‘No,’ Narasan replied, ‘but the enemy knows that we’re here. It appears that the thing all the natives call “the Vlagh” has been experimenting again. It has scouts watching us, but this time they’re bats, not snakes. They’ve still got poisonous fangs, though.’
‘Flying snakes?’ Gunda exclaimed.
‘It’s not quite as bad as it sounds, Gunda,’ Padan said. ‘That clever little Maag who works for Hook-Beak suggested that fish nets might be the best answer to the problem, and it seems to be working quite well. None of our people have been bitten - yet.’
‘Don’t start tacking “yet”s onto everything you say, Padan,’ Gunda growled. ‘That’s very irritating, you know.’
‘Just trying to cover all the possibilities, old friend.’
‘I’m glad you came on ahead, Gunda,’ Narasan said. ‘You’re the expert when it comes to building forts, and we’ve got a bit of a problem staring us in the face this time.’
‘Oh?’
‘If you look around, you’ll see that this basin up here’s surrounded by fairly steep ridges - all except for this one on the north side - and that, naturally, is almost certainly the direction from which the enemy will attack. There’s a gap about a mile wide in this ridge. I think it’d take almost all summer to build a fort that big. Padan’s had men laying a base across that gap, but it’s slow going, I’m afraid.’
‘You must have slept through some of our classes when we were boys, Narasan,’ Gunda said bluntly. ‘When you want to block off something of that size, you build a wall, not a fort. After I’d heard about that, I made a special trip off to the area to the east of Kaldacin to look at the wall that separates the cities of Falka and Chalan. The people of those two cities never really got along with each other for some reason, so the rulers sort of collaborated in the building of a wall that separates them.’
‘Bugs - or snakes, for that matter - wouldn’t find climbing a wall very difficult, Gunda,’ Padan objected.
‘They will if there are towers jutting out from the face of the wall every hundred feet or so, Padan - particularly if there are archers on top of the towers. Archers could peel them off that wall every time they started to crawl up, couldn’t they?’
‘You might be right, Gunda,’ Padan conceded.
‘Let’s try it,’ Narasan said. ‘This problem’s been keeping me awake for quite some time now.’
‘You can go back to sleep now, glorious leader,’ Gunda said smugly. ‘Mighty Gunda has returned, and so all’s well.’
‘That’s very irritating, Gunda,’ Narasan said sourly.
‘I’m glad you liked it, glorious leader. Now, then, what did you want me to do with these beans. I’m starting to get a little tired of carrying them around.’
‘It’s called “basalt”, Sub-Commander Gunda,’ Keselo explained. ‘We almost never encounter it down in the Empire, but it’s quite common in areas where there are volcanoes.’
‘What makes it break off square like this?’ Gunda demanded.
‘I’m not really certain, sir. Our instructor at the University of Kaldacin didn’t give us too many details when he was describing rocks that weren’t common in the Empire.’
‘Was there anything you didn’t study when you were going to school, Keselo?’ Gunda asked curiously.
‘Not really, sir,’ Keselo admitted. ‘I was trying my best to avoid making decisions at that particular time. I did avoid theology, though. The teachers in the theology department were all Amarite priests, and the students in their classes were expected to pass around a collection plate during every session.’
‘Those people will do almost anything to get their hands on all the money in the world, won’t they?’
‘They always seem to try, sir,’ Keselo agreed.
‘At least we earn our money. Let’s go back to this rock. Is it strong enough to use for buildings - or forts?’
‘It’s a bit more brittle than granite, sir, but the enemy this time doesn’t understand catapults or battering rams, so basalt should stand up.’
‘That’s all I really needed to know,’ Gunda said. ‘Flat rocks are easier to work with than round ones, and these flat black rocks are scattered around all over up here.’
‘That’s probably because we’ve got volcanoes all around us here.’
‘Fire-mountains, you mean?’ Gunda asked with a certain alarm.
‘That’s what Red-Beard called them. Not every volcano spits fire, though. Some of them just spew out ash instead of liquid rock.’
‘Is there any kind of warning when something like that’s about to happen?’
‘There are usually a few earthquakes before the top of the mountain gets blown away.’
Gunda shuddered.
Keselo looked on out toward the grassy basin. ‘Here comes Rabbit,’ he said.
‘Wasn’t he supposed to go south with Sorgan?’
‘Veltan borrowed him,’ Keselo explained.
‘What an interesting idea. I can’t remember the last time I borrowed somebody.’
Rabbit came up from the grassy basin to join them on the shattered ridge-line. ‘I hear tell that you’re going to build a wall along here,’ he said.
‘That’s the plan,’ Gunda replied.
‘Would it bother you if I made a suggestion?’
‘Not really,’ Gunda said. ‘What did you have in mind?’
‘Do you suppose that when you get up to the top you could add some poles about ten feet tall on the front side and the back?’
‘That shouldn’t be too hard. What are we going to use poles for?’
‘To hold up the fish-netting.’
‘I don’t think we’ll see very many fish trying to fly over the top of the wall, Rabbit.’
‘Maybe not, but we probably will see the bug-bats. Longbow seems to think that they’re just flying around to see what we’re doing, but Red-Beard said that he could smell the venom on the one that Longbow killed. If they get all tangled up in the fish-netting, they probably won’t be able to bite anybody.’
‘That’s not a bad idea, but I think the net might get in our way if we’ve got enemies climbing up our wall.’
‘Bats only come out at night, I’ve heard,’ Rabbit said. ‘We can raise the nets up high enough to get them out of your way in the daytime, and then lower them again when the sun goes down.’