At the bridge of the huntsmen loops of tarn wire were cast over the armed, halted efflux which the foe, to his horror, trying to extricate himself, felt draw tight and then he, too, snared, was dragged from the bridge. Huntsmen are skilled in the stringing and weighting of such devices. The wire, in its wide, supple loops, had settled about its victims, their legs and bodies. Its two free ends were weighted, secured about heavy posts which were then toppled over the parapets, this causing at one time the tightening of the loops and the dragging of the catch not now into the air, where it dangles helplessly, upside down, awaiting the convenience of the huntsman, perhaps to have its throat cut, but from the bridge. As with nets, with snares there is a great variety of types and uses. Some are fine enough to set for field urts and other stout enough for tharlarion.

At both bridges, following the success of the devices of the fishermen and huntsmen, the temporary consternation of hesitant successors permitted defenders to take their place, too, on the shaking bridge, where, in moments, they had pressed their way back even to the edge of the flooring, that of the highest level, beneath the roof, at the back of which would be located stairs or ladders, depending on the structure of the particular tower. At the last tower a simple garrote of tarn wire, almost invisible, had been thrust forth, secured between two poles. Such wire is usually handled with gloves. It can usually cut to the bone. It can take a wing from a tarn. I do not think the first fellows hurrying down the bridge even saw it. Their bodies, lacerated, impeded the flow of their fellows. Pikes thrust forth from behind the parapet, and at the sides, and over the planks, of the dropped bridge, where it projected beyond the crenelation on which it rested. While these things were going on hundreds of grapnels had looped over the wall and the ropes on them strained with swiftly climbing men, and the uprights of hundreds of ladders, like a forest, set themselves against the walls. Between the towers men hurried cutting ropes, and, where they could, thrusting back the ladders with the long-handled tridents. Oil was poured on screaming men ascending. Bodies aflame leapt from wood and rope. But Cosians came over the wall.

"We cannot hold them!" cried a man.

Fellows came then from below. The walkways behind the parapets were swarming with men.

In two of the towers defenders had won the top level and poured flaming oil about the floor and down the ladderways. On two others some, with axes, literally chopped away at the bridge, behind their fellows.

I saw quarrels discharged at point-blank range.

Blades rang.

A Cosian, twisting, fell back from the wall.

I saw one of Ar's Station run through, and slip to one knee, and then disappear back, over the interior edge of the walkway, probably to plunge to the rubble there, and then roll down to the court, behind the wall.

I saw a defender leap back from a tower, a torch in his hand. Smoke flowed from behind him, out of the opening. Such structures are easier to fire from the inside than the outside. I saw other fellows carrying bundles of flaming sticks and tar on their pikes into a tower. It was aflame.

Some defenders leapt back to the wall, and the bridge, cut in pieces, sagged behind them.

Cosians, sweating, their eyes wild in their helmets, reaching out from ropes, and ladders, struggled through, and over, the crenels.

The crew of one of the engines had set another great stone into its shovel. Their backs stained, turning the windlass, winding that huge torsion-powered device taut. I saw one of them, a quarrel in his back, fall away from the windlass. Then, suddenly, a lever thrown, the mighty arm of the engine went forward again a great stone burst against one of the towers. It was half turned and tottered, but did not fall. The draw bridge hung down, leading now only to the air.

At one end of the wall I saw Cosians coming through a tower. No longer were they impeded by tarn wire. They crossed it now literally on the bodies of their fellows fallen in it, and strewn over it, as one might cross a river on stones or a bog on planks. I dispatched the few reserves I had to seal off that portion of the walkway. On such a narrow path I hoped twenty men might hold against a thousand, for there the thousand could put against them no more than twenty. But the thousand were nourished and strong, and soldiers, not an aggregation of half-starved scions of a hundred castes, not one in ten of the warriors, not one in five trained in arms.

I had taken up my post above the main gate, on the higher battlements, where the impaling spear was mounted, and the flag of Ar's Station still snapped defiantly. This seemed to me the likely place for a command post. It was the most central location on the land wall. It was there I would have expected to have found Aemilianus.

More Cosians came over the wall. There were pockets of them, embattled, here and there along the walkway. The men I had sent to the west end of the land wall, past the west bastion, had actually sped by them. There are in battle, I have found, often oddities, which seem inexplicable, and yes they occur. I had sometimes seen a man walk among combatants, threading his way here and there, almost as though among crowds in a market, no one bothering to challenge him or pay him the least attention. But if eye contact is made, then there is not unoften a fight to the death. Also, I have seen two pairs of men fighting, those of each pair side by side, as though fellows, and yet they are enemies, and each engages another foe. The riderless tharlarion or kaiila, like the riderless horse in battles of Earth, can sometimes be seen whirling about, obeying the trumpet calls for charging, and retreating, and such, just as though his master were still in the saddle. Too, sometimes such animals may be found calmly standing about, or grazing, while the fiercest of fighting surges about them. I have seen, too, wounded men being carried to the rear, their bearers unmolested, through clashing ranks, and other fellows pausing to loot a body, blades flashing about them. Sometimes, too, in a moment's lull, one notices little things, to which one has perhaps hitherto paid scant attention, the movements of an ant, how rain water irregularly stains a rock, moving and spreading, depending on the texture of its surface.

I remember one fellow telling me about a man who had died near him, in a field. The man had been lying there, on his back. The last thing he said was, reportedly, "The sky is beautiful." My informant told he, however, that the sky then had looked much the same as it usually does. This is a hard story to understand. Perhaps then the dying man had seen it differently, or perhaps only then seen that it was beautiful. I now saw a fellow from Ar's Station on top one of the towers, on its roof. He was just standing there. He seemed to be admiring the view. I had little doubt it was somewhat spectacular. He waved to me. I lifted my sword to him, in salute.

Suddenly, on the approach from the right, a fellow, breaking away from a knot of embroiled fighters, raced up the stairs, toward me, sword drawn. It was his intention, I gathered, rather after the moment, to have had the honor of slaying the commander on the wall. This occurred to me as he spun about, blood gushing from beneath his helmet, falling back down the steps.

On the east, and nearer the center portions of the wall, four of the towers were aflame.

Not seventy feet away, a rope severed, men plunged screaming to the earth below. Along the wall, at two of the towers, men chopped away at the housings for the chains which controlled the bridges. Some of the bridges, but most not, were raised and lowered by ropes. One whose ropes had been cut had its bridge hanging down, against the front of the tower, useless. Cosians were trying to run planks out from the tower, to span the crevice between the tower and wall. I did not doubt but what, sooner or later, the towers might be brought flush to the wall. This is commonly not done, however, for various reasons. It more exposes the tower to the defenders, who might then tear the hides from it and smear it with flaming tar, or enter and attack it at their own choosing. Too, it makes it much easier to prevent the dropping of the bridges, by blocking them with beams or poles, or, in some cases, by fouling one or both of the chains, usually with metal pins. It is better for the attackers, usually, to have the tower isolated, back from the wall, and to be able to control its bridge without concern for the defenders. Thus they may lower it when they will and raise it when they will, perhaps after a retreat, transforming the tower then into what, in effect, is a small, inaccessible, impregnable keep, with its moat of space, a keep, however, whose bridge might then, suddenly, at any moment of the day or night, drop again, once more disgorging its onslaught of attackers.