’ve broken my arm!” he groaned. “You there, run fetch a chirurgeon! Wine, somebody!”

He emitted a yell as the chirurgeon set his cracked bone. To me he said: “You idiot, now I shall have to fight with my arm in a sling for a month!”

I said: “I am sorry, sir; I did but strive to follow your commands. As we demons say, to err is the common lot of sentient beings.”

Chavral sighed. “I suppose I should not be wroth with you for that. But hereafter, O Zdim, methinks you had better practice by yourself, lest you lay all our warriors low with your lovetaps. You need not concern yourself overmuch with the niceties of fence, for one stout blow apiece ought to do for any foeman you encounter!”

The next cloudy night, the storming party stole down the spiral ramp outside the tower. We wore soft slippers to move silently, and leathern defenses only, because of the noise of metal armor. We bore our weapons in our hands, without scabbards, lest they rattle.

Arrived at the Paaluan ditch, we tossed mattresses, confiscated from the citizens of Ir, into the ditch and had it well-nigh filled ere the foe discovered us. Then we placed a score of short ladders against their stockade and swarmed over while they were still scattered, running hither and thither and shouting the alarm.

Once over the stockade, we rushed the new catapult and piled oil-soaked fascines upon and around it. Some had brought covered buckets filled with hot coals which they now uncovered and emptied on the fascines. In a trice the thing was blazing merrily.

Meanwhile, the Paaluans rallied. Several knots of them, each led by an officer, rushed at us out of the dark. I followed Chavral’s advice, confronting one cannibal after another. As each came at me, I caught his first blow or thrust on my shield and hit him a solid smack with my mace. Sometimes, but not often, a second blow was needed.

Between the feebleness of the Prime Planers and the fact that they are half-blind at night, they presented no tough problem, so long as I took care that one did not come at me from the side or rear while I was engaged with another in front. I was blithely smashing skulls and staving in ribs when I heard a trumpet blow the recall. One of my fellow Irians pulled me by the arm.

“Come on, Zdim!” he shrieked over the hubbub. “You can’t fight the whole army by yourself!”

I ran after the rest. At the stockade, a few Paaluans strove to keep us from recrossing. I ran down the line and smashed them one by one. Then we were running back to the tower and up the spiral stair.

When Segovian lined us up and called the roll, six or seven were missing. They told me that this was not a severe loss, considering the size of the force opposed to us; but we could ill spare any man.

The Paaluans tried to put out the fire, but the effort was hopeless. After the ashes had cooled, they began a third catapult. This time, however, they surrounded the site with a trench, a stockade, and a line of “antlers,” made by whittling tree branches to many points and sinking their butts in the earth. They also mounted a heavy guard over their engine.

###

If none could get out of Ir, one natheless got in. The guard was aroused one dawn by pounding on the small upper portal. Looking over the battlement, they saw a stocky, hairy, naked figure, obviously not a Paaluan. They let him in and brought him before the Syndicate. I was at Roska’s, preparing to go forth on my daily duty with the catapults, when a messenger came for me.

When I entered the Guildhall, a hoarse voice cried: “Zdim!” and I was hugged and pounded by my old friend, the apeman Ungah from Bagardo’s carnival.

“By all the gods of Ning, what do you here?” I asked.

“Was telling these men. When we were auctioned, yeoman named Olvis bought me. Was swinking for him when word came of the invasion. Master Olvis loaded family and self into his cart and set off for Metouro. Told me to save myself; no room in carriage.

“Set out on the same path, but along came troop of Paaluan scouts on bouncers. Ran, but not fast enough, and they caught me with whirl-balls. Threw net over me. Dragged me over stones and through mud to their camp. Would have salted me away, but their wise men had never seen a person like me. Decided to keep me alive to learn what they could.”