After a day’s ride, Temrai was stiff and sore, although he dared not admit it. He was, after all, the chief of a nation of horsemen.
‘We’ll stop here,’ he announced, when the pain at the base of his spine became more than he could bear. ‘There’s water, and we can camp under the trees.’
Jurrai shrugged. ‘There’s an hour more of daylight,’ he replied. ‘I was thinking we could make Okba ford before dark if we pressed on.’
‘We’ll stop here.’
‘All right.’ Jurrai reined in and slid off the back of his horse, landing easily on his toes. I could do that once, Temrai reflected in awe. Only a few months ago, I could do that. Instead, he waited until his companion’s back was turned before levering himself off the horse and alighting awkwardly on the side of his left foot.
Interesting, he reflected; I’ve known Jurrai since I was a kid and he was my father’s First Rider. Gods, how I looked up to him then; and now here he is, doing what I tell him to.
He decided to experiment.
‘Jurrai,’ he said, as casually as he could manage. ‘Run and fill my water bottle, would you?’ He held the bottle out, fully expecting a clip round the ear. Instead, Jurrai took it without a word and ran – yes, ran, after a hard day’s ride – down to the stream. Amazing, Temrai thought; I can order him about, almost as if I was my father…
Yes. Well, just because I can doesn’t mean I have to. ‘It’s all right,’ he called out, as Jurrai set about picking up sticks for the fire. ‘I’ll do that. You see to the horses.’
There was a grin on Jurrai’s face as he tied the hobbles and took off the bridles; of course, he knows me as well as I know myself, should do after all these years. Except he doesn’t know what happened while I was in the city. Not that there’s all that much to know.
‘Well, then,’ he said, once the fire was glowing (at least I can still light a fire; thank the gods for that) and they’d built the low wall of dry thorns that no traveller on the plains would think of neglecting when sleeping away from the caravan. ‘You’d better fill me in on what’s been happening.’
‘Apart from the main thing, not much,’ Jurrai replied, and at once embarked on a succinct but nonetheless interminable report that covered the state of the herd (including losses from wolves, disease, straying and beasts swept away in river crossings), old horses lost, new geldings broken in, milk yields, cheese production, the number of hides cured, tanned and in store; sundry quarrels, fights, conspiracies, adulteries, betrothals; the results of horse races, polo matches, chess games, archery tournaments and musical contests; a brief itinerary, with reports on the state of important roads, fords and mountain passes; old folk dead, children born, a few fatal accidents, injuries serious and trivial, illnesses lingering and likely to prove terminal; one man blinded for hamstringing his enemy’s horse; two tents blown away by a freak wind, all losses and damage made up by special dispensation of the chief from clan reserves; an abortive raid by bandits forestalled by an observant herd-boy (duly commended for his actions and rewarded with a horse from the chief’s own herd), a few arrows loosed, no stock lost or men hurt on either side.
‘And that’s about it,’ he concluded, taking a sip of water from his bottle. ‘How about you? I get the impression you got everything you went for.’
Temrai nodded. ‘If I say it’s going to be easy,’ he said, ‘the gods’ll hear and it won’t. Let’s say I’ve got a reasonable idea of what’s got to be done.’
‘And the city?’ Jurrai went on, avoiding his eye. ‘What about it? What’s it really like?’
‘Ah.’ Temrai shook his head. ‘Jurrai, you just won’t believe what it’s really like. It’s…’ He hesitated. ‘It’s different,’ he said.
‘Just different?’
‘Really different.’ Temrai gestured despairingly. ‘In small ways mostly, except for the really big differences, of course.’
‘Lord Temrai,’ Jurrai interrupted, his voice low and faintly sarcastic, ‘I find it hard to believe that a mere three months among the enemy have made you forget completely how to file a coherent report.’
Temrai looked up; angry at first, then ashamed of his anger. The voice had been his father’s, the soft, sardonic tone that cut more deeply than a hazel switch. He nodded abruptly.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Very well, then. It’ll be good practice for when we get back.’ He paused, and concentrated for a moment. ‘The walls of the City of the Sword on the sides that face the confluence of the two rivers are approximately forty-two feet high, eighteen feet thick at the base and fifteen at the top, so that two carts can pass each other on the walkway. There are watchtowers every hundred and fifty yards, each tower rising a further twenty-four feet above the line of the ramparts and capable of providing full cover for a dozen archers, a siege engine and a full crew of engineers. Each tower carries a store of fifteen hundred arrows and fifty projectiles for the engine, and guards the stairway connecting the rampart walkway with the ground.
‘The four gates on the landward side are each flanked with bastions, capable of accommodating two hundred archers, five of the ordinary siege engines and one of the heavier sort for use against siege towers and rams. The bridges that cross the rivers end in drawbridges, and the water is something in the order of twenty feet deep, although the bottom is reasonably firm. The walls and towers are in good repair, the drawbridge mechanisms are well-maintained and adequately shielded, and the engines are frequently examined and used for target practice by permanently assigned crews…’
Jurrai nodded. ‘Carry on,’ he said.
‘Once inside the walls,’ Temrai continued, ‘an invading force would be faced with severe difficulty in making an orderly advance in the event that the lower city is diligently defended. The streets are narrow enough to be readily blocked, and the arrangement of side streets and alleys would make it a relatively simple matter for an insurgent force to be outflanked and surrounded with very little warning. Setting fire to the lower city would probably result in the insurgents being trapped and unable to escape.
‘The defences are designed to be held by a relatively small number of men, and any number significantly above the optimum would most likely prove a hindrance rather than a help. I would put the optimum at roughly five thousand archers and three thousand men-at-arms, which more or less agrees with the numbers of trained men on standby at any given time. This force can be mobilised and in position within twenty minutes of the alarm being raised; there are also reserves of some ten thousand able-bodied men with the relevant training and equipment. As for military stores of all kinds, I wasn’t able to get any definite information, probably because none exists; they’ve been stockpiling for many years, and for all practical purposes the stores can be regarded as infinite, leaving aside the daily production capacity of the city arsenal.’
‘All right,’ Jurrai grunted. ‘But will they fight?’
Temrai nodded. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘No question of that. They are not an overtly warlike people, but their history is full of sieges and attempted assaults both by land and sea. They are brought up from childhood to expect attacks – the most recent attempt was thirty years ago, when an armada of significant size and quality was dispatched by a coalition of states from the western cities, which was effectively destroyed by the long-range siege engines installed on the sea walls before the ships were able to come within bowshot. They claim to have sunk over two hundred vessels in the course of one day, and the claim is credible if you’ve seen the engines.’
‘So,’ Jurrai said, ‘suppose you’ve managed to force the lower city. What then?’
Temrai nodded. ‘The wall dividing the lower city from the second city is not as tall or as thick as the land wall, but the gradient on which it stands and the crowded nature of the buildings at its foot make it, if anything, a more daunting proposition. The watchtowers are of a similar pattern, and are placed at intervals of a hundred yards; they hold only a token garrison, but are fully supplied with arrows and other stores. The main granaries are all in the second city, as are the principal cisterns from which the lower city draws its water. In an emergency, there would be enough room for the entire population to withdraw to the second city should it prove necessary to evacuate, and plans for this contingency have been in existence for many years and are well-known to the citizens, although there hasn’t been a full evacuation drill for some years. About the upper city I have no information, as only a few high-ranking officials are allowed to go there; there are rumoured to be large rainwater tanks and separate granaries up there, and a permanent garrison of elite troops who form the Emperor’s personal guard.’