The Seer King: Book One of the Seer King Trilogy Read Online Free Page A
Author: Chris Bunch
juicy target.
Just at dawn, we entered Sulem Pass.
The pass, as most know, is the most direct route between the kingdoms of Numantia and Maisir, with the Border State of Kait between. In times of peace it is a prime trading route.
But the Men of the Hills seldom allow that. To them, a trader is nothing more than a personal sutler, who provides all manner of goods and gold as soon as the hillman waves a sword in his face.
Sulem Pass twists for about twenty leagues, until it opens onto the plains that lead to the city of Sayana. Bare ridges climb 600 to 1,000 feet above the floor of the pass. The pass begins in a narrow ravine, then, about halfway through, opens onto a plateau where the Sulem River turns and rushes down a canyon, to the south. From there until the comparative flatlands of Kait, it’s more hospitable, the river coursing beside the track.
Twenty leagues — only two days’ ride, but no one, not even the hillmen, have ever ridden it in that time. Each twist, each zigzag, each rock may, and most likely does, harbor an ambush.
The pass mouth on the Ureyan side is the narrowest, with the mountains close to a few hundred feet of each other, and the face on either side is unclimbable rock.
We moved slowly through this gut. I had horsemen out in front, and, just back of them, the men Captain Mellet said were his fleetest of foot. If they saw any sign of trouble, they were to double back to the column, giving the alarm.
I sent them out in pairs, with orders that no man was to abandon his mate under any circumstances. The Men of the Hills prize bravery above all, and the bravest can endure any pain without crying out. A captive, wounded or no, will be tortured to death, and if he dies without screaming he will be well spoken of around the hillmen’s fires. But that seldom happens, for the tribesmen are most skilled at their recreation.
My cavalrymen, being experienced, had their own rules: Never leave a comrade unless he is dead, and if you must, kill him yourself. Some of the men carried small daggers in sheaths around their necks, intended for themselves if no one else could grant the last mercy.
A quarter-mile inside the pass, the way broadened, and our progress was even slower. This sounds illogical, but the more open ground was perfect for a trap.
There was an immutable policy regulating how soldiers were to travel through Sulem Pass: First send foot soldiers to take and hold the closest hilltops. Then the road-bound unit moves even with these pickets. A second group takes the next hilltops, while waiting for the first to descend safely. This was the most likely time of ambush — when a soldier thought he wouldn’t be attacked, and all that was necessary was to slip back down the hill and march on.
It was then that the sandy rock would become a ululating group of warriors, ten, perhaps twenty, who’d rush the pickets, daggers flashing, and before anyone could move there’d be naked bodies strewn on the rock, the Men of the Hills retreating with their loot and, if Isa was not good, a captive or two for later amusement.
I’d been taught there were seldom big victories when Numantians fought the Men of the Hills — perhaps one or two bodies would be found, more likely only bloodstains and silence, and once again the column would move on.
We went into Sulem Pass at no more than a half-mile an hour, if that. I was angry, angry at these strange orders that had sent a foolish diplomat to certain death, and at the snails I commanded, but mostly at my own inability to think of a plan, any plan.
Again the pass narrowed, and I saw, perched high above, the ruins of a stone fort Numantia had carved out two centuries earlier, when our country had a king, instead of being governed by the Rule of Ten, and before we’d allowed the Kaiti, with the implicit support of the Maisir, to negotiate us all the way back to the flatlands.
These days Kait was as the Men of the Hills preferred it — anarchie, where every
Just at dawn, we entered Sulem Pass.
The pass, as most know, is the most direct route between the kingdoms of Numantia and Maisir, with the Border State of Kait between. In times of peace it is a prime trading route.
But the Men of the Hills seldom allow that. To them, a trader is nothing more than a personal sutler, who provides all manner of goods and gold as soon as the hillman waves a sword in his face.
Sulem Pass twists for about twenty leagues, until it opens onto the plains that lead to the city of Sayana. Bare ridges climb 600 to 1,000 feet above the floor of the pass. The pass begins in a narrow ravine, then, about halfway through, opens onto a plateau where the Sulem River turns and rushes down a canyon, to the south. From there until the comparative flatlands of Kait, it’s more hospitable, the river coursing beside the track.
Twenty leagues — only two days’ ride, but no one, not even the hillmen, have ever ridden it in that time. Each twist, each zigzag, each rock may, and most likely does, harbor an ambush.
The pass mouth on the Ureyan side is the narrowest, with the mountains close to a few hundred feet of each other, and the face on either side is unclimbable rock.
We moved slowly through this gut. I had horsemen out in front, and, just back of them, the men Captain Mellet said were his fleetest of foot. If they saw any sign of trouble, they were to double back to the column, giving the alarm.
I sent them out in pairs, with orders that no man was to abandon his mate under any circumstances. The Men of the Hills prize bravery above all, and the bravest can endure any pain without crying out. A captive, wounded or no, will be tortured to death, and if he dies without screaming he will be well spoken of around the hillmen’s fires. But that seldom happens, for the tribesmen are most skilled at their recreation.
My cavalrymen, being experienced, had their own rules: Never leave a comrade unless he is dead, and if you must, kill him yourself. Some of the men carried small daggers in sheaths around their necks, intended for themselves if no one else could grant the last mercy.
A quarter-mile inside the pass, the way broadened, and our progress was even slower. This sounds illogical, but the more open ground was perfect for a trap.
There was an immutable policy regulating how soldiers were to travel through Sulem Pass: First send foot soldiers to take and hold the closest hilltops. Then the road-bound unit moves even with these pickets. A second group takes the next hilltops, while waiting for the first to descend safely. This was the most likely time of ambush — when a soldier thought he wouldn’t be attacked, and all that was necessary was to slip back down the hill and march on.
It was then that the sandy rock would become a ululating group of warriors, ten, perhaps twenty, who’d rush the pickets, daggers flashing, and before anyone could move there’d be naked bodies strewn on the rock, the Men of the Hills retreating with their loot and, if Isa was not good, a captive or two for later amusement.
I’d been taught there were seldom big victories when Numantians fought the Men of the Hills — perhaps one or two bodies would be found, more likely only bloodstains and silence, and once again the column would move on.
We went into Sulem Pass at no more than a half-mile an hour, if that. I was angry, angry at these strange orders that had sent a foolish diplomat to certain death, and at the snails I commanded, but mostly at my own inability to think of a plan, any plan.
Again the pass narrowed, and I saw, perched high above, the ruins of a stone fort Numantia had carved out two centuries earlier, when our country had a king, instead of being governed by the Rule of Ten, and before we’d allowed the Kaiti, with the implicit support of the Maisir, to negotiate us all the way back to the flatlands.
These days Kait was as the Men of the Hills preferred it — anarchie, where every
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