Swiftly through the high East Gate they passed, while sentries on duty in the high towers watched, torchlight illuminating their somber faces. The clatter of iron-shod hooves was harsh against the flagstone streets as they rode past the central markets and down the tree-lined boulevards that led to the Square of the Prophet and the sacred temple. The palace walls loomed grimly ahead, ill-lit by the setting moon and the small handful of silver stars piercing through the thin layer of clouds.
In the still of the night, many a lamp was lighted. Curious citizens, wakened by the sound of trotting horses, sleepily peered out in growing trepidation. The midnight ride of soldiers from the frontier could only be an ill omen, and with wildly beating hearts they held their breath, wondering what grave news was about to be delivered.
The emir of Samarkand, aroused from a fretful sleep, walked from his private chambers and down the long palace corridors until he reached the spacious throne room. There he took his place upon the resplendent throne and tensely waited. His fierce eyes were dimmed; lines of age and worry threaded across his drawn face. His forehead was tinged with tiny beads of perspiration that glistened in the dim candlelight. Around his throat dangled a thick gold chain fastened securely in the front with a multicolored gemstone handed down by his forefathers, a stone like no other, symbol of both rank and title. His hands, usually powerful and steady, now trembled slightly as he clasped the armrests of his seat; his breathing had slowed and become, laborious, and he looked up slowly as Amrath, also rudely awakened by the guards, came cautiously into the room. The noble took his place silently at the right of the throne, and the emir sighed deeply, painfully aware of the absence of his trusted minister and advisor, Hezekiah, who now lay close to death.
The riders strode into the room proudly, uniforms soiled and sweaty, giving somber testimony to their arduous ordeal of the past few days. They bowed low before the emir, hands in the traditional pyramid, fingers touching their foreheads. The emir stretched out his hand and bade them stand. A servant quickly offered them each a goblet filled with sweet juice which they gratefully drank before relating their news.
“I bear a message from General Le-Dan,” said the first, refreshed from his drink and refusing the servant’s offer of another. He placed the silver goblet back on the tray and looked at his liege squarely, his eyes tired and bloodshot. “Our forces have been defeated at the river,” he began. “Le-Dan has been forced to retreat.”
Amrath stared at the emir with shock. The king of Samarkand shifted his weight uneasily and beckoned the soldier to come closer. “Is that all?” he asked.
The messenger shied his eyes from the stare. A long shadow from the throne crossed over him as the emir leaned forward.
“No, my lord. The Huns have crossed into empire lands by the thousands — tens of thousands. They have pillaged every village in their path and burned every field. Many people have been butchered under the direction of this Hun King” — his mouth turned down contemptuously — “and those unable to reach the safety of the mountains have been captured and made slaves, the men to work as beasts of burden, the women to become camp followers and whores to serve the Hun army.”
“And Le-Dan?” asked Amrath. “What of the general?”
“Safe for now, but our forces have yet been unable to regroup. A counterattack has still to be planned, but it is the general’s hope to at least slow down the enemy advance and give you time —”
“Time?” The emir knit his bushy brows and looked at the messenger uncomprehendingly. “Time for what?” The soldier fidgeted. He had already grieved and incurred the wrath of his liege and was reluctant to aggravate him further, but his orders had been implicit, given by Le-Dan himself: He must not hold back anything, no matter how painful it might be. “The general believes that the Huns will not be content to merely hold the lands they have taken. He expects a direct assault to be mounted immediately.”
“An assault upon closer provinces?” said Amrath.
The messenger let his eyes drift to the aggrieved ambassador. “An attack upon the city itself.”
The emir was aghast; it was difficult for him to control his shaking hands. “These Huns would never dare!” he seethed. “Our garrisons will be alerted across every shire and province; we’ll mount a display of force that will send this barbarian army fleeing back across the river at the very sight of us!”
The look the soldier gave Amrath convinced him that the emir’s hopes were at best far-fetched, at worse, the utterings of a man demented.
“At what strength has Le-Dan estimated their army to be?” asked Amrath.
The young man shuddered; he had been there at the battle, in the thick of combat, and stood his ground as bravely as any other soldier when the Huns had overrun them completely. Eight thousand men had fought the scourge, holding the heights while the Huns crossed the river in their boats and then mounted their horses. Eight thousand had been there to block the endless thrust. Now fully six thousand lay dead across the dark fields, the rest running away like cowards as the advance of the enemy only increased as the day wore thin and the long night began.
“Such numbers as I have never seen,” said the soldier at last to his listeners. “They come with ten thousand beasts and as many horses. Lumbering machines of war follow closely behind — massive structures as high as Samarkand’s walls themselves, each with towers jammed with dozens of archers. Their infantry has no end; thousands fell beneath Samarkand arrows, but for each who died, there were two to take his place.”
“And cavalry?”
“Wild barbarians who ride like the wind, devils on horseback who heave glittering swords from their saddles and never once break stride.”
Amrath nodded; he had been carefully following the reports since the day the Huns were first sighted. He knew that this brave youth had neither exaggerated nor sought to defend Samarkand’s loss with lame excuses.
The emir frowned. “You may leave,” he told the messengers. “Billet yourselves in the kitchens and be on call. I may require that Le-Dan be given a message of our own.”
The soldiers bowed low; then, tossing their cloaks behind, they pivoted with smart military about-face and marched from the throne room, leaving the emir and his advisor alone in the chilled night.
There were tears welling in the emir’s eyes as he faced his longtime friend and advisor. Fear welled in his gut and it was all he could do to stop the terrible shaking. “Amrath, what are we to do? Is all lost to us now?” His weakness was all too apparent to Amrath; the emir was incapable of facing the situation, at least rationally. For almost a lifetime he had ignored the strife and dangers that had steadily been growing like weeds throughout the garden of the empire. Now those weeds were about to lay fallow the land, and the emir did not understand why. But whose fault was this? Amrath painfully asked himself. While the emir bandied about with his horses and his games, his toy soldiers and his concubines, what had others done to fill the gap?
The answer was obvious and filled with regret: nothing. Like the emir, they too had soaked the kingdom, alienating Samarkand’s peoples while living in a dream world of ages past, when the empire truly had been invincible. Like gluttons they had feasted — all of them — sheltering themselves within the palace walls, pretending that the world around them remained unchanged. No, casting blame upon the emir now was pointless.
The emir stood up shakily, his face as white as a sheet. He put his hands to his temples and massaged them slowly. “I … I must think,” he mumbled. “I need time … Perhaps by morning we can speak of these matters again.”
“Forgive me, my lord,” said Amrath, stepping in front of him, “but these matters cannot wait. Urgency demands we take positive action at once.”
The emir waved his hand wearily. “No, no, not now. Send for the commander of our southern forces, if you will. Call council for noon tomorrow. But don’t wake me too early; I am tired.”
“But, my lord!”
Amrath’s plea was ignore
d. The emir stepped down from his throne and shuffled from the chamber. “The Huns will never dare lay siege to Samarkand,” he muttered. “The messengers were wrong. Le-Dan is wrong. He must be replaced. Yes, yes, that’s it. We’ll find a new general to lead our armies, and I shall be there to watch his glorious victory. Upon my boldest steed I will ride, at the very head of our forces. The banners will flutter in the wind and our people shall cheer as we pass.” He turned around and looked at the mute advisor, his eyes glazed. “Alert the stableboys to have my white stallion ready in the morning. Instruct the servants to search my harem for a new woman; I’m cold tonight and have need of warmth.”
And then he was gone, his muffled footsteps slow upon the stones. Amrath stood as he was and put his head in his hands. The news of the disaster had been the final breaking point. The emir had lost his mind; he was as deranged as the maddest monk, useless to both himself and the people he served.
The glory of Samarkand had come to an end.
Chapter Five
The machines and armies of war rumbled throughout the land. With each passing day the menace of the Huns came ever closer, sweeping to the south and the west, steadily heading in the direction of the once all-powerful beleaguered city.
Panic invaded even the peaceful, serene countryside. Farmers gathered their families and their cattle and fled over every road while the Huns pushed on behind, cutting a wide swathe of terror, their advance troops ravaging all that stood in their way. Entire villages were burned and elders put to the sword, drawn and quartered, castrated before the horrified eyes of their families, bodies left to rot in dry ditches and gullies. And amid the raging, uncontrollable fires the Huns marched on, easily defeating each pocket of resistance, subjugating the pitiful survivors and claiming them as chattel in the name of their dreaded khan, Kabul the Hun, scourge of the East, a cold-blooded heathen who, in the name of his dark god Ulat, massacred the innocent by the tens of thousands.
For almost thirty years Kabul had been the bane of northern Rus, sending those tribes into bitter exile far from home while his masses carved a new empire atop the ashes of the dead left behind. Ten sons did the Hun king sire, each in the image of his hated father, each now in command of one of Kabul’s ten armies. As brutal as the man whose seed flowed through their veins, they led their legions across windswept lands, pushing ever south to warmer climes, depending on force and fear to instill loyalty among the many tribes they had conquered. And this number had no end: Harmaneks and Fuliwas in the north, the brave Sunnis of the mountains of the Indian subcontinent, Luwais in the south, Devishers in the east, Ashanites as well as Mongols and the Rus themselves — all these and more, in a new empire never dreamed of that one day would stretch from the heartland of Europe to the Great Wall of Cathay. Now these armies marched upon Samarkand, crossroad of the world, city of cities, from where the evil Hun intended to rule his empire forever.
*
Sharon cradled the Persian cat and watched from her rooms while the city struggled to protect herself. For weeks, now, a constant stream of frightened and exhausted peasants had swelled the population of the walled city. By the thousands they had come, some from as far away as the river lands, traveling on foot in sheer desperation to keep but a single pace in front of the advancing Huns. The city was in a state of constant turmoil. With the emir locked in his private quarters and refusing to see anyone, Amrath and a few others of the Imperial Council had been forced to take matters into their own hands. The results were both harsh and unpopular, but there had been no other way. Samarkand could no longer take inside her walls all those who came seeking refuge. There was a shortage of food, of shelter, of fresh water. Cleverly, the Huns, as they pressed from strategic point to strategic point, poisoned the wells and the streams, insuring that the city was daily cut off from new supplies. Already the storehouses were half emptied and severe rationing had been imposed. Among the squalid sections of the city, where refugees squatted helplessly in the open streets, there had been reports of starvation and disease. Fanatical mullahs now openly called for insurrection and stirred much of the populace into a frenzy while the Singers of Doom proclaimed Judgment Day.
Majesty arched his back, retracted his claws, and sprang lithely from Sharon’s arms to the sun-baked stone of the balcony floor. The princess paid no heed as he hissed at a potted plant; she leaned forward, hands firm at the rounded guard rail, and peered below.
The sullen crowd outside the palace gates had turned ugly. A doom-singing mullah stood upon a flat roof, his arms raised to the heavens as he cried for the palace gates to be opened. A cohort of silent guards manning the turrets and long outer wall observed him coldly and carefully, ignoring his pleas and holding their places bastionlike to keep the crowd from pressing in closer.
The palace had become a fortress, Sharon knew, as much beset by enemies within as the city was by her enemies without, and each day saw matters grow only worse.
The shadow of a man crossed over the wall, and Sharon turned to see the silent figure of Zadek approach. The mad priest flexed his jaw at the calls of the Singer of Doom, then, toying with a silver pomander secured to the belt of his robe by a thin cord chain, greeted the young princess with the traditional bow.
It was the first time she had seen him since the night of his admitted secret. These past weeks Zadek had not left the sanctuary of his rooms once. Now he stood before her hesitantly, unsure of his welcome. Sharon could bear no hatred, though, and she smiled as she rose. “I have missed you, teacher.”
Together they surveyed the city below, neither speaking, feeling the shimmering heat that rose from the pavements. A hot, sultry wind was blowing, carrying with it the dust of the distant desert, which settled thinly across the length and breadth of Samarkand. A bad omen, thought Sharon.
Zadek, in his strange way, lifted his eyes skyward and stared at the perfect quarter moon hanging like a dagger sheath above the tallest of the steeples. Beyond the city walls a great caravan had assembled and begun to move, south and eastward toward the closest frontier.
The foreign merchants had gathered their goods and wares, burdened their beasts until they almost staggered under the weight, and led them over the rugged terrain. Slowly the camels marched, trekking in a single line for as far as the eye could see.
“The rats are already deserting,” observed the princess with open bitterness. Unescorted, vulnerable to both sandstorm and attack, the merchants had decided to flee rather than stay and wait.
“‘Tis better they go,” replied the mullah. “Samarkand has no place for those who would not stay and defend her.”
She turned to Zadek, her luminous eyes wet. “And you, teacher? Why do you stay? Surely you could find refuge among the Kazirs.”
He shook his head strongly, sighing and closing his eyes. “My place is here, Sharon, as much as your own.”
She drew close to him, took his callused hand, and squeezed it. “Forgive me for hating you, teacher. I was wrong — wrong about so many things.”
Zadek squelched the lump in his throat. For himself there was no fear; he had already lived a long and full life. Only Allah could call him away now, and when that time came, he would be ready. But for Sharon he grieved, grieved more than he could tell her; her life had yet to begin.
Night closed in swiftly; in the distance, merely the faintest glow across the horizon, he could see the dull glow of red — the night fires of the Huns, the vanguard of Kabul’s armies, now less than three days’ march from Samarkand. The battle was about to begin.
*
For long, tense days the Hun army gathered strength, spreading its array of forces in every direction until Samarkand was completely surrounded. By the thousands the tents were set, less than two leagues from the great walls themselves. The siege was on. Maneuver followed countermaneuver. Amrath set the city’s forces on full alert; towers were fortified and archers manned every, meter of space across the long crenellated walls. Pitch, bail, boiling water, and other defensive we
apons against the onslaught were daily carried to the highest points in the watchtowers, while the Huns slowly brought their offensive strength into full play. From one end of the vast open plain before the city to the other, the terrible machines of war rumbled into position, massive wheels groaning beneath incredible weight, causing the soil below to tremble as they rolled.
Huge towers had been constructed and fortified with sheets of iron, each tower carrying a half-dozen platforms of solid oak, connected with ladders and jammed with soldiers. One by one the towers were rolled closer, steadily moving a cautious path closer to the main gates, while the archers of Samarkand raised their bows and waited.
Then came the engines: awesome machines well tested previously in the storming of cities, such as ballistas of such sturdy framework as to support javelins three meters in length. Behind the framework were mounted flexible strips of timber light enough to be hauled back by a windlass and then released with such force as to drive the missile forward with impact enough to smash a wall a meter thick. Iron-tipped spears were hauled in wagons so heavy that entire teams of mules had to struggle merely to reach the machines.
Mangonels rumbled forward, wooden arms with spoon-shaped ends well mounted and solidly braced. The base of each arm was lashed to a crossbeam, the lashing springing the arm’s action. Over the crossbars the arm would fling, catapulting forward hulking rocks of dead weight from a far distance. One direct hit would be more than enough to shatter even the most fortified turret and send it crumbling to the ground.
Samarkand the Omnibus: Books 1-2 Page 6
