by Adam Corby
At last, impatient to leave these hushed walls and seek the fighting, he readied his strongest horse and secretly, leaving false rumors behind him to confound the spies he feared, rode to his meeting with Jakgron on the Way of Bollakarvil.
* * *
Now the paved Imperial highway stretched and turned before him, pale in the shadows of the high cliffs, desolate and lonely. No merchants led trains of fat ponies with bronze-armored guards here now – no pilgrims journeyed to seek blessings at the shrines. A few wretched refugees passed Ampeánor and Jakgron, the last trickle of a drying stream, and regarded these seeming renegades hostilely. As it had been with Tezmon, so it should prove of Bollakarvil: the rich and fearful fled, the poor and brave-hearted remained.
The dusty, hot winds coated the two riders with filth, completing their transformation. In a few removes they emerged from the long defiles and came upon a sloping, stone-strewn field. Above them as they rode, the mountains turned to face them, revealing upon the upper slopes the city of Bollakarvil, the Obdurate Mount.
They came to a halt where the Imperial highway turned up unto the city’s closed gates. Bollakarvil rose above them in perfect aureate walls and towers of yellow ivory, the gifts and offerings of tens of thousands of pilgrims in memory of and tribute to the first of the Bordakasha. Elna had been born here, into the midst of goatherds and robbers. No one remembered his parentage: all the world knew his deeds.
When Ampeánor had first beheld this city, he had not yet been old enough to sit a horse alone; but already he had known of Elna. Later, one of his tutors had asked him what was meant by the word, holy – and without pause he had answered, ‘Bollakarvil.’
On the iron plain below Arvenil’s skirts the skin tents of the barbarian hordes were strewn. The many thousands of them overran the plain. Dingy smoke, rising from thousands of cook-fires, was spread out in an ugly haze over the plain, for the winds were somewhat abated. The odor of it was apparent even at this distance. Broad avenues and lanes ran throughout the camp in haphazard, weblike patterns. Around the limits of the huge, sprawling camp barricades had been erected around which, at regular intervals, groups of sentries were riding three abreast.
The jade gates of Bollakarvil were as yet unbroken and unscarred. The walls of the city were lovely as yellow roses, or the naked golden shoulder of Allissál. Ampeánor felt all at once that he could go no farther down this road he had chosen, but must turn and ride back to Haspeth and lead his three companies to defend the city. They would not be enough, and would in the end be taken and slain, but what of that? The greatest glory and honor of the Empire and the South would be theirs.
Beside him, Jakgron shifted in the saddle, hawked the dust up from his gorge and spat noisily. ‘Well, sir, there you have it,’ he said, and laughed. ‘And now, will it prove your lordship’s pleasure to enter, and have a cut at the beard of Ara-Karn?’
The High Charan of Rukor shook his head, as a weary, foaming stallion will when he seeks to free his mane. He had remembered why he had come. ‘Lead on,’ he said, the dirt in his throat making a growl of his words.
They rode their wearied steeds down the dusty road roundward of the great camp, to the northernmost gate. There a giant of a barbarian, with coarse yellow hair showing at the base of his helmet, accosted them suspiciously.
‘You’ve been long gone, Jakgron,’ he grumbled, in a mixture of coarse northern dialect and slave-Bordo. ‘I thought you’d deserted. And who’s your friend?’
‘Not so long as the pickings are good,’ the Rukorian replied blithely. ‘No, as I’ve told you, I’ve a sweetheart in these parts. This is a fellow Rukorian. Torval’s his name. Good fightingman. We were comrades yonder, before the captain’s wife took too great a liking for me. He wants to join the fighting.’
‘Another one? By the Warlord’s beard, you Southrons are all slaves, sheep and traitors. Care to sell your sweetheart to me, Jakgron? What of you? Got any lovers with soft thighs you’d care to bargain over?’
‘How is the Warlord, since you swear by his beard?’ asked Jakgron casually. ‘Is Ara-Karn back in camp yet?’
The smile vanished off the face of the barbarian. With a great-thewed arm he leveled a lance and pricked Jakgron roughly in the chest. ‘Better watch that tongue, Southron, or you’ll soon be able to carry it about in your belt for safekeeping.’ Again he swept at them with the lance, rudely shoving at them to go in; and they, like sheepish, humble renegades, obeyed the urging of the barbarian conqueror.
So the future Emperor-Consort of Tarendahardil entered the camp of Ara-Karn.
They rode up the broad lane. Everywhere was activity; everywhere, the signs of past victories. A dirty, iron-armed barbarian polished a golden breastplate from Carftain; two slave-girls with the marks of a Postio brothel passed; a slatternly wench emptied a silver-inlaid chamber pot from Mersaline. Beyond open tent flaps ancient crests of noble lines gleamed, and begemmed drinking goblets, casks full of coins, jewels, gold, silver. They rode on and on through the splendor and the squalor of the vast camp. Ampeánor was reminded of the Thieves’ Quarter in Tarendahardil.
‘Here’s our tent,’ Jakgron said. By comparison with most of the barbarians’, the simple skin tent was small and nondescript. Before it an elderly woman, stooped and white-headed, tended a small stew simmering over a low fire.
Jakgron dismounted and tapped the woman on her shoulder. She started and turned around. ‘Eat,’ said Jakgron slowly, pointing his fingers at his open mouth.
‘Ug.’ The woman nodded. ‘Uh. Ah.’ She scurried into the tent and returned, bearing two small brass bowls.
‘She tends my needs here,’ Jakgron said, holding the flap wide for Ampeánor. The inside of the tent was close but neat. ‘A good cook, she works for little. She’s deaf and can only mumble incoherently; story is she was once a beautiful slave whose mistress had her tongue cut out and needles thrust in her ears, to punish her for gossiping. She keeps my secrets well enough.’
Ampeánor nodded. They set down to eat at a wooden plank. The sounds of the camp pierced the skin walls, buzzing in his ears. He was among the barbarians.
After the meal, Jakgron took him round the grounds. ‘Did you wonder that there are no lines arrayed round the city, nor any siege-machines?’ he asked. ‘They use none. Like enough they have not even assaulted Bollakarvil yet. They are crude tacticians at best – but for fighters seem more than mortal. They will camp outside a city so until it suits their general to attack; then in a frenzied surge of battle assault and take the city in a waking. Meanwhile, those within the city grow nervous and fearful, waiting and wondering when it will come and how many will die. I’m told that some cities in the North surrendered before even the first assault. And those cities Ara-Karn spared, that others should take the example.’
‘That will not be Bollakarvil’s way,’ said Ampeánor grimly, not without sadness.
‘Where we tent is one of the many foreign quarters, where all the mercenaries and renegades stay,’ Jakgron continued. ‘They are closely watched by the barbarians.’
‘Is there one against the outer barricades?’
‘No, they are too clever for that. We are always put in the midst of the camp. Do not think of trying to bring in Haspeth and his men disguised as renegades and staging a revolt; they’d see through it in an instant. We are allowed the honor of forming the first line of battle, however, with barbarians with bows on our tails to ensure that we don’t bolt.’
They were in an area more slovenly than the rest, with smaller tents and few horses. Women bustled about in droves; sidled up to the Rukorians lasciviously, their streaked eyes wide as those of amorous cows. Jakgron cursed them with an easy humor and kicked them off.
‘Camp-followers,’ he said. ‘Whores from the cities – peasants from the farms. They’ll do anything for gold, and everything for more gold. Most of them are poor as dirt, but the lovelier ones with favor among the greater barbarians are rich as princesses.’
Ampeá
nor looked at them with disgust.
In the very center of the camp was a large, square clearing, in which rose the outlines of a single, enormous tent. More palace than tent it seemed, made of cloth-of-gold, purple silks dyed in Tezmon, and the rarest, finest skins. The roof was constructed entirely of lush green bandarskins. Above it hung a standard, a field of black covered by a ring of long curving reptile teeth; and round it strode sentries marching three abreast.
‘The tent of Ara-Karn,’ said Jakgron.
Ampeánor regarded it. ‘Who else lives there?’
The fightingman shrugged his calloused shoulders. ‘No one. It is reserved only for their god-king. None else would abide there. He has no servants – not even any women, if the reports be true. Now is he in heaven, or wherever gods disappear to. Yet still the sentries march.’
Ampeánor grunted. ‘And when will he return?’
‘Ah,’ Jakgron hesitated. ‘Well, sir, the the truth is, no one knows. You saw how the guard at the gate regarded me when I spoke of Ara-Karn. On the whole, they treat us well enough; yet mention that name and they turn foul. It hasn’t been easy, gaining intelligence on their mysterious god-king. I have not even seen him – he has not even been in the camp since last year; and that is the whole of what I’ve been able to learn.’
Ampeánor frowned. ‘Yet in your letters, you said it would be an easy trick to kill him. Why did you not tell me this before? What slyness is this, Jakgron?’
‘I did not know the whole of this myself, before your message came to meet you. As for your plan – please, sir, lower your voice on that – I admit that, before, it seemed possible to me; but then I thought you but asked a scholar’s question, and not that you meant to risk your head here alongside this poor one of mine.’
‘Well, and have you even learned what the man’s looks are?’
‘Ask six men and you’ll get six answers. The only ones who could say for sure are the chiefs, or the men of his native tribe. They will not speak of him with such as us. All swear to his godhead, however. What else could explain their endless victories?
‘Their real leader is Gundoen. He is Ara-Karn’s chief man, and is said to be his father – so if you want an idea of Ara-Karn’s features, study Gundoen’s. Many of the renegades swear that Ara-Karn does not exist: that he is a myth or was killed long ago, and Gundoen only uses the mystique to forge the tribes together. And one man when in his cups whispered to me that Ara-Karn lay ill within his tent, addicted to dream-herbs like a babe to the nipple. True enough, it is a curiosity why they should carry about this tent in thirty wagons, and set it up for a game. Mark me a fool if there is not some mystery in that tent, sir. But it was Gundoen led them across the Taril.’
Ampeánor shook his head. Jakgron acted ashamed, yet there was some slyness behind his words. Now, he wondered, had it been right of him to place such a burden on such a man? Jakgron had lived and thrived as a thief many years before; then he had been caught one time too many, and sentenced to be strangled. Ampeánor had spared his life, to send him as a spy into the councils of the pirates of the Isles. He had distinguished himself then, and easily earned his life; but now Jakgron was years older; and these barbarians were not mere pirates. It might prove more than his base but likable nature could bear – yet at the same time, no good soldier could have been able to sustain such a masquerade for even so long.
He thought of Allissál, his queen, his wife, lying so near death. More and more this seemed the errand of a fool; yet now he was here he must stick it out, for a little longer, anyway. He had seen the fire in the eyes of Gen-Karn when the barbarian had spoken of Ara-Karn. Somewhere, man or demon, he lived. Why then were they so jealous of his secrets? ‘And where,’ he mused, ‘could such a one have gone?’
‘Ask Gundoen.’ Jakgron shrugged. ‘If any know, it is he. Some weeks ago he rode out with a company of picked men and was gone some time. That was before Ernthio was betrayed – just before the Desert nomads joined as Ara-Karn’s allies. Some whispered he went to meet secretly with Ara-Karn. But if that is true, he returned without him.’
They started back toward their quarter. A barbarian rode by, magnificently mounted with a wildly beautiful woman bedecked with gold, laughing. The slaves and doxies of the barbarians swirled around them on their chores. They came to a less-crowded lane; then Jakgron stopped and tugged at Ampeánor’s arm.
‘See you that man there?’
Ampeánor saw a giant of a man riding slowly toward them. He was not so much tall, as immense. A simple leather tunic and harness was stretched over his bronze-solid frame. A brown cloak hung from one massive shoulder, and a plain iron broadsword swung against the barrellike thigh. In a pouch by the saddle was a great black bow. The barbarians passing him saluted and greeted him; he rode on unmindful, as if the lane were empty. His head was hung low, his gaze upon the trodden earth. His beard and sandy hair were cropped close about his rotund, solid skull, and the flesh of his face and neck was crossed with livid and reddened scars of his many battles. As he rode past the two Rukorian renegades, he accorded them not even a glance.
Ampeánor read a great sadness writ across that downturned visage. There seemed to reside within that countenance, with its brow and ugly scarred nose, all the harshness, the cold, the misery and travail of the bitter wildness of the far North, with its deep-snowed winters, its raging storms, and its untrodden forests thick with fearsome beasts.
Slowly the giant passed up the lane, the leather of his harness creaking faintly like an echo from a great distance.
‘By all the gods,’ Ampeánor swore softly, ‘there went a man!’
‘That is Gundoen,’ said Jakgron.
‘But he has no guards.’
‘Sometimes – often of late – he leaves them behind. That is a strange, moody man. At times he is filled with such revelry you would think him a god of wine. In battle he is a madman worth a company by himself. They love him but fear his sudden bursts of uncontrollable rage. And when he rules, his hand is leaden.’
‘He seemed saddened.’
‘And no one knows the reason for it, not even his closest drinking-comrades. Oftentimes he will rise in the midst of counsel or sleep or feast, order horse and ride alone over the hills about the camps. There are so many wildmen following the horde and living off the pickings and leavings of the conquered, burned-out cities, it is a miracle he has not been slain long ago. He forbids his guards to follow, and is gone as long as a pass at a time.’
‘A woman,’ Ampeánor said decisively.
‘Those I’ve talked with swear it isn’t.’ Jakgron shrugged. ‘They’ll speak freely of Gundoen, he being no more than a man. Once I followed him carefully at a distance. He rode about the barren hills, stopping at high rocks to sit and gaze idly out over heaven and earth. He met with no one, and in time returned reluctantly to the camp. The next waking we stormed one of the city-states of the upper Delba, and he led us like a madman, and killed twenty foemen with his own hands.’
* * *
In the relative quiet of the longsleep, the three sentinels’ tread sounded solemnly, as they marched round the tent of Ara-Karn. When they were gone from sight Ampeánor rose from his concealment and approached the tent. With a pull of his knife he slit the tent wall, down at the ground where it would not be seen, as Jakgron had taught him. He knelt and rolled in; the tent wall fell to and was stilled; and the sentinels came round again and passed, all unawares.
Ampeánor came to his feet in the darkness. Silently he removed sandals and swordbelts, and prowled through the chambers of the great tent. In truth, it was no simple warrior’s shelter, but a portable palace fit even for a member of the Imperial family. The openings at the uppermost folds of fabric designed to allow light and air in had all been closed, leaving the interior silent, dark, and close. After some difficulty, he found a small lamp and lighted it.
Some chambers apparently functioned as waiting- or counseling-alcoves; others were given to the storage of maps or weap
ons. One was filled with rare pieces of small sculpture, all of excellent taste, hardly likely to appeal to a barbarian reared in the wild. A large chamber held only two great chests; opening one, he saw that it was filled with enough rubies, emeralds and other gems to buy a goodly throne.
The centermost chamber was given to main audiences; it was the largest of all, and bare save for some cushions, two braziers, now cold, and a wooden dais surmounted by a great carven throne. Everything about was kept with the greatest neatness and readiness – as if its owner were expected to return shortly, he thought.
Behind the throne was a silken hanging controlled by a sash, concealing a small counsel-chamber. In this was a table spread with a single, large map. At the wall was a rack filled with tubes for other maps and charts. He opened some of these, seeing that those of Rukor and Tarendahardil were well-thumbed – especially that depicting the island haunts of the pirates off Rukor’s coastline.
The map upon the table was a diagram, skillfully fashioned and quite accurate, of the Black Citadel of Elna.
The outlines were precisely done, and the notations, written in strange, oddly angled characters, quite accurate. How could such a thing have found its way here? he wondered. Such details were not known to many. Even the crypts of the archives were inked in. He drew the lamp closer, scrutinizing the outlines of the Gardens; then relaxed. The secret corridor that was the sole vulnerable point of the Citadel, known only to three living persons, was not drawn in or mentioned.
He took and folded the chart. He was on the point of thrusting it beneath his tunic when he changed his mind and instead held it over the flame of his lamp, burning it over the iron bowl of one of the braziers. As the parchment blackened and the characters turned white before they crumbled, Ampeánor suddenly recognized them.
