Children of the Dragon

by Frank Robinson

  “Eleven ninety. Empress. You have been imprisoned fourteen years. Why did Sarbat do such a treacherous thing?”

  The woman raised her bony shoulders. “It’s so far in the past, it seems meaningless now. He promised some concubine to have me killed, he promised me a return home; perhaps it amused him to break both promises. It was all absurd, all mad.”

  “And how is it that, locked up so long, you didn’t go mad yourself?”

  She shrugged again and smiled. “Perhaps because this Palace was already saturated with madness, filled to the brim and couldn’t hold another drop. I don’t know. Perhaps it was because my life didn’t change so very much, when that door was shut upon me. I had really been alone long before that. In a sense, I’ve been imprisoned since the day I came here, and that was almost forty years ago.”

  “But now you are free,” Jehan said.

  “Am I? The world must have changed greatly in these fourteen years.”

  “Yes, it truly has. The Tnemghadi primacy is over. Sarbat Satanichadh is no more.”

  “And what about my friend Irajdhan? He must be dead too.”

  “Irajdhan passed away years ago.”

  The old woman sighed.

  “I understand how lost you must feel now, Empress. But I want to do whatever I can for you. If you wish, you may remain in Ksiritsa under my protection; or, if you choose to return to Laham Jat, you will be safely taken there.”

  “I have not been there since I was a girl; I hardly know what Laham Jat is like. Tell me, what has become of my country?”

  “The regime subservient to the Tnemghadi has been deposed. The House of Devodhrisha is restored; your people are free.”

  “Then I will go home,” said Denoi Devodhrisha. “I will finally go home.”

  Jehan bowed his head to her, and she reciprocated. Then she turned her shrunken body and walked slowly down the center of the throne-room. She hobbled haltingly, stooped over, yet unaided and with dignity.

  The Emperor watched her, thinking of Golana.

  Once a peasant thug, a vicious bandit, a prisoner tortured in the dungeon, Jehan Henghmani walked pensively through the high-ceilinged halls of the Palace of the Heavens. Even the ceilings were splendorously embellished with frescoes, gold leaf and fixtures, silk and velvet hangings, intricate chandeliers. Jehan looked up at them in awe.

  Gaffar Mussopo was with him. “Just look at all this, Gaffar!” he said. “Compared to this, our Palace at Naddeghomra was a pig-sty. Look at all this, the tapestries, the luxurious carpets, the carved wooden paneling, the paintings and marble sculptures, gold and silver and jade and crystal and pearls and precious stones everywhere. I feel as though we do not belong here.”

  “But we do belong here!” Gaffar said emphatically. “This Palace is more rightfully ours than it ever was Sarbat’s. He was merely born into it, but we earned it with our sweat and blood and with the sufferings of our people. It was Urhemmedhin slaves who built this Palace. We rightfully own every stone, every tapestry and jewel. They even left two hundred concubines!”

  “Did they?” Jehan said. “The poor women were probably too frightened to flee with the rest. What is being done with them?”

  “I have made sure they are guarded, and untouched— not an easy thing to ensure, obviously.”

  “Yes. But I trust there are plenty of brothels in Ksiritsa for our men.”

  “Frankly, sire, a lot of them are taking matters into their own hands.”

  Jehan’s face pinched with distaste. “Say what you mean: rape.”

  “Yes, rape, sire. Rape. And looting. Tnemghadi getting what they deserve, sound beatings and smashed homes.”

  “But I gave orders!” Jehan said harshly. “There was to be decorum!”

  “Decorum, indeed! Did you seriously expect two hundred thousand men to march all the way up here, conquer at last the people who’ve been oppressing them for centuries, and then treat them daintily? It’s not just women and plunder that our men hunger for. They want revenge, and frankly so do I. We’re entitled to it. I personally can never forget what they did to my family. What is happening out there now is justice.”

  “Is it? Was it the women of Ksiritsa who destroyed your family?”

  Gaffar spoke intensely through clenched teeth. “Thousands of our people were butchered like cattle at Anda Lusis. Someone has to pay for that crime! It can’t be wiped away, ever. The same is true of all the countless abominations of the last eight centuries. The Tnemghadi cannot ever be forgiven!”

  Jehan slumped into a chair, closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “I understand what you are saying, Gaffar. I understand what is happening now. But for the sake of Urhem, let us not visit as much evil upon the Tnemghadi as they did upon us.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “See to it that the concubines are moved safely out of the city. Will you do that, Gaffar?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “Now, we do have some important things to discuss.”

  “Yes, indeed. Have you given thought to changing our government?”

  “I don’t believe major alterations are warranted, Gaffar. Kirdahi, of course, will be the Grand Chamberlain of Bergharra. I want you to remain in your present post, and as always I will rely heavily upon you.”

  “But what about the Assembly?”

  “The third Assembly will meet as scheduled, eight weeks from now, at Naddeghomra. It will continue the work of making laws.”

  “That is all well and good, sire, as far as Urhemma is concerned. But will you have the Assembly’s laws apply in the North as well? I strongly advise against that. First we must consolidate our rule here, and we can’t allow laws to get in the way. Perhaps when things get settled down, we can have laws for the whole Empire.”

  Jehan nodded. “I recognize the problem. Our first step will have to be military rule of the North, I suppose. We’ll have to send troops out everywhere, establish garrisons to rule in every town. In time, one hopes we can allow the Tnemghadi towns to choose their own councils, as in the South.”

  “Your plan is well conceived,” said Gaffar. “But it will take a great many soldiers, and we have the Akfakh to worry about too.”

  “I haven’t forgotten them. Sarbat was quite right: They pose a grave threat, and I don’t know if we’ll be any more successful than he was in holding them back. How ironic it would be if we’ve come to Ksiritsa only to replace Sarbat on Znarf’s dinner plate.”

  “Your Majesty, as long as I’m in charge of the army, I swear to give those barbarians a tough fight. But it will take a lot more troops than we have mobilized now. We’ll have to try to keep the Tnemghadi army fighting the Akfakh.”

  “Yes, we must use the Tnemghadi. They’d be fighting for their homeland, even though it’s ruled by us now. We must impress on them that they’re fighting for Bergharra, not for Jehan Henghmani. And we’ll have to continue paying their wages.”

  “I agree,” said Gaffar, “but I also think it will be necessary to draft them, with severe punishment for shirkers and deserters.”

  Jehan mulled this briefly and then nodded. “Very well; you can draw up the necessary decree.”

  “We’ll need an awful lot of Urhemmedhin troops too, to staff the garrisons and keep the Tnemghadi in line.”

  “Are you suggesting conscription for Urhemmedhins as well?”

  “Positively, sire. We can’t possibly get enough soldiers any other way. The time has come to face this reality.”

  Jehan bit his lip, chewed on it. “What an abhorrent idea; it’s little more than slavery! But I suppose you’re probably right, we haven’t much choice. All right, do this: Put a quota on each province. If the number of recruits falls short, then draft enough to make up the difference. But we must try to get most of them as volunteers. Perhaps we should even raise the pay, as a means of avoiding co
nscription.”

  “Good. But are you sure we can afford it? I think it would be unwise to debase the coinage the way Sarbat did.”

  “We can get away with some modest debasement, at least for the nonce. I really don’t know where we stand yet financially. We still haven’t got an accurate account of what was left in the Tnemghadi treasury. They may have left the concubines, but presumably they took all the gold they could carry. At any rate, we’ll simply have to impose whatever taxes are necessary.”

  “Upon the Tnemghadi, I trust.”

  “Mostly. Taxation will continue in the South, but obviously we will put a major burden on the Tnemghadi. They took plenty enough from us over eight hundred years!”

  “I have one more important question, sire.”

  “Yes?”

  “Will you remain here at Ksiritsa? I strongly urge you to do so.”

  “Naddeghomra is still our capital,” said Jehan with a trace of admonishment. “But I suppose practicality does require us to remain at Ksiritsa, at least for a while. Obviously, our domination of the North would be imperiled if we were to vacate this city.”

  “The North cannot be ruled from Naddeghomra. I’m glad you see that, sire. As for me, though, I will not remain with you at Ksiritsa.”

  “What?”

  “I will be out bringing all the towns under Urhemmedhin rule and directing the fight against the Akfakh.”

  Startled, Jehan looked at Gaffar. “You’re a high minister of state; you don’t have to take the field personally.”

  “But I choose to. What happens up there will cast the fate of all of us.”

  “Then I will miss your counsel,” said Jehan.

  “I will be back,” Gaffar answered. “I will return when I’ve defeated the Akfakh.

  “If I defeat them.”

  4

  ELEVEN NINETY WAS a bad year in northern Bergharra.

  As a numbing wave the news of the fall of Ksiritsa spread and the Tnemghadi people saw the world turned upside down.

  For eight centuries they had grown accustomed to worshipping rulers of their own race. No other people were as proud and mighty as the Tnemghadi. Their power grew and grew, shining ever more brilliantly, until the entire globe revolved around the emperors at gloried Ksiritsa.

  Truly did these emperors seem gods, and dearly did the northern people worship them. The emperors were omnipotent; even the Akfakh incursions were seen as a minor nuisance that must ultimately dissolve in the face of Tnemghadi power.

  Now, quite abruptly, the end had been rung with a resounding finality. Their Emperor-god was vanquished, destroyed, and an alien horde occupied their capital. Their whole comfortable world was shattered at a stroke. Where could the Tnemghadi people find even a glimmer of hope? Between the dual Akfakh and Urhemmedhin depredations, with no emperor to fight them, suddenly the Tnemghadi saw doom writ large and clear.

  With incoherent apprehension they awaited the horrors to come. There were the tales of Akfakh savagery from the north: laughing as they pillaged, burning whole villages, chopping people in half. The Akfakh were feral beasts. And what of the Urhemmedhins? How much mercy could be expected from these people, enflamed by eight centuries of pent-up hatred? From Ksiritsa too there came atrocity stories, growing with each telling.

  The Tnemghadi people pitched themselves into fervent prayer, and their ceremonies before the old idols of Sarbat Satanichadh took on a very grim aura. The priests would stand in their robes before the fiery altars, their arms upstretched, sacrificing their offerings now to an unnamed god—for their own god had already been swallowed up by the holocaust engulfing them all.

  They prayed for deliverance with desperate urgency, crying themselves hoarse with prayer as their ritual flames licked the sky. For deliverance they were praying to any god who might listen.

  Fanning out from Ksiritsa, the Urhemmedhin armies began to permeate the northern countryside, carrying their new regime to all the provinces, all the towns and cities, all the landed baronies. The Tnemghadi military had long been divided between battling the Akfakh and the southern towns. Their need elsewhere had never been imagined —no one had ever dreamed this day might come.

  As a result, the population in the North was almost completely at the mercy of the conquerors. One swiftly following another, like shoveling potatoes into a sack, the towns and villages were brought under the Urhemmedhin heel.

  The occupation of every town would begin with executions. The mayor and other officials, the priests, together with the wealthy leading citizens—those foolish enough not to flee—were put to death. There were no trials and the executions would take place in full public view. More than anything else, their object was to instill fear—fear of the Urhemmedhin race, of whom for centuries the northerners had only had contempt.

  The next step was to raze the temples. Worship in the old Tnemghadi manner was forbidden; and teams of able- bodied men would be pressed into service quarrying the stone for new temples, temples to Urhem.

  Gaffar Mussopo led a section of his army northward from Ksiritsa toward the front where he would eventually command the war against Znarf the Akfakh. But he was in no hurry to get there. And so along the route it was Gaffar who directed the transition to Urhemmedhin rule in town after town.

  By word of mouth, his name marched ahead of him— and the Tnemghadi dreaded the coming of Gaffar Mussopo.

  It was in the month of Nrava, 1191, that he came to a town in the Province of Rashid, a good-sized town of some three or four thousand inhabitants; it was called Rayibab.

  Here, the usual massacre was executed: the old mayor, the officials, a few merchants, all were lined up in the public square and beheaded one by one. Then, bound to stakes, a half dozen priests were roasted to death, so that their screams and stench and smoke would penetrate to every corner of the town. Meanwhile, their temple was being desecrated, and many houses were ransacked, the women and children driven through the streets and raped and beaten. A few were killed by the Urhemmedhin soldiers.

  When this rampage was over, Gaffar Mussopo left a garrison to occupy the town, and moved on.

  Unbeknown to Mussopo, however, one priest of Rayibab had escaped—a popular young fellow named Arbez Ohadi, who had hidden himself in the forest. Once the tumult subsided, Ohadi sneaked back, and visited surreptitiously many of the stalwart men of Rayibab. He exhorted them to join him in rebellion against the hateful occupiers; and one night within a week of the Urhemmedhin arrival, Arbez Ohadi surprised the garrison with a bold revolt.

  The battle was brief but violent. Although most of the rebels, including Ohadi himself, were killed, the Urhemmedhins were wiped out. Rayibab was freed of them.

  But word quickly reached Gaffar Mussopo, who had progressed a few towns northward. He purpled with rage when he heard how his men had been massacred by brazen Tnemghadi peasants. This could not be tolerated. Rayibab’s revolt, he swore, would be crushed and punished, the town made an example for any other Tnemghadi of rebellious mind.

  Mussopo turned his army around and headed back toward Rayibab.

  At noon they hit the town at a gallop and with naked swords.

  A few of the townspeople fought back, defending themselves with rocks or sticks, but they could hardly stand against armed horsemen. Most of the people ran, and covered their heads with their hands as the swords came down at them. But nothing availed against the furious Urhemmedhins.

  Back and forth through the dirt streets they cantered their horses, smashing down the booths of the marketplace, killing everyone they could slash at. The carnage went on until hundreds lay bloody and dead in the streets, and the remaining townspeople were cowering in their dwellings.

  Then Gaffar Mussopo rode through the town calling out new orders: There was to be a cessation of the slaughter. Now Rayibab was to be burned, with its people thereby rousted out of their homes and herded int
o a ravine near the outskirts of the town.

  Mussopo’s order was carried out, and Rayibab went up in flames. As smoke and ashes choked the town, the cowering people were pushed out into the open. They fully expected death, and indeed, many refused to leave their homes, preferring to perish in the flames than beneath Urhemmedhin swords. But no one was killed now; instead, they were whipped along and herded through the smoke into the ravine.

  It was deep but narrow, a gouge in the earth, and it was filled up with people. It soon fell dark, but the refugees huddling there were given light by the conflagration of their town. Although they were not being molested, they were kept in the ravine by a ring of Urhemmedhin troops at its rim, holding their swords poised.

  All night long the people crouched there, sleepless, frightened, in shock. They wept for their own who lay dead, and they wondered what the morning would bring.

  As the sun rose, the soldiers remained standing guard, but nothing else was happening. The refugees were let alone, and they began crawling among their neighbors, looking to reunite families and friends. Some were praying, and mourning for the dead; some tried to cadge food from the few who’d brought some; mothers nursed their babies.

  The shock was wearing off. Some began to speculate that they would be relocated in some other town. The sun was well up in the sky now, and the afternoon of horror was many hours behind them. Surely, they said, the Urhemmedhins would not harm these surviving refugees. After all, had it been their intent, the soldiers could have killed them in the night.

  Then, at midmorning, a gaar-drawn wagon drove up near the ravine. It was laden with heavy wooden kegs, which were methodically unloaded by the soldiers and rolled up to the rim of the ravine.

  “It’s food!” a few of the refugees cried out. “Thank goodness. They’re going to give us breakfast!”

  An excited, relieved hum spread through the ravine; many saw the arrival of these kegs as proof that they were safe now.