SHAMANTOWN
Before us towered up the great walls of Shamantown, grey weathered
stone, rising up for forty feet and more before jutting out into
overhanging galleries, arrow-slitted through all their length. All
round the grim walls ran a sheer rock crevice, in which--twenty feet
below us--flowed a slow stream of sluggish, black, oily water. This
precipitous moat was crossed at one point by a narrow bridge of natural
rock, the one weak spot in an otherwise impregnable defence.
On the far side of the bridge the entry-way ran in a narrow passage,
flanked by loopholes, at whose end were the great gates of iron-shod
timber, nowise different from the stone one we had seen in the _tangi_.
But that place of death was now hidden from us by the stupendous wall
of cliff under whose shelter nestled the Shaman stronghold. Lying in
grotesque twisted attitudes about the farther end of the bridge and in
the narrow passage were the bodies of some of the men Kyrlos had lost
in his first efforts to storm his way in.
The walls were crowned with tall catapults, and now and again a great
stone or a shower of lighter stuff would crash past where Kyrlos,
Andros, Wrexham, and I crouched in the shelter of a timber mantlet
studying the entry. Or a long-shafted arrow would thud into the stout
wood or stand quivering near by in the damp soil. Away, on either
hand, reaching round to the cliffs that backed the city, was our long
besieging line, breastwork and sentry’s shelter, catapult and wooden
tower, with behind them the little tents and huts of Kyrlos’s army, for
we had driven the Shamans to their lair, and ringed them with a ring of
steel.
Behind us, in all the twenty miles of jagged hill country that Wrexham
and I, with his train of mysterious engineer stores, had traversed
after crossing the fertile river plains beyond the Blue Sakae country,
was no single Shaman, only the gaunt bands of outlaws and masterless
men, and the raiding gangs of the Brown Sakae, who roved hither and
thither pillaging what the Shamans had left. But these constituted no
menace to us, and could be dealt with at leisure once the chief enemy
had been crushed.
We had ridden from Aornos a week before, and Aryenis’s dear farewells
were still fresh in my memory, the last glimpse of her on her grey
mare at the turning of the lane into the Aornos road, where she and I
had ridden to await Wrexham’s party, still vivid to my mind. For two
days afterward we had ridden steadily southwest, past the battle-field
of the Astara with its heavy-winged vultures and jet-black ravens,
past the frontier forts, over the ravaged fields and derelict villages
into the maze of Shaman hills, where now and again upon some prominent
peak we saw the glitter of steel in the little stone-ringed shelters,
marking the detachments left by our people as they followed the
retreating Shamans.
On our arrival Kyrlos had greeted me open-armed, and I felt, indeed,
that, as Paulos insisted, I had become one of themselves. Aryenis and I
had written to her father the day after that unforgettable evening, and
his answer was in all ways satisfactory, while his words, when we met,
left no shadow of doubt as to his real pleasure at the news we had sent
him. Andros, whom I half-expected to find anything but friendly, was
friendship personified.
“So you are now loudly one of us, Harilek,” he had said as he greeted
me. “I told you at the Astara that you were to be envied, and now that
gay touch of colour in your cap proves my statement true. You have
taken the fairest flower in all Sakaeland, but--and I speak as one
knowing--you have fairly earned it. I know Aryenis will be utterly
happy, and that is the greatest wish that I--her friend--can have.”
And he wrung my hand, looking me honestly in the eyes. I consider that
Andros is all that a man ought to be.
I had joined the army at Aornos almost a stranger. I rejoined it
in front of Shamantown as one coming back to his own, with Paulos’s
men--who, reinforced, had preceded us by three days--fallen in under
Philos to lower blade in salute as we rode in, and many acquaintances
to greet me with honest, if disconcertingly straightforward,
appreciation. The lower ranks swarmed about Payindah, for whom they
entertained a real friendliness, and I saw him but little that
evening. His stay with John at Miletis had been productive of still
greater admiration of Sakaeland and Sakae ways due, perhaps, to the
now indefinite period we were like to remain in the country. Perhaps
the matter of Aryenis had also somewhat to do with it, and he was
very insistent on the accuracy of his forecasts in that direction.
I think also that the charms of Temra’s sister-in-law, a well-made,
pleasing-looking damsel with dark locks, had some corner in his
thoughts. He seemed to have picked up a lot more Sakae in the last
fortnight, and I had noticed that women are quicker teachers than men.
The last month had been productive of so much, it seemed to me, as
I reflected in the shelter of our mantlet--productive of a complete
alteration in life, above all of that greatest of gifts at which
Aryenis had hinted as we rode to Miletis the first time: “Not only
life, but lots and lots more.”
Kyrlos’s voice brought me back to the present.
“And now, Wrexham, my friend, will you outline your plan once more? It
seems to me good, if, indeed, this wondrous powder of yours will work.”
“Work I hope it will, Kyrlos. It is not of the best, for I have had to
use crude materials, but our experiments make me think it should serve
our turn.”
It was only the day we left Aornos that John had told me what was the
bulk of his mysterious “engineer stores.” Nothing less than coarse-made
gunpowder. As I have mentioned, he spent all his time pottering about
the workshops or visiting the markets in Miletis, and considering what
modern conveniences might be made with local material. Among his other
finds had been the discovery of saltpetre. Sulphur was common, and
charcoal was, of course, to be had in unlimited amounts, for the Sakae
use it a good deal for household purposes, small braziers which can be
carried from room to room.
The first two attempts to storm the Shamans’ defences had led him to
the conclusion that the siege would last for months if some means
other than the mediæval ones available could not be found. Hence his
talks with Kyrlos and Andros, culminating in his return to Miletis
accompanied by his crooked-nosed engineer friend. His experiments had
justified his hopes, and, still more wonderful, none of his band of
assistants had so far blown themselves up, though many were blackened
and speckled of face and hand, and singed of brow and moustache.
But they were full of keenness, and what was almost as important,
they obeyed Wrexham implicitly. So now--stored under safe guard--was
a pile of tarred sacks filled with John’s home-made powder, and long
coils of fuse, the sewing of which had taken many women many days.
Coarse-grained stuff it was, and the fuse burned with an irregularity
that would have horrified any inspector of ordnance stores, but--it did
burn. So with his score of henchmen the irrepressible John proposed to
cross the little bridge at dawn, dump his joyously uncertain powder
against the gates, lay his hopelessly erratic fuses, touch them off,
and hope for the best.
Behind him was to be a storming party under Henga ready to rush the
gate defences if and when the powder exploded, while following on
their heels would come Andros with the bulk of the troops to storm
through the town up to the main citadel. I was thankful for the still
doubtful leg which prevented me from running much, being quite content
to assist Alec and Payindah with a rifle in covering the loopholes as
the explosive party went in. But Alec--whether from a desire to shine
in Ziné’s eyes or from honest lust of battle I cannot say--intended to
join Henga in the assault. Myself, I proposed to follow very quietly
in the crowd, having no desire to get mixed up with a hand-to-hand
_mêlée_ until my leg was good once more.
I listened to John explaining the details of his plan, Kyrlos
listening gravely, and Andros’s quick brain ready with ever-pertinent
questions. The plan as plan was quite simple. Wrexham with ten men
with powder-bags would cross the bridge and lay their charges. With
them would go ten of Henga’s men to protect them in their work as far
as protection was possible; but the chief danger lay in missiles from
the walls, and against these little could be done. Behind them would
be twenty picked stalwarts of Stephnos’s troops with bags of earth to
damp the powder, and lastly, six men with lighting gear, led by the
crooked-nosed engineer.
If the charges could be laid and fired--both of which propositions
were distinctly doubtful in view of the narrow approach, the poor
powder, and the uncertain fuses--there was no doubt that the
Shamans--completely unaccustomed to explosives--would be thrown into
such confusion that Henga’s party should be able to rush the gate
defences, and we should then win our way into the city. But John was
confident that it could and would be done.
“I’m laying six fuses, and some of them must work. I’ve drilled my
party day after day at Miletis until they’re word perfect. I had a mud
replica of the gateway made, same as we used to do before attacks in
the war, and every man knows his job. I suppose we’ve laid that charge
thirty times, and the dummy puffs I put in at the end generally went
off. The only thing missing was the Shamans popping at us through the
loopholes. But with a decent modicum of luck we shall do it.”
Certainly if it could be done he was the man to do it; and early next
morning, as I watched the shadowy masses of men collecting noiselessly
in position for the assault, saw the dim glitter of cap and weapon,
heard the soft chink of mail and the swish of leather, listened to
the whispered words of command, I felt that, if energy and resolution
counted at all in the scales, we deserved to win. With three seasoned
fighters like Andros, Henga, and John Wrexham to direct, youths of
the type of Stephnos to lead, and infantry of the kind I had commanded
at the Astara to follow, given an open road not all the Shamans in
Shamantown could block our way.
“Time’s getting on,” said Wrexham, looking at his wristwatch, luminous
in the darkness. “We shall be able to see the walls in another twenty
minutes.”
Five minutes later Henga reported his storming party in position. Then
came Andros for a last word or two before the ball opened. The jagged
mountains to the eastward were clear-cut against the lightening sky as
John with his powder-men and their escort moved silently toward the
bridge--now faintly visible in the gloom--to disappear in the formless
dark ahead. A sleepy sentry’s hail broke the still silence, and a
moment later, as the sandbag party dashed on to the bridge, a wavering
torch sprang into light above the battlements to whirl downwards and
vanish as one of Wrexham’s party flung himself upon it. Loud shouts and
cries above the walls told us that the Shamans had realized that an
attack was again afoot, and arrows began to whiz down upon the bridge,
striking sparks from the stonework, while above the gates a great
beacon flamed into red light, showing the explosive party clustered
under the great doors at the far end of the narrow entry-passage.
Then back across the bridge, running heads down for dear life among
the glancing arrows, came the powder-men. Nine of them we counted--the
tenth lay still where he had fallen on the bridge, one limp arm
dangling above the dark gulf, the slender arrow-shaft in his back stark
black against the stonework, now grey in the growing light.
Two minutes later the shrill call of Wrexham’s bugler brought the
lighting party racing over the arrow-swept causeway, the last man
across spinning forward over the unguarded side, splash into the
sluggish stream below, as an arrow took him full in the chest. And as
they crossed, the sandbag party came leaping back over the bridge.
By some chance seventeen of them returned untouched, though now the
full dawn light had come, but the other three lay dead in the passage
beyond. John was all right, they told us, and the powder in position.
There was now light enough to shoot, and we three opened with our
rifles upon the wall above the gates, while away to right and left
our bowmen loosed flight after flight of arrows against the packed
defences. The dawn silence had given place to a medley of shouts, of
high-pitched cries, of clamorous bugle notes, and on the walls in front
hurried rush and clash of armed and half-armed men.
Then suddenly back in a whirl down the passage came a dozen men,
some bleeding from wounds, the bugler with an arrow sticking through
his arm, and--thank goodness!--at the back of the bunch, John’s
unmistakable sturdy figure with Firoz and the crooked-nosed engineer
behind him. They neared the bridge, arrows flying all about them. Then
the man in front of Wrexham pitched forward on his face, struggled and
lay still. The Sakae engineer tripped over him, went down, and, as he
rose again, slid down once more, clutching his leg below the knee,
trying to pull out an arrow.
He had dropped behind John and Firoz, who, not noting his fall, came
flying across, untouched. The engineer tried to crawl on to the bridge
amid the hail of arrows. But Forsyth, running like a greyhound, was out
and over the gulf before we even realized what he was doing. Stopping,
stooping, and turning all at once, he started back with the engineer--a
light wiry man--in his arms. With great long strides he raced back over
the bridge, and, unscathed, laid the wounded man down under cover just
ahead of us. Our men cheered him like mad as he returned, for the Sakae
prize personal courage above all things in the world. Certainly Ziné
would have no cause to worry about the way her favour had been borne.
Almost as he reached us there was a great sheet of red flame in front,
a hot breath, a jar like a blow in the face, and a thunderous roar
as the fort gate and the surrounding walls vanished in a dense cloud
of thick white smoke, and Henga and his company--Forsyth in the
van--swept across the bridge, axe and sword and spear-point gleaming in
the morning light. With them went John, followed by Firoz to see if the
powder had done its work.
But as the smoke cleared with it went our doubts. One of the great
iron-bound wings of the door had clean vanished, while the other hung
drunkenly from its shattered hinges, and in the dark gap we could see
the last of Henga’s men crowding into the defences. A moment later
Andros’s bugles sang to the assault, and his men poured over the bridge
in an unceasing stream of close-packed ranks. We watched them crush
through the shattered gateway, while on the walls above we saw Henga’s
men fighting their way back, clearing the parapets on either side to
secure the entrance passage.
It was light enough for glasses now, and once I made out on the
right-hand wall Alec’s tall figure, pistol and sword in hand, forcing
his way into the Shamans, blade and axe awhirl about him where Henga’s
stout Sakae settled outstanding scores of raid and rapine of years
past. The enemy were pressed back and ever back, until the walls were
clear of them right down to the bridgehead, and the arrows ceased to
whiz down about us.
A little later, riding with Kyrlos, I passed up through the narrow
passage, strewn, alas! with men of ours, in through the broken,
blackened gates, up the steep entry-way, and so into the rabbit-warren
of Shamantown, littered with stark corpses and dying men, desolate
broken house-doors, and wailing, dishevelled Shaman women, and once or
twice a drawn-visaged Sakae woman--prize of some past raid--shrilling
her glad pæan of hate at the retribution that had come at last.
And once, one of our Blue Sakae in worn leather, his bloody sword
hanging from his wrist, and his arms about a girl who clung to him,
her face close to his. I shall never forget the wonderful light of
unbelievable hope dawning in the girl’s eyes as she understood that
the past had gone like an evil dream, that life had opened out anew,
and from black despair had come all joy and gladness, nor the look of
quiet happiness on the man’s gaunt face as he realized that he had,
indeed, cheated fate and won back all that made his life.
We pushed on up the main street amid the shattered shops. Andros’s
discipline was good, and there was no looting as yet. The Sakae were
far too busy killing, for the Shamans gave no quarter, looked for none,
and got but little. There was bitter house-to-house fighting in some
quarters, little bodies of men fighting in the narrow lanes where they
penned isolated groups of Shamans into _culs-de-sac_, and killed them
out. But the bulk of our troops had pressed on toward the great cliff
face behind the city, where, hewn into the solid rock, was the citadel.
The dead and wounded were thicker again as we drew near the open space
below the cliffs and then checked, where ahead of us the fight eddied
and swayed about the narrow archway leading into the rock. The first
rush of Andros’s men had cleared right up the main street into the
open square, where high above us showed the rock-hewn windows, whence
the chief Shaman gazed down upon the huddled mass of houses below,
like a vulture craning its evil gaze from its foul roost. Grim above
the frowning entrance were the long projecting beams whence swayed
on weathered ropes limp corpses of our men--captured in the earlier
assaults. The kites and ravens circled about them, perching on the
dangling forms or hovering about the eddying fight below.
The narrow gateway was choked with bodies, and, as Kyrlos and I came
up, pushing our ponies through the crush of men, we saw Andros with
Forsyth, who had evidently joined him after the city wall had been
cleared, followed by a rush of swordsmen, disappear into the dark
passage beyond, and the fight round the entrance stilled and ceased as
the last enemy were beaten down. We waited awhile, looking up at the
tremendous wall above us, whence rained down stones and arrows, and
saw upon the topmost terrace pigmy figures in glinting steel. John and
Firoz pushed their way up to us.
“How’s the show, Harry? Henga’s finished mopping up below. He’s coming
up with his men now, red-hot to get into the citadel and finish off
some blood feud he’s got on hand.”
“Don’t know much what’s doing. Andros and Alec with a lot of men are
inside that gate ahead now. Isn’t it a hell of a place!”
“Look at those poor devils hanging there!” said John, pointing. “Henga
told me the Shamans killed their prisoners. But that one was a woman!
See? Bloody swine! Here, I’m going after Andros to help in the finish.”
I had started with the best of good intentions to avoid all unseemly
brawls, but somehow or other I found myself throwing my reins to one
of the men and following John into the dark blood-smeared gate with
Payindah and some of my archers behind me. We followed a long, dark,
winding passage, smooth with the passing of centuries, grimy with the
soot of torches. Now and then we tripped over huddled forms, and here
and there passed wounded men making their painful way back to the
daylight outside. At one corner, looking into some windowless cells,
lit now by the red glow of torches, we saw some of Andros’s men. They
were standing silent with grim faces, while two of their number were
freeing an almost unrecognizable thing that had once been a man--Blue
Sakae by the tattoo-marks on his shoulders--from a contraption of
rusty iron bands and chains that bound him to the wall. Sightless and
mutilated, if ever anything cried aloud for vengeance that poor human
rag, that still just breathed, did so. I was nearly sick as I came out
and went on up the passage, and I could hear John’s teeth gritting.
Then, in an open circular space like a great well, still all hewn from
the solid rock, we came upon the vanguard of our people, Andros and
Alec directing, where, clustered upon a flight of rock-hewn steps,
several men strove with hammer and crow to prize open an enormous
circular iron door which closed the top of the shaft as a trapdoor does
a well. The air was hot, and I could see the sweat on the men’s faces
as they worked in the torches’ smoky glare. Alec came down the steps
when he saw us, his mail scarred and dirty, blood down one leg from a
scratch across the thigh, and a baresark light in his blue eyes.
“Come on, John; for God’s sake, lend a hand! They’ve shut that trapdoor
down and got a fire going on top!”
Wrexham went up the steps where the men beat ineffectually upon the
iron door, the clanging echoes of their blows ringing dully in the
well-like shaft. He laid his hand on the iron and drew it away with an
oath. Then he studied the trapdoor and the wall around it for a while
before coming down to where Andros had joined Alec and me at the foot
of the shaft.
“They’ve stimied us all right for the moment,” he said, sucking his
burnt hand. “You could hammer on that all day without making any
impression. And before long the whole thing will be red-hot. Powder’s
our only chance, though I don’t know if I can get it into place without
being pushed off ourselves in the process. Luckily the bags are tarred,
so we can wrap wet blankets round them as a precaution against sparks
from the torches. Here, Alec; you can go quicker than Harry. Cut along
and get up my sapper blokes.”
He gave the doctor a long list of gear to bring up. Then he turned and
explained his plan to Andros, who hurried off to improvise another
storming party.
The heat was getting stifling, and the men peeled off their mail
and leather. I took another look around the shaft in the flickering
torchlight. There were slits around us, evidently loopholes of a
flanking passage, and before each waited an archer with bow ready
strung and arrow in place, ready to loose at the first movement. From
the bodies dotted about I guessed that those loopholes had paid for
their construction when our people first got into the shaft. But the
enemy had been driven out now and made no sign.
“I’d like to have driven a chamber under the edge of the trapdoor,”
said Wrexham, mopping his face, “but the whole thing’s solid rock. It
must have taken years and years to make.”
“How are you going to do it now?”
“Simply pile up the powder in the middle, and block the passage with
sandbags to prevent it blowing back. It’ll be a three-hour job, at
least. God send a spark doesn’t push us all off while we’re working. We
must have a chain of watermen going all the time to keep things damp.”
“Well, I’m going back outside for a bit; it’s too hot in here. I’ll
tell Andros to send up more men to relieve your birds at the loopholes,
and then I’ll bring up my own people to take a hand.”
So, calling Payindah and my men, I went back down the long dark
passage with its evil prison cells, and, warned by experience, did not
investigate too closely. There were men of ours in most of them seeking
round with torches, and from the looks on their faces I argued there
would be scant shrift for such of the enemy as were caught above.
At last I stood in the bright sunlight at the entrance, blinking like
an owl, and drinking in great gulps of clean air after the fœtid
atmosphere within, feeling like one come straight out of hell.