Children of the Dragon

by Frank Robinson

  To Jehan’s tent Gaffar Mussopo came, to receive the sword of command. He almost staggered there, for he too had been wounded; his left hand hung in bloody ribbons. Later that night the surgeons would amputate the ruined hand, but Gaffar was grateful; he too was a survivor.

  Jehan was similarly grateful: He had endured, and had won the battle. But he had foregone Naddeghomra for this. He had rejected the advice of his wife and daughter, and had risked everything in doing it. He had lost fifteen thousand men including one of his best generals, and had been thrice wounded himself.

  So Jehan was not disposed toward magnanimity.

  He had five thousand enemy prisoners to deal with. His own army being so depleted, Jehan decided he could not afford the troops that would be needed to guard these captives. He ordered them killed.

  Bound hand and foot, the Tnemghadi soldiers were laid helplessly in neat rows on the fiat plain. Urhemmedhins went methodically down these rows with sharp knives, slashing their throats, and they were left to bleed themselves out like pigs into the soil of the battlefield, a soil already soaked with the blood of more than thirty thousand.

  Of course, it still remained to break the siege of Arbadakhar.

  Jehan was left with some twenty thousand men; so was Tamar Ghouriyadh. But Ghouriyadh’s troops were perforce spread in a ring around the city, and the Urhemmedhins had a reservoir of further troops inside the walls.

  They would have to count on these advantages; there was no time to try to gather a larger army. Only two days were begrudged to rest after the battle on the plain.

  The rebels struck at midnight of the nineteenth of Jhevla. The surprise was compounded by their swinging around and attacking from the north, and the Tnemghadi camp was thrown into complete disorder. They had no chance to coalesce their thin lines into a force that could meet the attack. Flames spread wildly as their tents were torched.

  This was seen by the sentries inside the city, and they sounded the tocsin. The city came instantly awake, and both soldiers and civilians rushed to the ramparts to look out at the burning of the Tnemghadi camp. They knew Jehan had come to save them.

  Vahiy Jehan! they sang out in jubilation, Vahiy Jehan!

  And their battalions poured out through the gates to join Jehan’s forces in wiping out the Tnemghadi. The north camp was destroyed before those in the south knew the battle was underway. Even among the Urhemmedhins, confusion reigned, but their officers managed to direct most of them back through the gates, so that they could march quickly straight through the city and out the south gate, to smash the besiegers on that side.

  The army of Tamar Ghouriyadh was destroyed, and Arbadakhar was saved.

  But Jehan’s own forces were left in a shambles, and he was back to where he’d started. Naddeghomra seemed farther away than ever.

  On the twenty-fourth of Jhevla, Golana Henghmani gave birth.

  And like the siege of Naddeghomra, where it had been conceived, the child was stillborn.

  6

  To my honored stepmother,

  May you know that l join you in mourning for the dear child that sainted Urhem has taken to his bosom. May he bless you with a bounty of children in days ahead.

  THIS WAS MAIYA’S letter of condolence, when Golana miscarried. It was written in beautiful script, by a Vraddagoon scribe at Maiya’s direction. She did not convey it personally, but delegated that to a servant as well. It was a perfectly composed formal note; it was perfectly meaningless.

  Maiya did not grieve at the loss of her prematurely born half-sister, but nor did she take any satisfaction in it. The important thing to her was the fact that Golana was proven fertile. It put all Maiya’s hopes in peril.

  In view of Golana’s long-standing childlessness, the revelation of a pregnancy had been quite a surprise. At first Maiya was distraught, but she had managed to pull her wits together and coolly assess the situation. She realized that she must not give up, she wasn’t beaten yet: The child might be a girl, who would not take precedence over Jehandai in the line of inheritance.

  So Maiya had gone about her chores at the Naddeghomra encampment, evincing equanimity at Golana’s swelling belly. Even Jehan had been astonished at how well his daughter seemed to be accepting the fact of the pregnancy, and he prayed this signified a mellowing in her.

  Maiya, meanwhile, prayed too: that the child would be a girl.

  And there was another buttress underneath her seeming acquiescence. Even if Golana’s child were a boy, Maiya decided that she still would not be beaten. Gradually, as she watched Golana’s middle grow, Maiya nurtured inside her own mind the ultimate defense against this menance, boy or girl.

  Jehan Henghmani knelt at his wife’s bedside, holding her hand inside his own huge palms. The bloodied bedclothes had been removed, and she was draped in pure white now, clean and serene like her face. Normally very fair, Golana’s features were whitened even further by her ordeal of birth; but they were no longer twisted by the pain of labor.

  Jehan himself was convalescing. He had lost a great deal of blood in the Arbadakhar battle, and wore bandages on his head and thigh. His brush with death had been closer than he cared to think about. Of course, he was preoccupied now not with his own wounds, but with Golana.

  “Are you feeling better?” he asked in a whisper.

  The woman nodded without opening her eyes, and managed a small smile.

  “How terrible it must have been for you! I wished it was happening to me instead. The doctors say the child came out the wrong way, that was why she died, and nearly killed you doing it.”

  “I am sorry, Jehan.”

  “I am sony too. A pity this new daughter didn’t live! Urhem knows that Maiya gives us little joy.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” said Golana, coming fully awake. “I too grieve to lose the child—and I am apologizing for it. I never gave Mutsukh a child, and now I’ve failed you too.”

  “Please don’t speak this way!”

  “Is it not a failure for a woman to miscarry, indeed, to live forty years without ever bringing a child into the world?”

  “No, Golana. Your barrenness with Mutsukh was his fault, not yours; you know that well enough. As for this one, it was no one’s fault, no one could have saved her. But regardless of that, you would not be a failure, even if you never bear a child.

  “Any ignorant peasant can bear children. There’s nothing exalted about it, it takes no magic or genius. But you’re a woman who can accomplish things that even most men cannot do. You have helped govern a province, you have masterminded a revolution, bringing freedom to oppressed people.

  “Leave the childbearing to the peasants, and commit yourself instead to a higher calling. All animals bear offspring; you must concentrate yourself on what distinguishes human beings from all other animals, not on what we have in common with them. It means nothing to give the world a brood of children, just a few more lost among the millions. But you can change the lives of all the millions.”

  The woman squeezed his hand. ‘“Of course you are right. You’re perfectly right. But still, I want to give you a child. A fine son.”

  “A daughter will be just as fine, if she’s anything like her marvelous mother.”

  “Yes, yes, enough of flattery. I have little strength right now to waste listening to that. You must tell me instead, what news is there since I’ve been confined?”

  “Oh, there is much news! The intelligence from the North says that our poor friend Sarbat is certainly having his troubles. The Tnemghadi economy seems to be falling apart. They used to depend on milking the South for grain and rice, but of course now that that’s dried up, they’re getting hungry. There’s little food to be had, and prices are soaring. His mints keep churning out more and more coins with less and less silver in them.

  “And then we’ve learned there’s a new chieftain among the Akfakh, a real t
error by the name of Znarf. He’s finally getting those tribesmen whipped into a disciplined force. The latest word had this Znarf taking over half of Jammir Province, and making major inroads into Gharr and Agabatur.

  “Sarbat has his hands full keeping the Akfakh back; and losing Ghouriyadh’s army didn’t exactly improve matters for him.”

  Golana nodded gravely. “This is good news, Jehan. In the long run those barbarians may be a menace to all of us, but what counts right now is that they’re distracting and weakening the Tnemghadi.”

  “There is news, too, from Naddeghomra.”

  “Yes?”

  Jehan suddenly grinned. “I saved the best for last. The Tnemghadi have abandoned Naddeghomra.”

  “What?”

  “Right after we left, they fled, all the priests and troops. The latest dispatch says they’re trying to fight their way back down the Amajap to the sea, and they’re getting cut to pieces.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Golana, wrinkling her brow. “They withstood our siege—why give up the city? What can their strategy be?”

  “It isn’t strategy. There was simply no food. Our siege must have been on the verge of success. If we had stayed, we would have won Naddeghomra, possibly within days. So you were right, Golana, I should have heeded you. We should have stuck it out at Naddeghomra.”

  “No, no, no! Then we would have taken Naddeghomra and lost Arbadakhar. Now we get them both.” Golana bolted up in her bed, throwing back the covers. “Yes, both! And now we can return south and walk into Naddeghomra, just walk right in!”

  “Yes, we shall,” Jehan affirmed.

  “Naddeghomra is ours. It’s all ours, Jehan, all ours, the whole South! We’ve done it, we’ve won—Urhemma is free!—Prasid Urhemma has been born!”

  “And you,” said Jehan, “are its mother.”

  7

  HIS SOUTHERN INVASION had been aborted, his army greatly reduced, and Jehan was back at Arbadakhar licking his wounds. But the setback was illusory; the fact was, his strength and power were greater than ever. The whole South was his for the taking.

  Preparations for a consolidating expedition were commenced at once. The call went out to fill the army’s depleted ranks, and once again, the peasants answered it in droves. Eagerly they came, for news of the Tnemghadi abandonment of Naddeghomra had galvanized the southlands. For the first time, it was clear that the oppressors’ power was on the wane, and that they would indeed be uprooted from southern soil.

  The new army that converged upon Arbadakhar was a young one. Many were boys who had reached their teens since the last recruitment, sent out by parents who could feed them no longer, or by mothers to avenge husbands already killed, or by fathers too old to go themselves. They were young, because many of their elders had already died for the cause, fighting in Jehan’s army, and countless more of them fighting the Tnemghadi in the towns and villages and through the farmlands.

  Camps were set up to accommodate the new recruits, to train them in soldiery and inculcate them with the pious spirit of Urhem, with yarushkadharra, the dignity of freedom. These were soldiers who would know why they marched; these were soldiers who understood that they were part of a great historic drama.

  Meanwhile, everything was meticulously planned by Jehan and Golana. The invading force, they decided, need not be large; a strong rear-guard would be left at Arbadakhar, which would be an armed fortress-city. It would be the impregnable first line of defense this time instead of a weak limb.

  It was clear that something would have to be done about Ubuvasakh. As Governor of Taroloweh, the Leopard had been a disaster: a callous autocrat as bad as any Tnemghadi satrap, who had allowed conditions in the province to deteriorate alarmingly.

  “We obviously can’t leave him in charge again,” said Jehan. “Nor can we keep a firm hand on Taroloweh from a thousand lim away. We’ve got to delegate someone.”

  Golana nodded with lips pursed in thought. “Who?” she said.

  “Well, how about this new fellow—Mussopo? He seems quite serious and dedicated.”

  “Too young. It might go to his head, and he’d be resented by the older men who were passed over. I’d prefer someone more seasoned: Ontondra? Vokoban?”

  “Vokoban’s a real son of the soil; that would count in his favor.”

  “He’s also an old grayhead. Stalwart, respected.”

  “Good. Shall it be Rimidal Vokoban then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you brief him thoroughly? He’s sensible enough that he’ll mind what you say. And he’ll know better than to follow in the Leopard’s tracks.”

  “We’ll also make him responsible to a council of officers. I’ll leave him some detailed written guidelines too.”

  Then Jehan raised the more difficult point: What about the Leopard?

  “Jehan, I truly think the time has come to get rid of him. I never liked that man, I never trusted him. He’s got some grudge against you from the old days, and now that he’s being shorn of the governorship, he’ll have another grudge. It’s not wise to keep a man like that around.”

  “Are you suggesting that Ubuvasakh be . . . done away with?”

  Golana ruminated briefly, and said, “It’s worth considering. He could well be put on trial for the mess he’s made here.”

  Jehan shook his head. “It’s been said that a revolution devours its children, like Sexrexatra. Perhaps so; perhaps we’ll all be devoured, but I don’t want to be the one to start it. A trial like that won’t boost morale, and besides, that man still has one of the most cunning brains of any of us. He might still be an asset.”

  Golana sighed. “All right. Put him back in the army with a fancy rank to mollify his ego. And take him south so we can keep an eye on him.”

  “So it shall be.”

  “I hope we don’t regret it. Now then, when do we leave?”

  “Everything is ready. We leave as soon as possible.”

  Golana emphatically assented. “Our moment is now,” she said, “let’s snatch it!”

  The moment was now; eight centuries had labored to produce this moment.

  That was how long the Urhemmedhins had waited, but they would wait no longer. They smelled Tnemghadi blood, and they all rose up. The entire South from end to end was pitched into a state of violent rebellion.

  City after city was falling into the hands of insurgent mobs: Touhbul in Bhudabur Province; Khedda and Hsokhso in Prewtna; Mughdad in Ohreem; Anda Lusis and Ganda Saingam in Diorromeh; and in Khrasanna, Bebjella, Ourkesh, and Pamliyah. There was even agitation in the client states of Valpassu and Laham Jat.

  Everywhere the story was repeated: The imperial governments were being swept away; their palaces and temples sacked; the troops, the officials and the priests all massacred or hunted down through the countryside; the manor houses were under attack, and the lands not seized by the peasants were burned.

  There were more Urhemmedhin victims than Tnemghadi—Urhemmedhins left impoverished, homeless, starving, mourning their loved ones or joining them in death.

  Into this convulsed, tormented southern land, Jehan Henghmani once more marched: the Savior, the Ur- Rasvadhi.

  This time he did not cross the Qurwa. Since Nitupsar had already been traversed, the Urhemmedhin army took a westward route into Diorromeh.

  It was not an army of liberation, because liberty had already been won by the people. The revolt was sanguinary but quick, the Tnemghadi presence had weakened to the point where it could offer only puny resistance, once the peasants had risen up with the full power of their numbers. All that remained was to mop up the last stragglers of the Imperium, to bludgeon the last recalcitrant land barons into submission. There was little real fighting, and triumphant stops were made at every town along the way.

  At Ganda Saingam the battle had been extremely vicious. This was a major city where
there had been a wellfortified garrison. Assaulted by rudely armed insurgents, that garrison’s walls were demolished and in a bloody battle its soldiers were slaughtered to the last man. It took more than a week, and the cost was grievous. Many, many rebels died for every soldier in that accursed garrison. Ganda Saingam’s lifeblood had been sacrificed to shake off the Tnemghadi yoke; almost every family in the city lost someone. Now, handicapped by the heavy casualties, the Saingamese were struggling to climb out of the rubble, patch their city back together, and to simply feed themselves.

  Despite the bitter travail into which Ganda Saingam had been thrust, a spirit of uplift prevailed among its people. They were free, and the terrible price they had paid for their liberty made them cherish it all the more. Importantly, unlike many towns racked by rebellion, Ganda Saingam was not afflicted with disorder. A council of respected elders had been established to afford civil government; committees were recruited to oversee the enforcement of law and justice, the rebuilding of the ruins, and the procurement of food and other trade. Cooperation reigned, as the people were caught up in the intoxication and responsibility of forming their own destiny.

  All symbols of the deposed regime were effaced from Ganda Saingam. The temple was razed to the ground, and the fancy curling Sexrexatra dragons were chiseled off the gates—the Saingamese denied their heritage as children of the dragon. Meanwhile, the old Tnemghadi coins were gathered up and restruck with the word yarushkadharra and with Jehan’s shining sun device, to symbolize the passing of the eight hundred years’ darkness.

  And when Jehan the Savior himself neared, Ganda Saingam prepared to greet him with the greatest celebration it had ever witnessed.

  Colorful banners festooned its walls and gates, and the main road to the city was bordered with flowers. Flowers were in abundance everywhere. The Saingamese had little food, but they grew flowers to welcome the Ur-Rasvadhi.