Kudstugul, a walled town supporting some five thousand lives, stands at the southern end of the Great Gorge, raised up upon a modest plateau with the Shgutu River safely to the north. It is a curious place, ruled by an independent prince of old lineage, that is both a critical trade hub and also a point of great isolation. This paradoxical nature is tied to the gorge itself, a mighty gouge cut into the steppe forming a wide depression some two hundred meters in depth and several kilometers wide as the river bends around the sturdy rocks of the Tasgusun Hills that stretch across a vast expanse to the west of the riverbed. The gorge itself is a fascinating place, but one to speak of later. The key point with regard to this town's position is a matter of river currents and flooding.
In the cold winter snow falls across all Shdustu. In most places the quantity of snowfall is modest, for just as there is little rain there is little snow. However, in the bitter cold of the steppe snow lingers, and the wind blows the white powder into great drifts wherever obstacles halt its howling. This includes the rare forests and marshes scattered throughout the region. When spring comes, these accumulations melt and the rivers surge, spilling past their banks to coat a wide expanse of flat land beneath dark liquid. Normally this is a brief event, one the Kharal avoid by simply moving out of the way, while the Nikkad take advantage of this annual period of abundance to fill their cisterns and irrigation canals to serve the needs of the coming year.
The influence of the Tasgusun Hills, and the tremendous amount of snow they trap coupled with the depth of the Great Gorge combine to prevent any of the vast spring rush of water that flows down the Shgutu River from escaping eastward. As such, this means the floods discharge in immensity out onto the flat expanse of the steppe as the gorge comes to an end. The result is that each spring a shallow lake wide enough that it is impossible to see across its full extent expands into being. For over a month Kudstugul is transformed into an island at the center of this lake, with no passage in or out save by daring truly dangerous rafts over ice cold water. The Nikkad live out this period entirely confined within their walls, completely isolated until the water recedes.
Upon learning of this many wonder why anyone would build a town in such a place at all. There are two reasons. Firstly, the floodplain surrounding Kudstugul, including the lakebed itself when it vanishes entirely in early summer, matches the experiences of farmers everywhere familiar with such features in possessing extraordinary fertility. Even with the short growing season of Shdustu further truncated by the need to wait for the land to dry, the yields of millet and wheat sown here are truly phenomenal. The city is capable of feeding every mouth it can cram within its walls and still retains a substantial surplus to trade with travelers. Secondly, the seasonal flood allows the floating transport of logs from both the hills to the west and the mountains far to the north as far south as Kudstugul. Once the waters recede these are gathered from the mud, dried, and treated for their subsequent entry into commerce. These logs, which make fine long poles for use in the assembly of yurts, carts, and as support beams of large structures, are a very valuable resource on the largely treeless steppe. They are precious enough that complex agreements between princes and khagans, to the point of centering a web of marriage alliances upon the town, govern their use and insure distribution across the upper Shgutu basin. These agreements are contested of course, and the local Kharal clans are known to raid across the drying flats and steal timber for their own use. Such rapacious actions are contested by the Nikkad and hired mercenaries, but many opportunistic bandit groups from the edges of the hills join in, making the post-flood period very busy and chaotic. Many of these bandits spend the winter in the gorge itself, taking shelter there.
Even among Nikkad settlements, Kudstugul is notably compact. Most buildings rise to a third story and house extended families in close proximity. Animals are confined to narrow pens and many structures are built into the exterior walls of the city itself, including most of the winter food storage. Though the town has a long history of hosting overwintering caravans, the better to exploit the post-flood log-rush, it is not well-liked among these well-traveled individuals for there is almost no privacy to be had within the confines and even the elites must share rooms for sleeping and eating. It is said that Kudstugul's Prince must take two women to bed each night or else one of his wives would be forced to sleep outside his palace. This is an exaggeration, something confirmed in person after the expedition was granted a tour of his tightly ordered and lavishly furnished apartments. They were indeed compact, but wealth and authority sufficed to purchase a measure of open space.
For all of these difficulties, there is no shortage of residents, nor do those born here display much desire to leave. Bountiful fields and access to a lucrative trade make this one of the most prosperous settlements in Shdustu, and the intersection of trade routes and caravans from long distances away is notable. The prince was fond of outfits featuring silk shirts, cotton trousers, sable cloaks, felted boots, and accessories crafted from half-a-dozen different types of leather. While I found such a composite panoply rather tacky, it served its purpose in displaying the wealth and ties of the town. While the common folk of the city received a much smaller share of such largess than their rulers, the people of the streets nevertheless possessed stout frames that betrayed none of the legacy of hunger common on the flesh and bones of many who live in Shdustu. While they could not match the prince, they nevertheless often wore fine clothes with added jewelry and set their tables using well-crafted pottery made in local kilns. It is a testament to the wealth and mercantile nature of this town that I was able to easily restore my stock of mapping skins, paper, and ink in the markets. These had been much depleted by the operation in the Sun-Scorched Badlands and this was a most fortunate boon.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Politically, the town possessed considerably greater independence than many similarly sized Nikkad towns found along the great rivers. Though the khagans of Sunshtasgus and Kudustushgu both dearly desired to seize control of the supply of logs, critical to their military operations, the plateau-top position of the town is too well-secured to be overcome through assault and the annual flooding makes assembling a siege capable of starving out the town functionally impossible. Attempts to do so have never succeeded, and though the prince does pay tribute to whichever khagan can claim the Great Gorge as their territory this is a modest outlay of a largely symbolic nature rather than a proper tax. Despite this, the prince was not blindly reliant upon geographic advantages and maintained a strong garrison, though it seemed to spend more time keeping watch over the mercenaries associated with passing caravans than training for war. Such vigilance was not misplaced, if the town's history is any guide. Though it may have been broadly invulnerable to external attack, rule of the flood-top town could shift just as readily as that of any Nikkad settlement through conflict within the compact halls and apartments. The ruling prince had inherited his title, making him the first of the previous ten to not acquire his post through knives in the dark.
Generally prosperous though the town is, it contains a notable, and distasteful, anomaly. Wizards are active within its walls, their presence an open secret. They claim not to be mystics, instead simply an order of scholars, but no such organizations exist anywhere in Shdustu, where the light of scholarship, such as it is, has fallen almost totally to the control of the Chapter House of sorcery. In the absence of the critical legacy of professional knowledge possessed by the Sanid Empire, the rulers and administrators of Shdustu receive a piecemeal education. Sometimes this is conducted by eunuch tutors. Among the Nikkad, it is most often presented by alchemists, who have a base of general knowledge, stilted in certain directions though it is. Wizardry has, regrettably, found a way to operate within Nikkad, and occasionally Kharal, society, by masquerading as scholarship. As they are a supremely shrewd people, it would be foolish in the extreme to assume the Nikkad are taken in by this deception. Further, it must be admitted that the majority of these wizards are among the weakest of mystics and truly do devote the majority of their time to scholarship. Such minimal essence distortion as they can wield is primarily devoted to assisting in the breeding of sacred scorpions. Those with true power in this so-called Obsidian Order are found only deep in the wild.
Nevertheless, the wizards operating within Kudstugul included at least one representative with real power and links to others operating from a fortress hidden somewhere in the depths of the Tasgusun Hills. That this is tolerated was a most jarring discovery to make. Such accommodations are, however, fitting with Nikkad philosophy which desires to keep enemies within the reach of the knife, and doubtless both sides stand ready to fall upon each other at the slightest provocation. These people would rather retain a valuable service, no matter how toxic, than attempt to endure in its absence.
The wizard compound might have offered a unique opportunity to speak with those who have embraced the path of destruction and invoked the greatest severity of divine wrath upon themselves, a dialogue not possible anywhere in the empire where wizardry is punishable by summary execution, but the combination of the expedition's schedule of rapid progression across the steppe and the paranoia of the wizards rendered any such meeting impossible. Only two days were spent in Kudstugul, time barely sufficient to resupply and exchange injured animals, before Erun pressed north with all possible speed.
To overwinter in Kudstugul is to be trapped until the floodwaters are gone, something that does not complete until potentially as late as the sixth month, and represents over a full month's delay compared to any other potential winter quarters. This, of course, was completely intolerable. Though the nights had already begun to grow distinctly cold and it was clear the detour to the badlands had rendered reaching Dumumshtu unattainable, it remained essential to go as far north as safety and the grace of the Divines allowed. In this manner, the expedition laid plans to march northeast along the edge of the Great Gorge and pass the winter in the log-running town of Inukudish.
This approach did not win favor with the local prince, who I believe eyed the winter presence of the expedition, and the work he could potentially extort from us, as a prize to be won. Additionally, this petty tyrant possessed a reputation for lasciviousness and his eyes lingered overly long on Princess Romou during each formal audience. During the evening prior to our departure servants attempted to poison both mine and Tomad's meals, an effort that was forestalled only because it had become our custom to take the nightly meal with the sorcerers Lord Udramd and Lady Indili on nights where we slept inside rather than in tents. An assassin who attempted to breach Erun Nassah's chambers was spotted by Yomat and then cut down by Captain Sasinah of the Silversheen Company, who had taken to our commander and joined him for meals most nights. Her assistance was much missed as she and her troops departed southward after this and parted from our path.
The prince, confronted by Erun's fury at this immense breach of hospitality, apologized quite calmly and ordered that three women of his personal guard be attached to our expedition in recompense, making up for our loses at Sun-Scourged Fortress. He, being frustratingly Nikkad in all things, seemed to take no further umbrage regarding the incident.