by David Weber
Genius inventor from apprentice smith, commander of the Guard from simple guardsman, second in command from a family of fish-gutters. That was K’Vaern’s Cove . . . and it was why he would willingly lay down his life for it.
Kar slid the telescope closed again and tapped it on one true-hand, his lower arms crossed in thought.
“It’s a relief column,” he said.
“Damned small one, then,” Flain responded. “Barely three thousand.”
“But what three thousand?” Kar mused. “The Northerners’ lead banner is that of Therdan.”
“Impossible,” Flain scoffed. “It was overrun in the first wave!”
“True. But there were rumors that some of them had escaped. And the banner next to it is Sheffan’s. They’re all supposed to be dead, too, you know. But the really interesting thing is the banner at the head of those spearmen.” Tor looked a question at him, and Kar grunted a chuckle. “It’s the River.”
“Diaspra?” Flain said in astonishment. “But . . . they would never. They don’t involve themselves in wars at all.”
“This war is different,” Kar pointed out. “But what I don’t understand are all the turom and pagee. There seem to be an awful lot of them for a relief column that size. It’s almost more like a giant caravan, and there are some figures out there—strange ones that look a bit like women but are obviously something else. Many of them are on the pagee, too.”
He opened the telescope yet again, peered through it for long, thoughtful minutes. Then, suddenly, he gave a whoop of delight.
“That’s what they’re packing!”
“What?” Flain asked.
“Iron, by Krin! Those beasts are loaded with iron bars!”
“They must’ve come by way of Nashtor,” the second in command mused. “Somebody was using his head for something besides holding up his horns.”
“Send out a rider,” Kar said. “Let’s find out what we have here. I think we’re going to like it.”
The Mardukan who greeted them was the biggest damned scummy—with the possible exception of Erkum Pol—Roger had ever seen. Which, given the size of normal Mardukan males, was saying something. Not only was this one damned near four meters tall, he was disproportionately broad even for that towering height and looked as if he could bench press a flar-ta.
“Bistem Kar,” Rastar said with obvious relief. “You live.”
“Yes, Prince Rastar,” the monster responded in a deep, rumbling grunt of laughter. “And as amazed as you are to see me, I’m ten times as amazed to see the heir of Therdan at the door.”
“We tried to win through to you when first we fled, but there were too many Boman,” Rastar admitted. “And, as the gods would have it, perhaps that was for the best.” He turned from the K’Vaernian commander and gestured to Roger. “Bistem Kar, Captain of K’Vaern’s Cove, may I introduce His Royal Highness, Prince Roger MacClintock of the Terran Empire.”
“I greet you, Prince MacClintock, in the name of the Council of K’Vaern’s Cove,” the Mardukan responded, admirably restraining his obvious curiosity about just what in hell a “Terran Empire” might be. “And I greet your loads with even greater happiness,” he added.
“That’s why we stopped by Nashtor,” Roger said. “And may I introduce my senior commander, Captain Armand Pahner, who was the one who insisted on retrieving the metal.”
“I greet you as well, Captain Pahner,” the Guard commander said, casting a close eye over the human. He looked from the chameleon-clad CO to the similarly clad Marines spreading out to either side of the caravan and suppressed an audible grunt of pleased laughter. “Welcome to K’Vaern’s Cove.”
“K’Vaern’s Cove,” Rus From said with more enthusiasm than he’d shown since leaving Diaspra. “We’re here.”
“Wonderful,” Bogess responded in a much grumpier tone. “Another city, another battle. Just wonderful.”
The area between the inner and outer defenses was given over to agriculture. There were crops of barleyrice and apsimon fruit, mostly clustered on the bay side of the narrow neck of land. On the seaward side there were fruit vines, the famous sea-plums of the coastal region that produced sea-plum wine.
“But this is K’Vaern’s Cove!” the priest said. “K’Vaern of the Bells! All the world meets in K’Vaern’s Cove! This is where over half the devices in the entire Chasten Valley come from. This is where the impeller pump system was invented. There’s no other city like it!”
“Uh-huh,” the general scoffed. “And all the streets are paved with gold. It’s still just another city and just another battle.”
“Well, we’ll see,” the cleric replied, refusing to be suppressed by the pessimistic soldier.
“And another new way of doing battle,” Bogess continued. “It’s not as if we can just teach them pikes and be done with it. No, we have to create these ‘muskets’ and ‘mobile cannon.’ Then we have to learn how to use them ourselves.”
“Not quite,” From corrected as the two representatives from Diaspra were called forward. “In fact, you’ll have to, somehow, learn how to use them while they’re still being created. And without the help of the humans.”
“Podder mocker,” Poertena muttered as the column rounded the first hill.
The basis of the city’s name was immediately clear. Far below them lay a perfect natural harbor—a cove cut off from the worst effects of weather by hills on either side. All of the hills were extremely steep, with sheer-sided inlets or fjords between several of them, and the bay and the inlets had been linked to create a sheltered, multipart port. Clearly, some of the smaller side harbors could support only small craft, but there were hundreds of those circulating around the city.
The deep-water portions of the port were packed with ships. The most common was a single-masted, square-rigged, round-hulled design very similar in most respects to a medieval Terran cog. There were differences—the beam-to-length ratio was a bit better—but generally, the resemblance was remarkable. Most of them were about twenty meters from stem to stern, but a few larger ones ran to a bit over thirty, and one of the larger ones was being towed out by a galley, assisted by the slight puffs of the land wind coming over the hills.
One of the side-harbors seemed to be given over to military vessels, of which there appeared to be two basic types. At least two-thirds of them were sleek, low, needle-slim galleys armed with rams, but with no apparent sign of seagoing artillery. The remaining warships were larger, heavier, and clumsier looking. Like the galleys (and unlike most of the merchantmen in the harbor), they carried both oars and masts, but their main armament was obviously the batteries of heavy guns bristling from their heavily built forecastles above their long-beaked rams. Their banks of oars precluded any sort of broadside-mounted artillery, but they were clearly designed to lay down a heavy forward fire as they closed in on their enemies, and there was something very peculiar about those guns. Poertena dialed up the magnification on his helmet and grunted in sudden understanding and surprise, for the guns he could see weren’t the built-up, welded-together bombards they’d seen on Diaspra’s walls. These guns were cast, by God!
The four major hills around the port were part of a series of hills that ran for kilometers to the north, and all of them were covered by interlocked buildings. Houses were built on warehouses were built on shops, until virtually all the open spaces were filled with places of work or living, and often both simultaneously in the same structure.
And everywhere the eye looked, there were bell towers.
Sergeant Julian stood beside the little Pinopan and shook his head in bemusement. It surprised him a bit to realize that nowhere else in all their weary trek had he seen a single Mardukan bell. Not one. But now there were dozens—scores—of bell towers in sight from his single vantage point. God only knew how many there were in the city as a whole . . . or what it must sound like if they all tolled at once. He could see little bells, like carillons, in some of the towers, but there were also medium bells, big
bells, and one great big giant bell which must have weighed as much as eight or nine tons in a massive tower near the center of the city, and he wondered why there were so many of them.
Roads twisted through the architectural crazy-quilt, packed with Mardukans. Everywhere Julian and Poertena looked in the city, there were Mardukans selling and buying and going about their business. From the edge of the sheltering hills, the city looked like a kicked anthill.
But anyone who actually wanted to kick this anthill had his work cut out for him. The city was encircled by another immense wall, much larger and stronger than the outer defense work and crowned with artillery which probably threw nine- to twelve-kilo roundshot, with bastions every sixty meters or so. The harbor mouth itself was protected by immense citadels, each liberally supplied with its own cannon, and those guns were massive. In fact, they looked big enough to throw seventy-five- to eighty-kilo shot, although Julian hated to think about the appetite for gunpowder those monsters must have. The only open space in the entire city was a large formation area on the inner side of the wall, which extended the full length of the fortifications’ circuit. The area outside the wall had also been cleared, although there were some temporary buildings in that space now, especially near the water and around the main gate, where a virtual shanty town had sprung up.
The wall extended upward on the highest hill, bisecting the city, and connected to another massive citadel, a many-tiered fortress, obviously carved out of the mountain it sat upon. The stones of its exterior portions blended into the background rock so cleverly that it was difficult to tell where the fortress started and the mountain ended, and it, too, boasted a soaring bell tower, this one crowned with an elaborate gilded weathervane in the shape of a ship with all sail set.
“I can see why everybody thinks this place is impossible to take,” Julian said.
“Yeah,” Poertena said, then thought about it. “But, you know, you gotta wonder. Where’s tee supplies?”
“Huh?” Gronningen asked. The stolid Asgardian seemed unaffected by the immensity of the city.
“Well, as long as you can be supplied by sea . . .” the intel NCO said.
“Sure, but where tee supplies gonna come from?” the Pinopan asked. “T’ere’s no place to grow food for all t’ese people on t’is peninsula, even wit’ all the fish they prob’ly catch. My guess is t’ey used to get most of t’eir food from t’is Sindi place or some such. Where’s it comin’ from now?”
“Ah,” Julian said. “I see your point. And it’s not coming from the next city downriver from Sindi, because that one’s been overrun, too.”
“So t’ey shipping t’eir supplies from where? A hundred kilometers? Two hundred? A t’ousand?”
“Yeah.”
“Instead of just barging it downriver an’ across tee bay. And t’at goes for all tee other stuff t’at isn’t luxury stuff, stuff you usually get from nearby. Wood, leather, metal, stuff like t’at. And what you gonna bet most of t’eir trade used to be with t’ose cities tee Boman took?”
“But you can depend on distant supply sources and get away with it,” Julian argued. “San Francisco did back in the old, old, old days on Earth. And everything it needed mostly came in on ships, not overland.”
“Sure,” the Pinopan agreed. “New Manila’s not’ing but a seaport and a starport, an’ it’s as big as it gets on Pinopa. T’ey gets ever’t’ing but fish from tee ass-end of nowhere. But two t’ings. You see t’ose ships?” He pointed at the oversized cog making its cumbersome way out of port.
“Yes,” Julian said. “So?”
“T’at’s tee worst pocking ship I ever see. Any kinda deep-water blow, an’ it’s gonna roll right over an’ sink like a flooded rock. An’ it’s gonna be slow as shit, an’ if it slow, it cost more money to run, an’ t’at means tee grain gonna be expensive. And t’at means in tee end t’ey starve unless t’ey gots some big source o’ pocking income. Which is what leads to tee other t’ing, which is t’ey not’ing but a market. Sure, t’ey might make some stuff here. T’ey might be a reg’lar New Dresden, but it’s gonna be not’ing compared to tee stuff t’at’s just waiting to ship to somwheres else. An’ if not’ing coming down tee Chasten or tee Tam, t’en t’ey gots not’ing to sell. An’ if t’ey gots not’ing to sell, t’en t’ey gonna starve.”
“How are you supplied?” Pahner asked. “If you don’t mind my asking.”
The relief column had attracted remarkably little attention as it passed through the large shanty town around the gate and the outer wall. If a war threatening their very survival was going on, the people of K’Vaern’s Cove seemed not to have noticed.
The main thoroughfare on which they were traveling was packed. Only the force of guardsmen calling for way and physically pushing blockages aside permitted the caravan to keep moving, and the side streets were just as crowded, with carts or kiosks set up every few meters selling a mixture of products from food to weapons.
The city was packed onto the slopes surrounding the cove, and the surrounding hills virtually stopped the sea winds, which turned the city into a sweltering, breathless sauna even hotter than the Mardukan norm. The still air also trapped the scent of the streets, and it closed in on the column as it passed through the gate. The effluvia was a combination of the cooking and spices of the side streets and the normal dung smell of all Mardukan cities, subtly flavored with a hint of clear salt air and the rot smell which was common to every harbor in the known universe.
Most of the buildings, aside from the soaring bell towers, were low and made from stone or packed mud, with plaster walls which ranged from blinding white to a glaring clash of painted colors. It was the first place the humans had seen where extensive use had been made of pastels, and the combination of riotous colors, furnace heat, and heady smells dazed some of the Marines.
Single doorways fronted directly onto the street, and children darted out into traffic without heed. One particularly reckless youngster was almost turned into paste by Patty, but the flar-ta made a weird five-legged hop and somehow avoided treading on the scrambling waif.
The corners of the buildings all sported elaborate downspouts that led to large rainwater containers. Some of those had markings on them, and Pahner watched as a person dipped from one of them and dropped a metal coin into it. Clearly, someone had just made a sale, and he wondered for a moment why, of all the cities they’d visited, only K’Vaern’s Cove seemed to have some sort of water rationing.
The same emphasis on providing water was apparent in the occasional larger pools they passed. The pools, slightly raised above the level of the street and about two meters across and a meter deep, ranged from five to ten meters in length and collected water from the larger buildings’ downspouts. They were covered with half-lids and clearly were kept scrupulously clean, for the water in them was as clear as any spring, and they, too, had copper and silver coins on their bottoms.
“Supplied?” Kar turned to look at the human, then gave the handclap of a Mardukan shrug. “Poorly, in all fairness. And, no, I don’t mind your asking. Gods know we’ve crossed swords with the League before, but I don’t think they’re less than allies now.”
“Indeed,” Rastar said. The Northern cavalryman grunted in harsh laughter. “Many’s the war which we waged against the Cove, or the Cove against us, over its control of the Tam Mouth, or our control of the Northern trade. But that’s all past, now. The League is no more, nor will it arise once again in any strength in our lifetime. We’re all in this together.
“But tell me,” he continued, “why are you short? Don’t you have nearly unlimited storage under the Citadel?”
“Yes,” the K’Vaernian general agreed. “But we don’t keep the granaries filled to capacity in peacetime, because stock—”
A sudden, deep, rumbling sound, like the tolling of bronze-throated thunder, interrupted the Guard commander. All of the bells, in all of the towers, sang simultaneously, in an overwhelming outpouring of deep, pounding sound that swept
over the city—and the astounded column—like an earthquake of music. But it was no wild, exuberant cacophony, for the bells rang with a measured, rolling grandeur, every one of them giving voice in the same instant. Four times they tolled, and then, as suddenly as they had begun to speak, they were silent.
The humans looked at one another, stunned as much by the abrupt cessation as by the sheer volume of the sound, and their companions from Diaspra seemed only a little less affected. Rastar and his Northern fellows had taken it in stride, however, and the native K’Vaernians seemed scarcely even to have noticed, but then Bistem Kar grunted a chuckling laugh.
“Forgive me, Prince Roger, Captain Pahner. It didn’t occur to me to warn you.”
“What was that?” Roger asked, digging an index finger into his right ear, where the echo of the bells seemed to linger.
“It’s Fourth Bell, Your Highness,” Kar told him.
“Fourth Bell?” Roger repeated.
“Yes. Our day is divided into thirty bells, or segments of time, and Fourth Bell has just passed.”
“You mean you get that—” Roger waved a hand at the bell towers “—thirty times a day?!”
“No,” Kar said in a tone the humans had learned by now to recognize as tongue-in-cheek, “only eighteen times. The bells don’t chime at night. Why?”
Roger stared at him, and it was Rastar’s turn to laugh.
“Bistem Kar is— What is that phrase of yours? Ah, yes! He’s ‘pulling your leg,’ Roger. Yes, the bells sound to mark each day segment, but usually only the ones in the buildings actually owned by the city, not all of them!”
“True,” Kar admitted, with the handclap which served Mardukans for an amused shrug, but then the titanic guardsman sobered. “We are at war, Prince Roger, and until that war is over, all of Krin’s Bells will sound in His name over His city at the passing of each bell.”
