Thessalonica

“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.

“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.