'You don't think it's something worse, do you?' asked Erlaan, grabbing Noran's arm. 'About my father, I mean.'
'Not at all, young prince,' said Noran, patting Erlaan's hand. 'Your father was not well, but far from death when I left. His condition did not seem to be worsening, and with the attentions of the Brotherhood there is no reason to think things are so bleak.'
Erlaan was about to say something but the captain intervened. There was a gaggle of sailors behind him, with ropes and lading hooks.
'Please excuse us,' he said.
The group moved out of the way and stood to one side of the tillerman. The sailor kept his gaze solidly ahead, affecting the blank expression of a man who is deaf to all things, as the galley slid towards the nearest quay of King's Wharf.
'Look at this way,' said Noran, keeping his voice quiet. 'If there really was some problem with your father, it would have been the king who sent me, and many other messengers beside. Your family are keeping this quiet because there is no cause for alarm, but rumour could be very disruptive.'
'I suppose you are right.' Erlaan folded his arms and bit his lip.
With a rough scraping and a couple of thuds, the galley was brought in alongside the wharf. Thick cables were thrown over to the landsmen who had swarmed out of the buildings along the length of the pier. A short, heavyset, sweaty man in a thick blue robe puffed and wheezed as he pulled himself over the side of the ship on a rope ladder.
'Token,' he said, reaching out an open palm towards Eoruan.
'Here it is,' said the captain, holding the golden crown between thumb and forefinger, forcing the jettymaster to take it from him with a frown. The functionary pulled a small wax tablet from his belt. Line after line of perfectly formed script almost filled the tablet.
'Make your mark,' he said, thrusting the tablet to Eoruan. The captain turned towards Noran.
'It's your mark that's needed, not mine,' Eoruan said.
Noran gave a huff of annoyance and crossed the deck. He took up the official's stylus and wrote his name into the wax. The jettymaster brought forth two thin sheets, almost transparent, and a block of charcoal. He made a rubbing of the impression in the wax on each piece and handed one to Noran. The other he carefully folded and placed in a bag at his belt. He smeared Noran's mark out of the wax and returned the tablet and stylus to his belt.
'Token,' prompted Noran, beckoning with a finger. Absentmindedly, the jettymaster handed back the royal seal.
He dragged himself back over the ship's side without another word and disappeared into the crowd of labourers waiting for instructions from the ship.
'We'll get the ailurs off first, and be out of your hair,' said Ullsaard, slapping a hand to the captain's shoulder. 'My people will unload the rest of our baggage.'
'It's been no burden for me,' Eoruan said with wink and a nod to the cargo being made ready for unloading. 'Crown business never is.'
As always, Ullsaard was conscientious and deliberate during the disembarkation of the ailurs, while the crew heaved and pushed the abada down the gangplanks to the dockside and the servants loaded the wagon with their master's baggage. It was almost nightfall by the time they were ready to leave the quayside, and Ullsaard decided that they would spend the night in Narun.
They found lodging in the house of Araan Nario, a fleet owner who had regular dealings with Noran's family. The wiry, elderly merchant was more than happy to put up such esteemed guests when Noran sent one of the servants with word of their presence in the harbour town. They spent the evening in the company of Nario and his mercantile friends, fending off questions regarding their business in Askh. Glad of no repeat of the incident in Geria, they left Narun mid-morning the next day and headed dawnwards towards the Askhor border.
II
There was much traffic on the road as traders moved their wares between Askh and Narun. Abada pulled carts from the capital laden with stone and metals from the mountains, or carried finely spun linens in bushels on their backs. Towards the city the merchants ferried grain for the most part, the interior of Askhor being unsuitable for widespread farming. Though plentiful in game and fish, the highland pastures were good for goats and a few hardy cattle and little else. Fish came from the Sea of the Sun to dawnwards, but animal fodder was always in high demand, as were the more exotic gems and spices of hotwards, and the wool and textiles from coldwards in the lands of Ersua and Enair.
The prince, herald and general were the subject of much attention, their ailurs advertising their status more than anything else, but other travellers on the road did not involve themselves other than to exchange pleasantries and occasionally break bread.
They made steady progress and three days of riding brought them to the edge of the Askhor Mountains, which reared up steeply from the flatlands of Nalanor. Snow-capped all year round, the impressive peaks formed a wall that stretched from coldwards to hotwards as far as could be seen. Low clouds shrouded the peaks, but in the foothills the summer air was clear and hot.
Almost directly to dawnwards lay the Askhor Gap, where the mountains were parted by a steep valley. The road cut straight and true through the steep hills leading up to the gap, and by mid-afternoon of the third day Ullsaard and the others laid eyes on the Askhor Wall.
The Wall stretched the entire width of the gap, nearly twenty Askhan miles almost directly from hotwards to coldwards. The lowering sun shone bright from the grey and black granite and glinted from bronze speartips and helmets. It took the four patrols, each a thousand-strong, two whole watches to march from one end to the other, each patrol being roughly thirty thousand paces long. Some five thousand more soldiers were stationed in twenty fortified towers along its length. The Wall ran across the narrowest point of the valley, its rampart as level as a race track so that where the hills were highest it stood no more than three times the height of a man, and where the ground was lowest it seemed as much as ten times as high. As well as two hundred and fifty men, each garrison tower housed three bellows-launchers capable of hurling a spear-sized projectile a considerable distance, and a small lava-powered forge similar to those taken on campaign by the legions. Each tower held enough stores to feed its men for fifty days.
There were six gates, but only the main gate was ever in regular use, wide enough for four carts abreast and guarded by two massive bastions twice as tall as the Wall itself. Lava throwers jutted from the towers in the lowest levels while murder holes and bow slits punctured the upper storeys. The gates themselves, now wide open, were low and broad, made of bronze-clad wood as thick as Ullsaard's outstretched arms. They were opened and closed by means of counterweights and a water wheel fed by an aqueduct that redirected one of the mountain streams, and ran the length of the Wall to provide the garrison with fresh water.
For nearly two hundred years the Wall had stood; a testament to the power and ingenuity of the Askhans.
In all of that time, it had never been attacked.
'Just a day's more travel before we're home!' announced Noran with a clap of his hands. 'I can almost smell the city already.'
'It is a most welcome sight,' said Erlaan. 'Though I have seen the Wall several times from this direction, this is the first time I have laid eyes upon it after being so long away.' Ullsaard merely grunted. 'Not happy to be back?' asked Erlaan.
'I will be when we reach the palace,' Ullsaard replied. 'This is just a wall.'
'It's more than just a wall,' said Erlaan as they rode between two high embankments where the road cut straight through a hill, heading directly towards the main gate. 'It's the Askhan border. Here Greater Askhor ends and true Askhor begins. Surely that means something.'
'It's a big wall, that needs several thousand good legionnaires and countless artisans to maintain,' replied Ullsaard. 'It is a magnificent wall. I am sure that the Nalanorian hordes who capitulated to Askhos shortly after it
