Web of the Norns

He turned, grinning, to shout to his friend Aker, just in time to see an arrow pierce Aker's neck from side to side. For an instant the big soldier's hands held their grip on the ladder, and Grant stared into the glazed, sightless eyes. Then Aker was gone over the side of the ladder, gone forever, and there was another man there climbing up from below.

Something hot snapped in Grant's head. Without any dizzying transition he was the berserker, cold with hate, and life became a simple matter of efficiently murdering the maximum number of the enemies of Aker Amen. He climbed.

Men were dying ahead of him, and then he was the first man on the ladder. The top of the wall was ahead, and an archer was peering down at him over a half-drawn bow. Grant drove his spear up into the man's eyesocket and pulled it back with a cold precision as the point crushed through flesh and bone. The man fell past him like a harpooned fish. Before another could fill the dead man's gap, Grant had a hand on the rough stone and pulled himself over the edge. A helmed knight swung a war axe down at his head and Grant barely rolled aside in time. The axe clanked a chip out of the granite crenellation. Before the knight could shift the axe, Grant had clutched him by the leg and thrown him over the edge of the parapet. The man's vanishing shout was followed by a satisfying clang from the foot of the wall.

In the instant before anyone else stepped forward, Grant managed to stand up and swing his spear in front of him. The point caught one of the Tyrant's men in the throat and he died with a hoarse gurgle. Though he was already dead the force of his rush sent him into Grant's arms. In the instant that Grant supported the corpse, three arrows thunked into its back.

The cold berserker rage controlled Grant's every move. He didn't drop the body — it made too good a shield for arrows. Instead he pried the broadsword from the convulsive death clutch of the man's fingers. Then he had time for his first look at the rest of the battle for the wall.

It wasn't going so well for the Good Duke. The few soldiers who had reached the wall were being rapidly killed, while cauldrons of hot oil were clearing the ladders below. On Grant's left there was a mixed tangle of battling men. On his right all of the ladders had been pushed away and at least a dozen of the Tyrant's men were rushing at him.

All of this took less than an instant to see, and in the same instant his berserker's mind made its decision. With a wordless cry he hurled the arrow-studded corpse at the group of attackers and leaped after it.

The very suddenness of the attack saved his life. Yet it was impossible to be in that melee of knives and swords without being cut. Blood ran from a score of wounds that he didn't feel. The Tyrant's men suffered far greater losses. Grant's whirling sword hacked through flesh and armour. When the soldiers came close enough his dagger ripped at their entrails.

Some of the nearest men quailed back before his fury, tangling the men behind. This only made their deaths more certain. Grant clutched the blood-wet pommel of his sword and chopped away at them. A few fell inside the wall; one managed to turn and run away. The rest were dead or dying at Grant's feet.

For that instant the section of the wall was cleared. Grant held the sword up, ready for the next attack. It never came. Slowly the red mist faded from before his eyes and he became aware of the aching soreness of his body. It was with a degree of surprise that he noted the blood soaking into his tunic and the gaping red mouth of a long slice across his right thigh. A clean cut, inches deep, slowly oozing blood from both ends.

Then he glanced up from the wound and saw that he was standing just above the mechanism that operated the drawbridge. Automatically his architect's eye took in the details of the crude windlass and pulleys.

The ramp of the drawbridge wasn't vertical, which meant it dropped of its own weight. Two giant supporting chains were attached to the outer end, they wrapped around an immense rotating log. This was in turn connected by a series of pulleys to the windlass. The pulleys added some mechanical advantage, but still exerted a good deal of pull on the windlass mechanism. A great cog wheel was bolted to the windlass drum, this cog was held in place by a metal pawl. A loop of rope kept the pawl from slipping.

It was absurdly simple. A piece of rope, no thicker than Grant's middle finger, was all that held up the drawbridge. Cut that and the bridge would drop.

Well — why not?

While his civilized mind was still pondering it, his newfound reflexes sent him off the wall. It was just as well he had jumped because an arrow went through the spot where he had stood an instant before. His wounded leg collapsed when he hit the platform below and he ground his teeth together with the pain. But all he had to do was stand up and stagger a few feet. A single stroke of his sword severed the pawl-rope.