by M L Lucas
The attack when it came was sudden.
A large contingent of men under cover of shields and volleys of arrows, made their way to the western gate with ladders, grappling hooks and axes.
The men on the walls of the city answered with boiling oil and fiery arrows. Hidden archers shot through strategically placed holes in the walls and the gate, shooting underneath the upheld shields. At the top of the gate, men armed with short high-tension bows made short work of the large group trying to bring down the gate.
However, cries rang out from other parts of the city and it became clear that attacks were taking place on the eastern, northern and southern walls. The defence of the city was stretched across the lengthy perimeter of the outer walls. More men were brought to bear to defend them. Women and children were drafted into the work of boiling cauldrons of oil and relaying them to the walls where their contents were emptied on the invading hordes. Young lads and boys, fuelled by youthful bravado and fearlessness, went up to the wall to throw rocks and stones or to hurl pebbles with their slingshots; and many of their young lives were cut short by piercing arrows.
For a long time it appeared that the walls would hold and the defenders would be able to keep the invaders at bay. Then, a small group managed to bring down a small part of the northern gate with a grappling hook, although perishing in the process.
The breach was high up in the gate and did not give easy access to the invaders without ladders. A small group of archers and swordsmen were appointed to defend the breach. They valiantly fought for some time, throwing back the ladders and grappling hooks, and thrusting swords through the men scrambling upon them.
However, in the end the defence was futile and the breach was opened up and was indefensible. With the enemy now loose and unconfined in the outer city, the outer wall could no longer be defended. The horn was blown to signal the evacuation of the outer city and for the soldiers and general populace to fall back behind the inner walls.
The sounding of the horn heralded general chaos. The breach in the outer wall had come sooner and more suddenly than anyone had anticipated. There was panic among the people. Some flew blindly from the reddened swords of the enemy who were now indiscriminately slaughtering any person they came across and doing as much damage as possible. Other citizens loaded themselves and their donkeys with all they could carry and were blocking narrow lanes and passageways.
Great crushes of people tried to push their way through the few narrow gates in the inner wall to get to the safety of the inner city. Many were trampled in the crush.
The retreating warriors who were falling back from defending the outer wall found their passage blocked. The commanders knew that if their men failed to reach the inner walls and were caught by the enemy in the open, the city would be lost. They therefore ordered their men to make their way to the inner walls at any cost. Many of the frightened, panicky people were felled by their own defenders as they tried to make their way along the narrow, congested roads to the gates of the inner wall.
To make matters worse, a fire broke out. It is not clear whether it was lit by the enemy or by one of the retreating defenders, or accidentally started by one of the fleeing townspeople, but while its blazing fury heightened the panic of the people, it was also a blessing in disguise. It held up the enemy forces enabling more people time to find shelter within the inner walls.
Eventually, however, the enemy forces forced their way towards the inner walls. The archers now manning the inner wall shot at the advancing enemy who, due to the narrowness of the laneways and the paths, were coming forward only two or three abreast and were relatively easy to pick off by the archers. But the numbers became too great to rely on the archers alone to defend the gates, and the order was given to close the gates.
While the majority of the city’s people had managed to force their way into the old city behind the inner walls, the gateways were still crowded with people preventing the gates from being closed. A group of swordsmen were ordered to clear the gateways by force. The desperate people pushed forward but the swordsmen, through physical force and thrusts of their swords, managed to allow enough space for the gates to be closed. Then, the unfortunate ones finding themselves on the wrong side of the gates screamed to be let in. Some decided to flee and were cut down by the enemy. Others managed to flee successfully from the wall and their final destinies are unknown. Those terrified individuals huddling in the gateway, hoping against all odds that the gates would open to them and not knowing what else to do, were easy targets for the enemy archers shooting from hidden street corners, out of sight of the defending archers manning the walls.
The inner walls and the space surrounding them formed a natural break for the fire and the old city, and the overcrowded, frightened population now cowering within, were protected from its ravages.
The inner walls, being smaller in circumference than the outer walls, were easier to defend. Outside the inner walls, in what was now enemy territory, the buildings and narrow laneways constricted the ability of the enemy to attack in numbers.
The people crowded into the old city searching for room to set up make-shift shelters. By royal decree, parts of the palace gardens, normally off limits to anybody other than the royal court, were opened to people to camp as best they could with what they had.
The two sides in this war had tested each other’s strength and now both sides settled down for the siege.
****
The wise man unrolled his carpet on the roof of the palace and concentrated as he brought his trained mind to the boundaries of the other world and then slipped through the cracks.
When he opened his eyes, he almost gasped as he beheld the towering colossus before him.
The golden giant towering up towards the heavens, eclipsed a third of the stars in the sky and blocked the distant horizon from view. Its massive legs, arms, torso and thickly bearded head were made up of countless individual human figures, armed men and willowy women, aged men and babies, young men and worldly matrons.
The giant who stood on the plain to the west of the city was about twice the width of the city around the torso and at full height, the wise man imagined, he would perhaps even dwarf some of the smaller hills of the distant eastern mountains. The wise man noticed that its right foot stood in the misty, foggy outline which in the everyday world made up the walls and buildings of the outer city.
The wise man was studying this spectacle for some time before he realised that he too was being studied. He realised that he was not invisible to the giant towering above him. He did not know how he would appear to him but he knew that he would not appear in exactly the same form as he appeared in the everyday world.
The giant lowered himself so that his enormous head with its thick, curly beard composed entirely of huddled and cowering human figures outlined in gold, were within a stone’s throw of the wise man.
The wise man tried to hide his fear but didn’t know how successful he was in doing that here in the other world.
“So tell me, tiny creature, who or what, would you be?” bellowed the giant.
It was several moments before the shock and fear of being addressed by the giant had faded enough for the wise man to find his voice. “I’m nobody of any importance,” he replied, not wanting to give away too much information.
The giant studied the wise man closely for some time, before concluding, “You are right. You are nobody of any importance.”
Turning his attention from the wise man, the giant knelt down on his haunches and studied the old city behind the inner walls and the myriad flickering rainbow lights huddled within. It would appear that all he had to do was reach down and he could scoop them all up in the palm of his hand.
Despite the fear which almost overwhelmed him, the wise man tried to find the courage to take action. He needed information and there was only one source of information here.
Finding his voice at last, the wise man asked, “And who
are you?”
The giant quickly turned back to the wise man with a mocking grin. “And who am I, you ask?”
He lifted himself up to his full height, lifting his hand above his head as if reaching to tear the stars from the sky. Half the field of stars in the heaven were now blocked from the wise man’s vision by the towering figure whose bent head now looked down on the wise man.
“Who am I?” roared the giant incredulously, as if the very act of asking was both insubordinate and absurd.
“I tell you, Nobody of Any Importance, that you stand in the presence of the most powerful force you will ever see or could ever possibly imagine.”
Lifting his face to the stars and inhaling deeply so that his sculptured naked chest and torso expanded to twice their original breadth, his arm still raised and his hand clenched in a fist of defiance, he opened his mouth and a thunderous roar shook the world and even the stars seemed to tremble.
“I AM WAR.”
****
The wise man sat cross-legged in his room in the palace, focusing his mind in meditation.
The siege had continued now for several weeks and hunger and fear haunted the city like unwelcome guests hovering silently in the corners of rooms, in the dusty, empty stalls in the market place, and in the hollow laughter of the madmen who roamed the city. The wailing of the poor, starving babies would, if the siege continued much longer, be replaced by the wailing of the women whose babies cried no more.
The wise man tried to focus his mind and to rid it of fear. He knew that War fed off the fear of the people and the wise man tried not to give in to that fear.
Despite his best efforts to clear his mind, unbidden thoughts arose none the less. A picture of his beloved Sarai floated before his eyes. He watched helplessly as her smiling face suddenly contorted with fear, facing some unimaginable terror and screaming to him to save her. He sat paralysed and helpless before this terrible vision and anger and fear filled him with uncontrollable trembling and tears.
The wise man realised the city he lived in, the people he loved and cared about, would all inevitably fall into the nightmare of violence and terror brought on by War and he could do nothing to stop it but could only watch helplessly as the horror unfolded. As he felt himself falling into a deep abyss of despair, the wise man, desperately called out in prayer. In his anguish, he prayed to the One who was beyond the confines of the world he knew which was now so fragile and unbearably light.
As the wise man tumbled relentlessly into the chasm of chaos that engulfed his mind, he heard a still, small voice whisper, “Faith. Do not fear!”
The wise man did not turn around to find the speaker of the words, but instead looked inside himself. Somewhere deep down inside himself he found a rock, or more accurately a pebble, and the wise man clung to it as the very foundations of his world collapsed around him.
****
The unfortunate prisoners trembled, faces to the ground, in the formidable presence of the king and his chosen advisers. They were dressed in the traditional garb of the travellers and appeared to be a small family group of three men, four women and three or four children.
The travellers were nomads who called no place home but travelled from place to place, grazing their small herds in various pastures and meadows along their regular travelling routes and coming in to the cities to trade.
The lived off their flock and the trading of hand-made goods mainly made from leather.
While often welcomed for their goods and trading, the travellers were also treated with suspicion by the city dwellers as it was known that items left unattended often found their way into their possession.
“O My Lord, this boy,” the guard accused, pointing to one of the small cowering figures, “managed to evade the posted sentries and he was found at the top of the inner wall.”
The king looked down on the cowering group dressed in their foreign garments and a look of concern lined his face.
“Access to the walls is forbidden to the non-military. What were you doing upon the walls? Were you sending a signal to the enemy?”
One of the men lifted his face from the ground, his face drenched in sticky perspiration and his widened eyes flickering around the room like a caged animal looking for escape.
“Your Royal Goodness, please, he’s only a small boy. He was curious -that’s all. He wanted to see the large army surrounding the city. We are not spies.” The man pleaded.
He was rewarded with a swift kick for his impertinence by the guard.
“Let the boy speak for himself,” the king bellowed.
The accused boy trembled mutely for a few moments where he lay on the ground prostrated with the others. Then, with almost inhuman swiftness, he jumped up and started running for the door. The guard grabbed the boy’s robe but with a deft twist, the boy left his robe behind in the hands of the guard and started sprinting.
However, the guard at the door had already slammed it shut and stood armed in front of it. The boy, confronted with his chosen means of escape blocked, looked wildly around for alternatives. This hesitation gave enough time for the first guard to catch him.
The impact of the guard’s huge fist sent the small boy twirling in a daze and collapsing on the floor. The other travellers cried out in shock and fear for the boy who was hit. One of the woman, despite the possible danger to herself, ran to the boy’s side screaming and sobbing over the unconscious figure.
The king studied the cowering figures of the travellers in their strange foreign garments. He wondered what threats and weapons could be hidden in the folds of such strange garments. With a people of such a different culture and tradition, how could he know who or what could be trusted?
He then turned to his advisers, his trusted men, and saw men strained by anxiety and hunger to the point of desperation. Which of these good and faithful men, the king thought, under these desperate circumstances, would not betray him in exchange for his own life, or for the safety of his family or even just for a piece of bread?
The only way, the king thought, to prevent betrayal in such circumstances is to make the cost of being caught as a betrayer, unbearable and unthinkable to risk. He had to show that any disloyalty, no matter how minor, would be punished with the utmost severity. It was a lesson these travellers, his advisors and the whole city had to learn.
“Your actions in trying to escape justice betray your guilt and condemn you,” the king announced.
“It is my decree that all betrayers will be sought out. All those travellers currently accommodated within the walls of the city are to be considered fellow conspirators with these traitors and are therefore, our declared enemies. They are to be brought out from wherever they are hiding and kept under guard under sentence of death.
“The guards will carry out their duty of searching out all travellers and traitors, today and tomorrow.
“On the third day, the prisoners will be brought before the people and beheaded. Their bodies will be thrown over the wall and their heads mounted on the walls.
“And so it shall be done to all those who attempt to betray us to our enemies.”
A piercing, horrible, soul-destroying wail rose from one of the cowering women which shook the chamber and all its inhabitants and ended in a pitiful sobbing.
The guards dragged the prisoners from the chambers, the unconscious boy carried gently like a baby in the arms of the guard who had hit him.
The wise man looked at the king and saw something in him he hadn’t seen before: Fear.
****
In total forty travellers were collected from throughout the city and kept under guard at the palace. They huddled together in small groups but were largely silent except for the occasional cry or muffled sob. Each person nursed their own despair but none wanted to add to another’s burdens and therefore kept their thoughts to themselves.
Among the group there were children too young to understand what was happening but, infected by the s
orrow and despair of the adults, they looked around silently with wide-eyed fear.
****
The wise man slumped despondently on the cushions in his apartment. He was exhausted from petitioning the king on behalf of the travellers. However, the king had been in a rage and would not be swayed from his harsh judgement.
The wise man sighed. It appeared that a number of innocent people would surely be executed the following day.
A thought occurred to him that there may be a way to avoid such a catastrophe. It was a dangerous course of action and would likely bring the wrath of the king down on him, but would it not be worth it to save the lives of innocent children? Could he truly stand by while innocent people died?
****
The small slits in the palace wall which let light into the space where the prisoners were held, grew dark as night descended and the small group kept a sleepless vigil.
Well into the night, while most of the palace slept, the wise man approached the small group with authority and purpose.
“The king wishes me to find out more information about these traitors and their plots against this city,” the wise man informed the guards. “To do so, I’ll need to use powerful magic to extract the truth from these deceivers. To protect yourselves, cover your noses and mouths firmly with these bags and breathe deeply.”
He handed small cloth bags filled with pungent substances to the guards who, fearful of the wise man’s arcane powers, quickly took the strange-smelling bags and covered their faces with them. In a few seconds, the guards’ legs became weak and they swayed slightly on unsteady legs before swooning to the ground.
“Quickly,” he called to the prisoners in a hoarse whisper as loudly as he dared. “If you wish to live, act quickly and follow me.”
Those who had forsaken hope, reacted with lethargy. There was no basis in their experience that could give them cause to trust such a palace official who for no apparent reason professed to wish to help them. The bizarre set of circumstances which had already turned their world upside down and brought them to the brink of destruction within the space of a few days was still beyond the comprehension to most. This new twist in their circumstances tested credibility beyond limits.
