But to the Barbarian Cavalry charging forward, the unlucky men shot down were far too few to matter. Most could not even see what had happened to them and kept pressing shoulder to shoulder toward the earthen ramps.
These cavalrymen all belonged to the fallen Commander of Ten Thousand. They knew that if they failed to win merit and put forward a new commander, their unit would be divided up. For most of them, that was no good thing.
Besides, the Legion Commanders were counting on battle merit to earn promotion to Commander of Ten Thousand and become the unit's new leader. Naturally, they drove their men hard toward the walls.
The three earthen ramps were packed with people. Though originally wide enough for two men to walk abreast, they now seemed impossibly narrow, with three or four men sometimes squeezing across at once!
The Barbarian soldiers shoved and jostled their way forward. Every so often, some unlucky man was pushed out of the line by his own comrades before an arrow from the walls could reach him, tumbling off the ramp.
Just as the soldiers at the front tried to pick up speed and charge uphill, they were startled to find that the ground beneath their feet had changed.
The slope was fairly level at its base, but grew more uneven the higher they climbed. Worse, the upper stretch looked as though someone had deliberately poured cold water over it, leaving a smooth sheet of ice.
The warriors could barely advance. Each step was a struggle, one foot landing high and the next low. A moment's carelessness sent them slipping to the ground, and on that slick surface, keeping their balance was nearly impossible.
Soldiers kept sliding down the ramps. The lucky ones merely rolled to the bottom with