The Steel of Raithskar by Randall Garrett Read Free Book Online Page B

kind. Though I had known, intellectually, there was more to Gandalara than the dry waste of the desert, the sight of anything wet surprised the hell out of me.
    I sat up a little and looked around, glad to have a new puzzle to distract me. In the distance I could see things growing in the marsh. Farther ahead, thicker now as we approached it, was the line of blue that had drawn me through the desert. I knew now that it was the Great Wall, at the foot of which lay Markasset’s home city of Raithskar.
    The city has to get its water from somewhere
, I decided.
This bog is the end of the line for whatever source feeds the city.
    It had to be a river which flowed down from the mountains, through or beside the city, and picked up more and more salt as it ran south into the desert. Here the intense heat caused such rapid evaporation that the water simply disappeared. Some of it might soak into the ground, but I’d bet money that the hot, dry air sucked up most of it.
    At the final edge, the brine concentration was so great that nothing could live in it except some stubborn algae and bacteria. Farther upriver, less hardy plants could live with water that was merely brackish. But this bog contained a saturated salt solution, into which no more salt could dissolve. It was thick, stagnant water covered by a mush of salt crystals which formed a thin, shiny crust.
    Keeshah was right; it would not be a good place to walk over.
    By noon, the marshy area was dotted with clumps of reeds and an occasional sickly-looking tree. Keeshah slowed, stopped.
    *
Too hot. Rest.
*
    I was willing. Riding a sha’um is less work than being one, but it was no picnic.
    I ate a bit of food from the pouch and leaned up against Keeshah’s heaving side.
    “I don’t wonder you’re pooped,” I told him, and he turned his head to look at me. I poured a little of the precious water into my hand and offered it. He lapped it up carefully, the big raspy tongue flipping it
under
itself and into his mouth. Then, deliberately, he licked across the palm of my hand, lightly enough that he didn’t quite scrape off hide.
    For a while we sat in companionable silence, staring at the Great Wall. I glanced at Keeshah, and smiled. He looked for all the world like a sphinx in informal dress. I leaned up against his shoulder and scratched under his chin absently as I surveyed the wall.
    It looked like a range of mountains stretching to the horizon on the east and west. There didn’t seem to be any high peaks or deep valleys, though; the top edge was a little uneven but, all things considered, remarkably smooth. I’d never heard of any such long,
high
wall as that, anywhere on Earth. China’s Great Wall might be as long or longer, but it was certainly not so incredibly high.
    Keeshah’s eyes were closing, and finally he shoved me aside so he could stretch out. I lay down against his back and fell asleep in the shadow of his body.
    I woke to a nearly inaudible whining noise and a very definite nudge. As I started to complain, Keeshah’s urgent thought reached me.
    *
Silence. Danger. Hide.
*
    I woke up fast.
    We crept quietly away from the road and lay flat behind a shallow rise. It was dotted with scraggly bushes that wouldn’t have hidden a jackrabbit in the daytime—but it was the best cover available.
    It was already night—the sun must have set some time ago. In the east there was a white glow that was the moon shining beyond the thin overcast. It spread an eerie silver radiance over the bleak landscape.
    Soon I could hear what had alerted Keeshah. Carrying over the flatland came the sounds of a group of men moving toward us. The low murmurs of men’s voices. The muffled pacing of many feet. An occasional sharper voice calling commands. An organized group of men, coming at a fast march from the north.
    It was several minutes before I could see their shadowy figures moving along the caravan trail in the veiled moonlight. Their voices became clear before their bodies