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I'd never really studied a modem sewage treatment plant back when I had the chance, but I had once
helped to install a single-family septic system. Needing to do something with the sewage generated by the
four thousand families living in my city, I had simply scaled up that single-family system by a factor of four
thousand. Three Walls had a tile field that covered almost a square mile, which made the kitchen garden
above it one of the most fertile in the world. There was also a bodacious septic tank that was as long as
our outer wall. It went from hedge to hedge, and was thirty yards wide and ten deep. And the roof of the
tank wasn't any stronger than it had to be.
Watching them through my binoculars, I could see that the Mongols were racing hundreds of men into
the moving tower, all of them eager to be among the first to attack the women on our city wall. The
Mongol officer looked supremely self-confident until the rear wheels of his siege tower encountered the
holes that had been punched into the roof of the septic tank by the front wheels.
With a certain calm deliberation, the huge siege tower dropped three stories into the dark grey muck
below. Many of the men pulling from the front were dragged down with it, and those at the back, pushing
on the long poles, were suddenly catapulted into the back of the tower, to slide helplessly down into the
slime with the others. Then the tower started to tip sideways, and fell with apparent slowness onto the
tightly packed horsemen who were escorting it forward. I saw the face of the officer in charge, looking
vastly annoyed as he and they and it went through the roof and sank out of sight.
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Smelly grey muck splashed over the catapults and those propelling them forward, but with a stoic lack of
imagination, they all continued their advance, thinking perhaps that it can't happen here.
It could. Simultaneously, with military precision, all four catapults broke through the roof of the septic
tank and sank out of sight, along with most of the men propelling them.
A cheer went up from our ranks, and from our ladies guarding the city wall.
"A. rough way to die." One of the pikers laughed. "Drowning in sewage!"
"Laugh all you want to," another said. "Odds are we're the ones that are going to have to fish out and
bury them smelly farts."
"Would you do it for five pounds of gold and silver? That's what every one of them bastards carry! I tell
you I would!" a third trooper shouted .
"I believe you! 'Course, in your case, nobody could smell the difference!" a fourth yelled.
My men were outnumbered at least eight to one, and they were on foot while their enemies were mostly
mounted. Yet not a man of them seemed to have even considered the obvious possibility that they might
lose! Considering their spirit, I thought that it was an unlikely possibility, too!
An airplane came and circled overhead. He didn't drop any messages, so everything must have looked
okay to the pilot.
A few squadrons of Mongol horse archers rode past our line and let fly at us. I ignored them. Best we
save our ammunition until we were firing at point-blank range into crowds of them. Their arrows couldn't
do us much damage anyway.
Through my binoculars I could see the occasional puff of smoke from the swivel guns atop the wall, but I
could also see that Krystyana hadn't fired her wall guns yet. Smart girl! She was saving her best for the
last.
The wall guns were cast into the two yards of reinforced concrete that made up the first story of the wall.
Imagine a shotgun with a bore you could stick your leg into or a primitive sort of breech-loading
claymore mine. The muzzles were still covered over with their thin coating of plaster, a surprise that was
yet to be presented at the party.
The field narrowed as we marched south, and the carts on the ends had to drop out and follow behind.
This caused no confusion because we'd practiced on this very field so many times before.
A half mile from the wall the Mongol general must have decided that a breakout was in order, for at least
half their horsemen formed up and charged our line. It was time. I ordered FIRE AT WILL, and the
bugles played it along our whole line.
Our swivel guns let loose, and noise and smoke covered the field. Through patches of clarity, you could
see where single bullets had plowed rows through the Mongol ranks, killing three or four of them at a
time. Very few of that first wave got through to hit the pikers and axemen, and I don't think any horseman
who got into our pikes lived to try it again.
This was exactly the sort of fight I had envisioned from the beginning, the sort we had armed and trained
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for. And it was working beautifully. The men were elated! After the huge losses we had suffered on the
riverboats, after the helplessness the troops had felt watching the conventional knights being slaughtered
west of Sandomierz, after the confusion of the battle at Cracow, after seeing the senseless slaughter at
East Gate, and after all the mind-numbing running and pulling in between, finally, at last, something was
working perfectly!
Naturally, somebody started to sing, and the troops along the entire line picked up the tune.
Poland is not yet dead!
Not while we yet live!
I could see that up on the wall, despite the fact that they were both pregnant, Cilicia and Francine were
manning swivel guns right next to each other, firing down at the enemy. And I saw that two of
Krystyana's sons - my own children! - were running ammunition to them. I waved, and they all waved
back.
But you don't kill a quarter of a million men in a minute, and we kept advancing as best we could, but no
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