Having set down all his arms but his bow and arrow when he got up to the walkway, George had to snatch them up in a hurry now. Several of his comrades were doing the same thing. Rufus had already started down the stairway toward the Litaean Gate. John, Paul, George, and Dactylius hurried after him, along with a couple of dozen other militiamen from farther away.

Down on the ground, Rufus was shoving every able-bodied man he could find in the direction of the gate. “Here, what are you doing?” Menas shouted in anger and alarm. “Do you know who I am?”

Rufus kept shoving. “You’re not much more than half my age, and you’ve got that big, fancy hammer in your hand,” he answered. “Past that, pal, I don’t care who you are.”

This time, the soldier at the postern gate gave Rufus no argument when he ordered it open. “Doesn’t this look like fun!” John exclaimed. But the tavern comic was the first one through the gate, out into the hostile world beyond the wall.

George followed a moment later. He let out the loudest shout he could, both to frighten the Slavs and to try to make himself believe he wasn’t frightened. He didn’t know how he did on the first count. On the second, he faded miserably.

He ran toward the tortoise closest to the Litaean Gate. Arrows hissed past, bouncing back from the wall or shattering against it. To his relief, the Slavic archers didn’t come rushing forward to engage his comrades and him in hand-to-hand combat. There were enough of them that they might have overwhelmed the militiamen by force of numbers alone.

Behind their shields, the Slavs in the tortoise saw the Romans running at them and shouted in alarm. John pulled one of the shields aside and slashed at the men it sheltered. Suddenly, the tortoise broke up as the warriors inside realized they had to fight for their lives. Their pry bars and hammers were better weapons against stone than against soldiers. The big, heavy shields were more suited to warding off rocks cast from above than attackers at close quarters, too.

One of the Slavs swung at George with the iron bar he held in lieu of a sword. George got his shield in front of the blow. Pain shot up his arm, all the way to the shoulder. He cut at the Slav, then circled rapidly to his left, away from that part of the barbarian the shield protected. The Slav grunted in alarm and tried to turn with him, but the iron-faced shield weighed so much, it made him slow. And, in his desperate urgency, he tripped over his own feet and sprawled on the ground.

Bang! Bang! Menas’ silvered hammer came down upon his head. Had George dropped a pumpkin from the wall to the ground below, it would have made a sound like that when it hit. Blood sprayed. The Slav writhed, then lay still. Menas hit him again, to make sure that he was dead.

“Er--thank you,” George said, feeling such awkwardness as he’d never known at having to be grateful to the noble.

Menas exploded that gratitude as thoroughly as he’d ruined the Slav’s head. Swinging the hammer, he said, “I wish it had been you.”

George wondered if he could make Menas suffer an unfortunate accident out here beyond the wall. It would make the noble’s wife a widow, true, but, after being married to Menas, widowhood might look good to her.

Though such thoughts ran through the shoemaker’s mind, he had not the slightest chance to do anything about them. Nor did Menas do anything to him that would have given him an excuse to make the noble suffer that unfortunate accident. Both of them, along with the rest of the militiamen who had sallied from several gates, were and stayed busy battling the Slavs who had been assaulting the wall of Thessalonica.

Some of those Slavs fought as fiercely as any men George had ever seen, in spite of their makeshift weapons and clumsy shields. One of them came within a whisker of caving in his skull with a pry bar. Only the pointed tip slid across his forehead, slicing the skin so that blood kept running down into his left eye.

That was the last swing the Slav ever took; George’s sword slammed into the side of his neck a moment later. The barbarian let out a hoarse, gobbling cough; blood poured from the wound and from his mouth. Even as he began to topple, George ran past him. The shoemaker had been one of the first men out of the postern gate on the sally, and he’d come as far from it as any of his comrades. The farther he went, the more Slavs he could drive from the wall.

Not all the barbarians stood up against the unexpected Roman attack. More than a few ran away from the militiamen, some dropping their shields to flee the faster. Bowmen who’d stayed up on the wall shot several of them.

George let out a hoarse cheer every time he saw one fall.

The Slavic archers who’d been shooting at the defenders on the wall and at the sally parties kept their distance-- till mounted Avars showed up behind them and started shouting what had to be threats. More afraid of their overlords than they were of the Romans (a regrettably sensible attitude, as far as George was concerned), the Slavs ran toward the militiamen, whom they badly outnumbered.

“Back!” Rufus shouted. “They aren’t banging away at the wall anymore, and that’s what we wanted. Come back!”

George would have been delighted to do just that, but he and a Slav were busy trying to kill each other. Finally, as if by common consent, they turned and ran away from each other. George was appalled to discover how close other Slavs were, and how far away all his comrades had got.

There went Paul, back through the postern gate. There went Sabbatius. George hadn’t noticed him coming out. There went John, loping along with a bloody sword. There went Rufus. George ran harder. Not many Romans-- hardly any Romans--remained outside the wall.

There went Menas. The noble turned around and looked out at George. He smiled. Tm the last of us!” he shouted. “The very last!” He slammed the postern gate shut. The bar thudded down.

IX

From up on top of the wall, people shouted down to the men by the postern gate that somebody hadn’t managed to get in. Those shouts did George no good whatever. The gate didn’t open again right away, and what looked like all the Slavs in the world were bearing down on him.

George turned his face from the wall and ran for his life. Not quite so many Slavs were coming from the southwest, and the woods in that direction were fairly close. He slashed at a Slavic archer as he sprinted. The barbarian fell back with a howl of pain.

George was in among the Slavs now. No more arrows hissed past him. The archers most likely feared hitting their own comrades. If they closed with him, he was dead, and he knew it. But he was still swinging that sword, and they were armed with nothing better than bows and belt knives. That left them unenthusiastic about closing.

Breath sobbing in his throat, heart thudding as if it would burst at any moment, he got closer and closer to the woods. Now most of the Slavs were behind him, which meant they started sending arrows after him once more. He remembered they were in the habit of poisoning those arrows, and wished he could have kept on forgetting it.

Here was the brush. His boots scrunched on dry, fallen leaves. He groaned--how could he hope to go anywhere without giving himself away with every step he took? He wondered if the barbarians had let him get into the woods just to give themselves the pleasure of hunting him down. He’d watched cats playing with mice. Let the little creature think it can break free? Why not, especially when it’s blocked off from its hole?

“Sometimes the mouse does get away,” he panted, dodging between tree trunks. “Sometimes the cat ends up with a stupid look on its face.” Most of the time, the mouse got eaten. He knew it. Again, he did his best not to think about it.

From right beside him, a voice spoke in Greek: “Sometimes mouse gets help.” He had all he could do not to scream. He hadn’t thought anyone was right beside him. Some Slavs were coming through the woods after him--much more quietly than he could--but . . .