It came to pass that after eight days of travel northward from Ushgidush the Dragon Expedition was stopped by a Kharal force of over three thousand cavalry led by General Kutumush, the Khagan's deputy in the east. His was control over all forces in that region and his responsibility to direct them into battle against the Khanate of Kdustushgu to his master's advantage. The general was surprised to encounter the expedition – not in the immediate sense, his scouts having spotted us more than half a day in advance – but in our general position. He believed the Khagan's messenger had contacted us and that we ought to have turned west days earlier. Neither the general nor any member of the expedition had any means to know that the messenger had been savagely murdered. Nevertheless, Kutumush was unmoved by repeated explanations that no courier had arrived and there had been no word from the khagan at all. He was implacable, and made a simple decision. The foreign emissaries, meaning us, would show the khagan proper respect, or they would be destroyed. Erun presented him our commission from the Emperor, but this drew little more than a raised eyebrow, which upon reflection is only to be expected, since it is unlikely that the General could read even the adapted Kharal script, much less recognize Sairn letters. Regardless, he need not show respect for a distant ruler with overwhelming force at his back. Given the superior maneuverability of Kharal riders upon the steppe, he could be quite confident that even if the expedition scattered to the winds his men could hunt down and seize us all, and even if the Empire did eventually make an inquiry, the Sunfire Cult, known to be active in the area, could easily be blamed.
Faced with such clear controls, and knowing full well that the support of the Khagan and his senior nobles would be necessary in the future to aid the expedition, Erun acquiesced and asked how the officials of the Sanid Empire might be of service to the Khagan, as a gesture of goodwill, of course. Even in the face of potential annihilation Erun kept his pride and refused to concede subordination to a foreign power.
General Kutumush, a grizzled Kharal warrior with more white hair than not who had campaigned some forty years for a half-dozen khagans, was a legendary figure on the steppe. Capable and cunning, he had long secured the eastern border with a much smaller force led by members of his own warband, the Sashudugu, and thereby freed his Khagan to contend in the north instead. He wore robes of fine silk beneath a mail coat of imperial-made steel topped by a mountain scale jacket of the type that comes from the distant east. On his left wrist rested one of the tribal saker falcons, one of the finest birds I ever saw, hooded in red silk and tied to the perch by a silver chain. Though his face was heavily lined, his skin wind-scoured, and most of his teeth missing, his rolled up sleeves revealed arms bearing taught whipcord muscle laced by the scars of countless battles. He was not to be underestimated.
His offer was a simple one. The Sunfire Cult had been a growing problem in the region, numbers multiplying in recent years behind a charismatic preacher who he spat upon rather than name. These fanatics, usually forced to dwell in wastelands no one else will touch, had managed to claim a fortified position, an abandoned fort of Nikkad construction from a two century old effort to exert control over the trade route we even now utilized known as Sun-Scourged Fortress. The general, headed east to contend with other masses of horsemen, did not wish to leave this position in his rear where the cultists might raid his supply lines and couriers but he lacked the time to besiege and had no wish to assault the position. The cavalry of the Kharal are unbeaten on open steppe, but struggle on slopes and in the forced assault. Having heard that the Sanid Empire was skilled in the destruction of walled fortifications, he kindly requested that we offer this fortress, located in the heart of the Sun-Scorched Badlands, as a gift to the Khagan. He submitted that his scouts reported it contained no more than one hundred cultists capable of bearing arms at most, surely no threat to such an august delegation as the Dragon Expedition.
This was, of course, a trap, but I believe that General Kutumush, knowing nothing of imperial protocol, did not fully comprehend what he had asked Erun Nassah to accomplish. The twenty-five Greencloak mercenaries, hired for the protection of the mission, could not be dispatched as part of an imperial gift, nor could any of the caravaneers or mystics join in the effort, for they were equally not assets of the Sanid Empire. Sorcerers are forbidden from war in Shdustu the same everywhere else, and while Sunfire Cultists are not a nation, a sanctioned action on the behalf of a foreign power triggered this prohibition, something Lord Udrand confirmed to Erun personally, shaking his head in regret. Those available to fight were nineteen only, the fifteen Winged Guard and crossbowmen, Erun, Yomat, Tomad, and myself. It is a most sobering realization, the discovery that you have been ordered into battle against five to one odds. Erun, I suspected, was likely willing to die valiantly in an effort to impress the Khagan with the honor and capability of the Sairn, and may even have believed the expedition's true purpose was largely such. It would not have been the worst expenditure of a few squads of soldiers in the history of the Empire by any means, but such a sacrifice was hardly a cause to inspire men to sally forth to desperate battle.
It was the purser, Tomad, who surprised us all by offering an alternative. The Empire's wealth is, after all, counted among its assets, and we had observed Silversheen Mercenaries in Ushgidush. He proposed to ride south with all speed and bring them north to join the attack, hired explicitly for this purpose and therefore within the scope of an honorable addition. He offered by way of explanation to the General that it would surely take some days to scout the fortress and compose a battle plan. As I believe the General merely wished to bleed the expedition somewhat and test the mettle of unknown foreigners while truly desiring the obliteration of the cultist fastness without the cost of Kharal blood, this face-saving compromise was quickly accepted. Kutumush even dispatched a party of his own scouts, with spare mounts, to hurry Tomad along.
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I will not say that Tomad Murad was a brave man, or one possessed of any skill at arms, but in this moment, forced to ride with lives depending upon every hour, he did so with sufficient vigor that the Silversheen Captain received the commission from a man unable to stand, so severe was the swelling in his legs. The remainder of us, eighteen men sworn to the service of the empire, took prayers from Princess Romou, gathered up arms and armor, and began the short passage east. Surrounded by a mighty Kharal warband, the rest of the expedition followed.
For two days we journeyed almost directly eastward until we came in sight of the red-shaded, sandy, and desolate outcrops of the Sun-Scorched Badlands. It is difficult to describe this feature, so strange and alien it is to anything within the Core Provinces. The badlands are a point where the land has been scourged by wind and rain, with the outer layers ripped away and only raw, clay-like surfaces smooth as stone remaining. Spindle-like spires, sheer cliffs of rock hard soil, and winding canyons with impossibly steep sides swirl together as if the land were created by a mad painter layering countless colors atop each other.
In such a stark landscape, with every surface exposed, grass cannot cling to the ground and water rushes off in swift runnels. Only scraggly shrubs find purchase here, and they cover little. It is a barren place. Even the water here is brown-colored by the earth and undrinkable as it is so full of dirt and grit. Even the animals knew this, for the Kharal needed hardly any effort to keep their herds from such fouled sources. Only a handful of horned sheep, able to evade all others upon the high escarpments, reside here.
Baked to a grim red shade beneath the unrelenting sunshine of the steppe, the name of this place is well-earned and it has been the source of much bloodshed. A central plateau rises at the core of the badlands, accessible by a narrow path just wide enough to permit horses. Long ago the Nikkad of Snushgud built a fortress there after digging a well deep enough into the earth that water drawn up at the end of long ropes might sustain a modest garrison. Though little more than an oval curtain of rammed earth, four meters high, its single gate guarded by rounded towers, it presented a most formidable obstacle.
The snaking path to the plateau lay completely exposed, offering no cover against archers on the walls or towers. Narrow as it was, even so much as a ram could not be brought upwards along that course. To take down the gate men would need to batter at the barrier boards with hammers until the wood gave way. Given that the gate was surely made of dense saksaul timbers, this might well take hours. The crossbowmen among our number, six men of consummate skill, took one look at the fortress from the last level point upon the ascending path where we clustered in preparation and proclaimed that they could kill an attacker for every bolt they possessed from atop those towers. It was an assessment I did not consider the least bit exaggerated.
Erun, standing alongside these soldiers, agreed that any direct assault was pointless. The reason the Kharal had not stormed this place was immediately clear. While the interior of the fortress would become a slaughter yard the moment the gate failed, for there were no interior defenses, even among a force as little known for archery as Sunfire Cultists there would be enough bows to hold this place against ten times their number and demand a heavy price of any who attempted to force the causeway in strength. I suspect a dozen men of the empire's best infantry, the Black Feathers, could hold that gate against a numberless host spelling each other in turns.
'We must draw them out,' Erun declared. 'Pull them onto the causeway and fight with our bowmen behind us.' I recall those words clearly, a simple directive, but one that seemed most impossible to achieve. Though it took no more than an hour of scouting to find a point on the trail where such a stand might be made and our crossbowmen provide support from a nearby hill, it remained an unbelievable dream to find some means to force the cultists to face us there. Their belief, that the Lord of Sky stands supreme among the divines rather than equal among them, is a foolish heresy to be certain, clearly contradicted by even a childish reading of the Enlightened Revelation, but that does not mean all who follow such folly are themselves fools. They would be wise indeed to any scheme to draw them out, the only means besides a months-long siege, difficult indeed to conduct in such wretched lands, that could possibly overcome their defenses. No simple deception would serve.
It would be Tasarin Ashalan, the sergeant of the Winged Cavalry who led our guard contingent, and a credit to their august ranks, who offered an alternative. I have not spoken of this warrior previously, for he was in other circumstances utterly deferential to Erun Nassah's commands. Only at this point, when an unconventional approach proved absolutely necessary, did he at least speak his mind. Archery and cavalry such as we possessed were common features of the steppe, and this fortress had been designed with both in mind. To defeat them with inferior numbers required rendering both ineffective. He proposed instead to attack from another point, to go over the walls and battle inside, trusting in superior armor and training to overcome the cultist rabble.
It is to Erun's great credit that he accepted this advice, mad though it may have appeared at first. We had four days available, until the supporting Silversheens, should Tomad secure their services, might arrive. That was the measure of time allotted to find a path through the swirling wastes of the badlands to a place that would allow armored men to climb the walls. This was a task that, as expedition cartographer, was given to me.