Robert Adams - Horseclans' Odyssey

He and his men did not quit the now roiling city until well after dark, sweeping it from top to bottom and from end to end in an unfruitful search for the subject of the eleventh warrant; but they could find no trace of the person of Urbahnos of Karaleenos, hunt as they might Captain Martuhn, Count of Twocityport, felt an uncomfortable sense of gathering doom from the moment he set eyes upon the city of Traderstown at close range. The ancient walls had apparently never been higher than twelve or fifteen feet, with towers hopelessly small and placed too far apart to give each other any meaningful support in an assault. Moreover, it appeared to have been at least a century since those walls had been afforded any repairs to speak of, and in places, mostly along the now critical western face, half the previously existing height had tumbled inward or outward, while elsewhere the stones were so loose as to rock underfoot In a conference with the two dukes shortly after the last contingents of eastern troops had been set ashore from the barges, he said as much, in his usual, blunt speech.

“Your graces, we can only hope that the cavalry wins a crushing victory against the nomads, for the city of Traders-town will prove indefensible against determined or prolonged -assault.”

He went on to detail the many faults—the walls, the towers, the dearth of effective emplacements for modern engines and of convenient rallying points for the defenders.

Then he asked, “My Lord Alex, whatever possessed you to fill in that fine, broad moat? The city might have had a fair chance, properly manned of course, did the moat remain, along with a few outer defenses.”

Alex sighed and shrugged. “I allowed myself to be swayed by the thrice-damned merchants and factors, who wanted land under the walls whereon the returning caravans could camp; they hoped that thus the caravaners would tend to stay longer and spend more money in the city and possibly have to Sell more of their goods in Traderstown, rather than barging them across to the east bank. It was greed, pure and simple, Captain Martuhn, theirs… and mine, too.” “Then, too, Martuhn,” put in Duke Tcharlz, “you must understand that Traderstown has not been attacked on the landward side for—what, Alex, a century or more?—well, at least for a considerable period of time.” “As for those nomads,” the other duke added, “they never have gathered in such stupendous numbers’ before; nor has anyone ever heard of any nomad or group of nomads penetrating this far east other than in peaceful ways.” “Then why do you think they’re here now, My Lord Alex?” inquired Martuhn. “Well, my good captain,” Duke Alex answered, “the tales of wounded and captured nomads lead me to believe that this invasion in such force is the doing of a new element, a sort of ‘chief of chiefs.’ He is said to be a big, tall, black-haired man from the south—which could make him a renegade Ehleen from their Southern Kingdom, but I don’t think so. His name is not Ehleen, for one thing; he is called Maylo Morró and is most probably one of those troublemaking, warmongering Mehkskuhns.”

“And, be this supposition of Alex’s true,” added Duke Tcharlz, “we have us the answer to where these Horseclanners learn how to maneuver and fight so cannily. The accursed Emperador would not have sent just anyone north to disrupt our trade; no, this Morró is most likely a trained and veteran noble officer, and we’re going to have to start opposing his savage horde differently, are we to win. Poor Alex here and his horsemen did not dream that they were come face-to-face with a professional, to begin, and they sustained very heavy losses as a result “But now we both know. Therefore, we must utilize the textbook tactics, with an overriding strategy of getting the howling little bastards into a position in which our heavy horse can get a good crack at them—a goodly stretch of flat, level ground, firm and free of brush or trees. Then well give them a fatal taste of civilized steel, I trow.”

During the ensuing weeks, while the two dukes and their horsemen maneuvered over and through the farmlands and woodlands of the Duchy of Traderstown, parrying the thrust of nomad raids, even as they sought a means of persuading the foe to commit the bulk of his force at one time and place, Martuhn drove his men fiendishly and himself much harder in a vain attempt to ready the city to withstand the prairie horde, just in case.

For all his exalted title, he quickly found that his real authority held only over his own infantry and that of Duke Alex. The city merchants and shippers and factors refused repeatedly to tender him and his hard-working forces aid of any nature; further, they right often impeded the nonstop work by complaining formally of the incessant noise or of the occasional drunken soldier, by refusing to allow the use of needed docking facilities to galleys and sailers when the slaves manning the row-barges had been formed into chain gangs by Martuhn to work on the walls, and they kept their warehouses solidly locked, forcing all supplies for their defenders to either be shipped over from the east bank or to be purchased—sometimes sight unseen—for scandalous prices. Martuhn finally decided that he thoroughly despised the entire pack of venal skinflints after his first meeting with Hatee Gairee, a merchant-banker whose family owned several of the large warehouses near the docks. There were no men to spare to care for the wounded men who kept trickling in from the skirmishing cavalry, and with the available medicines obtainable in Traderstown only at outrageously inflated prices, Martuhn had continued to send any injured or wounded across to the east bank, where the palace complex and several of the larger Upper Town buildings had been converted into hospitals. The river sailers and Duke Tcharlz’s and Duke Alex’s war galleys—which brought supplies on the western leg and took back the pitiful debris of conflict—were nowhere as capacious as the cable barges had been, and so a wounded man might lie moaning on a wharf, ill tended, robbed by city scum or nibbled at by rats, until a bottom was available to bear him to the eastern shore. One short visit to one of those docks, become in his mind a slice of veriest hell, was enough to convince Martuhn that he must find a place near the docks wherein all wounded could await the ships and galleys in safety if not comfort with at least enough attendants to drive off the rats and the human scavengers. He thought that one of the warehouses near the wharves would be ideal, but when he had the men whose goods therein resided approached, it was to discover that they only leased the buildings from various members of the Gairee family, commoners but extremely wealthy.

The family was, he found out, headed by a fiftyish woman, who made all decisions affecting income or outlay of any size. And she arrived at his headquarters in the style of a high noblewoman—a large, ornate and luxuriously furnished coach, uniformed coachmen, postilions and outriders astride finely bred, sleek, well-groomed horses, and two little slave girls to attend her. She was a tall, very slender woman, with a wealth of gray hair, streaked here and there with strands of the dark-brown color it once had been. Her every finger bore at least one ring of gold; from her small ears depended weights of gold and gems that Martuhn was certain must be uncomfortable. The additions of the golden neck chain and pendant, gold bracelets and armlets and brooches, as well as a headpiece of golden wire set with a profusion of tiny pearls and other gems, caused the captain to reflect that the woman was no doubt wise to have armed her male attendants and riders.

Her clothing was in keeping with her ostentatious display of gold and gems, being all silks and satins and tooled, dyed leathers and—regardless of the enervating combination of thick humidity and blistering heat—fur-trimmed velvets. And she was soaked with some heavy, hellishly expensive scent.