For those who are interested in such matters, it might be pointed out that factors such as these seem to be playing their part in the gradual replacement of the phalanx with the square in Gorean warfare. It is not simply that the squares are more tactically flexible, being capable of functioning on broken terrain, and such, but also that they facilitate substitutions in the front lines, permitting the swift injection of fresh troops at crucial points. The success of many generals, in my opinion, is largely a function of their intelligent use of reserves.
Deitrich of Tarnburg, for example, though one often thinks of him in terms of innovations such as the oblique advance and the use of siege equipment in the field, is also, in my opinion, based on my studies of his campaigns, for example, in the commentaries of Minicius and the "Diaries," which some ascribe to Carl Commenius, of Argentum, a military historian, a master of the use of reserves. Some claim, incidentally, the Commenius was himself once a mercenary. I do not know if this is true or not, but his diaries, if, indeed, they are his, suggest that he was not a stranger to the field. I do not think it likely that all the incidents in them, in their detail, are merely based on the reports of others. His accounts of Rovere and Kargash, for example, suggest to me the fidelity, the authenticity, of a perceptive eyewitness. It seems to me, for example, that a common soldier would not be likely to supply a detail such as the loosing of water by a confused, terrified tharlarion in the field. The common soldier would be aware of such things, and, indeed, would even take them for granted, but they are not the sorts of details which he would be likely to include in his accounts of battles. Too, one wonders how a simple scholar could have come by the numerous beautiful slaves and fortresslike villa of a Carl Commenius. I suspect that at one time, perhaps long ago, he may not have been a stranger to the distributions of loot.
"They are drawing back," said a fellow near me. "They have nothing more to gain here," said another.
We looked behind ourselves, wearily. Much of the walkway was now gone, or burning. Great lengths of it, some half submerged, tilting, others at, or almost at, the surface, floated in the water. Some of these lengths had turned, and hewn pilings, in an inch or two of water irregularly moving about over the now-upturned undersides of the lengths, like heavy, coarse wooden points, jutted up.
"We have held the walkway," said a man.
"Yes," said another.
We stood on the blood-stained boards.
It was true, we had held the walkway.
It was the middle of the afternoon. I looked about. It seemed off, where we were, at the new end of that walkway, at the end of what now seemed a meaningless, eccentric bridge leading out from the landing but stopping abruptly in hewn, charred wood. The walkway had been cut behind us. Some of the fellows in the small boats had even drenched the boards behind us with water, to keep the fire from us, while others had hacked away at the pilings. Even so we had felt the heat of the flames at our back. There had been smoke, too, but not enough to affect what occurred on the walkway. Twice, when the wind had turned, it had drifted past us. There was far more smoke from the citadel, which, given the prevailing winds, the force of which had much diminished since the late morning and early afternoon, drifted out over the harbor, toward the river. "Shall we now swim for the piers?" asked a fellow.
"Certainly," said another.
"I, myself," said another, "will prefer waiting for the boats." "And why might that be?" inquired another of our number.
"I do not like getting my feet wet," responded the first.
We watched the fins moving about in the water. Here and there there was a stirring at the surface, as though there might be violent agitation some feet beneath. Too, in places the harbor water suddenly muddied, the mud from the bottom rising to the surface. These upswirling discolorations marked places, I supposed, where, below, unseen, a few yards beneath the surface, the long fish pulling and fighting, snapping and tugging stirred the mud. A small boat struck gently against the piling near us, to the left. There were now eleven of us on the walkway. Two were wounded. One of these was the grizzled fellow, who had been among the first to stand with me on the walkway. He had been wounded in the last assault, the fourteenth. So, too, had the other fellow. We lowered these two into the boat. Two others, too, joined them. The small boat rocked, and was almost swamped.
"Wait," said the fellow at the oars, alarmed, holding up his hand.
The rest of us, seven men, watched the small boat pull away from the walkway. It made slow progress back toward the piers.
"There are fewer fish about now," said a fellow.
"Stay where you are," I advised him. To be sure, he was right. Many of the fish had apparently departed. Indeed, I was sure that many of them, with bodies, and parts of bodies, in their jaws, had sped away, toward the piers, or had gone out farther in the harbor, beyond them, or had even returned to the river, perhaps sometimes followed by several of their brethren. It was, however, I was sure, still dangerous. Sometimes river sharks, like Vosk eels, hang about piers and pilings, in their shade, and are, I am afraid, often rewarded by garbage, or other organic debris. One could still see, here and there, streaks of blood in the water.
"Look!" said a fellow. He pointed toward the landing. There it seemed that a number of small boats was being mustered and not a few raftlike structures, doubtless improvised from materials within, and about, the citadel.
"They will be coming out to the piers to finish their work," said a man. "What we have done has been for naught," said another.
"The harbor is closed with Cosian ships and the chain of rafts," said another. "There is no escape."
"Apparently is it not their intent to starve us out, on the piers," said another.
"They are impatient fellows," observed a man.
"They have waited a long time," said another. "They would like to finish their business this afternoon."
"It should not prove difficult," said another. "It will be a slaughter on the piers," said a fellow. "There is no shelter there. They are open, exposed. What can a handful of shields do there? Little or nothing. They can do as they wish. They can pick their targets from boats, and rafts. They can attack in force."
"They will probably signal the other fellows, out where the harbor is closed," said a man, "so that they can attack on two sides at once."
"It is all finished," said another fellow.
"It will be done in two or three Ahn," said another.
"You two in this boar," I said to two of them, as another of the small craft touched against the piling. The oarsmen stood up, a fisherman, and extended his hand, to help the two fellows into the boat. We had overloaded the last boat. We, the five of us remaining on the walkway, watched this second small boat pull away, moving slowly toward the piers.
"I would like to say goodbye to my companion," said one of the fellows. "Perhaps she is still alive out there," said another.
"When do you think it will be over?" asked one of the fellows.
"By the fifteenth Ahn," said another, grimly.
"Good," said a fellow.
"Good?" asked the other.
"Yes," he said, "then we will not have to miss another supper." "How would you like to get your feet wet?" asked the grim fellow.
"No I," replied the other.
In a bit another one of the tiny boats had come to the walkway and the two fellows embarked in it.
There were then three of us left on the walkway.
"It is the women and children I feel most sorry for," said the fellow beside me, looking back toward the piers. They were crowded with noncombatants. I suppose there must have been somewhere between two thousand and twenty-five hundred women and children crowded on the piers. By now there were probably not more than two or three hundred able-bodied men. In a few moments another small boat arrived.