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Meanwhile, though, Etzilios' warriors and teams of horses dragged his own
stone-
throwers, the ones the Makuraners had taught him to make, up to where they
would bear on the walls. More men Maniakes thought them Videssian prisoners,
not
Kubratoi carried stones up and piled them beside the engines.
"Knock mem down!" he shouted to his own catapult crews. But at long range,
that was not so easy. The Kubratoi had only to hit the wall, a target they
could hardly miss. Hitting specific stone-throwers, as the Videssians needed
to do, was a different proposition.
Every once in a while, by the curious combination of good shooting and luck so
necessary for success in war, a Videssian catapult crew would manage to land a
stone square on an enemy engine, wilh results as disastrous for that engine as
for a man unfortunately in the path of such a missile. The stricken
stone-thrower would go from engine to kindling in the course of a heartbeat,
and the Videssian catapult crew would caper and pound one another on the hacks
and brag to anyone who listened or, more often, to anyone nearby, listening or
not.
And the Kubratoi would make their prisoners haul away the wreckage of the
ruined stone-thrower, the said wreckage some-times extending to the men who
served the engine and were injured when a piece flying off it smote them. And
they would
drag up another stone-thrower and go back to pounding away at the walls of
Videssos the city.
Up on the walkway of the outer wall, Maniakes felt caught in an unending
medium-sized earthquake. Stones crashed against the stonework of the wall,
which brought every impact straight to the soles of his boots. The roar of
stone striking stone put him in mind of an earthquake's fearsome rumble, too.
But earthquakes, no matter how fearsome they were, stopped in a minute or two.
This went on and on, the continuous motion underfoot almost making him
seasick.
Many of the stones the engines cast bounded away from the walls without
effect; the masons who had built those works centuries before knew their
business.
Every so often, though, the Kubratoi let fly with a particularly hard stone,
or with one hurled particularly hard, or with one that hit in a better spot or
at a better angle.
Then stone on the face of the wall shattered, too.
"How much pounding can we stand?" Maniakes asked his father. "Haven't the
foggiest notion," the elder Maniakes replied. "Never had to worry about it
quite this way before. Tell you what, though knowing where to find the
answers is nearly as good as knowing what they are. Anything Ypsilantes can't
tell you about the walls isn't worth knowing."
"That's true, by the good god," Maniakes agreed, and summoned his chief
engineer.
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"We should be able to hold out against pounding like this a good long while,
your
Majesty," Ypsilantes said. "Only a few stretches of the wall have a rubble
core; most of it is either solid stone all the way through or else
double-thick stone over storerooms and kitchens and such."
"That's what I'd hoped," the Avtokrator said. "Nice to have hopes come true
every now and again."
"I am pleased to have pleased you, your Majesty," Ypsilantes said. "And now,
if you will please excuse me " He hurried away on missions more vital than
reassuring his sovereign.
After Ypsilantes had left, the elder Maniakes tapped his son on the arm. "Come
back to the palaces," he said. "Get some rest. The city isn't going to fall to
pieces while you go to bed, and you're liable to fall to pieces if you don't."
Maniakes shook his head. "As long as I'm here, the men on the wall will know
I'm with them. They'll fight harder."
"Maybe a little, but not that much," his father replied. "And I tell you this:
if you're the only prop holding the defenders up, then the city will fall.
They're fighting for more reasons than just your being here. For one thing,
they're good soldiers already, because you've made them into good soldiers
over the past few years. And for another, believe me, they like staying alive
as much as anyone else does. Now come on."
He put some roughness into his voice, as he had when Maniakes disobeyed him as
a boy. The Avtokrator laughed. "You sound like you'll take a belt to my
backside if I
don't do what you tell me." The elder Maniakes looked down at the belt he was
wearing. As befitted the Avtokrator's father, he had on a gold one with a
fancy jeweled buckle. He undid the buckle, took off the belt, and hefted it
speculatively. "I
could give you a pretty fair set of welts with this one, son," he remarked.
"So you could," Maniakes said. "Well, if that's not lese majesty, to the ice
with me
if I know what is." He and his father both laughed. When the elder Maniakes
started down from the wall, the Avtokrator followed him. They rode back to the
palaces together. All the way there, though, Maniakes heard heavy stones
thudding against the wall. He didn't think he'd get much rest.
"A sally, that's what we need," Rhegorios said. "A sally to scatter some of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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