Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City

by K. J. Parker

  No guarantee they actually work, I told myself. They could only just have finished building them, prefabricating the parts offsite and only carting them up here for assembly, so chances were they hadn’t tested them. Untried, unproven, untroubleshot; just like our artillery, which snapped men in half and smeared them like squashed beetles. And meanwhile, Aichma was lying on a table at the Two Dogs, possibly dying, and I wasn’t there with her.

  I heard Menas’ voice in my left ear. “Now what?” he said.

  I tried to think. While I was trying, I said, “Get our artillery down off the wall, right now. If those things work and they open up on us, we can’t afford to lose a single one. And get masons up here. I want a reinforced redoubt round every catapult emplacement. Then get the catapults back up.”

  Oh, is that all? “Right,” he said. “How thick?”

  “What?”

  “How many courses of brick should be emplacements be?”

  My head was starting to hurt. “I don’t know, do I? Enough to withstand a direct hit from one of them. If they work.”

  Just then, I heard a noise; a creak, and a whistle. It didn’t sound sinister, but it made me look up. Nothing to see; then, with a shock that made the stonework I was standing on quiver, something hit the wall. Menas stumbled, grabbed hold of me, nearly pulled me over. I hauled him up. Another impact. No idea where, whether it was close or far away; we were both on our knees. What the hell’s going on, I asked myself. Then something different. Not the same bone-jarring thump, but the air was full of flying stone. A chunk missed me by an inch. Menas was a foot away from me, no more than that, and the left side of his head was gone. I had a glimpse of bone, and brains, and the right side of his face wearing a puzzled expression; then the rampart three feet to my left disintegrated. Something brushed my face, like a bird’s wing or a cow’s tongue licking me, the same rough feel, only very quick. I put my hand up and saw blood on it. Dust, I realised; grit, moving incredibly fast, had scoured the skin off my cheek.

  “Get down!” someone was yelling. I didn’t move. My brain was still trying to catch up, because nothing seemed to be making sense. Then someone, no idea who, charged up behind me and dragged me down. He was on top of me when the next stone hit, and I felt his blood soaking into my clothes and trickling in fat streams, like melted ice only very warm, over my face and down my neck. I realised why I couldn’t move. You say scared stiff, not really thinking about what it means or whether it means anything. Believe me, that’s exactly what it’s like. You go stiff, like you’re frozen, like your arms and legs are splinted, like you’ve been dipped in something melted that’s cooled off and set rock hard. The way a dead body stiffens, and if you try and straighten it you’re more likely to break the bone than overcome the locked joints and sinews. Like that. And my eyes were full of dust, and I couldn’t move my hands to rub them clear, and my mouth was full of blood, and I’d shat myself for the first time since I was a little boy. And then the next impact, and the next, and the one after that.

  (And in the back of my mind, sounding quite calm and faintly reproachful: was this what it was like for the men who happened to be in the way of your damned ever-so-clever bouncing stone balls? Did they freeze so they couldn’t run? Which is worse, objectively speaking: half your face sliced off by a flying splinter, or all your bones and guts crushed until you burst like a sausage skin?)

  Some fool, some brainless idiot with absolutely no imagination whatsoever, was standing over me, dragging me by one foot. Any second now, there’d be another impact and the flying gravel would shred him into bloody tatters, my fault, because it was me he was trying to save. If my leg had been working I’d have kicked him in the face. Then the halfwit slipped, my head banged against something, I felt the most intense pain of my whole life and the light closed in around me like the mouth of a sack.

  I opened my eyes. They felt gritty and sore; I rubbed them, but it didn’t help. I could see a face looking down at me, a great golden face, oval, with big sad eyes and a small, faint mouth. I recognised it as the Mother of Sorrows. I was in the Palace chapel, where they have those old mosaics that people bang on about all the time.

  Then two other faces, closer, leaned in on me. One was that idiot Faustinus, and the other was Sawdust, the carpenter. And a voice I didn’t recognise was saying, “He’ll be fine now” in a tone suggesting he was in a hurry to be somewhere else, doing something important.

  “Thank you,” Faustinus said. Then he gazed earnestly at me. “How are you feeling?” he said.

  Then I remembered. It was like looking down and realising you’re just about to step over a cliff. “How is she?” I whispered—voice none too good. “Is she still alive?”

  Faustinus frowned, didn’t know what I was on about. “I’ll go and find out,” Sawdust said, and then she wasn’t there any more.

  “You’ve had a nasty bump on the head,” Faustinus said, like I was eight years old, except people didn’t talk to me like that when I was eight. “You’re going to be fine, but you’ve got to stay still and quiet for a bit. It’s all right,” he added quickly, as I tried to get my mouth working properly, “the bombardment’s been stopped and we’re seeing to the damage right now. Everything’s fine.”

  Oh, that. I couldn’t talk, but I could raise my left hand. I grabbed his ear between the nails of my thumb and forefinger and dragged his head down so he could hear me. “Is she still alive?”

  He forced my fingers apart. Dear God, he was stronger than me; obviously I was in a hell of a state. “I’m sorry,” he said, “you’re not making any sense. That’s perfectly natural when you’ve had a bit of a bump. You’ll be fine soon, I promise.”

  Sawdust had understood and gone to find out. That was the best I could hope for. I sighed, let my arm fall and closed my eyes. “Go away,” I said, and pretended to go to sleep.

  (And then I guess I was asleep, because I distinctly remember being left alone with the Holy Mother, who gave me a reproachful look out of that vast, golden, unchanging face. I was a great disappointment to her, she said; she’d always hoped I’d make something of myself, but here I was, been fighting again, and look what that had led to. I tried to explain, but my words came out in Alauzet, which obviously she couldn’t understand. So then she took a hammer and drove a nail into my head, and—)

  I woke up, with a pounding headache. There was a great crowd of faces round me, most of whom I didn’t know. But I recognised Faustinus, and Lieutenant Genseric, and Longinus of the Greens. I blinked at them. It felt like someone had made a lot of money selling tickets to watch me sleep.

  Someone yelled, “Doctor, he’s awake”, and the crowd parted, and that miserable old fart Falx loomed over me, stuck out his hand and peeled my eyelid back. I hate that. I lifted my arm and knocked his hand away.

  “He’ll do,” Falx said.

  I grabbed his wrist. “What are you doing here?” I shouted at him. “Why aren’t you at the Two Dogs?”

  He grinned. “She made it,” he said. “More or less. Nearly lost both of you. And what a real shame that would’ve been.”

  Then he twisted his wrist and my fingers were broken free, and he stepped neatly back out of range before I could get at him again. “Who gets the bill?” he said.

  Faustinus opened his mouth but Longinus was quicker. That surprised me a lot. Falx withdrew. I turned to Longinus. “Aichma,” I said.

  “She’s fine,” he said. “Don’t worry about her.”

  “I want him back there now,” I said, and then I felt dizzy. It was as though someone had got hold of my feet and was pulling, almost as though I was back on the wall again. Then someone said, “Orhan” loud and clear, and I sort of broke free. “What?” I said.

  “You nearly died,” Faustinus said. “You’ve been asleep for five days.”

  My head twanged like a cable. I winced, couldn’t help it. “For crying out loud,” I said, “don’t shout. What do you mean, five days?”

  “I mean you’ve been ly
ing here nearly dead for five days,” Faustinus said. “And things are a real mess, believe me. It’s been one nightmare after another.”

  Then I remembered. “The wall,” I shouted. “The trebuchets. What’s happening? Have they broken in?”

  “He needs to rest now,” said a voice behind me somewhere. “Please leave, all of you. Come back in four hours.”

  “Don’t you dare,” I yelled. “Tell me what’s happening, I’ve got to know.”

  “Everything’s fine,” said Faustinus, who’d just told me it was a real mess and a nightmare. “Soon as you’re better, I’ll tell you all about it. Don’t worry. Everything’s under control.”

  “Did they break in? Where’s Nico?”

  “Get some rest,” Faustinus said, retreating out of my field of vision. “Try and get some sleep. The sooner you’re back on your feet, the better, believe me. Everything’s just fine.”

  So I got some rest, about half an hour’s worth, as long as it took for everyone to go away. Then I got up, snooped around for some clothes, found an old workman’s tunic hanging up on a hook in a corridor and a pair of cracked old boots with half of one sole missing in a heap of trash in a small yard. My head felt like it was full of nails. Time to go and rule the empire.

  Where to start? What I wanted to do was get straight down to the Dogs. But Longinus had said she was fine, whereas Faustinus had said everything was a mess, one nightmare after another. So I set course for the wall, wondering how far I’d get before an arrow or a lump of rock stopped me.

  The streets were quiet but not empty. I saw a man I recognised, had to think for a moment who he was, remembered he was one of my lance corporals. He was bustling along with a big canvas toolbag over his shoulder. I had to break into a trot to catch up with him, which half killed me.

  “Colonel.” He gave me a scared look. “They said you were—”

  “What’s been happening?”

  He blinked, then set down his toolbag and stood to sort-of-attention, which is about as close as we get in the Engineers. “We stopped ’em, sir,” he said. “Sorted ’em out pretty good.”

  He seemed to think that constituted a report. The hell with it. I suddenly felt shattered and we were about a hundred yards from the King of Beasts, from which I’d been banned about ten years ago for antisocial behaviour. “I know,” I said. “I’ll buy you a drink. No, I haven’t got any money. You buy me a drink, and you can tell me all about it.”

  He gave me a startled look, as if I’d just kissed him on the mouth. “Very good, sir,” he said, and led the way.

  I always miss all the fun, and the last five days had been no exception. Apparently, according to Lance Corporal Scevola and his fellow historians in D Company, it was the bruiser Lysimachus—you remember, the Green champion, my bodyguard when we burned the siege tower—who saved my life on the wall, dragging me out of the line of fire, when the tower we were on was pounded into gravel, and Menas was killed. He hauled me to the top of the stair, which was great; then he tripped, and I went down the staircase on my back, head-first, which wasn’t so good, though I’d lived to hear the tale, so no real harm done.

  I think I may have mentioned that this Lysimachus scared the life out of me, and I never felt comfortable in his company. Fine. But when he saw me lying in the rubble at the foot of the tower, dead (as he thought)—I’m not sure how to account for it, really. True, he was an arena champion who carved people up for a living; a pretty straightforward sort of man, in other words, with one instinctive response to all contingencies; and he was my bodyguard and (he thought) he’d failed and I’d been killed on his watch, and arena men actually do believe in honour and shame, up to a point. Anyhow, for whatever reason, when he thought I was dead he went a bit berserk. He sprinted down to the Hippodrome, liberated one of the chariots that had made it back from our jaunt outside the walls, grabbed a half-dozen lanterns and told the North Gate guards to open the gates. They were Greens, so an order from the Green champion was like a command from God. While they were at it, Sawdust the carpenter, who’d been on the wall prepping the catapults—(You will recall that I’d ordered Menas to pull the catapults off the wall, just a moment or so before his head was cut in half. Talk about your silver linings. My spectacularly stupid order never got carried out, which saved the City. All thanks to the enemy; as usual.)

  17

  Sawdust came running down the stairs, saying what the hell do you think you’re doing, and the guards told her, Lysimachus told us to open the gates. So there’s Sawdust, standing directly in front of Lysimachus and four foaming-mouthed Hippodrome horses, demanding to know what he thought he was playing at. I’m going to burn those catapult things, he told her. They killed Orhan, and I’m going to kill them.

  I like that girl. She can think. Fine, she said. In that case, take a direct line straight at them, don’t go a foot right or left, and I’ll see what I can do to help.

  Don’t suppose Lysimachus had a clue what she was on about, but he had the wit to believe she knew what she was doing. He lashed on the horses and they shot out through the gate like an arrow from a bow. Sawdust, meanwhile, was back up on the wall, where her catapults were all spanned and ready to loose. She made a few quick adjustments to the lie of a few of them, then gave the order. Off went a hundred of those horrible stone balls, bouncing and rolling—but leaving a clear channel for Lysimachus’ lunatic one-man cavalry charge. Needless to say, as soon as the balls were in the air, the enemy dropped whatever they were doing and ran like deer for the high ground; all except the crews on the seven trebuchets, up on that bloody hillock.

  Of the seven, two had broken down after the first couple of shots. One had bust its beam as soon as they tripped the sear, just like all the theoreticians said it would. The other one, the sling didn’t release and the net wrapped itself round the beam and snapped it off. That left five, all working just fine. My guess is, the trebuchet crews were too busy to notice Lysimachus until he was right up close, and by then it was too late. In his hurry he’d neglected to bring any weapons with him, but in the event that hardly seemed to matter. Besides, the crews would have been engineers, and everybody knows they can’t fight worth spit; he tore apart two or three of them with his bare hands and the rest of them hopped it—straight into the path of Sawdust’s stone balls, worse luck, but that’s war for you. With them out of the way, Lysimachus got busy with the lantern oil, waited just long enough to make sure the trebuchets were burning prettily, and set off back to the City. He walked; the chariot had bust its axle in the home straight, so to speak, and a man like Lysimachus wouldn’t run, it’d look bad. He strolled, probably with a bit of a swagger, back to the North Gate, with the man-slaying stone balls bouncing on either side of him, pausing only to pick up the snapped-off end of the second busted trebuchet and hoist it on his shoulder, as the only convenient thing he could find for a trophy.

  (And, in so doing, did more good to the cause than practically anyone in this story. Tell you about that later.)

  Anyhow, I wasn’t dead after all, and all seven trebuchets were out of action, and when Nico and my lads came to look at the damage—I’m getting ahead of myself; to the point where the corporal and I had finished our drink, and I asked him, rather nervous about the reply I’d get, what had happened to Nico. Oh, he wasn’t there, Corporal Scaevola told me, he was downtown at the sawmills; of course he was, because I’d sent him there with a job to see to, only I’d forgotten.

  He was on the wall when I finally managed to drag myself up there. He was horrified to see me. Why wasn’t I in bed?

  “Shut up,” I explained. “What’s the position?”

  What follows is what Nico got from Artavasdus, who was on the wall when the bombardment started. He was five towers down from where I was, but as soon as the trebuchet stones started to hit, he sprinted up the battlement catwalk, only stopping when a stone took out the walkway a yard in front of his feet. So, being Artavasdus, instead of diving for cover and shitting himself like
any normal human being, or me, he stood there, watched carefully and took notes. He quickly figured out that the enemy were trying to pound a breach in the wall big enough to get in through. But the stones that hit the lower wall just bounced off, doing some damage but not much. It was only the ones that hit the rampart that had any significant effect, because the rampart was only supported from below, therefore more liable to fracture and shatter. In real terms, therefore, the trebuchets could smash up the ramparts and battlements, but they couldn’t easily breach the wall itself. Once Artavasdus realised this, he quit worrying. Smashing up battlements was all very well, but with only seven machines it’d take a very long time for them to do enough damage to compromise the defence in any meaningful way, and the only position the enemy had where trebuchets would be safe from our catapults and still in range of the wall was that confounded hill. Long story short; if the trebuchets couldn’t breach the wall enough to let soldiers get in, the most they’d be able to achieve would be to make life a bit miserable for some of our people, some of the time.

  Anyway, that was Artavasdus’s story, as told to me by Nico, who didn’t seem to think there was anything remarkable about a man standing rock-still and straight as a die with trebuchet stones thundering down all round him, provided there were useful observations to be made and valid conclusions to be drawn. That’s Imperials for you, and it’s why I can’t really find it in my heart to loathe them, even though they rape and plunder the earth, and regard the likes of me as so much garbage. The worms of the earth against the lions; the old rebel rallying cry, all through the Social Wars and the slave revolts and the provincial rebellions. And, yes, the Robur are predators, who kill and maim as of right, and if they give anything in return it’s unintentional, just as lions are the carrion eaters’ most bountiful benefactors. Still, and even so; if it’s a choice between lions and wolves and jackals and foxes, give me lions any day. You can’t ever justify what they do, but they’ve got style.