At a singe blast of trumpets, the eleven bridges were loosened, rattling, to the crenelation.
As soon as the bridges struck down on the stone, at eleven points along the wall, from each of the somber, giant, looming, hide-hung towers, scores of men packed within rushed forth, spewing forth, erupting, like lave or steam and water breaking from the side of a cliff, racing, sprinting, descending the bridges, shields set, hurling themselves downward. Poles, and pikes, and stones, and wire, and steel and fire met them. At two of the towers great poles were used. One, a foot thick and twenty feet in length, managed by ten men with ropes, mounted at an angle of some twenty degrees on an improvised pivot of heaped stone, swept the bridge an instant after it struck the crenelation, then tumbled off, used once, to fall behind the parapet. Men, before its movement, were struck screaming to the ground, but others followed them, pouring over the wall, to plunge into coiled tarn wire, to stumble, to fall, to wade in it bloodied, to meet stones and steel. The second great pole was tied to two crosspoles and, by ten men on each crosspole, was thrust in place as soon as that bridge fell, and was held at an angle, like a railing, its sturdy barrier diverting the stream of attackers, causing many on the outside edge to be buffeted by their comrades to the ground below, a hazard in crossing such a bridge at any time under the conditions of battle. Many clung to the pole, as they could, and many strove to slip under it or climb over it. In the cleared angle of the bridge, the defenders mounted to the bridge itself an there, behind the barrier, and about it, stanched the flow of men upward, holding them on the planking of the bridge, between the tower and the wall.
At two of the bridges tiles and bricks, some two feet in length and six inches in height and width, met the attackers, not so much to stay the force of the attack as litter the bridge itself, that rushing men, not suspecting them, might stumble and fall. And in such cases there was always the press of men from behind, ascending the ladders, pushing the others forward. Tarn wire here, too, was set to enmesh those who came over the wall. I had had the rear portions of the two catapults propped up, that the angle of fire could be flattened. This, given the height of the openings, revealed by the dropped bridges, made it possible to fire at point-blank range, the shovel of one catapult containing a thousand bits of rock and metal, the shovel of the other a large boulder, weighing perhaps fifteen hundred pounds, requiring five men for its loading, trundling it up the ramp.
The first catapult slung its storm of missiles into the charging men, blinding them, denting shields, cutting clothing from bodies. The second catapult cast its load, its boulder, into the midst of startled men and had it not been for their smitten bodies, dashed back, cushioning the blow would have torn its way free through the back of the tall, shedlike tower. In both cases defenders then climbed to the bridges to meet the foe, driving him back, thrusting him down to the lower level, stopping the ascent at the ladders. At the termination of another bridge we had broken away an opening in the walkway, enlarging a gap about stairs. Here charging foes leaping from the wall found no footing but only an opening beneath them, half pit, half stairs. Men waited below for those who still moved, with axes. Another charge, rushing forth from the tower, unable to stop, pushed on by the masses behind them, plunged into flames, where we had heaped bundles of tarred sticks in their path, the sort that on wires and chains, flaming, are hung over the walls at night to illuminate ascending foes. At another bridge, Vosk fishermen, from the vicinity of Ar's Station, fought, perhaps men who had merely been trapped in the city when the Cosians had taken their positions, and, at another bridge, huntsmen, from the interior, perhaps similarly detained. The fishermen had a net with them, doubtless brought up from their small boat in the harbor. Such devices are rich in war uses. They can discommode scalers and grapnel crews. They can block passages. From behind them one may conveniently thrust pikes and discharge missiles. In the field they may serve as foundations for camouflage, for example, effecting concealments from tarnsmen. Questioned, eagerly had I assented to its use, pleased to have the unexpected and welcome aid of such an object. Nets, too, of course, are used at sea in the repulsion of boarders. Similarly, nets, often small and silken, but sturdy and cunningly weighted, are used in the taking of women. At both these bridges the charge was arrested by the bristling points of a braced, pike wall, two men to a pike. At the fishermen's bridge the net was cast, but its weights were not now stones. Rather was it weighted with two logs which, at it settled upon its catch, were toppled over the parapet.
At the bridge of the huntsmen loops of tarn wire were cast over the armed, halted efflux which the foe, to his horror, trying to extricate himself, felt draw tight and then he, too, snared, was dragged from the bridge. Huntsmen are skilled in the stringing and weighting of such devices. The wire, in its wide, supple loops, had settled about its victims, their legs and bodies. Its two free ends were weighted, secured about heavy posts which were then toppled over the parapets, this causing at one time the tightening of the loops and the dragging of the catch not now into the air, where it dangles helplessly, upside down, awaiting the convenience of the huntsman, perhaps to have its throat cut, but from the bridge. As with nets, with snares there is a great variety of types and uses. Some are fine enough to set for field urts and other stout enough for tharlarion.
At both bridges, following the success of the devices of the fishermen and huntsmen, the temporary consternation of hesitant successors permitted defenders to take their place, too, on the shaking bridge, where, in moments, they had pressed their way back even to the edge of the flooring, that of the highest level, beneath the roof, at the back of which would be located stairs or ladders, depending on the structure of the particular tower. At the last tower a simple garrote of tarn wire, almost invisible, had been thrust forth, secured between two poles. Such wire is usually handled with gloves. It can usually cut to the bone. It can take a wing from a tarn. I do not think the first fellows hurrying down the bridge even saw it. Their bodies, lacerated, impeded the flow of their fellows. Pikes thrust forth from behind the parapet, and at the sides, and over the planks, of the dropped bridge, where it projected beyond the crenelation on which it rested. While these things were going on hundreds of grapnels had looped over the wall and the ropes on them strained with swiftly climbing men, and the uprights of hundreds of ladders, like a forest, set themselves against the walls. Between the towers men hurried cutting ropes, and, where they could, thrusting back the ladders with the long-handled tridents. Oil was poured on screaming men ascending. Bodies aflame leapt from wood and rope. But Cosians came over the wall.
"We cannot hold them!" cried a man.
Fellows came then from below. The walkways behind the parapets were swarming with men.
In two of the towers defenders had won the top level and poured flaming oil about the floor and down the ladderways. On two others some, with axes, literally chopped away at the bridge, behind their fellows.
I saw quarrels discharged at point-blank range.
Blades rang.
A Cosian, twisting, fell back from the wall.
I saw one of Ar's Station run through, and slip to one knee, and then disappear back, over the interior edge of the walkway, probably to plunge to the rubble there, and then roll down to the court, behind the wall.
I saw a defender leap back from a tower, a torch in his hand. Smoke flowed from behind him, out of the opening. Such structures are easier to fire from the inside than the outside. I saw other fellows carrying bundles of flaming sticks and tar on their pikes into a tower. It was aflame.