The Emperor's Men 7: Rising Sun

by Dirk van den Boom

  Well, Tatb’u’s had turned out to be a lot more catastrophic than his own. Balkun had emerged from the battles only slightly injured – he had to admit that he’d never been a particularly eager soldier and had always preferred domestic farm work to warcraft. Every time the King called for a campaign, Balkun had followed the call with mixed feelings. He had the impression that fame, honor and loot were in the aftermath of the greatest victory always a little … unevenly distributed. Well, a clever man with alert eyes, of course, always found an opportunity to load his back with valuable goods, and Balkun didn’t want to be unfair. He had a strong back that held up a weight, and one time or another, he had returned to his wife adequately laden, which she had noted with benevolence.

  Balkun seized upon the thought of his wife and three children. Two sons and a daughter, who now had to tend to the fields alone and in uncertainty about the fate of their father. Balkun prayed for their and his strength in order to return to them, though he didn’t expect to see his family so soon. He lived and reminded himself of that fact again and again. As long as he lived, there was hope, and that feeling sustained him. Others were less comfortable with it, struggling with their fate, and wondering again and again how a campaign that had begun under such wonderful signs could have ended so horribly. The doubts tormenting them were both of a military and spiritual nature, along with fear about their individual fate.

  After all, they were taken care of, and almost none of them felt had the sacrificial knife. This was unusual, but the strange teachings and behaviors of the messengers fitted well with this fact.

  Balkun knew that death came faster than expected. The messengers forged a military force out of the prisoners, one, as there has never been one before had never in the land of the corn people. Balkun was already a better fighter than when he attacked Mutal, and he had been a veteran of three campaigns. He became a real warrior, and the farmer in himself felt like a flower without water. The thought didn’t suit him. A warrior only made sense if used. And it was an assignment that entailed the danger of dying. But Balkun wanted only one thing: to return and have a peaceful life on his land. Should kings and messengers fight their wars themselves. They could sacrifice their blood to the gods as they pleased.

  Why did they have to involve him in the matter?

  Balkun was highly dissatisfied with his situation, although he had to admit that the messengers tended their slaves properly. They were not hungry, and nobody had to sleep outdoors. Only the very stupid or very independent minded were beaten, but even there nobody was crippled or even killed. And they promised them a return to their three cities, as conquerors and then as an army of the messengers, who preserved law and order for the newly appointed rulers. If all went well, Balkun would become a man of some standing who deserved respect, whether slave or not, a perspective that made some happy. But the good treatment gave the opportunity to brood, and that didn’t suit everyone.

  Balkun didn’t trust his luck. It had proven to be quite unreliable at last. Moreover, he didn’t look for respect outside his family. It was this addiction to reputation and false immortality that had led to the death of Yaxchilan’s king and the defeat of his army. Balkun was anything but stupid. He drew his own conclusions.

  Maybe he should draw fewer conclusions, he thought, think less. There were fewer problems if he did so. Then he might also find sleep. The messengers had announced something for tomorrow, which they called a “very strenuous march”, and that consisted of circumnavigating Mutal’s city limits, divided into small units, within a certain time and under careful supervision. They would all be heavily packed. The victorious unit, according to Inugami, their new general, would receive chi and one day off duty. Balkun found this prospect quite auspicious, but was by no means certain that it justified the effort involved.

  He closed his eyes. The loud snoring of his comrades didn’t help him find the desired peace. And when he listened in, the images of his children rose in his mind’s eye immediately and absolutely uncontrollably, and the pain involved was stronger than any need for sleep. He cursed himself. He cursed the King of Yaxchilan for his arrogance, and he cursed Mutal’s new masters for not letting the prisoners go home, as had been the case on previous occasions, after making an example of the nobles and leaders. But there was no doubt about his status. He remembered what had happened to the two men who had tried to escape at night. Their corpses had been presented to the assembled crew the next morning, without much comment. The grim glances of Mutal’s soldiers, who had picked up the deserters, spoke for themselves.

  Balkun sensed that he simply had to survive. He had to trust the promises of the messengers. If he served well, he would be reunited with his family. He would live a good life, far from anything else imagined as slavery. He had to believe it, so as not to go completely crazy.

  Balkun heard a noise. It sounded different from the usual sounds of the night, and that caught his attention. He rose to his elbows, listening to the darkness. There, again. It sounded like the night when the two deserters had gone, a paw of footsteps, a suppressed whisper. Balkun looked around. There was no one among the warriors who stirred. They all slept enviably. And the guards kept away from the slaves’ camp, patrolling the surrounding streets, the edge of the woods, all the escape routes that one could imagine, though there were certainly others.

  Balkun straightened up completely.

  He turned his head in the direction of the sounds.

  Then he got up. He climbed over his neighbor’s body, stepped out from under the roof of the large balustrade that formed the camp with others like it, until the buildings were finished, which were called “barracks” and would be equal in size and extent to a temple.

  The night was bright, a clear sky from which a three-quarter moon and the stars were shining. Out of the darkness, two figures peered in crouched attitudes, their eyes fixed on the torches of the guardhouse. There, four of the slaves pushed the night watch, and as Balkun knew from experience, they were not half as attentive as one would expect. If these two figures were unannounced visitors or deserters, the guards would be in for a lot of trouble. The lord of the messengers wouldn’t hesitate to publicly chastise the men. He seemed to take a certain pleasure in it, though he was careful to beat only those who had actually been deserving because of their gross misconduct.

  Balkun’s eyes narrowed. The way the two moved was clearly aimed at moving undiscovered, and no one had noticed their presence except for the sleepless Yaxchilan man. Balkun thought for a moment to just lie back down and pretend that nothing had happened. The two men might be up to no good, but surely the slaves wouldn’t be the target of their intentions. But then he thought of his fellow sufferers in the guardhouse and the torments they would expect if the two intruders not only went undetected, but seriously … did something. Whatever they were going to do.

  Balkun made a decision, even if it wasn’t easy. He stepped out into the dim darkness of the night and followed both figures. He knew his way around here by now. In the surrounding fields he had come to know the earth more closely and intensely than he ever thought possible, sometimes with his face pressed into the dirt, the heel of a trainer in the neck, the ultimate submission, and an intense, harsh lesson in that what Inugami demanded of them when a supervisor shouted loudly “Cover!”

  Balkun felt at an advantage, and he wanted to use it. Maybe something came out o fit for him in the end. It wasn’t the loyalty to his new masters that drove him. It was the thought of his children and the yearning for them that inspired him to do this. Perhaps …

  The two figures moved.

  Balkun followed.

  He kept proper distance. If anyone should become aware of the two strangers, he did not want to be associated with them. How soon could you turn from an attentive warrior to a co-conspirator, no matter what the two were up to?

  The road led away from the slave warrior’s quarters, into the city. Several times they enc
ountered the nocturnal patrols roaming the broad streets of the center of Mutal, big torches in their fists, spreading their wisp of light over the sleeping city. Balkun knew that now he himself began to do something very wrong, because he wasn’t allowed to leave the well-defined area that served them for accommodation and training.

  But he couldn’t go back. He not only needed to know what was happening here, he also had to make sure that his entrance was favorably staged.

  The two men didn’t seem to be lost at all. They knew where they could stop and wait for the guards to pass by. Balkun also felt that the guards were less numerous tonight than usual. Perhaps Inugami began to put some confidence in the discipline of his men.

  The strangers approached the king’s palace with a certain determination. Here, the number of guards would increase significantly. Balkun hesitated again. Shouldn’t he return? It was almost impossible to invade the palace unrecognized. There were sentinels at every entrance. And they were known to take their job very seriously. When they were found asleep, the next day they hung eviscerated by a tree trunk, a fate that wasn’t very pleasant to anyone.

  Balkun overcame his hesitation.

  This was also because the two strangers didn’t want to go to the palace at all but apparently expected someone to come out. In the dim light, he was only able to recognize that they were probably men. The third person had easily stepped out of the side entrance of the mighty structure and then quickly disappeared into the shady darkness where the two arrivals had been waiting.

  Balkun sneaked closer. He couldn’t see much but maybe could listen.

  He had good ears. Those who had children running around in the fields with youthful recklessness had to have good ears.

  He moved in, careful to make as little noise as possible. Scraps of voice came to him, and he closed his eyes to concentrate. There, now he could grasp what was being discussed.

  “That’s all?”

  “The paste is very suitable. The fire will spread quickly. We milked the tree for hours, three long nights. You just have to smear it evenly.”

  “I don’t want to burn myself.”

  “You escape in time. Not too early. The fire must be big enough.”

  “I know a way.”

  “Well.”

  “And you keep your promise?”

  “As agreed. Your daughter marries my son, you yourself become high priest.”

  “The House.”

  “And the house. It’s yours.”

  “And not a word.”

  “The winners write history. When everything is done, you will be honored. Not a word before, as it has been agreed.”

  Balkun came more and more to the conclusion that the two strangers were no strangers at all. The fact that they were sneaking through the city at night was more likely to be due to the fact that they generally didn’t want to be seen. Maybe they had done something at the edge of the forest near the training grounds. Balkun knew what kind of paste the unknown man was talking about. There was a resin that, when scratched from the tree, formed an excellent foundation for kindling a fire, much better than wood or straw. A small spark was enough, and a big campfire, covered with resin, exploded in seconds. Most housewives didn’t use it because it was barely controllable. It was usually kept very carefully in neatly closing clay jugs, outside the house, far away from every fire pit. If you ever used it. In any case, this paste didn’t exist in Balkun’s house. It was a bit more cumbersome to use only wood or straw, but also more economical – the paste was never made in large quantities – and safer.

  Balkun blinked. The yield of days and hours of resin extraction had to fill a decent clay jug. Igniting this paste at a central location in the palace, the mighty building would soon turn into a burning inferno.

  An attack on the King!

  His heart beat faster than he realized it.

  Balkun should be happy about that.

  Chitam was actually his enemy.

  But he followed his spontaneous impulse again. He didn’t run back to his sleeping place, he stayed and watched what happened. When the two men handed the pitcher to the figure from the palace, they stood for a moment in the faint moonlight. Balkun didn’t know any of these men, and he didn’t even know if he would recognize their faces beyond doubt in daylight.

  But he understood determination when he saw her, and these three conspirators were determined.

  “Tonight, then,” said the traitor from the palace.

  “Start right away.”

  Balkun suppressed a loud breather.

  They wanted to take action immediately! This wasn’t the preparation, this was the conclusion of their plans! Fear crawled up in his throat, feeling his knees soften momentarily. He clung to the wall of the house, in whose shadow he had remained. His thoughts were racing. He had to do something. Act. React. But what – how? For whom?

  And what risk would he take?

  The three men before him were not plagued by these doubts. No horror paralyzed them. The pitcher changed hands, some brief words were exchanged, and then the man from the palace broke away from the group, struggling back to unleash the great disaster he had conspired to do.

  The other two men disappeared in the darkness.

  Whom to follow?

  Whom now?

  Balkun stood there frozen, lost valuable seconds, but then he finally made a decision and went determinedly behind the traitor. Toward the palace. That might mean his end. But now there was no way back for him.

  He heard a suppressed cry. He quickened his pace, almost stumbling as he saw the corpse of a warrior lying in front of him, in the area of a side access door to the palace, in the midst of a steadily growing pool of blood slowly drifting off the dusty ground. Naturally! Intruders from outside have set the fire, to this simple conclusion any investigation would come. Much better than having to deal with the unpleasant and painful realization of a betrayal.

  Balkun stepped cautiously over the body of the dead man, murdered by another whom he must have recognized as his equal, for there was no sign of resistance. Treachery of the worst sort, and Balkun felt bitter bile rising in him. Tatb’u may have been a megalomaniac king and had led his army blindly to destruction – but he had faced the enemy openly on the battlefield. He deserved respect for that.

  This traitor, however, deserved nothing else but contempt.

  Balkun hurried into the darkness of the barely lit corridors. He didn’t know his way around here. He had never entered the palace of Yaxchilan, a bit smaller than this building with its meandering suites and narrow doors. He had been a warrior and a peasant; the only buildings of value to him were the hut of his family and the temples to which he had hurried to pray to the gods. Palaces had always been very far away for him, and he had never developed a particular ambition to change that.

  But it was wonderfully quiet.

  He heard footsteps and a thud. The sound of someone putting on a clay jug that was well filled. Balkun stopped, listened, oriented himself, took a few steps in the hopefully correct direction. He cursed softly as he bumped his knee against a low dresser he hadn’t noticed, pausing again, hoping no one had heard him.

  It would be bad to be arrested as an assassin now, while the true threat could accomplish his work undisturbed. That would fit well. A revenge from a slave. He would play into the hands of the conspirators.

  He took a few more steps, stood by a door frame, heard a characteristic crackle, then a hissing sound, and felt a heat wave strike him.

  He started screaming. He screamed with all his fervor. “K’aak!”

  The warning spread. People awoke.

  Balkun went on, saw someone rush past him, ignoring him, a person who also invoked the loud “K’aak!” shouts, and yet, it must have been the traitor.

  Another scream, this time no warning but a cry of horror. Balkun rushed forward, his arms jerking as he stared into the
conflagration, which was spreading rapidly, eagerly eating the walls and carpets, and furniture, fueled by the resin of the tree, giving the heat a frenzied, insatiable power.

  He backed away, feeling his hair smolder. There, another door, not yet attacked by the fire. Through the smoke, he recognized the helpless figure of a child staring at the deadly force, crying, paralyzed. A girl about the same age as …

  Balkun didn’t think.

  He jumped forward, hopping lightly over a burning carpet, standing in the doorway, yanked the girl, who didn’t resist, already half unconscious through the pungent smoke. Balkun felt the flames lick his skin, felt the burning pain of searing flesh on his ankles, jumped again, wide, with all his strength, suddenly grateful for the hard training in the army of the messengers.

  He felt the heat under him as he propelled himself over the flames, and he struggled for balance as his feet touched the ground again.

  No time to hesitate. Balkun ran into the chaos of the palace, where now everyone had awakened and warriors had begun to evacuate the rooms, to tear the sleepers out of their slumber. He saw servants rushing up with water jugs and blankets, and he saw them shrink back in fear from the brutal intensity of the heat coming from the fire. He dragged the girl out, away from the smoke, gasping and coughing, filling his lungs with fresh air, then staggering to his knees and feeling the child’s release from his arms. A sudden weakness spread in his body.

  He heard shouts and cries from men who gave orders and tried to bring order to chaos.

  He looked around, regained his strength. Everywhere people ran around. Then he beheld the figure of the King, who wore no more than a loincloth but was obviously safe. He saw the Queen, who stood there, weeping and crying, looking around, pleading with her husband for something. The serious face of Chitam spoke volumes as he took the Lady Tzutz in his arms and reassured her. Then the King looked up, his eyes piercing the chaos, and he fell directly into Balkun’s eyes … no … something to the side.

  The girl!

  Moments later, Tzutz stormed in and embraced the crying child, then listened to the excited narrative, a waterfall of words that could have extinguished the raging fire alone, it was made of moisture. Balkun felt uplifted by the strong arm of Chitam, and he heard words that he understood slowly, full of gratitude and praise and …