'Father, perhaps one of our messengers got through and relief is coming from Persia. Shapur is a tyrant, it's true, but he does need us to guard his eastern reaches. He cannot let us fall, Father. He has to send aid, or lose credibility with the other nations that have accepted him as overlord. Yes, Father, the Persians will come!'
Jugotai nodded his head in agreement.
'Yes, my son. But will they come in time? The hours of survival grow very small.'
They entered the palace, acknowledging the salute of the guards. Passing through the stone halls, they entered Jugotai's office. Once it had served as the office of a man from Chin that had advised the king, Kidara III- Tsun-tai, a wise and gentle man who had been kind to Jugotai when he'd rode into Kushan with the Roman soldier, Casca.
Casca! He'd heard that Casca was serving the Great King in Persia now, but he must be very old. He had hoped to see the Roman again but it seemed that something was forever interfering with his going to him. Now it was not likely that they would ever meet again. He grinned, remembering that Shuvar had told him of meeting his old friend in the desert, and of him saving his life. But Shuvar had told him that the man looked not to be over thirty years of age. Impossible, but children think anyone over a certain age all look alike.
He and his son would eat their one meal of the day now, here in his office, in silence, together. A thin soup, made from the cracked bones of some animal, he knew not what. He didn't like to think about what it might be. Already he had heard rumors that the flesh of humans could be bought in the market.
Shuvar was worried about his father, but he was glad that the defense of the city was not his own, though he would have gladly taken the load from his father to himself if he could have.
He drained his bowl of thin soup quickly, it wastasteless anyway. Well, he thought, if they were to die, then he could have no better sword companion by his side than Jugotai, Master of the Horse for the Kushanite Empire. Death will come when and where it will. The best they could do was to meet it as honorable men who'd done their duty and had been true to themselves and their oaths.
He excused himself, leaving his father to his thoughts, and went to see about his own men. They were guarding the section of the wall by the gate that opened to the road leading to the Kabul River, and on to the great Tarim basin and beyond.
Now, over the hill that Jugotai had been eyeing from the wall earlier, another warrior was taking his meal on horseback. It was Boguda, Touman of the clan of the White River. He was watching the captives his men had rounded up. There were women, children, and old men only. All men, and boys that were strong enough to pull a bow or swing a sword, had been slain. He would send no warriors to the wall, only the weak. Starving warriors might just turn around and fight.
Boguda was tall for one of his race. Even with his twisted legs, he stood nearly six feet tall. His strength was the pride of his tribe, and he used it freely. His favorite method of executing prisoners was snapping their necks. He would grab their heads between his hands, raising them from the ground, then shaking them until the bones cracked. Then, he would laugh and twist their heads in half a circle until they faced the rear, while crying out loudly to the unhearing corpses, 'You will never have to worry about what comes at you from the rear now.' The joke never failed to elicit a properresponse of laughter from his warriors. Who ever said that Huns had no sense of humor?
The women begged for food for their babies, exposing their breasts, hoping one of the Hun warriors would exchange a piece of cheese or a crust of bread for their bodies.
But it was a futile gesture. The Huns took what they wanted and never paid for it. The women and young girls had been raped repeatedly. Any soldier who was not on duty was authorized by Boguda to have one at will.
Boguda watched from his position for a few minutes longer and ordered ten of the prisoners killed for making too much noise. He wanted quiet so he could think. A man needed peace to use his gray cells.
Tomorrow, he would send them to the walls. One way or another, the city would fall to him soon. If not tomorrow, then in a few more days at the most. He looked to the walls of the city. Soon, all that was inside would be his. He would have it all. There was enough wealth there to make him a major force that could buy the tribes that wavered and provide weapons made for them in the armories of Rome itself, when he got his hands on the gold inside the walls.
The Toumans and Kakhans of the tribes thought him a fool for going against the walls of such a city. The Huns, they'd said, were horsemen and such a siege as this was not good for them. They had no machines to batter the gates and walls and, unless such a city fell rapidly, there would be nothing left to feed them or their horses.
But Boguda had laid his plans for the siege of Kushan long before now. The city would fall, it would be his, and he would build a monument to himself inside it. A tower of the living bodies of those inside, then he'd cement them together inside it. A tower of victims!
By all the spirits of the water and fire, there would never be such a monument again. That one act alone would make people fear him. People who'd never seen a Hun would shake at his name. His name would be used to frighten small children into their mother's arms or maybe even as a curse to ward off evil.
His iron-seared face was flushed with the excitement of his own imagination. He would rally all the clans and ride over the face of the earth as a whirlwind of fire.
Boguda of the White River!
ELEVEN
Shortly before dawn, a commotion awoke Casca from his restless slumber. Rising, he slung on his sword and belt and turned to see what was going on.
A group of his infantrymen was approaching, their voices excited, their officers telling them to quiet down. Casca placed his hand on the hilt of his sword; a commander never knew what might be coming down.
He could make out other figures with them now in the dark, small ones that hobbled along being kicked by his men and beaten with spear shafts and the flat of their swords.
'Oho, what have we here? Some monkeys, or maybe apes?' The Hun prisoners were thrown down in front of him, to lie prostrate before him. He was informed by the senior officer present that four of them had been captured when they'd ridden into the camp area of the infantry unknowingly. They had immediately swarmed over the Huns, pulling them from their horses and tying them up. There had been six in all. The two others were now dead. His troops had lost two men in the short skirmish. One of the men had had his face eaten off byaHunnish war horse. Casca winced at the thought.
Ordering the four prisoners to be dragged to their feet, he sent for Indemeer before interrogating them.
His graying General made his approach to their area on stiff legs, the leftovers of an almost forgotten wound. It acted up now and then when he was tired or cold, both of which conditions applied this morning.
He bowed to Casca. 'I am here, Lord, what is the matter?'
Casca pointed to the four twisted-legged, mustachioed captives. 'These are the matter, old one. They stupidly stumbled into the camp of our infantry and were taken. Remind me to give the men a bonus when this is over. They did a damned fine job at keeping these alive for us to interrogate.'
Indemeer examined the semihumans with distaste. 'Do you wish to have them put to torture first, Lord, so as to perhaps loosen their tongues a bit?'
Casca well understood the need for strenuous interrogation and was not adverse to roughing up a prisoner if necessary. After all, they may have the information that could save the lives of his men. He would be derelict in his duty if he did not do all that he could to acquire it, even if it meant dismantling the captives a piece at a time. He knew that he and his men would suffer no less a fate in their hands. They had no civilized rules of warfare and would not respect good treatment from he and his men; they would more likely consider it evidence of their captors' weakness. But, he decided, before he turned them over to the anxious torturers, he would first try another method.
He looked over his prisoners carefully, watching for something, anything that would set one apart from the others. He found it! The smallest of them had a cast on his left eye, a mark of cataract on the lens. That might do it! To these beasts, anything different was enough to make them taunt you. This one probably had had a hard time
