March To The Sea

We're all in this together.

'But tell me,' he continued, 'why are you short? Don't you have nearly unlimited storage under the Citadel?'

'Yes,' the K'Vaernian general agreed. 'But we don't keep the granaries filled to capacity in peacetime, because stock—'

A sudden, deep, rumbling sound, like the tolling of bronze-throated thunder, interrupted the Guard commander. All of the bells, in all of the towers, sang simultaneously, in an overwhelming outpouring of deep, pounding sound that swept over the city—and the astounded column—like an earthquake of music. But it was no wild, exuberant cacophony, for the bells rang with a measured, rolling grandeur, every one of them giving voice in the same instant. Four times they tolled, and then, as suddenly as they had begun to speak, they were silent.

The humans looked at one another, stunned as much by the abrupt cessation as by the sheer volume of the sound, and their companions from Diaspra seemed only a little less affected. Rastar and his Northern fellows had taken it in stride, however, and the native K'Vaernians seemed scarcely even to have noticed, but then Bistem Kar grunted a chuckling laugh.

'Forgive me, Prince Roger, Captain Pahner. It didn't occur to me to warn you.'

'What was that?' Roger asked, digging an index finger into his right ear, where the echo of the bells seemed to linger.

'It's Fourth Bell, Your Highness,' Kar told him.

'Fourth Bell?' Roger repeated.

'Yes. Our day is divided into thirty bells, or segments of time, and Fourth Bell has just passed.'

'You mean you get that—' Roger waved a hand at the bell towers '—thirty times a day?!'

'No,' Kar said in a tone the humans had learned by now to recognize as tongue-in-cheek, 'only eighteen times. The bells don't chime at night. Why?'

Roger stared at him, and it was Rastar's turn to laugh.

'Bistem Kar is— What is that phrase of yours? Ah, yes! He's 'pulling your leg,' Roger. Yes, the bells sound to mark each day segment, but usually only the ones in the buildings actually owned by the city, not all of them!'

'True,' Kar admitted, with the handclap which served Mardukans for an amused shrug, but then the titanic guardsman sobered. 'We are at war, Prince Roger, and until that war is over, all of Krin's Bells will sound in His name over His city at the passing of each bell.'

Roger and Pahner looked at one another expressionlessly, and Kar chuckled once more.

'Don't worry, my friends. You may not believe it, but you'll become accustomed more quickly than you can imagine. And at least—' he gave Rus From a sly look '—we won't be constantly pouring water over you!'

The cleric-artificer chuckled along with the others, and Kar returned his attention to the humans.

'But before the bells interrupted us, I believe, I was about to explain to you that we don't keep the granaries fully filled during peacetime because stockpiling like that hurts the grain trade, and we normally have sufficient warning of a war to purchase ample supplies in time. But this time the Boman came too quickly, and we were having the same problems with Sindi everyone else was. That bastard Tor Cant actually started stockpiling last season, which makes me wonder if his murder of the Boman chiefs was really as spontaneous as he wanted us to think. But he wasn't interested in sharing any of his surpluses, and he went as far as putting a hold on all grain shipments out of Sindi 'for the duration of the emergency.' We got in some additional stores from other sources before Chasten's Mouth was overrun, but not much. There's no real shortage, yet, but it will come. Many of the merchants are rubbing their hands in anticipation.'

'What of Bastar?' Rastar asked, gesturing to the north. 'I've heard nothing of their people.'

'Almost all of them escaped to us when it was clear they couldn't hold against the Boman.' Bistem Kar made a gesture of resignation and frustration. 'Another drain on our supplies, both of grain and of water, but not one that we could in good conscience reject. And we'd had our problems with D'Sley, as well as all the other cities, but again . . .'

'One for all, and all for one,' Pahner said.

'Indeed,' the general agreed, and turned his attention back to the human. 'But what is your place in all of this? I'm told that these long spears are your innovation, and the large shields. I can see their usefulness against the Boman axes. But why are you here? And involving yourselves in our plight?'

'It's not out of the goodness of our hearts,' Roger said. 'The full story is long and complicated, but the short answer is that we have to cross that—' he pointed to the sea beyond the harbor '—to reach the ocean, and then cross that to get back to our home.'

'That's a problem,' Kar said forebodingly. 'Oh, you can get passage from here to the Straits of Tharazh if you must. It will be expensive, but it can be arranged. But no one will take you beyond the Straits to cross the Western Ocean. The winds would be against you, and no one who's ever tried to cross the ocean has returned. Some people—' the K'Vaernian glanced sideways at Rus From '—believe that the demons which fill the ocean to guard the shores of the world island are to blame, but whatever the cause, no ship has ever succeeded in crossing it and returning to us. There's an ancient tale of one ship having arrived from the other side—a wreck, rather, for it had been torn to pieces by something. According to the tale, there was a lone, crazed survivor who babbled in an unknown tongue, but he didn't live long, and no one was ever able to determine what had destroyed the ship.'

'Storm?' Pahner asked.

'No, not according to the tale,' the general said. 'Of course, it might be a fable, but there's an ancient log in one of the museums here. It's in a tongue no one I know of can read, but it's accompanied by what purports to be a partial translation—almost as old as the log itself—and you might find it interesting. The translation seems to describe monsters of some sort, and the tales of the ship's arrival here are very specific in saying that it had been bitten and torn by something.'

'Goodness,' From murmured provocatively. 'You don't suppose it might have been one of those mythological demons, do you?'

'I don't know what it might have been,' Kar admitted cheerfully. 'Except that whatever it was, it must have been large. And unfriendly. Either of which would be enough to convince me to stay well clear of it, by Krin!'

'You know that there's something on the other side, though?' Roger asked.

'Oh, yes,' the K'Vaernian replied. 'Of course. The world is round, after all; the mathematicians have demonstrated that clearly enough, though not without argument from some of our, ah, more conservative religions. That means that eventually you must come back here, but the distance is immense. And in all honesty, there's never been much incentive for anyone to go mucking about in the open ocean. Quite aside from wind, wave, and possible sea monsters,' he grinned at From, who chuckled back at him, 'there's the problem of navigation. How does a seaman know where he is unless he can close the shore every so often and compare local landmarks to his charts? And what merchant would go voyaging beyond Tharazh? We know of no cities or peoples to trade with there, and we have—had, at least—all the trade we can service right here in the K'Vaernian Sea. As to what's happened to the one or two lunatics who have tried to cross it, no one truly knows, so it's a fertile subject for, um . . . imaginative speculation.'

'Well, we'd heard that you're unable to sail across it,' Pahner said, 'but we've done quite a few things on this world that no one has ever done before.'

'They crossed the Tarsten Mountains,' Rastar interjected.

'No! Really?' Kar laughed. 'And is the land beyond really filled with giant cannibals?'

'I think not,' Cord said. The old shaman had a strong gift for languages, but without a toot of his own, he lacked the translator support the humans enjoyed, and the K'Vaernian general looked at him sharply at the sound of his pronounced and highly unusual accent.

'D'nal Cord is my asi,' Roger said, 'my, um, sworn companion and shield mate. He's from the People, who live in the Hurtan Valley. It's not only beyond the Tarsten Mountains, it's actually farther from the Tarstens than they are from here.'

'Pretty close to a fourth of the way around the world from the Tarstens,' Pahner agreed. 'And the people on the far side of the Tarstens didn't look much different from you. No civan or