The Ten Thousand(13)

“The walls,” he said, rejoining the others. “There’s a stair leading up to a good section of them, and a tower that’s still got a doorway. We go up there, the men defend the stairtop, and the others hide in the tower.”

“What about our animals?” the thin merchant asked, gasping.

“They must stay below.”

“I’ll be ruined,” the thin merchant groaned. But he did not argue.

From the wall-top they could see for pasangs. Their attackers were still toiling up the snowy slope below. The road was empty; no fellow travellers to provide allies or diversions. The world was a vast, bright stage ringed by mountains, snow blowing off their peaks in ribbons and banners, the sky above them flawless, pale blue, blue as a baby’s eye. Only the pine forests provided a darker contrast, the shadow deep beneath their limbs.

“Look,” Rictus said. He stood beside Gasca and pointed. There was a light in his eye.

Machran. To the south the mountains opened out in a vast bowl, perhaps fifty pasangs across, and within this ramp of highland the country was a patchwork of wood and field, the lower hollows of it untouched by snow, and green, green as a dream of spring. Machran itself was a sprawl, a smudge, an ochre stain upon the rolling mantle of this world, and from it the smoke of ten thousand hearths rose in a grey smear to sully the sky. From these heights it looked as though a man with a fair wind behind him might lope there in a matter of minutes. Gasca found himself smiling.

A shout from below. Their attackers had seen them standing up here. There were indeed eight of them. They had knotted their cloaks up over their elbows; sheepskins, fox-hide caps with the fur still on, and high boots. Their beards were black, long and tangled as the tail of a cow.

“Goatmen,” Gasca said, using the contemptuous term reserved for those who had no city, who frequented the high places of the Harukush and were reputed to sleep in caves and hold their women in common. “You travelled with these?”

“I chanced across them,” Rictus said.

“I’m surprised they didn’t kill you out of hand.”

“They tried,” Rictus said, still in the same quiet tone. “Isca trained me. They came round to thinking that might be useful.”

“Ah, Isca,” Gasca said. He had heard the stories. It was hardly the time to hear them again. “You will need that training today.”

They took their place at the stairtop. It was broad enough for two, but slippery with trodden snow. Gasca put on his father’s bronze helm, and immediately all sounds became washed out by the sea-noise within. He had thought to leave it off, but knew how fearsome a crested helm would look to the men below. It would make of him a faceless thing, and hide whatever fear might fill his eyes.

He took the weight of his shield off his shoulder and balanced it on his arm. The bronze-faced oak covered him from shoulder to thigh. “They’ll start with the javelins,” he told Rictus. “Get behind my shield until they’re done.”

“I’d rather stand free.”

“Suit yourself.”

Behind Rictus and Gasca stood the fat merchant, face still shiny with sweat, and one of the husband-brothers. At the rear, the thin merchant and the other husband. Only Rictus and Gasca had spears. The rest were armed with knives and cudgels, the eternal stand-by of all travellers, but of little use today unless the enemy made it up onto the wall.

A harsh braying from below. The thin merchant cursed in the name of Apsos, god of beasts.

“They’ll eat the damn donkeys. Goatmen— worse than animals themselves.” Behind the six men, the sounds of wailing children came from the doorway of the ruined watchtower.

“I wish those brats were mutes,” the thin merchant said.

“I wish you were a mute,” his fat colleague murmured.

The goatmen sidled up to the wall-bottom, watching out for missiles. When it appeared the defenders had none they grew more brazen, edged closer. Two spoke together and pointed up at Gasca, in full panoply, as stark and fearsome as some statue of warfare incarnate.

“If I had some rag of red about my shoulders they’d walk away,” he muttered to Rictus. There was no response from the Iscan. Despite the cold, Gasca was sweating, and the heavy shield dragged at his left bicep. Wolves he had killed, and other men he had broken down in brawls, but this was the first time he had ever hoped to plunge a spearhead into someone’s heart.

He jumped, as beside him Rictus shouted with sudden venom. “Are you afraid? Why be afraid?” For a second, fury flooded his limbs as he thought the Iscan was talking to him; then he realised that Rictus was shouting at the goatmen below. He turned his head, and saw through the confined eye-spaces of his helm that Rictus was red-faced, angry. More than angry. He was feral, hate shining out of his eyes. Gasca shifted away from him out of sheer instinct, as a man will give space to a vicious dog.