He had hardly had time to rest before Sigmar wanted him to secure a stronghold for him, about half a day's ride away. He was to have command of Abrikal's 70 horsemen, and they were to leave immediately.
"I knew the place as a boy," Sigmar said. "I mean to possess it."
Chaldez was to take Tsem, Zikir and Rassi, and Abrikal's horsemen down the Put to where a tributary, the Mishbinan, flows into it; they would find the stronghold on top of a cliff in the Mishbinan valley.
What he found was a precipitous slope rising up from the valley bottom into an abrupt hill, scarred with bands of bare rock forming a series of sheer faces. The stronghold stands on the summit, its watch tower and timber walls seeming to grow out of the rock. It looked inaccessible. A tributary of the Mishbinan flows around the foot of the hill, and is crossed by a bridge which Chaldez gauged to be within range of the stronghold.
"We'll cross farther up!" he shouted, but one of the men thought he knew better. He rode on to the bridge, and backed off again urgently as a light spear sang through the air and landed a short distance in front of him. Chaldez noted with interest that once again the Muraks were without archery.
From his chosen crossing point, Chaldez saw that the hill forms a long ridge-like spur, ending in the precipitous slope he had first seen when coming up the valley. The side he now looked at is relatively gentle, and it was the obvious route to the stronghold. He led his troop up it to within sight of the watchtower but beyond the range of its spearmen, and there made camp. That night he and Tsem discussed the significance which Sigmar attached to securing the hill, and as they spoke, Chaldez grew certain that this was where Sigmar intended to meet the Murak army in battle.
The next day his men made their preparations for the coming assault.
At dusk several fires were lit, and the men became rowdy, as though they were drinking. Sometime after midnight Chaldez sent Zikir and a party of volunteers, unlit torches tucked in their waistbands, up the hill with a siege ladder brought from Jadmranput. The dark, overcast night allowed them to reach the walls unseen. The siege ladder was put in position and silently they climbed it. An owl's hoot, the signal that they had overcome the night watch, told Chaldez he could send in the next party. Others followed, Chaldez and the diminishing number of men around the fires shouting, laughing and singing so as to sound as though their drunken companions were still with them.
Chaldez was among the last to climb the siege ladder. Tsem was with him, carrying a lighted torch behind his shield.
The elevated walkway behind the timber walls was crowded with the dark, crouching figures of his men. Tsem's torch was passed from one to another, each man lighting the torch which he had tucked in his waistband. As the flames lit their faces, Chaldez raised the alarm, shouting and stamping his feet. Others did the same, bringing sleepy defenders out from their timber and thatch quarters like woodlice shaken from a rotting log. The men on the ramparts hurled down their flaring torches among them, and then added to the panic and confusion by letting fly their arrows, the fallen torches lighting up their targets.
Chaldez's plan called for the main gate to be opened from the inside to admit the rest of his men, who would be mounted and armed with long swords and battleaxes. They would finish off the defenders.
The gate was duly opened, the horsemen charged through, and as his plan continued to unfold precisely as he had intended, he felt increasingly disgusted.
The operation had been exciting while there had yet been uncertainty, but the defenders had proved to be predictable and unimaginative, and now they were predictably dying, and he heartily wished it was all over.
Well before dawn it was.
His men were exuberant. If, after Jadmranput he had felt like a god, now he was treated like one, and he was profoundly irritated by the way the men would approach, quite shyly, and attempt to touch him. He was tempted to shout at them to go away, but Tsem said it was a harmless superstition.
On the way back to Jadmranput, Chaldez and his senior commanders discussed the Muraks' performance in battle.
It was suggested that their reputation as great warriors was unfounded; not once since Sigmar marched out of Yiesia had they proved to be anything but stupid and brutal; Sorrin had fallen with ease; their performance in the defence of Reard had been undistinguished; a large number had been ambushed and massacred by Abrikal's much smaller force outside the town of Metsarn; in Jadmranput, despite it being a military headquarters, hundreds had fled and hundreds more cut down while trying to flee, and now, in the Mishbinan valley they had shown themselves to be as incompetent as they were gullible.
One of Abrikal's lieutenants pointed out that in Jadmranput, according to Kraeger the Murak, Sigmar's sudden and inexplicable appearance on the summit of the rock was ascribed to witchcraft, and not surprising for a man who destroyed images of Histigga without suffering instant annihilation. It was a foregone conclusion that he was invoking the help of demons.
Chaldez laughed. Arwarnhi a demon! The Muraks, he realised, were as stupid as he was tempted to think they were.
Sigmar met him at the gates of Jadmranput. His expression was grim. Chaldez had not yet dismounted when he remarked "You're back very soon, Zakarrah. I trust you have done as I ordered?"
Chaldez had expected a very different reception and hardly knew what to say.
Vanchis, Regdag and Saminad were with Sigmar, and none was smiling.
Chaldez laughed as he dismounted. "The stronghold is yours!" he exclaimed. "We took it last night."
"I'm glad of that," said Sigmar, and he turned and strode away.
Chaldez spoke to Vanchis. "What is the meaning of this? I bring excellent news and he turns his back on me."
Vanchis was suddenly hostile, “Where is your countryman Zakkahn Jeng?“
Chaldez was perplexed.
Saminad was standing close by and overheard the exchange. He growled "The barbarians are but two days away. They'll crush us."
Chaldez understood now that Sigmar had decided he could no longer rely on the Imperial Horse, and no doubt was blaming him, Chaldez, for its vanishing act. Vanchis clearly did.
The injustice of it brought the blood to his cheeks. He was tempted to state his faith in Abrikal and Nopin who might even now have located Dan‘s force, but decided something more emphatic was called for. Turning to one of Sigmar’s officers, he demanded that he bring him as many of Abrikal's horsemen as he could immediately find. Half a dozen were soon standing before him. "Find Zahkahn Jeng and tell him to go to the Mishbinan," he said. "Go now, and remember, the barbarians will be here in two days."
Saminad said "You presume much, Zakarrah," but Chaldez ignored him.