by Gary Gygax
The caravan departed from Ghastoor three mornings later. It was even larger than Bolt had originally described, thanks to the late addition of several dozen guards attached to various slave merchants. The whole operation of getting under way was confused and slow, of course, because of the last-minute changes and the overall size of the train. It was not until just before noon that the last of its elements rode out of the city and down the long slopes leading to the Barren Plains. The main body was encamped and finished with the evening meal by the time Obmi and the rest of the tail end arrived at the campsite, just ten miles from their starting point. The next morning's routine went more quickly, for all components of the caravan now knew their places and had a greater sense of urgency. Some news had reached the caravan in its first encampment, and that information caused things to tighten up immediately. Bolt, while walking through the campsite with his ears open, heard the information and rushed to tell the dwarf what he had learned.
"Lord Obmi, may I enter?" he called from outside the dwarfs silken tent.
"Come in, come in! This had better be important, though, to interrupt me thus."
Bolt parted the flap and ducked inside the low pavilion. Obmi had few amenities in his tent, despite a demeanor that implied he was accustomed to such things. The dwarf was hard as iron and tough as boiled leather. The sorcerer bowed and said, "Survivors of a Yollite caravan which preceded us have just come into the camp. They were attacked a week ago by Arroden warriors — a group of more than five hundred, they say."
"Have you learned any other details?"
"I am not certain of the truth of the rest, great dwarf, but from what I understand, the Yoli had spell-workers who inflicted great loss upon the raiders before they died. These survivors claim that they actually defeated the Arroden — although the Yoli fear and hate those camel-riders, so they always report victories and sometimes lie. They do have several heads and trophies, as well as some loot, but such stuff can be snatched even in defeat if a rear guard manages to disengage and flee."
"Incomplete information is useless, sorcerer! Go back and find out more. Whatever you learn, you keep to yourself. Report to me in the morning, after we are underway."
Bolt stood. "I obey, lord. May you rest well." Then, muttering under his breath, the dweomercraefter withdrew and set about his assignment. Although he would prefer to rest, he didn't trust anyone else in their group to gather the facts he knew Obmi would demand. Besides, if he delegated the responsibility to another, the one he selected might — no, would — take advantage of his knowledge to supplant Bolt in some way. So far, the sorcerer had managed to be the chief lieutenant of the group, and he meant to remain in that position. If anything untoward should happen to the dwarf, then Bolt would become champion in his place. The sorcerer smiled at that thought, and went about his work.
Bolt rode at Obmi's side when they broke camp the next morning, but did not volunteer any information. He was determined that the dwarf make the first overture, and after several minutes that was what happened. "Well, what more did you learn?" Obmi growled.
Satisfied to have won the battle of wills, the sorcerer withheld none of what he knew. "The Yollite train was smallish, my lord," he said. "It carried goods and slaves to Karnoosh, the merchants hoping to be amongst the first there and thus gain highest prices for their wares. Knowing that they stood greater risk of attack because of their small number, the merchants were well guarded by warriors and a pair of fairly strong spell-binders — one a dweomercraefter, the other a priest of some sort. There is but a single merchant amongst the returning parly. His goods are lost."
"The Yoli did not defeat the Arroden, then," Obmi said flatly.
"Pardon, my lord, but I suggest that perhaps the survivors speak truth for once — as unlike the Bakluni as that is."
Frowning, the dwarf demanded to know why Bolt thought the way he did.
"Because, great dwarf, the merchant made sense even as he beat himself and tore at his beard over the loss of his goods. To travel ahead, or back, slowly, laden with such stuff, and with only a handful of men, would be to invite every predatory nomad to fall upon oneself. The Yoli, even though they slaughtered great numbers of the attacking Arroden and drove them away, dared not recover their property and try to travel with it. They came back northward with their most precious possessions — their lives."
"Well done, sorcerer!" said Obmi, his spirits abruptly and unusually high. "Your news is splendid and your assessment sound, I think. That is an excellent omen for us. The Arroden will be licking their wounds for a time. Oh, yes, they'll gather their warriors again, and that band will be larger and more bloodthirsty than any seen for a long time by the Sons of Yoli. We will be long past, however, safe in Karnoosh… or beyond. Tribes less fierce than the Arroden — and that is most — will hesitate to come against any caravan of any size for a while, anyway. The story of the Arroden defeat will spread quickly through this wasteland, and will dishearten other raiders. Our trek will be a quiet passage through a peaceful land, I'll wager."
Obmi's pronouncement proved to be true — but it was fortunate, in a way, that his optimism was not shared by most of the other travelers. The big caravan made a little more than twenty miles each day — a good pace for so large a train of men and animals. Drivers, merchants, and guards alike were spurred on by the thought of vengeful veiled warriors, the terrible, camel-borne Arroden, coming down upon them by the thousands.
Their route was along the more westerly of the two wide trails that ran from Ghastoor to the city on the shore of Lake Karnoosh — slightly longer in distance than the easterly track, but a path that was generally parallel to a dry riverbed that ran southward from the Yolspur Tors to Lake Karnoosh. Every two or three days they came to a wadi where water could be found, either lying in pools remaining along the watercourse or waiting just a foot or two beneath the surface of the ground. Two times during the journey through the dry steppeland the caravan came upon a permanent source of water — once a true oasis, another time a well.
At the well site, the oasis, and some of the other places there were fortified villages. Although the tribesmen dwelling in such spots were neither strong nor numerous, the caravan master always paid over a tribute in coins or gifts for water and whatever other supplies the train needed that the villagers could spare. The local folk started out demanding exorbitant prices for dates, eggs, chickens, and all the other produce they had. But a few rounds of hard bargaining brought prices down into the realm of the believable.
This dickering was obviously the chief amusement of these tribesmen, for there was little else for them to do to enjoy themselves. The leaders of caravans through these parts quickly learned how they were expected to conduct themselves, or else they paid a high price for their obstinance. Purposely poisoned water and tainted food were only two of the more obvious means the locals had of revenging themselves upon any who sought to take water, provisions, or lives without proper payment. Anything the village could do without could be had, but money or goods in return must exchange hands. Such was the way of these places, and no wise person expected it to be otherwise.
The route to Karnoosh was fairly direct, for the steppe was relatively level and few obstacles stood in the way. The six-hundred-mile journey was accomplished in just more than thirty days. Every veteran caravaneer was astounded at such speed, especially for so large a train. Occasional encounters with savage carnivores were handled with ease, for Bolt and other spell-binders in the group were well prepared for such contingencies. The small bands of steppe nomads who came near the caravan were impressed by its size and capability. They approached without threatening, talked, traded, and rode peacefully away thereafter. One experienced guardsman informed Obmi that these petty warriors roaming the steppe were a sure sign that the Arro-den had suffered a severe defeat, for normally these nomads they were encountering dared not come so far north for fear of the terrible veiled warriors.
About halfway along their route, the natur
e of the land changed. The steppes were seldom favored by precipitation, but in areas well away from the intervening mountains, the clouds did drop rain upon the land regularly. As the caravan proceeded southward, a little more than halfway to its destination, dry plains gave way to a well-watered grassland. Camels were no longer essential in this place; although they certainly could survive, they were no Longer the most appropriate means of conveyance. Horses were favored by this terrain, and thus the camel-riding Arroden did not venture into the prairie to raid. The threat of the veiled warriors, small as it may have been, was safely past.
Large tribes and clans of horsemen roamed the grasslands around Lake Karnoosh, but many were paid tribute by the city of the same name to refrain from molesting trade. These warriors, then, tended to prey upon those groups that did attack caravans. The continual warfare that resulted kept the nomadic warriors in check while distributing some of the caravan loot — that which actually reached the city
— to even those who protected the merchants' trains. Of course, the least slight or pretended offense could send some formerly nonhostile tribe into a frenzy of raiding. When this occurred, other clans would happily take bribes and tributes to reverse their roles. Then these nomads would ride out to seek the now-hostile group, being paid to do so and relishing the prospect of taking loot from those who had recently gained it by pillaging some caravan or other. Obmi greatly admired this system, remarking pleasantly to Bolt on its practical and logical workings, and the sorcerer had to agree.
Turrets and domes dominated the brick city of Karnoosh. The walled portion of the place — the actual city — was relatively small; no more than seven or eight thousand souls were enclosed by the high barriers. All around the city, except on the side that abutted the shore of the big lake, were ancillary villages and towns that quadrupled or quintupled the total population of the area. Most of these smaller places were liberally dotted with caravansaries and wine shops where traders and laborers could find housing and amusement during their brief stay.
Continual streams of merchants came to the city, for Karnoosh was a hub where purveyors from north, south, east, and west could exchange commodities. An open bazaar was always busy. Slaves, spices, animals, ivory, and a multitude of other goods were sold and traded there. The brick casbah housed sufficient troops to encourage everyone to do business peacefully, but just in case auxiliary fortresses also stood on either flank of the city. The Shah of Karnoosh was very rich and very powerful. There were no strong states around his little realm, so for a century there had been no warfare troubling the place. Such peace and prosperity brought even more merchants to Karnoosh, and it was a thriving cosmopolis by all measures of the whole of Oerik.
Obmi's attitude about the place was in conflict with all the obvious facts. "This is no real city," he observed petulantly. It was obvious that the dwarf belittled Karnoosh for one simple reason. Men, not demi-humans — and in particular, not dwarves — dominated it. In the whole of the city, there were not more than a half-dozen of his own kind. In fact, there were so few of any nonhuman sort here that even Bolt was amazed. An easterner like Obmi, he had long been accustomed to encountering at least a fair number of nonhumans in any city or large town. Even in the western cities of Hlupallu and Ghastoor, they had seen enough dwarves and elves so that neither Obmi nor Bolt felt terribly out of place. But out here on the steppes, such was not the case.
Here there were males and females with deep brown, dusky, swarthy, tan, yellow, or reddish hues to their skin. There were short men and women, tall ones, stocky folk and lean. Some had small noses, others beaks. They looked different from one another, but with few exceptions they were all humans. These folk lived and worked together in harmony of a sort, at least bound to each other by their common racial heritage, but they did not consider elves, dwarves, or the like as their equals.
So, instead of desiring to linger in this exotic city as he had wanted to do in both Hlupallu and Ghastoor, Obmi demanded to leave Karnoosh as quickly as possible. This edict placed a terrific strain on Bolt, for the sorcerer had to gather more equipment and supplies, see that all was properly packed and loaded, and all the while make certain that no spy discovered what was taking place. It required four days for Bolt to handle all the details, but then the dwarfs group was away from Karnoosh, going along the southeast track that followed the lake's edge for more than seventy miles before splintering into three smaller trails heading in different directions of the compass. They led their carts and wagons, horses and mules along the smallest of the three paths, the center one that led south toward the town of Tashbul and then east and south into the Grandsuel Peaks.
"Tashbul will provide all the rest of what we need," Obmi told Bolt smugly, even though he himself did not know the whole truth of the matter, for he was aware that the sorcerer had no knowledge of this part of the west, and Obmi had picked up some intelligence on the subject back in Kamoosh. Although even most sages and savants of the Flanaess could boast no great store of knowledge on the subject at hand, the sorcerer's ignorance was a tool the dwarf enjoyed using against Bolt.
"You are most learned, lord," Bolt replied with a touch of sourness evident in his tone.
Obmi basked in the glow of this grudgingly given praise. This verge of the old Baklunish Empire, my dear Bolt, still retains some small vestiges of the once-great culture lost in the Invoked Devastation. They are a decadent people, but interesting nonetheless, and they will understand our needs."
"I bow to your wisdom, lord," the sorcerer murmured, vowing to do his best to return the favor at the first opportunity.
Between five and six days later they arrived in Tashbul, found suitable lodgings, and set about the final preparations before entering the Ashen Desert. This city was as devoid of nonhumans as Karnoosh had been, but here Obmi and his ilk were looked upon more as a novelty to be enjoyed than a lesser to be shunned. The dwarf actually had a good time, in his sense of the term, during a week of debauchery in the ancient town. But then it was time to be on his way. Bolt had spent his stay in the town acting under more of Obmi's orders, seeking out some personnel and materials they still needed, enlarging and reorganizing the train, and generally doing his utmost to see that all would go as planned. He was tired, frazzled, and near his wits' end when the day arrived for departure, but he had accomplished everything he was responsible for.
The journey from Tashbul to the mountain pass that would lead them through the Grandsuels to the desolation of the old Suel lands was relatively quiet. But then, after covering a little more than ninety miles in six days across grassland and then again over dry ground, they came to the place where the guides Bolt had hired in Tashbul would take over, leading them through the mountains. The pass was winding, steep, and treacherous. To traverse a distance of twenty-five leagues as the crow might fly, they had to go twice that far overland, following the rocky path that was the only sure route between the crags. The journey was even more difficult because of die carts that were necessary to haul the equipment Obmi needed, but after more than two weeks of climbing, carrying, and stumbling through the rocks, the party made its way to the place where barren rock gave way to the vast stretch of dust and ash that rolled away to the south, east, and west as far as the keenest eye could see.
Most of the party turned back now. The mountain guides, of course, were not needed any longer. Likewise, the caretakers of the carts did not have to go farther, because the carts themselves had served their purpose. Before the majority of the group left to head back north, artisans assembled the stuff that the carts had brought through the mountains. They worked day and night while Obmi brooded and paced, occasionally overseeing the work but more often simply waiting out the delay inside his tent. At sunrise of the second day since the group had camped, Bolt came to Obmi at the end of his master's morning meal and gently led him outside.
There she is, Lord Obmi — faithfully recreated from the drawings I obtained in Ghastoor," said the sorcerer, making no attempt to c
onceal his pride.
The object that the sorcerer pointed to was a shiplike device that rested on four great tubes. These cylindrical wheels were made of the skins of grubs, immature giant beetles that were native to the lush, semitropical valleys that lay west of Tashbul. These, along with the pieces of the dismantled craft, had been carted from that city to the edge of the Ashen Desert to form a unique mode of transport across the waste. The skins were cut to the proper shapes, then laboriously sewn together, and the seams were sealed by heat before the cylinders were inflated with bellows. The body of the vehicle, its shape resembling that of a seagoing vessel, was filled with stores of provisions and equipment. Even though the group that would travel across the desert included a cleric who would be able to supply magical provisionings, it was wise to carry real food and water in case something should befall the man. The vehicle had a single large sail, as yet not raised. The whole thing was a sight that was at once incongruous yet quite logical, considering the "sea" over which it would be traveling.
During the group's sojourn in Ghastoor, Bolt had managed to find some very helpful information — a treatise on an expedition into the Ashen Desert carried out more than a century ago by an adventurous savant. This brave fellow recorded his travels in the desolation and gave detailed drawings of the vessel he used to accomplish his long journey from the western side of the Inferno Peaks along the edge of the Grandsuels. This bold savant had found ruined cities along his route, managed to discover the mountain kingdom of Zufon, and eventually make his way back to his own home again.
From the drawings and information he discovered, Bolt worked hard to not only duplicate the savant's feat but also to learn all he could about what the journey held in store. Survival was foremost, knowledge second. Even if he did not eventually become the leader due to some mistake made by the dwarf — and there would be plenty of opportunity for that in the vast and hostile basin of ash — then at worst the sorcerer could claim the accolades for providing the vehicle that brought success to the champion of the demoness. Obmi, of course, would derogate any contribution of his, but Bolt knew he was clever enough to be given credit when the time was ripe. He was not, after all, shy.