Chapter XXV: 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.