The brigadier had scanned the written message brought back by the herald, cursed feelingly, then dropped the sheet and allowed it to roll itself back up. “This King Byruhn is blunt enough, I’ll say, blunt to the point of insult.” Then the old man addressed the herald, saying, “Well, man, you’ve now been closer to that pile of rock than any of the rest of us to date. Can you give us a clearer picture of just what types and degrees of fortifications we’re up against than you could after your last visit, last year?”
The herald, a retired officer of about the brigadier’s own age, shifted on his stool, using both hands to move his stiff leg into a more comfortable position, then replied, “Sir Ahrthur, yon sits an exceptionally tough-shelled nut, and it may well be that we simply lack the strength of jaws and teeth to ever crack it. To begin, the only road up to the place switches back twice in the ascent, which bodes ill, you can imagine, for attacking troops thus longer exposed to the arrows, slingstones, pitchpots and whatnot sure to be raining from the walls onto them. Also, the roadbed is of timber corduroy, and, despite the sand and dust coating them, I could ascertain that the timbers are well soaked with inflammable substances.”
One of the colonels remarked depreciatingly, “Very clever, but what do they do after they have once burned the road, eh?”
The brigadier nodded. “Yes, Colonel Potter, that particular trap can be sprung but the once ... but how would you like to be on it when they chose to fire that roadway?”
Then, “Go on, Sir Djahn. What of the outer works and the walls themselves?”
Grimacing with pain, the herald shifted his stiff leg to yet another position, then shook his white-haired head and replied, “Worse than the road, if possible, for us, Sir Ahrthur. The barbican, though it looks to be hard against the gates from here, on the plain, actually is separated from walls and gates by a deep, narrow, but sheer-sided crevasse that runs along most of the front face of the burk walls. What the barbican is actually there to guard is the bridge over that crevasse, although it is really not necessary, for the span is fitted with great iron hooks at its outward end which can only be for the fastening of cables or chains to raise it.”
“This crevasse,” demanded the brigadier, “you say it’s narrow? Well, how deep is it would you estimate, Sir Djahn?”
“The bottom is uneven, Sir Ahrthur, but I’d say that seventy feet deep would be a good average depth. And it seems to serve as a seasonal streambed, as well—there are watermarks on the sides, well up them, too.
“Now to those city walls. I can scarce credit the witness of my very own senses, Sir Ahrthur; had I not seen them close on, touched them, walked upon them, I would not believe that such walls could be built by mortal man. But they are there.
“The lower half to two-thirds of those walls are not walls at all, not laid masonry walls, rather are they the living stone of the mountain itself, left in place when the flattened-bowl shape of the city area was carved out of what once must have been a shelf on the flank of the mountain. In places, this remnant is thirty or more feet in thickness at ground level, with one- and two-story habitations carved out of its inner face.
“The upper reaches of the walls, the battlemented portions of them, are composed of worked slabs so huge as to cause one to wonder at how they ever were quarried, transported or laid into place, much less so beautifully squared, smoothed and fitted as to not need mortar or cramps to hold them in their order. The masonry battlemented wall varies from fifteen to about twenty-five feet in height and is a good twenty feet in width across the top.
“As regards towers, there are only those you can see from here—a pair flanking the gates and one at each corner, but not much higher than the burk walls, themselves, and really only raised platforms for stone-throwing engines.”
The brigadier raised his bushy eyebrows and smoothed one of his drooping mustaches with a thumbnail. “What of that high tower that seems to go near to the summit of the mountain, Sir Djahn?”
“It’s only a half-tower, Sir Ahrthur, built directly into the flank of the mountain itself. It was obviously built as a keep, and I would hate to have to attack a garrison in it, but the New Kuhmbuhluhners just now are using it and the vast labyrinth of passages and chambers bored into the bulk of the mountain for magazines and stables. The crypt of their kings is in that mountain, too, which is why it is called King’s Rest Mountain. That crypt is most impressive, but even more impressive is a huge, deep, spring-fed subterranean lake within that mountain that supplies all of the water needs of the city and garrison.”
“And this garrison, Sir Djahn?” inquired Sir Djaimz, the senior colonel, “What are your impressions of it, as regards quantities and qualities of troops, leadership and morale?”
“The titular leader and commander is, of course, King Byruhn, Sir Djaimz. He is a huge man who towers a good foot above average height and weighs, I would say, well in excess of twenty stone, though he is a veteran warrior and owns precious little if any fat on that big-boned frame. However, he seems preoccupied with some weighty matter and devotes little time to the garrison, leaving that to his senior captain, one Duke Bili of Morguhn, a lowlander mercenary from the east.”
Colonel Potter smirked. “Mercenary, hey? How much do you think he’d cost us to say ... leave a gate open one dark night?”
Sir Djahn shrugged. “I got to know him rather well, colonel, and I doubt me he could be bought for any price, not with his word already pledged to King Byruhn.”
Potter laughed. “Come, come, Sir Djahn, every mercenary has a price; for that matter, every man has a price.”
The herald eyed his questioner coldly and asked, “Is it so, colonel? Then what, pray tell, is your own price?”
“Now damn your eyes, Sir Djahn!” Potter’s chair crashed over as he came to his feet, his hand seeking the hilt of the sword he was not wearing just then, his features beet-red and working in rage.
The brigadier’s broad, callused palm slapped the table explosively. “Damn your eyes, Colonel Potter! Sit down and hold your tongue. Sit down, sirrah!”
Sulkily, Potter righted his chair and resumed his seat, staring malevolently from beneath his brows at Sir Djahn, but remaining silent, as ordered.
The brigadier nodded. “Now, let us continue the debriefing, gentlemen, if you so please.” He looked to Senior Colonel Sir Djaimz.
That officer asked, “All right, Sir Djahn, give us a thumbnail sketch of this Duke of Morguhn and the general command structure within the garrison of New Kuhmbuhluhnburk. How many of the nobles were disaffected by this condottiere being placed over them?”
“None, it would appear, Sir Djaimz. This Bili of Morguhn seems to be a universally popular officer and man. As regards my impressions of him, well ... he is above average height, though not so tall or heavily built as the king—six foot two or three, I’d venture to say, somewhere between fifteen and seventeen stone weight—a thick-bodied man, though not fat, nor in any way clumsy of movements.
“He wears the Order of the Blue Bear of Harzburk, and his accent, too, is of the Middle Kingdoms, though his duchy seems to lie in the Ehleen Confederation. How he and his condotta came to fight for New Kuhmbuhluhn, I have no idea, but it seems that this is the second year of their contract. Last year they served in the southerly reaches of the kingdom, I was told, against some primitive savages called Ganiks.”
The old brigadier nodded again. “Oh, yes, the cannibals. I’ve heard legends of how the ancestors of the modern-day Ohyohers drove that tribe across the river, years agone. But go on, Sir Djahn.”