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.
“Pull!” Rufus bellowed. “Pull and bear to the left. That way, you’ll--”
He didn’t need to say anything more. With a rending crash, the shed tipped over on its side. Some of the Slavs inside screamed as the log with which they had intended to smash through the Litaean Gate smashed them instead. Those who could picked themselves up and fled for the woods, some of them helping wounded comrades along.
“Shouldn’t we get out there and burn that shed?” George asked Rufus. “That way, they can’t sneak back at night to try to drag the thing away, repair it, and use it against us again.”
Before, Rufus had been set against any sally. Now he pursed his lips and looked thoughtful. “Out through the postern gate,” he muttered, half to himself. “Wouldn’t take long, wouldn’t be much risk.” He smacked fist into palm in sudden decision. “We’ll try it.” He told off a dozen men, George and Paul among them. “Take torches and take oil. You want to make sure that when you set the fire, it sticks and spreads. You’ll only have the one chance.”
The militiamen got what they needed and hurried down the stairs. Rufus came with them and outshouted the militiaman in charge of the postern gate, who seemed in no mood to risk opening it for anything. “If you don’t bet, you can’t win,” George told him.
“That’s right. That’s exactly right,” Rufus said. “We can hurt the sons of whores, but not if we stand around here flapping our jaws instead of going out there and doing something about it.”
He set a hand on the hilt of his sword, as if to challenge the postern gate commander. That worthy, though hardly half his age, wilted rather than responding. George and his comrades drew their swords. The gate opened. They dashed toward the tumbled shed.
The Slavs shouted, some in excitement, more in alarm. They had not expected the Romans to rush out at them. Some fled, others stared. Only a few had the presence of mind to start shooting at the newcomers.
George slashed at a Slav standing between him and the shed. The Slav turned the blow with a large, clumsy shield. He cut at George. They traded swordstrokes. The shoemaker got him on the forearm. He dropped his sword, running for the woods and shouting in his guttural language. George did not pursue him past the shed, though he might easily have caught him. First things first, he reminded himself.
He smashed ajar of olive oil against the timbers. Paul thrust a torch into the oil. Flames and thick black smoke rose, not only there but elsewhere along the length of the shed. “We’ve done what we came to do,” George called to his comrades. “Now we go back.”
Back they went, running bent low to the ground to offer the Slavic archers the smallest target. Just before they reached the postern gate, though, one of them cried out in pain and crumpled, an arrow through his calf. The Slavs had helped their wounded--how could Romans do less? George heaved the fellow up and helped him limp into the city.
The postern gate slamming shut was one of the sweetest sounds he’d ever heard. Militiamen slammed bars into place to keep the gate secured. Some of the bars were gray and weathered, having stood up to sun and rain for years. Some, though, were of fresh, new-cut timber, and rested on shiny, rust-free iron brackets. George was heartily glad they’d made the postern gate stronger.
He and his comrades, all but the wounded man, hurried back up to the top of the Litaean Gate. “I want to watch that shed burn,” Paul said, stressing the last word. “You were right, George; now they’ll have to build another one if they want to attack us here.”
“Yes,” George said, but less happily than he would have thought possible before they’d burned the shed and the ram. Lots of Slavs swarmed out there; running up another shed wouldn’t take them that long. And besides-- He looked south, then north, along the wall. “I don’t think they’ve broken into the city anywhere else, but--”
“They haven’t,” Rufus said. “If they had, you’d hear the screaming in Constantinople. It couldn’t have happened without our knowing about it.”
“I suppose you’re right,” George said. “That’s good. They--” The wind shifted and picked up a little, coming now from out of the west. That meant it blew the smoke from the shed straight into the faces of the defenders atop the Litaean Gate. George broke off and started to cough. His eyes stung. Tears ran down his face.
If he looked anything like the rest of the men up there, the soot was turning his face black, too. And not only his face, either . . . John came up to Rufus and said, “If you wanted your hair dark again, why didn’t you just dye it instead of going through all this?”