Authors: Sam Barone
He had led his horse down into the ditch, walked it carefully across the muck, then helped it scramble up at the other side.
Now he could ride back and forth as needed, keeping an eye on things and giving directions. His four bodyguards followed on foot behind him, no doubt cursing the heat and their captain’s idea of exercise. Mostly, though, he sat and watched, letting the men know that he was there, while Nicar and others from the Families directed the actual work.
Esk kar heard his name called and looked up toward the wall. Trella waved at him, surprised to find him on the far side of the ditch. He waved back at her, feeling like an apprentice on holiday, before he rode slowly toward the front of the village.
At the southeast corner of the wall he stopped and watched his men’s progress. Not that they looked much like men any longer. Rather they seemed to be made of mud themselves, having fallen so many times.
Esk kar looked east toward the barbarian party now less than a half - mile away, just out of long bowshot. As he stared another twenty or so riders joined the first party. They pointed their bows at him. Three of them rode toward him, staying out of range and shouting challenges at him, offering him a chance to fight them in single combat.
Ignoring them Esk kar turned his horse past the corner of the wall and rode toward the front gate, his animal picking its way carefully around the bodies and the remains of the burnt carts. The horse shied repeatedly at the corpses, snorting and jerking its head, as disturbed by the stink as any of the men. Esk kar kept his knees locked tight on the beast’s ribs. Reaching the area in front of the main gate, he surveyed the damage.
Even though the gate was blackened by fire before the attack, he could see where the flames of the Alur Meriki had done their mischief. The cracks caused by the ram seemed large to him, but if Corio professed himself happy with the repairs, then it must be satisfactory. He had a big crew of men at work, making sure that the ground beneath the gate stayed firm and cleared of obstacles. A dozen ropes dangled from above, should the men need to be pulled quickly back into the village. The gate would not open until the Alur Meriki departed.
A shout from the wall made him turn, and Esk kar saw the barbarian party had swelled to more than sixty or seventy riders. By now they realized he must be someone of importance, probably by the way the villagers cheered and shouted as he passed them. Esk kar moved on, walking the horse slowly toward the northeast corner, inspecting the ditch and the wall, trying to put himself in the mind of his enemies, trying to guess their next point of attack. When he reached the corner, he saw that a dozen warriors had paralleled his course, staying out of range, but watching his movements.
His guards looked nervous, fingering their swords and constantly watching the barbarians, but the line of archers on the wall kept the enemy at bay. Esk kar knew the Alur Meriki must be sorely tempted to ride in close enough to launch a wave of arrows, but they seemed unwilling to risk the danger, especially since Esk kar could easily ride away from them.
The villagers continued to clear the bodies and by noon they had worked their way around from both sides to reach the front. By his order bodies not in the ditch would be left alone, so plenty of stinking corpses would remain. But Esk kar wasn’t willing to risk villagers or soldiers’ lives any further than the ditch. Turning the horse he came slowly down the north side, splashing a little into the swamp, letting himself feel the mud’s stickiness as the animal sank to its fetlocks in the man - made marsh and had to struggle to free itself.
At the rear of the village the activity continued at full speed. Bodies arrived steadily and were untied from the animals. Men dragged the corpses down to the river’s edge where other laborers pushed them over the embankment. Then they used long poles to shove the dead out into the current. In a few more moments the work would be done. The river looked cool and inviting. Impulsively Esk kar swung down from the horse and handed the halter to his guards.
“I’m going to take a swim,” he announced as he unbuckled his sword and stripped off his tunic, grinning at the nervousness in their eyes. “If anyone wants to join me, come on in.” None of them moved and in a moment, he dove in, about fifty paces above where they were dumping the bodies. Here the water flowed fresh and clean and he soon felt refreshed and cooled. He refused to think about those who would be drinking the water downstream for the next few days.
Esk kar swam for only a minute or two, just enough to feel clean, before he climbed out. After drying his body with his tunic, he took the horse by the halter and guided the animal slowly down into the ditch and then through the mud until he and his guards had reached safety back across the ditch.
He stopped outside the gate and watched as the villagers shoved the last of the bodies into the river. With the filthy job finished, villagers and soldiers followed Esk kar’s example, jumping into the river, laughing as they washed off the dirt and blood, and splashing water on each other.
They looked cheerful, their task done.
The last work crew continued, their task almost completed as well. More than eighty villagers, mostly women and old men, wielded rakes, planks, and shovels, to rake the mud as level as possible. Wielding their implements, they smoothed the mud and filled in any holes. Another backbreaking task, but one that needed to be done properly to insure the even fl ow of water.
A boy came over to take his horse back to the stable, but Esk kar waited at the rear gate, watching until everyone finished their work and the last man and woman passed back inside. The guards pushed the gate closed, then barred it.
As the men passed by, Esk kar spoke to them, thanking them for their work. That had been Trella’s idea, to make sure the villagers knew they’d been forgiven and to let everyone know he appreciated their efforts. Those disgraced by their cowardice now felt absolved, and he no longer saw any sullen or dejected looks on their faces, though he’d seen plenty of both this morning when he ordered them into the ditch. He felt surprised, though, at the looks they gave him in return. They had pride again and seemed glad he had noticed their work and thought it important enough to join them outside the wall.
Walking back home he found Trella upstairs, helping Annok
-
sur
change Bantor’s bandages. Bantor looked even better than he had this morning, though Esk kar knew there was an even chance the man would die. Sometimes wounded men, no matter how strong physically, would suddenly take a turn for the worse and die, even after they seemed to be recovering. Bantor’s eyes held many questions, so Esk kar sat down and described what had happened, though his subcommander had probably already heard most of it from Annok - sur.
They dined that night outside in the courtyard, at the same table where the morning’s meetings occurred. Gatus, Jalen, Totomes, Corio, Nicar, and Trella sat at the big table, joined by two of the Hawk Clan. Alexar would take over the duties of Maldar, and Grond, who had been recommended for promotion by Gatus. Alexar, a small man, with a thin wiry body, claimed to have been a thief before he joined the soldiers. Grond was his opposite, tall, just a shade under Esk kar’s height but broader in the shoulders. Grond’s back showed marks from the lash. According to Gatus, Grond had been a slave in the distant lands to the west, but had escaped and found his way to Orak. Both men served under Gatus in the fight across the river.
After dinner, everyone sipped their wine, relaxing a little. Esk kar brought up the ideas he’d considered during the day.
“Though we hurt them badly yesterday, the barbarians will be back,”
he began, “and this time they’ll be better prepared. They’ve lost many men and cannot afford to do so again. They’ve attacked the wall twice now with no success. So I think they’ll hurl the next assault at the gate. They’ll use more fire and find ways to protect their men while they attack.” He paused to give anyone a chance to speak up, but no one did.
“That kind of attack will take them many days to prepare, so they may try something else first, maybe a night attack.”
He paused, but nobody spoke. That silence had become more frequent.
After each victory his words were received with more and more importance. Now anything he said was taken almost as if coming from the gods, and lately he had to prompt them for their ideas and opinions.
“Gatus, keep the wall manned each night, with men every twenty paces.
I want them awake and alert. Keep the watches short so they don’t get sleepy, and make sure they know the punishment for not being alert. During the day ensure they get plenty of sleep and that they are not awake gambling or wasting time with their women.”
At least he didn’t have to worry much about them getting drunk. Wine and ale were in short supply and the price of what little remained had gone up sharply.
The meeting ended and everyone went their way. In bed Esk kar took Trella in his arms and held her close. “The next few days will be hard ones, Trella. I worry more now than I did before the first attacks. Then, I felt certain we could surprise them. But after two attacks, they know how strong we are, and they’ll be wary and cunning. And they’re angry, filled with revenge for those we have killed.”
“Perhaps they’ll give up. Even if they could take the village, they know that they will lose many more men.”
“That’s what everyone would like to believe, but warriors don’t like to be beaten. They’ll fi ght harder, if anything. They’d be shamed in front of their women if they just slunk away.”
“Then there is nothing we can do but defeat them when they come.”
–-
Ten days slipped by. Each morning as dawn broke, the men on the wall searched the plain before them, saw nothing, and breathed a sigh of relief. Today would not be the day. Bands of warriors occasionally rode about, but little could be seen, with most of the encampment behind the hills. The less activity they showed, the more Eskkar worried.
Almost every night brought some new threat. For the barbarians, the night gave them an easy opportunity to keep the villagers off guard. Using the cover of darkness, men would slip up to the wall, fire a few arrows at the sentries, then disappear. Sentries covered themselves with leather, but men still fell dead or wounded. By the time soldiers hoisted torches over the wall, the attackers were gone, and seldom did the soldiers have a target. Besides the cost in men, the antics kept everyone on edge and losing sleep.
Tonight Esk kar had little to say to Trella. He’d held her until she fell asleep, then rolled onto his back, wide awake, thinking about the besiegers.
If he had enough men at their rear, even a hundred would do, he could attack the enemy and disrupt the camp, burn their wagons, scatter the horses. But he was not in their rear, he was trapped inside Orak with no way to get out.
Meanwhile, the barbarians continued with their preparations. The thought made him uneasy, so he got out of bed, pulling a tunic over his body and slipping out of the bedroom. Moving silently, he descended to the main floor, then out into the courtyard. A torch burned there at all times and the guards walked by, alert even at the end of a long day.
Esk kar nodded at those manning the command table, but walked toward the rear of the house. He sat on the bench, facing the trees where Natram - zar had been tortured. Already that time seemed long in the past, a mere trifle hardly worth considering.
One pleasant memory remained, however. A few feet from the base of the tree, where it came closest to the wall, Caldor’s head had been buried deep in the earth. Both young Drigo and Caldor had insulted Trella, and both were dead, a fact all in Orak knew well. Caldor had even put his hands on Trella’s body, but that would never happen again. No man would ever touch her and live.
Esk kar returned his thoughts to the Alur Meriki. He stared into the darkness, wondering what they would do next. He needed a spy, he decided, someone who knew their councils. If only he had a way to visit their camp, spend a day or two there, observing and listening. But no one could get out of Orak. The attackers had sealed up the village too well.
A shadow moved on the ground. He looked up and found Trella in front of him, a cloak wrapped around her body, though the night air held little chill.
“I thought you found it pleasant in our bed,” she said quietly. “Or do you plan to sleep in the garden?” She sat down and leaned against him.
Esk kar put his arm around her and inhaled the scent of her hair. “I couldn’t sleep. I started thinking about the barbarians, wondering what they’re planning, where they’ll attack next.”
“You always seem to know what they think. Are their plans a mystery now?”
“Yes. They’ve many clan leaders, and right now they’re all thinking about the same thing. They wonder about the best way to crack the nut Orak has become. How can they get past the ditch and the wall, or through the gate, so they can kill all of us? And now they have a new problem—
how to do it without losing too many more warriors. So they prepare themselves and when they’re ready, they’ll attack.”
He sighed. “Perhaps the gods will smile on us.”
“The gods have already smiled on us. Nobody can doubt that, not even the priests. Why do you think they’ve been so quiet these last few months?
They know you’re touched by the gods.”
The thought of the priests always brought a frown to his face. In the past the quarreling priests and their demanding gods had caused trouble enough in Orak, though the danger from the Alur Meriki had quieted them down. The less he had to do with them the better.
She rested her head on his shoulder, the cloak coming loose. She wore nothing beneath it.
He slipped his hand inside the garment and felt the heat from her body.
Her breast felt soft and heavy in his hand. Esk kar settled back, letting himself enjoy a moment of pleasure.
She relaxed under his touch, closing her eyes, then lifting her face to his. “It’s time for bed, and this time I’ll make sure you go to sleep.”