CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT

Sigmar had taken over the former residence of a wealthy Jadmranput merchant, and that evening his karmikvals were invited to eat with him in the merchant's great hall. For once he abandoned his custom of eating at a separate table, as though by sitting among his friends he might be distracted from his crushing anxieties. It was a forlorn hope; the atmosphere everywhere was heavy with gloom.
Only Chaldez was out of sympathy with it. He had begun to recover his former confidence, and was irritated by the long faces surrounding him. He turned to Regdag, sitting beside him, and said "I have seen nothing yet to persuade me that the barbarians are to be feared as warriors," and he repeated the observations which had been made about them on the way back to Jadmranput earlier in the day.
Regdag shrugged, but Saminad, who had overheard the remark, was scathing.
"If I may say so, Zakarrah, you know nothing of the Muraks. What you have seen of them in the last few months is nothing to go by. You insult the Danbeddekkan, and all of us, if you think he would have been driven from his kingdom by half-wits and cowards"
"I only know what I have seen," retorted Chaldez.
"Their warriors outnumber us by three to one and you will know, very soon, Zakarrah, why they have not tasted defeat. The lands they overrun are left in the hands of those who are not fit to bear arms; these are the Muraks you speak of. Your complacency serves you and all of us ill."
Chaldez considered himself corrected, and after that he said little.
Early next day there were reports that a Murak army, on the same side of the river as Jadmranput, would reach the city by nightfall. Sigmar ordered immediate evacuation across the bridge, and hardly were his divisions ready to move than a second Murak army was reported to be approaching on the other side of the river.
Chaldez was one of the first to cross, and as he waited on the far bank, his anxiety mounted. Cregitzig intended to trap them, and unless they moved fast, he would. Chaldez recalled that it had taken two days to cross the Usippol, and now the fumbling, muddled efforts to squeeze the army on to and over the Arril Klybet bridge brought him close to despair; if will power alone had been able to do it, he would have provided all that was needed.
Saminad rode up. "We'll not be across before nightfall," he announced. "They'll catch us with half our men on the bridge."
He said it with such authority that Chaldez thought, for a moment, that he was stating a fact. Then he realised that he knew no more than anyone else and that it was just another of his doom-laden speculations. The damage it might do to morale angered him. "Rubbish!" he said. "Usippol was nothing like this. You're surely not comparing the bridge here with the temporary thing we had to use then?"
Saminad became defensive. "It's not what I'm saying. Everyone's saying it."
Chaldez's anger flared, but he tried to control it. "So, we've lost already! Why don't you jump into the river and drown yourself - but don't expect the rest of us to follow, eh?"
Saminad rode up close beside him, his mouth tight with fury. "I won't be sneered at," he said.
Chaldez let go. "You're a menace, Saminad. A fool too. I'm busy. Go away."
Saminad went white and his hand reached for the hilt of his sword. Chaldez went for his own.

Hearing the raised voices, people had started to gather around. The atmosphere was suddenly brittle. Saminad crumpled, but disguised it with a laugh. "Zakarrah - what are we quarrelling for? The enemy is at hand and we are about to fight amongst ourselves!"
Chaldez was not prepared to accommodate him. "Then stop making trouble and we can both get on with what has to be done." Glowering, he pulled the reins to turn his horse's head, jabbed his spurs into its flanks and rode away, the blood pounding in his head. He felt better for having lost his temper, and even believed that Cregitzig and the barbarians might be denied an easy victory.
As the day went on, confusion gave way to order, and well before nightfall, with no sign of the approaching Muraks, the army assembled in full strength on the western bank of the Put. Sigmar sent for Chaldez. He told him that he was to stay at the bridge with Abrikal's horsemen until the Muraks were close enough to detect his presence; only then was he to fall back. Sigmar would be waiting for them at Shymosdak, the fortress which he had taken in the Mishbinan valley.
That night the horsemen in Chaldez's command lit numerous camp fires, far more than they needed, and at dawn the look-outs he had posted returned in a hurry: barbarian scouts were everywhere, they said.
Chaldez allowed his men to eat before unhurriedly dismantling the camp. Look-outs could now see the Murak's advance guard. Chaldez gave the order to move out and his men, increasingly edgy, were only too pleased to obey.
On the way to the Mishbinan he paused every now and then to check that the Murak's were following; he allowed them to get a great deal closer than his men liked but he was determined to lead them into the trap which he hoped Sigmar had prepared.
As has been remarked, the Shymosdak stonghold appears to be on the top of a hill, but it is a misleading impression because what can be seen from the floor of the valley is in fact the abrupt ending of a long, asymmetrical spur, the Mishbinan on one side, having carved a deep, steep-sided valley, and its tributary on the other. This flank - where Chaldez had so recently camped - slopes down more gently into a V-shaped cut, the opposite side of which rises over a considerable distance to a far greater height than that of the spur, and is thickly wooded from about half way up.
The course of the tributary where it flows around the end of the spur was hardly recognisable, Sigmar having had its bed widened and deepened into a defensive ditch. Beyond it was a company of pikeman, taking their ease around several fires.
The ground they occupied slopes up towards the steep, rock-scarred hillside immediately below the fortress, and here, wherever it was possible to stand or sit among the crags and scrub, archers were posted.
Chaldez led his troop towards the stronghold, passing squadrons of cavalry, infantry and archers as they went.
Sigmar was sitting on his war horse outside the fortress. Look-outs were in the watch tower, their observations conveyed to him by messengers.
After greeting Chaldez and the three Seians, Tsem, Rassi and Zikir, he explained to Chaldez the thinking behind his dispositions.
"I intend," he said, "to hold the high ground. My archers will force the enemy to concentrate his attack down there," he pointed towards the lower reaches of the stream, not far from where it meets the Mishbinan "where he will be prey to my archers and cavalry. I'll be frank, Zakarrah: what I fear most is being out-flanked. If the enemy secures the high ground over there," he indicated the area beyond the stream, "and sweeps round across there to our left, he will be in a very strong position. As a discouragement to him I have two companies of archers, commanded by Gemle, and one of infantry just below the trees, but that will be our weak point, and it is where I want you to be, Zakarrah, with your horsemen."
Chaldez understood his fears, and said he would be pleased to provide reinforcements at such a crucial point. Then he asked him where his reserves were.
"You see them!" declared Sigmar with another flourish, and Chaldez realised that he had none. All his strength was laid out at their feet; he was holding nothing in reserve for a decisive push or a desperate defence, and Chaldez felt a twinge of dismay. He wondered how victory could be possible, or defeat averted.
The enemy vanguard was by now clearly visible as it moved up the valley. At some distance beyond the widened stream it halted, and behind it, as far as they eye could see, rank upon rank of enemy soldiers filled the valley. They covered the ground like a swarm of ants.
Chaldez and his troop set off for the wood, which meant going back down the hill to the stream and then up the opposite slope, their route taking them below one of the positions chosen by Sigmar for his archers and cavalry.
Someone called out to him as he passed. It was Saminad, with the cavalry. Chaldez zig-zagged up the slope and the two men clasped hands in greeting, both of them pleased to be able to make this gesture of friendship now that death confronted them so starkly.
Saminad was about to speak when there was an outburst of shouts. Someone near-by called "They're coming!"
Several hundred Muraks, battleaxes and swords glinting in the sun, were surging forward. At the stream they paused. Many of them tried to cross by the bridge, but it was narrow and there was much confusion. Others began to wade across the stream, and in another moment they all were caught in a deadly storm of arrows. Those who did not fall turned and ran.
When it was all over Saminad remarked "That's one way of testing your enemy's strength."
Chaldez doubted that it had been deliberate; it looked to him like evidence of poor discipline, and a small measure of optimism returned.
There were no more false moves that day. The dead and wounded were recovered, and the enemy proceeded to make camp within sight of the fortress.
Chaldez did not expect to sleep that night, but he did, and soundly.
The second Murak army arrived during the next day. From his vantage point below the trees, Chaldez put their total strength at between 30,000 and 40,000, compared with the 15,000 or so opposing them. They appeared to have comparatively few horsemen, and no archers, but whole companies were armed with spears.
All day the enemy assembled, and that night their camp fires spangled the floor of the valley with flickering lights.
Chaldez was woken long before dawn by distant shouts and cries. A horn was being sounded, its voice insistent, peremptory and tuneless. The Muraks were drawing up their battle lines, and making no secret of it. A knot formed in Chaldez's stomach.
The light of the rising sun showed a transformation. There was no hint now of the previous day's chaos; the Murak army was arranged in fighting formations, and was ready for battle.