Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn 2 The Divine Queen

by Adam Corby

  ‘I see. Give me a hand, then, and we’ll bind him on one of the horses. Was there no sign of the witch-woman when you arrived?’

  ‘None, lord. Not even the wolves might choose this place to hide.’

  Below the hut a gladsome spring flowed from the ground. There they hung the barbarian’s heavy body across one of the horses as if he had been some beast they had brought down with nets and lances. An angry shout sounded in the midst of their work, startling them: they looked up through the branches and saw a band of barbarians riding hastily down the trail.

  Ampeánor swore a vile oath in the barbarian tongue. ‘He must have bidden them follow us; or else they did it on their own. Hurry, and finish with these cords.’

  The riders above came round the turn in the path and rode whooping down across the grasses, blades and lances brandished fiercely. An arrow struck the ground near Jakgron’s feet. Ampeánor leapt upon the saddle of his horse; Jakgron was somewhat slow behind him. They rode down into the wood, ducking low beneath the raking branches.

  Thickly closed the trees about them, and the pungent odor of the leaves. They were forced from the trail they had meant to follow; massive tree-trunks and thick hedges came between them. Ampeánor rode leading the horse on which the barbarian was bound. Instinctively he, who had hunted so often and so well in the forests of Rukor, knew the proper turnings in these wild ways.

  The ululations of the barbarians sounded ever more faintly in his ears, and at length were gone.

  Not then did he slow but, finding a shallow stream leading in the way he wished to go, he entered on it, and rode splashing into the thick, oppressive depths of the Wood, where the light of Goddess reached but faintly.

  Jakgron too urged his steed on; but he was not the equal of his lord in such craft. A great elbowed branch came unheeded into his way, knocking him from horseback to the mossy ground.

  There he lay, rolling breathlessly, while the barbarian warriors surrounded him.

  They prodded him mercilessly with their honed lances, raining oaths and questions on him. Old Nam-Rog was their leader, chieftain of the Durbar tribe; with him were two other Durbars and a fist of men from Gundoen’s own tribe.

  At a distance, they had followed Gundoen over the mountains, but even so had come too late. Roiling and terrible was their anger at this defeat, and there were shouts raised calling from the death of Jakgron then and there. Nam-Rog, however, seeing the pallor of the renegade’s face, put questions to him – and such was Jakgron’s great terror at the prospect of the torments they might put him to, that it was not long before the entire tale was known to the barbarians, of just who had entered their camp and dwelled among them, and whither he now would take his captive.

  ‘Ampeánor, High Charan of Rukor, took him!’ he screamed. ‘He took him to the City Over the World – to Tarendahardil!’ And his eyes rolled back in his head, and he moaned and slumped senseless back upon the moss.

  Nam-Rog nodded. ‘Did I not warn Gundoen many times that these lonesome wanderings would in time turn out ill? Well: Foriger and Tar-Drin, see you this one is bound securely, and we will take him back unto the camp. You others, you trackers of Gundoen’s tribe: will you now follow after this great lord and free your chieftain?’

  ‘Aye, that we will,’ they cried. ‘Hunt him, hound and harry him. Look for us in no more than two weeks’ time, to return to the camp with Gundoen free and this Southron tied like a taken bird. Garin, you are the finest tracker of us – the finest in all the tribes of the far North. Will you not be our leader?’

  The one addressed was a young man mounted on a fine milk-white steed. Disdainfully he looked on them, and shook his head. ‘No,’ he answered. ‘My heart does not turn on such things now.’ Some thought him overproud, that he had wived the only daughter of Kuln-Holn the Pious One, who was the chief prophet of Ara-Karn.

  The trackers stripped off their gear, and in the light summer tunics of their tribe took up the trail of Ampeánor and his prisoner. The others, led by Nam-Rog, rode back over the mountains and came to Ilkas and the camp below. Old Nam-Rog did not wait, but called for a council of the chiefs immediately, in the open clearing before the wide, dark, empty tents of Ara-Karn.

  For a full waking, they argued and questioned the captive spy; then, while the renegades in the camp and the folk of the city sought sleepily their dim places, Nam-Rog called an assembly of all the tribes in the field beside the river. There Nam-Rog addressed them.

  Behind him sat Garin and Kul-Dro and the chieftains in a half-circle. A heavy wooden post had been driven into the green earth behind the chiefs; upon it Jakgron was bound, wide-eyed with terror.

  Nam-Rog spoke long. Some said they had not known the old man had such fires left unburnt within him. And when he had done with them, then Nam-Rog asked them his question. As with one voice those ten thousand throats and savage hearts gave him answer, even as Garin gave the signal to those warriors behind him, whereat they drove their barbed lances deep into the soft guts of Jakgron the spy. Loudly thunderous was the shout of the ten thousand, so that it rebounded from off the hills and entered the walls of the defeated city and woke with dread the timorous Ilkars.

  ‘What city now shall be our goal?’ Nam-Rog asked them.

  And in that shout they answered him, ‘Tarendahardil!’

  XX

  The League of Elna

  THE HIGH REGENT of Tarendahardil returned with his attendants to the city through the Vapio Archway, and mounted to High Town on the Way of Kings. Before the steps of the Palace he emerged weakly from the covered chariot and sought audience with the Divine Queen. Astonishment was evident upon the palace slaves’ faces at the old man’s appearance, as, gravely, they led him round into the Imperial Gardens.

  A light, mistlike rain was falling, unusually chilly for summer. The leaves of the trees shed mournful tears in the Gardens’ lower levels. Restlessly upon her favorite mare the Queen rode the horse-tracks, up and down, not unlike the half-starved beasts kept in cages below the Circus just before the Games.

  She rode the course twice before she noticed him. When she did, she rode over and whispered Kis Halá to a stop a pace or two from him. He abased himself in the wet grasses, and the cold dampness seeped into his legs. She bade him rise, but herself remained astride the high horse. She studied him for a moment before asking his business.

  ‘Your majesty,’ he said in a faint, reedy voice, ‘Ilkas and Kixza have fallen, and Rochnora is now beset. Ara-Karn nears the Way of Vapio, the ancient trade route leading to the deep South. When once he gains that, there will only be the broad highways running through the provinces between him and Tarendahardil.’

  She smiled, a dangerous upturning of those painted lips. ‘You are perceptive, good Regent. Why do you not schedule a meeting of the High Council and draft a letter to the barbarian, informing him of your displeasure?’

  She was dressed in a dark brown lora, with a wide hooded cloak of the same color to shelter her from the rain. Even so, the mists had kissed the curls about her brow, darkening them slightly and drawing them down in slight, sweet disorder. Her lashes were thick and dark, as if she had wept. She was unspeakably lovely, this woman who was the highest born noble in the world. It occurred to Dornan Ural vaguely, as a side thought, how much he hated her.

  ‘I have already sought the other regents,’ he replied, and all his weariness was manifest in his voice. ‘Old Farnese, who was in his youth named the greatest general of our age, lies sickly and near death in a tent in the horse-fields of the Eglands, and follows the wild herds. He cares nothing that the barbarian approaches, but rather relishes the prospect that none of us will long outlive him. Lornof of Fulmine’s father’s famous palace is empty and forsaken, and all his armories there are hollow. His gambling debts have beggared his entire estate; what he left, the moneylenders took. Now he has gone into hiding somewhere, too cowardly even to take his own life. Arstomenes wallows in wine and lechery in his gardens, and says he will not end his
revelries until Ara-Karn has been a guest there. The most of the nobility are there as well, drunken and debauched…’

  Too weak to go on, he stopped. Chara Ilal had been in those gardens of Vapio, along with his own sons. They had not returned with him. What else he had beheld there, unutterable and vile, he would never forget.

  ‘So,’ the Queen mused, softly and mercilessly, ‘now there are but the two of us.’

  He bowed his head, that she might not behold his eyes.

  ‘What then are your plans, O Master of Tarendahardil?’

  He took a deep breath to gather strength, and spoke to her of his hopes, of the only plans he had managed to fashion in his long, wearying, jolting journeys. ‘The first object must be to prevent the barbarians from reaching Tarendahardil. Without walls, the great city cannot withstand a single assault. We must, therefore, muster forces. The latest reports put the barbarian’s forces in the fields at no more than forty thousand, many of whom are renegades whose loyalties cannot be unshakable. If the Empire could but join in alliances with other unconquered nations, we might raise a force three times the size of the barbarian’s. There are arms enough in the vaults of the Citadel, I know, to equip many more men than they had presently.’

  ‘You have not visited the armory recently,’ the Queen said. ‘Those arms are gone. We sent them with Ampeánor to Tezmon long ago.’

  ‘But how, and why? You had no right to do that without consulting the Council!’

  ‘We had thoughts of using Tezmon as a wedge into the North – but never mind. As for your Council, we had asked, save that we knew we would be denied. Tell us the rest of your scheme.’

  He continued, the sickness growing in his heart. ‘There are still weapons-makers in the city, and fine weapons might be had abroad, from Ul Raambar. More than enough weapons can be purchased with the reserves of gold in the Imperial Treasury. I am thankful now that I withstood all the strong temptations of the past two years, and left those reserves intact.’

  ‘You have not visited the Treasury recently, either,’ she said, her smile unabating. ‘That gold too is gone, to buy bows and an alliance with the rebel chieftain in Tezmon. Ampeánor was convinced – but enough. What else?’

  It was a dreadful blow. He was glad now of the rain, for it concealed the tears he wept. She sat upon her horse high above him with neither pity nor concern. Then he remembered, and asked her, ‘Where is Ampeánor? Still we might have hopes, if we can find a general brilliant and esteemed.’

  She shook her head. ‘Count not strongly upon the Lord of Rukor. He went away into peril, alone, before Bollakarvil fell. We have not had word from him since.’

  ‘Is it hopeless, then?’ he cried, openly weeping. ‘Is Tarendahardil doomed?’

  ‘Doomed, indeed, and quite lacking in hope,’ she answered, the smile withering upon her lips like a crushed blossom. A light shone in her eyes, unlike any he had seen there before. ‘And that shall be our greatest spur to victory.’

  She leapt lightly from the mare’s back and, summoning the grooms in attendance, let Kis Halá be led back to the stables. She touched Dornan Ural’s shoulder, and bade him rise.

  ‘Now,’ she uttered sternly, ‘Dornan Ural, are you now but an old man fit for memories and tears, or have you labor yet in you?

  ‘Listen to our words, then. We have not been idle in these weeks. Did you think we would let Ara-Karn enjoy his little jests, and sweep upon us unprepared? We have been in contact with the other unconquered nations ever since the word reached us of Gerso’s fall. Such an alliance as you have suggested has long been in our mind. Yet the lesser nations were shy at first, and hesitated. Now, fearing perhaps even as you fear – for how may they stand after we have fallen? – they prove more tractable. We have entered into pacts with several of them, and your name will gain others.

  ‘Yes, it was illegal for us to propose alliances without informing you: what of that? Even now they raise forces to send on to us here. For the center of our forces we have the firm commitment of Ankhan, the lord of Ul Raambar, to come with all his famous, unconquerable warriors. For our general we have Ghezbal Daan, the mercenary captain once of Ul Raambar. A man steely, fearless, and with a cleverness for victory, Ghezbal Daan has in his career won or secured kingdoms for a dozen princes throughout the South and North. Yet never once has he turned on his employer and taken kingship for himself, though his chances have been numerous: he has confessed to us, he prefers the solitary captain’s role. There is not a soldier in a land who would hesitate to hazard his life under the leadership of Ghezbal Daan: not a prince who would be jealous of the ascendancy of this man who lives in a lonely tower overlooking the wide Marches, a willing exile from his own city. He has sent us a dozen assurances. This he views as his greatest challenge.’

  She smiled prettily at the stupefied look upon the old man’s face and took his hand, the wise elder leading the child back to his studies. ‘Much has been done, but much remains. There are details to be overseen, such as how we shall feed these armies while they camp here. Our agents will assist you and inform you of the details of the alliance. We have few left, unfortunately; Fentan Efling and one or two others. Fentan is clever, however, and skeptical – you will get on well together. Come, then, Dornan Ural, for there is work for us to do.’

  * * *

  Even as she had said, so it fell to pass. All the same, there were matters of details she had overlooked, problems of supplies and administration that might have undone all the rest; but Dornan Ural drew upon all his skills and all his years and solved them.

  His hall became a bustling place again. He worked on, scarcely resting, though the burden of it all was a thing he could hardly bear. An early difficulty, and one he found in the end beyond all his powers, was what way the lesser princes should send their armies to Tarendahardil, where they were all to gather. There was too much danger to send them southward past the mountains and up the Way of Vapio; not enough time to send them northward to the Sea of Elna and bring them round by ship. There was but a single road, and that led through the heart of Belknule into Fulmine; and Yorkjax, the tyrant of Belknule, flatly forbade them to cross his domains.

  In the end, it had been the Queen who had cut this knot: massing Imperial troops under the leadership of Haspeth along the Belknulean marches, she sent word to the princes’ armies to come and dare Yorkjax in his den. He, faced with war or compliance, then relented, and let them pass in peace. Doubtless it was his secret wish that the armies of the League and Ara-Karn would destroy each other and leave him, Yorkjax, the strongest man in the South.

  The armies marched through Belknule unhindered, and gathered at Tarendahardil. The martialing field south and brightward of the city grew big with tents and horsemen and the companies of foot-soldiers. Even Dornan Ural’s spirit was upborne at the sight.

  Now the news came to them of Ara-Karn’s gaining of the Way of Vapio after a foredoomed battle with the Vapio charioteers, and of his sweeping upon Vapio like a desert wind. And the armies of the League grew restless, consuming the last of the food Dornan Ural and his clerks had allotted for the armies’ brief stay there. Eighty thousand men was their strength, of a dozen lands, assembled and waiting; and all they lacked were a center and a general. No word had reached them in Tarendahardil of either Ghezbal Daan or the warriors of Ankhan of Ul Raambar. The swiftest messengers had been dispatched toward the dark horizon, but they did not return.

  Vapio, the oldest city known to men, fell to the barbarians, and the pleasure-gardens of Arstomenes and all his revelers were trodden under the hooves of the war-horses of Ara-Karn. In the banquet hall of the Imperial Palace, the Queen banqueted the principal lords and captains of the armies of the League. There it was agreed they could wait no longer, but the armies must depart with the next waking. The captains and princes conferred with the Queen and chose the Charan Fronaril Thibbold, a Peshtrian, to be their general.

  ‘And where do you think you will meet the foe, Charan?’ the Queen asked
him. ‘In the fields of the Eglands?’

  He nodded. ‘It is the best place for our horse, which must surely be superior to that of the barbarians. We shall await him, your majesty, on Egland Downs.’

  ‘May Goddess ride at your side,’ she said.

  ‘And so,’ cried one of the captains, raising high his winecup, ‘let us drink a measure to those who stayed behind hiding in their homes, and to the mighty Ghezbal Daan, who had better things to do. And then let us drink seriously, to dark God for victory.’

  They drank, and hailed the Queen. She presided over them like the Goddess she was said to be, arrayed in a blazing white lora, with gold upon her arms and brow and pearls about her throat and breasts. Her eyes burned like sky, more blue than Dornan Ural had ever seen before. She was as terrible as a wounded thorsa, and Dornan Ural did not wonder that their allies, who before had hesitated, had now not dared deny her, but were swept up by her grim determination. These captains felt it, too. With the blessing of such a one, surely more than a mere mortal woman, they had no doubts but victory must be theirs. Yet possibly it was only that they had all drunk somewhat overmuch of this sweetly bitter Postio wine. Even Dornan Ural’s worn and ghostly cheeks burned as if they had some color in them by the end of that feast, and his hollowed eyes a spark.

  One by one, in the order their ambassadors had agreed upon, the captains and charanti took their leave and rode with the kisses of the Divine Queen still hot upon their brows, out of the city to the martialing field. Haspeth, who had command of the Imperial forces, the Queen bade linger.

  ‘Captain,’ she told him, ‘it is our wish you choose one of your fellows to lead our contingents in the center. You shall take your own company apart and go northward to your homeland, Rukor. There have been reports of further outrages committed by the pirates of the Isles, who have become the barbarians’ allies.’