But no--there was the hook, with chain intact. Most men, having seen that, would have looked no further. But George’s nature and his trade both impelled him to examine things carefully. The chain was intact, but about two feet of its shadow were missing. The sun shone on that piece of the wall of Thessalonica as if no stout iron links impeded its passage.
“See what they’ve done!” he exclaimed, and pointed out the stolen shadow to his fellow militiamen.
“I see what,” Rufus said, scratching his head. “I don’t see why.”
“I don’t, either,” George said. “But they wouldn’t have done it for no reason.” He was as certain of that as he was of sunrise tomorrow morning.
One of the Slavic wizards kept hold of the piece of shadow they had seized. The other heated a sword in a fire. Before long, the blade glowed red. The Slav had no trouble keeping a hand on the hilt, though. More magic, George thought. His suspicions, already wild, grew wilder.
The Slav with the sword drew the blade from the blaze. The other one, the one with the shadow, held it out in front of him, a hand at either end. The Slav with the sword brought it up, then, slashing down with one swift stroke, sliced the shadow in two.
Once cut, it vanished. George looked to see whether it reappeared on the wall at the same time. It didn’t. That gap remained. He pursed his lips. Something had changed. After a moment, he realized what it was. He still had a hand on a length of the grappling-hook chain. All he felt beneath his fingers now was sun-warmed iron. The protective power St. Demetrius had given the grappling hook when so beseeched in the basilica dedicated to him was gone, cut off as abruptly as the shadow had been.
Before George could do anything more than note that, Sabbatius said, “Something’s wrong here,” and then, “The hook! It’s just--a hook.”
That was inelegant, but it had more accuracy than Sabbatius usually managed. Nor were the Romans the only ones to note the change. The Slavic wizards leaped in the air in delight at what they’d accomplished. The Avar who had used their service patted them on the shoulder, as if they were a couple of horses that had hauled his cart faster than he’d expected.
He shouted back toward a couple of mounted Avars, his voice as harsh as a raven’s caw. The men in scalemail shouted, too. George could not understand what they said, but their tone spoke for them. Now we can get on with it was what they meant.
Moments later, their signal drums started booming.
That meant, Now we can get on with it, too. Up on the walls of Thessalonica, horns called the militiamen to alertness. Did their brassy music sound faintly alarmed? George hoped that was his imagination, but he didn’t think so. He said, “I’d bet the Slavs took our protective magic off all the grappling hooks on the whole circuit.”
“I never thought of that,” Sabbatius exclaimed. The only thing past the end of his nose he was in the habit of thinking of was his next cup of wine.
Rufus nodded soberly. “I’m afraid you’re right,” he said to George, and then coughed a couple of times. “Well, we’ll just have to beat them” --he pointed down over the wall-- “on our own hook.”
George stared at him. “You’ve been spending too much time listening to John,” he said, as if passing sentence after a crime.
“Maybe I have,” the veteran said. “That doesn’t mean I’m wrong, though. Look!” He pointed out beyond the wall. “The Slavs have decided it’s time to go back to work.”
“The Slavs have decided the Avars will slaughter them if they don’t get back to work,” George said. It amounted to the same thing.
“Arrows! Get back!” Shouts rang out up and down the wall, warning any of the defenders who weren’t so alert as they might have been. Cries of pain rose, too, as some of the arrows found their mark.
The militiamen shot back. Here and there, a Slav crumpled. But more warriors took the place of those who fell. The besiegers seemed to have an unlimited store of missiles. They made the defenders keep their heads down most of the time.
Rufus did not enjoy the luxury of being able to take cover. “Here comes the cursed ram,” he announced, and shouted for more men on the chain. “Come on, friends, this is how we earn our pay.”
“What pay?” someone said. “Nobody’s paying us a half-follis, and we’re all losing money because we can’t work at our proper trades.”
“You’re getting paid,” Rufus answered. “You do a good job here, and the bastards down there won’t cut your throat like a sheep’s, rape your wife, bugger your little boy, and burn down your house with your old toothless father in it. You don’t think that’s pay enough?” The fellow who had complained kept very quiet after that.
Here came the shed sheltering the battering ram. It was heavy, and could not move very fast. George would have been glad had it moved even slower. Every foot the Slavs inside made it lurch forward brought it so much closer to the gate above whose housing he stood. If the Slavs and Avars got into Thessalonica, that complainer and his family wouldn’t be the only ones who suffered.
Rufus jerked the chain back and forth. The grappling hook clanked against the stonework over the gate. “When they get close enough, I’m going to try and snag ‘em,” he said. “Then everybody on the chain pulls like a madman, we throw rocks down on the Slavs’ heads, and our bowmen fill them full of arrows.” He grinned, showing off the few worn teeth left in his mouth. “Sounds easy, doesn’t it?”
“Everything sounds easy,” George said. “It’s only when you try doing it that it gets harder.”
“You’re learning,” Rufus said.
George risked another glance out over the wall. As the shed with the ram advanced, it left behind the corpse of a Slav who’d taken a shaft in the neck. Most Roman arrows, though, either glanced off the hides of the roof or were turned by the big shields the barbarians at the front of the shed carried.
“Won’t be long now,” Rufus muttered. “Come on there, logfish, let me get my hook in you.”
Nearer and nearer to the gate crawled the shed. George could hear the panting of the men who hauled it forward. Peeking out between the Slavs with the big shields was the iron-faced head of the log that would try to break down the Litaean Gate.
“All right,” Rufus said. “Let me have some more chain, boys, enough to do what I need to do.”
The big rough iron links, some of them blushing red from a light coat of rust, paid out through George’s hands, Rufus leaned over the edge of the wall as if he were all alone. The Slavs sent a blizzard of arrows at him. None of them stuck. It was either incredible luck or the lingering protection of St. Demetrius. The veteran maneuvered with the hook, trying to snag the front end of the roof pole.
The Slavs were maneuvering, too. The ram thudded against the gate, which groaned like a wounded man. Thud! Another groan of timbers and bars and hinges.
“Now!” Rufus shouted before the ram could strike again.
George pulled with everything he had in him. The chain swiftly moved up a couple of links’ worth, then stuck as it lost its slack and took on the full weight of the shed. Down below, the Slavs shouted in anger and alarm. George pulled again, along with everyone else on the chain. They gained a quarter of a link. He set his sandals against the rough stone of the walkway and kept on pulling.
The Slavs tried to free the hook from the shed; George could feel the chain twist a little in his hands. But it was taut now, and gave the barbarians nothing to work with. A quarter of a link, half a link, a link at a time, he and his grunting, cursing comrades gained.
Other militiamen flung stones at the Slavs under the shed, then dropped bigger stones. The defenders of Thessalonica also popped up to shoot arrows at those Slavs, quickly ducking back to escape the shafts Slavic archers aimed at them.