Chapter 12

I was nervous about returning to Port Zamfara this morning. The gate guards didn’t act any different except they seemed indifferent to Karako’s presence today. The line of people hoping to sell slaves started forming even before the marketplace seemed awake. It was much shorter than yesterday, even though I recognized several people who had returned to sell additional slaves. I guessed that they thought overnight about the long-term financial prospects for Port Zamfara and decided to reduce their liabilities as much as possible. The slaves today were mostly trained craftsmen and beautiful young women who had graced their master’s bed.

I was surprised when Sergeant Pargakz snuck into the office through the back door during the day. “Can you get into the castle stables tonight without being noticed?” I asked him. He assured me that he could.

“Be inside just before the moon is directly overhead. Don’t be startled if you hear strange noises. When you hear the call of a barn owl, reply by asking in a whisper if the moon will be rising soon. Follow the men who show up. Leave behind your uniform, weapons, and any personal belongings that aren’t critical. Once you reach our camp, we’ll provide everything you need, including two horses.

“Ride north immediately without stopping and change horses periodically. It’s normally a two-day ride, but you should make it in one day if you don’t stop. Right before you reach the Zingha River, you’ll see earthen mounds to the east of the road. Once you cross the river, the road branches. Follow the fork to the right and it will take you to our estate. Ask for the Patriarch and tell him that I sent you,” I instructed.

He left as quietly as he had arrived.

By noon, it seemed as if everyone who wanted to sell slaves had done so. I managed to buy two more wagons and loaded one with food.

After what Sergeant Pargakz told me, I bought eighteen swords, twenty-six bows, and several hundred arrows, all that were available. I explained to the sellers that we were opening both a copper mine and a salt mine and needed to arm men to guard them. Evidently, nobody else knew the information Sergeant Pargakz told me since everyone was happy to sell me the weapons I wanted. Captain Tjorius even requested that I buy the battle-axes that were available, so I did. I knew when I finished the deals that I had managed to buy most of these items at barely above what they cost to make. I even managed to get several sets of armor and nine shields before deciding to hang onto the ten gold coins that I had left.

“Find any of the new men and see if they have military experience or if they know how to use a bow or any of the other weapons,” I told Captain Tjorius. “I want to be ready in case we’re accosted on the way home. Once we get home, I want as many men as possible armed and trained in case Bajasan still tries to invade.”

There are only three ways to reach Mokoko from Port Zamfara: arrive by ship, cross the bridge over the Zingha River, or use the caravan route. We already had a wall across the caravan route, and I planned to reset my snares on the slope above it and to add even more. Some sort of watchtower on the vantage point we used would also be a good idea and would protect sentries from wind and rain. The twenty-foot watchtower at the bridge allowed a sentry to see down the road about three miles. If we built a tower on the south rim of the valley where we had watched for the baron’s men, they could see even farther than half a day’s ride.

What I guessed to be a wealthy merchant showed up as we were loading our things. He had four slaves he wanted to sell. Three of his four slaves were experienced craftsmen. The fourth was a slave the Baron had forced him to buy a few days ago. I apologized, telling him that I only had eight gold coins left, showing him my money pouch. I still had two more gold coins in the pouch with the stones for my sling since I wanted to have something in case of an emergency. He finally accepted the eight coins, grudgingly, and left me with the four men.

The slave the Baron had sold to the merchant was quickly in a whispered conversation with one of the troops remaining with me. He brought the man over and told me that the new baron had sold him to get him away from everyone in the castle. Two days ago, he inadvertently overheard the new Baron discussing the planned invasion with a messenger from King Kemmou. The invasion was still planned for the start of the wet season, but only for the area south of the Tattatoo River. He felt they could loot enough gold in Mokoko, including taking back what I had been given from the Baron’s wealth, to hire the planned mercenaries. That way, he would have enough troops to hold Mokoko and the territory between there and Port Zamfara once the floodwaters receded.

We left for our camp north of the Mazagan River immediately. Once there, the slave who overheard the conversation was sent north with two horses. Fortunately, he knew how to ride.

Our column now consisted of sixty-five men on horses armed with bows. The men who came with me gave their crossbows to the men who agreed to help. Others used the bows I bought in Port Zamfara, giving us twenty-five more archers. They rode in the remaining wagons. The wagons with women and children from today had already left with instructions to make the return trip in two days instead of three. We still had an extra wagon to load with our tents, food, and other supplies.

I dozed fitfully, and not because of my shoulder this time. It hadn’t hurt much for two days now, but I hadn’t ridden more than two miles each way. Captain Tjorius woke me in plenty of time. Once I was dressed and put my armor on, I met Tallak and the ten men going with us.

I had been surprised when Tallak told me about a secret tunnel that exited the castle and city, ending well outside the city walls, providing a sally port. King Kemmou’s grandfather built it when he was the Duke of Port Zamfara. When King Kemmou became King, he didn’t tell the next noble. He wanted a secret access to the castle in case the noble ever double-crossed him the way he had his King.

Tallak knew about the sally port because he caught a smuggler who had snuck out with three pack mules loaded with goods he wanted to sell somewhere beside the city so he didn’t have to pay the exorbitant taxes. The smuggler’s grandfather had helped build the exit and told his son about it. Shortly after the tunnel was completed, the slaves who built it were split up and scattered across Bajasan to keep them from telling anyone in Port Zamfara. The smuggler had returned to buy caravan goods.

After revealing his secret, the smuggler had joined the rest of the deceased inhabitants of the sixth hidden shelter they used to hide bodies of the men they killed who were trying to recapture escaped slaves. They took his mules to Mithra Bhu to use for plowing and carrying heavy loads and sold his goods in Mokoko.

I was surprised at how quickly the men with me moved in the dark through the grassy field using game trails. We then transitioned to dirt paths used by the workers who did the farming. The entrance was disguised as an outcropping of rocks. The front of the outcropping swung to the side when the two pressure plates were activated in the proper sequence.

Once we were inside the tunnel and the hidden door was closed, they used a red-hot coal they brought in a covered iron bucket and lit a torch they brought. I noticed a collection of partially burned torches just inside the entrance, along with an empty bucket. Tallak brought two buckets of water with us to douse the torches.

The tunnel was nearly a mile long and looked like the arch over the new gate of the goat/sheep pen in the main valley, just longer. The floor of the tunnel was dirt, but the walls were stone, and the ceiling was a stone arch nearly ten feet high. The tunnel was seven feet wide, plenty wide for loaded mules. I guessed that a mounted rider who kept his head down could ride through the tunnel.

“What are those?” I asked, pointing to round holes spaced every fifty feet or so in the top of the tunnel. They were wide enough for me to stick my forearm in.

“They allow air into the tunnel and smoke out,” Tallak explained. I wondered how they could hide the air holes on the outside if the area was plowed and planted.

When we reached the end of the tunnel, I started to worry because a rock wall blocked the end. Tallak picked up one of the old torches before dousing his with a hiss in the second bucket of water that we brought.

“Shhhhh,” he cautioned quietly. I heard two quiet clicks and then felt air blowing in my face. Tallak made a noise like a barn owl receiving the proper passphrase in response.

“Come with us,” he whispered, leading Sergeant Pargakz into the tunnel. I heard another quiet click as the flow of fresh air into the tunnel stopped. He quickly had an old, dry torch lit from the coal they still carried in the bucket.

“I didn’t know this was here,” Sergeant Pargakz gasped when the torch caught, and he could see his surroundings.

“Neither does the Baron,” Tallak replied, explaining the origin of the tunnel as we retraced our steps to the other end. Once there, Tallak doused the torch and gave us enough time for our eyes to get used to the dark before he cautiously opened the hidden exit.

The moon provided enough light for us to see the game trails we followed back to the river and then to our camp.

“Amazing,” Sergeant Pargakz said as he looked backwards into the darkness.

We gave him food, water, one of the swords, and a bow that I bought earlier, along with two horses. After I repeated the instructions I gave him earlier, he headed north. He should reach my home by late afternoon to verify the story the slave should have already told Father. I felt a weight I didn’t realize I had been carrying lift from my shoulders when I realized that Father should know by now. He’d know what to do and who to warn.

It made me glad once again that he was the Patriarch, and I was just a goatherd/explorer.

I could tell that everyone was on edge in the morning. The usual banter was replaced by the quiet sounds of birds, frogs, and crickets as the soldiers double-checked their armor and weapons. In the distance, I could hear waves crashing against rocks along the nearby beach. Tallak presented me with ten more bows that his watchers provided us from their meager arsenal. I promised to return them and to provide them with more weapons.

“Our people are happy today,” he replied, waving off my promise. “We estimate that there are fewer than thirty slaves left in Port Zamfara this morning, far fewer than we ever dared hope.”

The sun hadn’t even begun to clear the mountaintops in the east before we were on our way home. Captain Tjorius had several men scouting in front of us and to the east, as well as men trailing us to watch for pursuit. The ocean was less than a quarter mile to the west.

Last night we reviewed our trip south remembering locations that would provide us with cover should we need it. Fortunately, there were several. Tallak told us there were only two places for Bajasanian troops to cross the Mazagan River. The first was along the last two miles of the river where it was wide enough and shallow enough to ford anywhere except during the rainy season, and especially across the bridge we used the last two days.

Two miles from the coast, the riverbed became a crevasse with steep, rocky sides, making it impossible to cross with a horse. The second possibility was a bridge about fifteen miles farther inland, but it was dangerous and in disrepair due to not having been used or maintained for twenty years.

When Bajasan surrendered the territory, they burned the two towns in the territory, forcibly relocating everyone who lived there into existing towns farther south. The bridge had been a link between the capital and those two towns. Many people from one of the towns joined a small fishing village along the coast to the south. Unfortunately for Bajasan, aside from Port Zamfara, their entire coast was too rocky and the water too shallow and shoal-filled for trade ships to get close enough to dock. Port Zamfara was their only viable trade port, and now there were almost no ships stopping there.

The trading network that existed before, selling goods and slaves to the Libanian caravans, and taking imported goods and slaves to sell throughout the rest of the country had fallen apart, disrupting the economy of the entire Kingdom. Merchants in other towns and cities relied on what they sold to or bought from the traders from Port Zamfara as they travelled around the country. Other businesses in town relied on what the traders and the merchants who catered to the traders bought from them.

With almost no ships stopping in Port Zamfara, the economic collapse was cascading downward.

Anyway, the only effective way to catch us would have to be from directly south of us.

We could have traveled faster without the wagons but needed the wagons. Besides, even the wagons were faster than having the men without horses walk. Late in the afternoon, the scouts behind us reported that a column of one hundred Bajasanian troops was catching up to us.

Half an hour later, we reached one of the locations with plenty of cover. Aside from weed-covered piles of charred wood, the twenty-foot-high rock walls were all that remained of a fishing town a bit smaller than Mokoko. The walls rose out of the thigh-high grass and weeds that grew along both sides of the road. We had briefly explored the remains of the town on our way south. The main north/south road skirted the east side of the town. A branch diverted through the town through a pair of large arches that had once been barricaded by heavy wooden gates that were no longer in evidence.

The only building still in evidence was the roofless rock and mortar walls of what had probably been an inn and tavern for use by travelers. It had been built outside the walls in case travelers arrived after the town gates closed for the night or wanted to leave before the gates opened at dawn. The building was on the east side of the road, set back about thirty feet. Just like everywhere else, the grass and weeds around it were thigh high.

Captain Tjorius quickly set about establishing our defenses. Archers took positions along the town walls and we used the wagons to block both gates. I was surprised when he also stationed our newest archers inside the ruins of the old inn/tavern.

“If they attack, we get them to concentrate on the city walls and then the new archers surprise them from behind. If they try to use the building for cover, they’re in for a rude surprise,” he laughed. I set up a surprise of my own and stood on the rampart of the former town’s walls.

Just before the column arrived, Captain Tjorius rode along the road looking at the walls, smiling. “When they get here, they will have a difficult time seeing our men. The sun will be right in their eyes,” he chuckled.

Hearing that, I moved down from the wall and stood behind the wagon in the south gateway. Shortly after that, the column rode up, stopping when the officer saw me. “You,” he said accusingly, “have a runaway slave among those you bought.”

“Every slave that I took out of Port Zamfara was sold to me by someone living there. If I have a runaway slave, one of your citizens sold him to me,” I replied.

“Regardless, he belongs to the Baron and must be returned,” the officer insisted.

“Now I know which slave you’re looking for, but I’m afraid that he is already in Mokoko and has reported the details of your planned surprise invasion to the authorities there. Since there is no further reason for you to be here, I insist that you leave Morilian territory and return to Port Zamfara,” I replied. I could see that the news angered him.

“Do you think that your handful of untrained slaves worries me?” he laughed.

“If it doesn’t, it should,” I replied curtly.

“The last time I faced a hundred Bajasanian troops, I did it with three of my wives and two Nordlinger goatherds. The handful who reached me fell to my wild dogs and wolves.

“This time, I have nearly as many men as you do, not to mention my wolves,” I said. I could see that the comment about wolves worried several of the troops as they started looking around nervously.

“I heard about your one dog that looks like a wolf. He spent two days in town and didn’t bother anyone. Besides, I don’t see any of your wolves,” the officer laughed.

“Ask any of your men who hunt if they are as sure as you that my wolves aren’t close,” I taunted.

“If they were nearby, the horses would know it,” he replied smugly.

“Your horses have smelled my wolves since you left town, so they aren’t as wary of their scent,” I reminded him. I didn’t tell him that the wind was blowing towards the wolves so the horses couldn’t smell them anyway.

“You will return the slaves that you have with you and we will return them to Port Zamfara so the Baron can make sure the escaped slave isn’t among them,” the officer insisted.

“Turn your men around, return home, and tell your Baron that you failed to bring the slave home. Your presence in Morilian territory could be considered an act of war. We now know that the fifty so-called bandits who attacked the first caravan were Bajasanian troops, as were the hundred men the Baron led into our territory to stop the next caravan. Yours is the third incursion by Bajasanian troops in a short time, quite disturbing considering the secret plans to attack Mokoko when the next wet season starts,” I said loud enough for the Bajasanian troops to hear. Their reaction told me that it was the first they heard about it.

When the officer raised his bow towards me, a furry blur leapt from the grass nearby. Karako knocked the officer from his horse and ripped his throat out. Stunned, the remaining men just gawked at his body and several horses shied, dumping several riders.

“I suggest that each of you drop your weapons onto the ground before the rest of the wolves decide that you look tasty,” I hollered. Aside from looking nervously at each other, they didn’t move.

“I’ll count to three before releasing the wolves,” I warned. “I’m sure that our archers will deal with anyone the wolves leave.”

Captain Tjorius whistled twice and archers on both sides of the column rose ominously. Several of the Bajasanian troops quickly dropped their bows, leading more men to follow their example until only a handful of men still had their bows.

“One,” I said loudly. At “two,” the last holdouts dropped their bows, too.

“And now swords, knives, and any other weapons,” I insisted, getting a much quicker response. “Please dismount so that we can eat supper and go to sleep. I assure you that we will have wolf-supplemented sentries patrolling tonight so I suggest that you not move around camp after everyone goes to sleep,” I warned.

Once the men dismounted and moved away from their weapons, I whistled a command and my wolves showed themselves. Captain Tjorius had some of his men gather the weapons and put them in the wagons while others supervised the Bajasanian troops as they put up our tents and their tents and broke out the food we brought.

The wolves moved amongst everyone, taking the opportunity to sniff each of the prisoners, making our prisoners even more nervous. After a late evening meal, things settled down remarkably quickly and I fell asleep equally quickly. The ride today had taken its toll on my shoulder, although not nearly as much as on the trip south.