Robert Adams - The Death of a Legend

“And if I, we, do follow your banner today,” demanded Bili, “what is to be our status? Will my force and I be free to leave, to go back east, when we wish? Or must we, soon or late, fight our way from under your sway? What is to be the price you will exact for your aid to us today, Prince Byruhn?” The tall prince smiled thinly. “Spoken bluntly and openly, young cousin. Yes, I guessed rightly, you surely are my kind of a man. In answer no less blunt and honest, I would hope that when once you have been imparted all this night, you and yours would freely choose to enter my employ for some brief time. But, if not, if you choose otherwise, I shall do my utmost to see you all safely across the Ahrmehnee border. On that you have my Sword Oath.” He gripped both his big hands about the wire-wound hilt of his battle sword, sincerity shining from his steady blue-green eyes.

The column did move slowly, it moved very slowly indeed, and over tracks and trails full many of which were but ill-suited to the easy passage of horse litters; but the prince dr«ve them all hard, his face and manner a study in anxious concern. His obvious worry for his and their own safety served to take the bite out of his often harsh words. Thanks in no small part to the ceaseless prodding of that high-ranking nobleman, however, they did reach their goal—the so-called Safe Glen—with the slanting rays of the setting sun.

Price Byruhn’s face and manner became more relaxed, though still wary, as craggy hills reared up to closely flank the winding track—which track showed man-made improvements here and there along its length. Farther along the track, shrewdly placed and built into the living rock, small but strong-looking stone towers reared up; armed men stood upon the parapets, the westering sun glinting on the polished steel of their weapons. From tall staffs set in the apex of each tower, large banners rippled in the wind, and upon them Bili could clearly note and recognize the Rampant Green Stallion of Kuhmbuhluhn. On shorter staffs, two smaller banners snapped—one bearing what at the distance looked like a red-brown dog or wolf on a blue-green field, the other being a black boar upon a field of silver-gray.

As the long column passed between these grim strong-points, spears and bared blades were raised in salute and the voices from above lustily cheered their overlord. Prince Byruhn raised his sword hand in gracious greeting and acknowledgement of the homage.

Then the track began to wind through truly tortuous twists and turns, doubling back here and there and several times crossing rushing streams over well-built bridges wrought of squared timbers. Small but sturdy-looking squad keeps overlooked each bridge, others dotted the steep slopes between, and the visible portions of the hill crests were all fortified as well, natural saddles and low points being filled in with dressed stone and capped by expanses of crenellated defenses.

Bili thought, as be, Rahksahnah and other nobles followed the prince over yet another oil-soaked and pitch-smeared wooden bridge, that he would surely hate to have the task of leading a force of attackers against these multiple and most formidable fortifications. Surprise would be a true impossibility, for those atop the outer towers could see for long miles in all directions in daylight, and the terrain leading toward mis narrow gap was so treacherous that a night march would be out of the question. Nor could he envisage manhandling siege engines to within range even of the outer works. It would all have to be done by unmounted men, and losses would be stupendous.

At long last, the head of the column negotiated a final hairpin turn to come to a halt before a massive, double-valved gate, which gave every appearance of having been crafted by and for the use of a race of giants. The weathered, metal-shod portals soared more than thirty feet up between the sheer walls of rock—gray granite which had been polished far smoother than nature often accomplished unaided. The tops of the gates were crowned with a hedge of long, down-pointing bladespikes, and above the gates, a broad arch of stone, set with merlons and another set of flagstaffs on which the same three banners snapped in the wind, spanned the gap; which gap was, at this point, only a bare score of feet in width.

At sight of Prince Byruhn’s bared face, a half-armored man atop the fortified arch turned about and shouted something. At once there came the cracking of a whip and the bray of a mule, then, with a hideous, damned-soul screeching of pivots, the massive gates swung slowly open. Bili whistled softly through his teeth when he saw just how truly titanic those gates really were—the uprights at least two feet in thickness, battened with foot-thick timbers and clinched with iron spikes, the least of which was at least four feet long and as thick as a spear shaft.

As the van passed under the arch, the beam which had barred those portals became visible—the squared trunk of what had assuredly been the very grandfather of all oak trees, its tremendous weight lifted from niches cut in the living rock by a system of cables and pulleys.

Noting the direction of the young lowlander’s gaze, the prince chuckled. “How like you Count Sandee’s door, young cousin? Think you it might withstand a few hard raps?”

Bili shook his helmeted head slowly and said gravely, “My lord prince, I’ve never seen or even heard tell of the like of such gates. Methinks the ram to crack them is yet to be wrought, and I would doubt that even the largest of the High Lord’s stonethrowers could easily breach them, even were there a position within range on which to mount a large engine. But what of fire?”

The prince shrugged. “Well, wet green hides are hung, of course. But there’s another defense against fire, and I’ll show you it… when and if you decide to follow my banner.”

The roadway proved level, though winding still, for a little distance beyond the gate. But then the pitch of the incline abruptly steepened until it became necessary for the riders all to dismount and lead their weary, dusty horses up the long flight of broad steps cut out of the stone of the mountain.

On the left hand reared the flank of another man-smoothed hill, while on the right, beyond a low wall of roughly dressed stones, icy water rushed in a white froth over an uneven bed of rounded rocks.

As the prince and Bill and Rahksahnah reached the wide crest, the last great blaze of the setting sun beamed over their shoulders to illumine the heart of this place that the prince and his men called the Safe Olen. But it was now obvious to the newcomers that they were within what was much more than a mere mountain glen.

A network of long, narrow vales let into each other, and finally several larger ones opened into the farther end of a central, open area which gently inclined on all sides toward the very middle, where lay a sheen of lake perhaps a hundred yards in diameter. From their perch, the van could see stubbled fields and winter-sere pasturelands in the flatter areas of all the vales visible; the upper and narrower parts appeared to be given over mostly to brushy expanses or to small stands of timber.

Neat stone cottages were scattered here and there, their architecture reminding Bili more of Ahrmehnee habitations than of anything else, their chimneys now uniformly smoking with the evening cookfires. Somewhere within that veritable maze of tiny and larger vales, a cow could be heard bawling loudly, while elsewhere a dog yapped insistently. Human figures, dim with the distance and the hurrying darkness, could be seen up beyond the glinting lake, chivvying sheep or goats into a stone pen or fold.

On the near side of the spreading lake, a huge and lofty tower soared up into the darkening sky, its battlements higher even than the tops of the mountains that ringed the Safe Glen. It reared up at least a hundred feet, Bili reckoned, maybe a third again more; and, high as it was, it still was no slender structure such as those Bili had seen in the Middle Kingdoms, rather was it squat and incredibly massive, some sixty feet or more on each of the two sides he could see.