Green Tower war cries suddenly sounded out louder than before. Heads and glinting spear points suddenly appeared over the top of the wall as the first assault parties came up the storming ladders. The defenders on the walkway flung themselves at this new threat, jabbing and throwing their spears. Blade saw one monstrous Blue Eye fighter swing two spears like clubs at two heads appearing one on each side of him. The heads disappeared. Then the man thrust the spears down over the wall and levered the scaling ladders backward. Resounding crashes and a chorus of screams and yells marked when they landed.
But there were too many men coming up the ladders for the defenders to meet. When the Blue Eyes exposed themselves to stab at the attackers and push down ladders, spears would flash up from the ground outside. Blue Eye fighters would crumple down onto the walkway or topple backward off it. One Green Tower man climbed over the wall where the fall of two defenders left a gap and started for the nearest ladder. But as he set foot on the top rung, Krog's tanned arm snapped forward. A spear hurled with the accuracy of a rifle bullet drove through the man's chest and slammed him back against the wall.
Meanwhile the crashes and booms continued as the ram battered at the gate; so did the screams as the archers sent more arrows whistling down into the packed slaves wielding the ram. Which would break first, the will of the slaves or the gates to the courtyard? Blade sent a messenger up with orders for the archers to be ready to shift fire to the gate if it went down and to Halda to be ready to lead her fighters out.
The gates were grids of thick logs on massive wrought-iron hinges, an impressive creation for the Wakers, who preferred to scrounge from the ruins. But it was giving way under the pounding of the ram, giving way faster than the morale of the slaves pushing that ram. Blade saw the lashings that held the logs together begin to strain and fray. He heard them creak and groan as the resilience of the logs made them rebound from each stroke. Flecks of rust jumped from hinges and bolts as they shook under the impacts.
With a screech of tortured metal, one of the hinges pooped completely free of the wall, dangling pathetically in a cloud of mortar dust. Soon the only thing holding the gates against the attackers would be the two massive log bars behind them and the fighters Blade was now assembling in the courtyard. Halda was among them, her face still set and grim. But now there was a blazing battle lust in her eyes. She seemed almost past caring whether the People of the Blue Eye won this fight or lost it, as long as there was a chance for her to get into it.
That chance came in almost the next second. Half a dozen Green Towers burst over the top of the wall, screaming at the top of their lungs. They swept two defenders who desperately tried to block them out of existence with flailing sword strokes. One of the attackers gyrated and pranced so wildly that he fell straight off the walkway onto the ground with a squashy thump. The others moved to cut off a section of walkway. Onto that now defenseless section poured a steady stream of Green Tower fighters, screaming, waving swords, hurling spears, leaping wildly down into the courtyard, or scrambling down the ladders.
Instantly the bowmen in the tower shifted to this new menace. They dropped the first two Green Towers to reach the ground in their tracks. Krog picked off a third man with another deadly spear cast. Then Blade moved in, sword carving a humming path through the air before him, straight at the men swarming off the ladders. Behind him came Halda and her fighters, all of them screaming like madmen and brandishing as many weapons as they had hands to hold.
The sudden counterattack brought Blade straight into the ranks of the attackers before they could react. The first three men in his path died as if they had been shoved against a whirling buzz saw; screams, the meaty sound of steel going through flesh and bone, blood everywhere, and then three bodies on the ground. Their comrades checked their rush and fanned out right and left to meet Halda's fighters in a series of death grapples.
Blade kept on into the center of the Green Towers. The continuous crash of his sword against their frantic parries sounded like half a dozen blacksmiths hard at work. He switched from slashes to thrusts in mid-stroke, always on the move, always pressing home the attack, never giving an inch but forcing the Green Towers back whole yards. Arms were lopped off, heads split, chests and stomachs ripped open by that deadly sword. One or two foolhardy types tried to scramble up the ladder, but Blade chopped one in half before he climbed the third rung. An arrow shrieking down from the tower dropped the other one just as he reached the walkway. Then from right and left Blue Eye fighters stormed along the walkway. The Green Tower ladders outside went crashing down in screams and splintering noises. Those Green Tower fighters who did not leap for safety down the outside of the wall died where they stood or else toppled off into the courtyard. The attack over the wall was broken. Blade ordered some of Halda's fighters up the ladders to reinforce the walkway and turned back to the gates.
One hinge on either side had now pulled entirely free of the wall. The great central bolt screeched and twisted farther and farther out of shape each time the ram crashed home. In a few more minutes the gate would be held only by the bars. And one of those bars was already beginning to show the splintered white of a crack.
Halda and Krog now joined Blade with a dozen more fighters in their wake. The commander of the gate guard and his little band also joined them. The gate was doomed; the best tactic now was to hit the Green Towers hard the minute they poured through the broken gate. A minute that was fast approaching-both bars were now bending and splitting and giving off ominous cracking noises.
Suddenly the upper bar gave way entirely, falling into two pieces and both pieces crashing down into the courtyard. Instantly both gates sagged backward, shuddering as the ram jolted them again. They slipped steadily downward until they hung drunkenly on the lower bar at a forty-five degree angle to the ground. Shouts, cheers, incoherent raw-throated howls rose up from behind the gates as the Green Towers saw the way into the courtyard open before them. Blade snapped out orders, and the twenty fighters around him formed themselves into a solid block. Their spears bristled forward and to the sides like the quills of a porcupine. That formation would at least persuade the Green Towers not to try a mad rush as they came over the gates.
But the first figures to come over the gate were not Green Tower fighters. Instead the top of the gates was suddenly swarming with men and women, some of them bloody, most of them staggering with fatigue, as they lurched and scrambled forward. All of them wore the filthy garments of slaves.
«What the devil-?» Blade snarled at no one in particular, staring at the onrush of slaves.
Krog hefted his spear. «The Green Towers are driving the slaves ahead of their fighters, to force us to use up spears. We'd better-«but Blade clamped an iron hand down on the leader's arm as he raised it for a throw.
«No, wait-look!» Blade's arm shot out and his finger pointed at Green Tower fighters now scrambling up the ladder into the midst of the slaves. Their swords were flashing, and slaves were going down screaming and even bloodier than before to writhe and kick out their lives. Others clawed with bare hands and feet at the fighters. Blade's voice rose to a triumphant roar. «The Green Tower slaves are revolting against their masters. They're coming to us!» He raised arms and both weapons high over his head and bellowed, «Slaves! We of the Blue Eyes welcome you. To us, to us! Kill your masters and join us!»