Wizard Of Rentoro

The other two rams came up to the moat where the brushwood offered them a safe crossing. This did one of them no good. The first bearers were just stepping on to the brushwood when a heavy stone crashed down on the wooden cover. Splinters and planks flew, men screamed, and the ram stopped. Then the bearers began scrambling out from underneath. Blade saw the lucky hit had snapped most of the ropes supporting the iron-headed wooden beam of the ram, letting it sag and break in two. The whole machine was now so much useless lumber.

The third ram was the only one to reach the wall. The iron head began crunching against a section of already cracked stones. Blade could see large chunks coming loose and tumbling down to the ground, or bouncing off the wooden cover. The men on this ram seemed to be tougher than their comrades, and they kept at their work.

Those men would get through, Blade realized. He could only hope the men at the barricades and the archers in the houses could hold them. He had too much to do here on the wall. On either side of him the heads of scaling ladders were sprouting, then the armored heads of Wolf leaders. One rose almost at Blade's feet, turning from side to side as if the man was trying to get his bearings. Blade brought his ax down on the helmet as hard as he could. The Wolf leader threw up his hands and toppled backward off the wall, taking three comrades and the ladder with him.

Another ladder rose beside Blade. He kicked at it and saw it fall backward. The Wolves on it leaped clear and landed safely-for a moment. Two archers fired down at them and one Wolf sprawled on the ground, writhing and kicking until he writhed himself into the moat. The fighting was now so mixed up that the Wolf archers on the ground could not fire safely. The Morinans had no such problem. Anyone coming at them across the ground outside the wall was an enemy, and often a fine target as well.

Another ladder, and another, and a third. The man on the first ladder had his visor open and Blade's ax split apart his sweating face. Blade was turning to the second ladder when someone drove a spear down between it and the wall, then heaved. The man on top of the ladder slashed at the spearman, laying open his unarmored stomach. He gasped and put all his strength into a last desperate heave. The ladder went over backward with a chorus of screams, then the dying spearman toppled off the wall and landed on top of his victims.

Blade was about to attack the third ladder when he heard a gruesome chorus of screams from beyond the moat. Blazing tar from a well-aimed barrel was covering the top of a siege tower with a crown of flames and dripping down the sides. The Wolves hadn't taken the precaution of wetting down the tower's sides or covering them with leather. It was going up like a pile of kindling. Blade saw writhing bodies among the flames on the top, and saw others jump, hair and clothing aflame. He also heard more screams from those unlucky enough to be inside the tower and unable to get out. They went on screaming for quite a while, until one side of the tower cracked open like an eggshell. Flames roared up, curling around the blackening timbers and mercifully drowning out the last of the screams.

With other men than the Wizard's Wolves, Blade might have expected the burning of the tower to be the end of the attack. Few men would come on unshaken by seeing and hearing their comrades roasted alive. But the Wolves were fighting not only for victory but for their own lives. It was kill or be killed for both sides.

So the Wolves came on. A column marched toward the breach in the wall and started scrambling up the tumbled blocks. The footing on the loose stones was so precarious that the leaders in their heavy armor could not climb. The men-at-arms scrambled up, some falling with arrows in them, others pushed back by spears, a few simply losing their balance. Some got through-and then a vast cloud of smoke billowed up, as tar barrels were ignited in their faces. Blade sent a messenger off with orders to the stone-thrower crews, to aim one of their machines at the breach and keep it firing as fast as they could.

Now the second siege tower was crossing the moat. It wobbled and swayed drunkenly as it crossed the precarious bridge of planks on top of brushwood. The archers on top ceased firing, too busy hanging on for dear life. Then the tower was rumbling steadily toward the wall. A tar barrel came smoking down from the sky and Blade held his breath, hoping it would land on the tower. The barrel bounced off the side of the tower, scattering flaming tar over the dead and wounded, then rolled into the moat in a cloud of steam.

Blade could now see where the siege tower was going to reach the wall. The archers on top were firing again and the Wolves on the ground were crowding around. The men on top were pushing out a heavy wooden plank. It swayed in the air as it reached for the wall.

Blade started ru

«No!» Blade shouted. «We shouldn't both be here, you young idiot! Get back!»

If Zemun heard Blade's shouts, he ignored them. There seemed to be a battle-madness in him, that made him totally indifferent to the world around him. No, that wasn't quite true. The wild eyes in the grimy faced were fixed on the siege tower as if it had some hypnotic attraction. Zemun stopped, waved his sword, shouted curses, ignored more bolts and arrows-then the heavy plank swayed one final time and crashed down on top of him. Even over the uproar of the battle, Blade heard Zemun Bossir's skull crack.

Blade covered the rest of the distance to the plank so quickly that he was there before the first Wolf crossed it. Blade met that unfortunate Wolf, his ax swinging in both hands. The man flew off the plank and landed very nearly in two pieces The second man was a Wolf leader. Blade smashed his shield with one swing, his shoulder with a second, his face with a third. The Wolf leader collapsed on top of the wall, falling almost beside Zemun Bossir.

Blade killed three more Wolves with his ax, then the handle cracked. He grappled a fourth man with his bare hands and heaved him backward into his comrades so that three of them fell off the plank. More Wolves scrambled up into the tower from the ground, but by now Morina's defenders were swarming up to meet them. Now Blade was in the middle of a swirling hand-to-hand combat where men hacked, kicked, and thrust at each other, and threw each other off the wall when they couldn't do anything else.

Suddenly the Wolves stopped coming across the plank. Blade snatched up a fallen mace and ran across the plank to the top of the tower. A Wolf leader's head poked up through the hole in the wooden floor, and Blade's mace crashed down on it. Then three Morinans ran up along the wall, carrying a huge iron hook tied to a hundred feet of heavy rope. They tossed the hook to Blade, who swung it down and drove it firmly into a joint in the floor under him. Then he ran back to the wall and threw the plank down. Every man who could grab the rope did so, someone started a chant, and the men began to pull. As more Wolves scrambled out on top of the tower, it swayed farther than ever before, hung precariously for a second, then went over with a crash. The Wolves on top jumped, but misjudged their distance. They landed safely, but a second later the falling tower landed on top of them, mashing them into the ground. Blade called for torches and tar barrels to burn the tower, then ran back along the wall to his former position.

Blade alternated between being a fighter and being a general all the rest of the afternoon, because the Wolves went on attacking as if they still had some hope of wi