The remainder of the march was accomplished in easy stages, an initial encampment of several days allowing the squadron real rest, hot, plentiful, well-cooked food, and time to dry out blankets and clothing and perform much-needed maintenance on weapons and equipment that had remained damp for too long.
The free farmers and stockmen of the countryside through which the column passed proved friendly, generous to a fault and eagerly anticipatory of their needs. Locals were quick to point out the best areas for night camps, and, like as not, when the main column arrived at these sites, cordwood would be all neatly stacked and some cattle slaughtered, skinned, rough-dressed and hung on frames, ready for the butchering.
Bili, himself a landholder and fully cognizant of the costs of such lavish hospitality, protested to the petty nobleman of New Kuhmbuhluhn who stood waiting with the wood and meat on the occasion of the third halt, citing among other things his lack of funds to pay for the provender.
But the bandy-legged knight only smiled good-naturedly, saying, “If nothing else, it would be the least we could do fer you and yer squadron, my lord duke, especially when you come all the way up from Ganikland to help us drive the damn Skohshuns back where they come from. Even was all of the cost to come outen us, it would be but simple thanks, but”—here he grinned widely—“Prince Byruhn, he’ll make up some of it all to us, sooner or later. So eat hearty and fret not. Come to that, me and my fellers, we’ll even help yer folks to set up things, then help ‘em to eat up them steers, too.”
Sir Yoo Folsom—blond, blue-eyed, looking to be just approaching middle age and bearing enough scars to show that he had earned his title the hard way, even if the land was his by right of birth—and his men proved as good as his offer. All pitched to with a will in helping the squadron to do the multitudinous chores necessary to set up camp, lay and start the cookfires, then butcher the carcasses for quick, easy cooking.
Sir Yoo sent back one of the larger wagons with a double team, and before the beef was done, it and another laden wagon had arrived with beer for the bulk of the squadron and wine and brandy for the officers. Apparently sensing new protests from Bili, the knight made haste to justify these new and even*more lavish gifts.
“Look at it this way, if you please, m’lord duke. The lives of you and yer fine force are going to be on the line right along with mine own soon enough. If we all live and win out o’er these Skohshuns, why then there’ll doubtless be many another harvest to refill my cellars, while if we lose, then none of us will be around to quaff. So far better we do so now than leave such good fare for the damned invaders. Eh?”
So Bili gave over arguments and remonstrations, and soon the only wholly sober creatures in the camp—aside from the picket lines and the herd of remounts—were the Kleesahks and the prairiecat, Whitetip, all of whom took up the job of guarding the camp with their nonhuman keen senses, while carrying on a silent conversation concerning the hardly comprehensible foibles of the races of true-mankind.
The high-riding moon had been new when they had departed Sandee’s Cot, far to the southeast; it was once more new when—all polished, burnished, brushed, currycombed and clad in their finest—they clattered through the main gate of New Kuhmbuhluhnburk and thence up High Street, bound for the citadel complex set above the city proper on its own much smaller plateau.
Bili of Morguhn had liked what he had seen in approaching this capital city of the monarch they all now were serving. There were but two approaches up the flanks of the mountain— one from due south and another from southeast and both converging a good quarter mile shy of the outer defenses, leaving but the single road up to the gates. The young commander also noted that although the underlying road had been hewn from the living stone of the mountain, it was overlaid with a corduroy of well-worn logs, and he doubted not that somewhere in or on the defenses above, there awaited vats or tuns of oil with which those very logs over which he and his column now rode might be drenched, then fired with an enemy upon them.
Sitting on the lap of the mountain, New Kuhmbuhluhnburk had scant need of defensive walls, so the arc of walls it did have were low—no more than about ten yards high, Bili guessed—but they looked every bit as solid as the living stone beneath them. Built by the Kleesahk and the even huger pure blood Teenéhdjook, the stones were the largest dressed masonry that Bili had ever before seen, and he doubted that the siege engine to breach them existed. Not even those made for him last summer by the Kleesahks themselves could have damaged those walls in less than two or three years of steady pounding.
No, he thought, this New Kuhmbuhluhnburk would never fall to open attack, not with any decent sort of garrison. Did a reliable source of adequate water exist up there, along with ample provisions, the city could likely outlast the patience of any besiegers, too. That left only treachery from within, that or one of the deadly plagues that so often ran their course through garrisons and civil populations under siege.
On the ascending roadway, just beyond the outer works, Prince Byruhn and a score of peacock-bright noblemen had met Bili and, after requisite courtesies and a brief round of introductions, had joined with them to ride up to, into and through the city. Along broad, stone-paved streets they rode, between stone slate-roofed houses and lines of lustily cheering New Kuhmbuhluhnburkers.
Astride his big stallion, Mahvros—who gleamed like black onyx and proudly flaunted along in his high-stepping parade strut—beside the prince, with the silken banners of New Kuhmbuhluhn, Morguhn and the wolf device of Byruhn being borne just behind, Bili coolly wondered privately just how much of the noisy greetings of the populace was spontaneous and how much performed on orders from Byruhn or his royal sire.
Amid the tumult, conversation of any nature with the prince was an impossibility, but Bili, Rahksahnah and Pah-Elmuh the Kleesahk chatted via mindspeak.
“Pah-Elmuh,” beamed the young thoheeks, “in the event that these Skohshuns prove too numerous or powerful for whatever field army the kingdom finally manages to scrape together, how well supplied is this city to withstand a lengthy siege? Are there existing stores of food and forage? And how reliable is the supply of water?”
The powerful beaming of the Kleesahk replied, “Since first this city was built, there have always been reserve stores of grain, dried or smoked meats, pickled vegetables and suchlike. The first king always feared that his hateful enemies from the north might pursue him and pen him and his folk up herein, and this precaution is now become habitual. But I have been long away from New Kuhmbuhluhnburk and I therefore know not just what quantities lie available. For that information, you must confer with Prince Byruhn. As to forage, I know not, but few beasts have ever been lodged within the walls at any one time; most are kept on the plain, below, and brought up as needed.
“Within the bowels of the mountain is a huge lake fed by many small springs in its bed. Years agone, this lake’s overflow ran out of the side of the mountain, across the smaller plateau whereon the citadel now stands, then down its nearer slope and partway around its base to pour down the northern flank of the mountain.
“Good King Mahrtuhn I, when first he chose this site for the city he envisioned, showed the Teenéhdjook and Kleesahk how to dam up this steady flow and then channel the resultant accumulation of water to supply the smaller and the larger plateaus with pure and plentiful water. Populous as that city he founded has become over the passing years, still is there no dearth of water for all purposes of those who here dwell.”