Thessalonica

He saw how much Rufus wanted to say no, to keep fighting from the top of Thessalonica’s wall, the wall that had for so long warded the Romans within from the barbarians outside. But the wall trembled beneath their feet, and might crumble beneath those feet at any moment. Looking as if every word tasted bad, Rufus said, “Aye, a sally.” The decision made, he wasted no time wondering whether he should change his mind. Instead, he shouted, “Come on, you lugs! Grab your swords and shields and get down to the gate. If we can’t make the Slavs leave the wall alone any other way, we’ll have to chase ‘em off!”

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.