“And this underground lake has never been dry?” Bili probed. “Its level never fluctuates?”
“Never, Lord Champion,” the Kleesahk assured him. “Even in the very aridest of drought years has the flow stayed clear and cold and copious. I think, as did the good King Mahrtuhn, that some mighty river must flow far, far beneath King’s Rest Mountain, so far down that it is unaffected by events upon the skin of earth and rock upon which we all dwell.”
“The Hold of the Moon Maidens was watered by such spring-fed lakes and pools,” put in Rahksahnah. “A few of them were of an icy coldness, but most were warm and some were boiling hot. It was these that kept the hold at an even temperature all of each year; even when snow and ice lay heavy upon the surrounding mountains and valleys, still did grain and other food crops and even bright flowers grow and ripen in the hold.
“The very ground and rocks themselves were warm to the touch, in our lost hold, so that the cold water falling from above rose up and often shrouded much of the land in a soft mist.”
“The northern safe-glen, that one now squatted upon by the Skohshuns, has three hot springs,” attested Pah-Elmuh.
“It is never so warm of winters as that one you describe, my lady, but even so it never is as cold as are the surrounding lands.”
“I would much like to see this glen, Pah-Elmuh,” beamed the brahbehrnuh. “Could such be arranged, perhaps it might serve as a new home for those of the Maidens of the Silver Lady who still hunger for the old ways, the ways of the hold. They would have to choose a new brahbehrnuh, of course, for my way now lies with my Bili and our little son, but I think that Kahndoot might fill that office far better than even I might have done, and she has yet to choose a man-mate.”
But Bili, anxious to gain knowledge of this position he might one day soon have to defend or, at least, share in defending, abruptly returned to the subject he had chosen.
“I can discern but the two gates, Pah-Elmuh, the one into the lower city and that one up ahead, leading into the keep. Is there then no way to secretly sally out to prick a besieger? So meticulous a planner, so skilled a soldier as this King Mahrtuhn clearly was must surely have provided such a necessary convenience for those who might one day have to defend his city.”
“There is assuredly such a way,” beamed the Kleesahk. “It is tunneled through the mountain itself, and debouches into three branches, each leading to a well-concealed exit. Indeed, we passed close enough to one such to have touched the stones sealing it, today, on our approach to the city. Veteran as you are in the wars and ways of true-men, you did not note it, Lord Champion. Did you?”
“No, I did not,” admitted Bili ruefully. “Despite the fact that I was examining, seeking, searching out any true or possible weakness to the city’s approaches and defenses, I saw no trace of any tunnel mouth along the way we rode, Pah-Elmuh. Perhaps, had I dismounted, been afoot… ?”
“You still would not have found it, Lord Champion, even had you known the general area in which it lies. Nor can the mighty stones sealing it be shifted from without… certainly not by true-men. Nor are the other two egresses any less%well concealed and inaccessible from without.”
Up from the city streets, an inclined ramp led along the face of the elevation on which crouched the citadel. This way was broad for the most of its length—broad enough, thought Bili, for two large wains or wagons to pass abreast—with a balustrade of stone blocks along its outer edge to prevent mishaps and a bed corduroyed for better traction on the grade.
But at the top, where the roadway became almost level, the way narrowed considerably after taking a sharp turn to the right. Directly before them squatted a massive dressed-stone gatehouse, consisting of a brace of thirty-foot towers joined well above road level and housing strong-looking, double-valved gates between inner and outer portcullises of iron-sheathed, massy oaken timbers.
Beyond these outer works, a movable bridge spanned a chasm some twenty feet broad and as deep, seemingly, as the outer works were high. Bili decided that while the chasm might originally have been a natural feature, it had been deliberately broadened and deepened and rendered more regular in form, as was readily apparent to an experienced eye. Even the array of jagged boulders littering its bed seemed too evenly distributed to be entirely natural.
Like those of the city below, the citadel walls were massive but low—little higher than the gatehouse towers, in fact. No towers were built into the walls, and the mighty chains and thick cables for raising the bridge disappeared between merlons atop the walls. Another of the oak-and-iron grilles and another double-valved gate somewhat less thick than that in the outer works gave entry to the bailey of the citadel.
Due principally to the fact that most of the necessary outbuildings were built against or into the inner face of the protective wall, the bailey itself was relatively open and uncluttered. Aside from the palace—a rambling, two-story structure that reminded Bili of nothing so much as a vastly enlarged rendition of the hall at Sandee’s Cot—the most notable features were the commodious stables and the countless stacks of cordwood, piles of charcoal, and covered mounds of baled hay or straw.
The keep itself, the place of final refuge if city, outer works and bailey all had fallen to a determined and overpowering foe, was a half tower, built against and into the very mountain which reared up behind the smaller plateau. Huge as were the worked stones of the walls of city and citadel, they were dwarfed by the mighty courses of the half tower. And high as had been the lakeside tower that dominated Sandee’s Glen and Cot, this one seemed to rear to at least twice that height, soaring up to within bare rods of the summit of the very mountain.
Young Bili thought to himself that if all this—the city and its defenses, the citadel, with its outer and inner works and this patently invulnerable keep—had been the plannings of King Mahrtuhn I, the man had been nothing less than a military genius. Old Sir Ehd Gahthwahlt, High Lord Milo’s siegemaster and senior fortress architect, would die shriveled with envy if ever he saw these masterpieces of defensive architecture and engineering.
Although of more than seventy years, King Mahrtuhn II of New Kuhmbuhluhn showed precious few signs of advanced age and none of senility. A few strands of dark red still were evident in his yellowish-white hair, and intelligence sparkled in his gray-green eyes under brows almost as shaggy as those of his son, Prince Byruhn.
For all that he was seated in a highbacked armchair, it was apparent that the elderly monarch was still both fit and muscular, his sinewy, callused hands resting easily upon his flat horseman’s thighs. He lacked the height and massive breadth of Byruhn, but still, had he been standing, Bili thought that they two would easily have been able to stare eye to eye.
The man who lounged casually against the right side of the heavy carven and inlaid chair resembled the king far more than did Prince Byruhn, matching feature for craggy feature with the king Bili now was sworn to serve. So very close was the resemblance that the young thoheeks felt sure a glance at the lounger showed an accurate picture of the King Mahrtuhn of forty-odd years agone—thin, straight nose seeming to grow directly from the high forehead, shaggy brows and close-cropped hair of a dark red verging on auburn, protuberant cheekbones and broad chin, lips neither overthin nor over-thick but hinting a ready smile, ears large and outjutting with pendulous lobes, hands large and square and the backs of them thickly furred with crinkly red hair.
The body shapes of the two were not the broad-shouldered and thin-waisted and almost hipless ideal so favored by the Ehleenee of Bili’s homeland, but much closer in conformantion to his own powerful young body. The shoulders were broad and thick enough, rolling with muscle even on the elder man, but there was none of the tapering so loved by the Ehleenee; rather were the waists almost as thick as the chests, sitting upon hips almost as wide as the shoulders. Bili reflected that if both the royal personages were not, by choice, axemen, they had missed their calling and wasted nature’s gifts.