Diamond Warriors

by David Zindell

  King Sandarkan closed his eyes as he breathed in deeply in a meditation exercise. Then he finally looked at King Talanu. and he croaked out, 'Very well - the Arjan Land is yours.'

  I sensed my uncle wanting to smile in triumph. But he would not allow himself such petty gloating. Instead, he bowed his head to acknowledge King Sandarkan's great sacrifice in giving up at long last the Arjan Land. Then he delivered his fourth term: 'During the course of your reign and for so long as you live, you shall forswear waging war upon Mesh.'

  Now King Sandarkan turned to gaze at me with black, burning eyes full of jealously and resentment. And he called out to King Talanu: 'No other Valari king has been asked to accept such terms!'

  And King Talanu looked at me as he told him: 'No other Valari king has so underestimated his enemy and let himself be trapped to face total defeat.'

  I could feel King Sandarkan's face burning. His long limbs bent like those of a praying mantis as he pointed at me and said, 'Very well - so long as I live, Waas will not make war against Mesh.'

  He drew in five deep breaths and asked King Talanu: 'Are those all your terms?'

  'They are,' King Talanu said.

  King Sandarkan bent forward as if readying himself to stand up and flee from this place of shame. And then King Talanu held out his palm toward King Sandarkan. 'But we are not finished here.'

  'How not, then?'

  King Talanu looked at me, and then back at King Sandarkan. He said, 'King Valamesh has marched here at great sacrifice and risk, and it is he whom Kaash must thank for victory. Therefore he has the right to demand of you his own terms.'

  In response to King Talanu's logic. King Sandarkan stared at me with a smoldering resentment.

  'Very well,' King Sandarkan said. 'What does Mesh's new king demand of Waas?'

  While I sat there deep in thought, studying King Sandarkan's craggy, troubled face, Kane came up to me. He had no compunc-tion in interrupting a conclave of kings.

  'I must speak to you,' he told me. The fire in his dark eyes put an urgent heat into my own. 'This cannot wait.'

  'We cannot wait,' King Sandarkan said, glaring at him, 'while this rogue knight whom the Elahad calls his friend delays matters here.'

  'Please excuse me, King Sandarkan,' I said with all the politeness that I could find. 'Kane is not given to alarms, and I must hear him out.'

  So saying, I stood up and walked with him down to the river. He presented the man he had been speaking with, and I suddenly realized where I had last seen him: in Mesh, after the Battle of the Culhadosh Commons. He wore a suit of steel mail beneath his cloak; his broad, heavily bearded face seemed to bear only hardness and threat. Kane gave his name as Hadrik. He did not have to say outright that Hadrik was a Master of the Black Brotherhood, which Kane employed to oppose Morjin and achieve his deepest purpose.

  'Hadrik has come up out of Galda,' he said to me. 'He thought to find me in Mesh, and followed the track of your army here.'

  Hadrik bowed his head to verify this. Then, in a voice as raw and rageful as any that I had ever heard, he told me what he had told Kane: 'Morjin left Galda late in Ashte to return to Argattha - I have spent the lives of my last ten men proving this. He moves, the Dragon does! The hour of our doom has finally come.'

  As if he could not bear another word of speech, he shook his head as he turned and stalked off down to the very edge of the roaring water twenty yards farther down. He was a strange man, I thought, and one of the deadliest-looking I had ever seen.

  'He is the last of his kind,' Kane said, nodding at him. 'All the others perished in Galda's torture chambers or nailed to crosses.'

  He hung his head as if staring down through the earth and the turbid sediments of time. Then he looked up at me with his black, blazing eyes. 'So. So, Valashu. This is the hour. On the third of Ashte, Morjin called up the Uskadans to Argattha. On the day that you became king, he ordered the armies of Uskudar and Sakai to march north, toward Alonia. He leads them in the open, as of old! The Zayak and Marituk tribes ride with him, the Janjii, too. He has broken the Long Wall. Perhaps with fire, perhaps by opening up the earth - do not know. As we speak, he marches up the Poru toward Tria.'

  My heart drummed at the triple-time against my chest bones. And I gasped out, 'To Tria! But why he would spend his forces against the Alonians when they would do his work for him fighting among themselves? Unless he cannot wait.'

  'So - he cannot.'

  'Then he will have sent his fleet from Eanna, with the armies of Hesperu, Sunguru and Yarkona embarked upon his ships. Morjin will take Tria, then, and make it safe for them to land.'

  'So - he will,'

  'Five armies Morjin will then command - and how many men? Four hundred thousand? Five?'

  'So,' Kane murmured, gazing at me.

  'Then it will be as you said,' I told him. 'Morjin will attack down the Nar Road and invade the Nine Kingdoms.'

  'So, just so. And I have worse news to give you. He will try to split the Nine Kingdoms in two, as we discussed in Mesh.'

  He told me then the rest of the tidings that Hadrik had ridden so far to tell him: that upon the news of my coronation, Morjin had ordered a great fleet bearing the armies of Galda and Karabuk to prepare to set sail across the Terror Bay and land in Delu. The Dragon Lords would easily defeat Delu's army in battle - or more likely cow King Santoval into surrendering without a fight. And then, after forcing King Santoval to swear allegiance to Morjin, they would incorporate Delu's army into theirs and attack the Nine Kingdoms from the east.

  'Your people's lands,' Kane said to me, 'will be caught between a hammer and an anvil. Even if by some miracle you do lead the Valari to make alliance.'

  'Who leads the enemy's force?' I asked Kane.

  'Karabuk's own king, Mansul the Magnificent.'

  'And how many men does he have?'

  'With the Galdans, perhaps a hundred and fifty thousand. If he can defeat Delu, he will have eighty thousand more.'

  I stood by the gushing river considering this. Then Kane said to me, 'You have been thinking of mounting a raid into Galda and slaying Morjin, haven't you?'

  'Yes,' I told him, staring at the river's spray. And then, 'Can we be sure of Hadrik, that Morjin has truly left Galda?'

  'We can be sure. Morjin marches on Tria. And then soon, surely by summer's end, he will turn east and south toward the Nine Kingdoms.'

  'With his army of half a million men?'

  'So, Val.'

  'And if I united the Valari and marched against Morjin, then King Mansul's force would attack unopposed across the Nine Kingdoms and take us from the rear.'

  'So.'

  I pressed my hand against the newly-made scar cutting my forehead as I contemplated what seemed to be an impossible situation. I felt myself trapped, even as King Sandarkan was. But my warriors and I faced an enemy who would never offer us terms.

  'There must be a way out,' I said to Kane. 'There must be.'

  And with that, I returned to the canopy and sat back down with King Talanu and King Sandarkan. I said, 'As always, we Valari dispute with ourselves while our real enemy endeavors to destroy us.'

  Then I related the news that Hadrik had brought.

  'Unless we act immediately,' I said, 'the Galdan and Karabuk armies will invade Delu, and Delu will fall.'

  King Sandarkan, glad for any distraction from his present woes. stabbed his bony finger into the air as he said, 'If what that rogue knight told is true, Delu will fall no matter how we act. But that is not our business.'

  'Not our business!' I cried out.

  'No,' he said, 'the Valari must look to the good of the Valari.'

  'But Morjin would destroy the Valari!'

  King Sandarkan cast his resentful gaze upon me. 'The Red Dragon would certainly destroy you - and Mesh. But that is not really Waas's business either, is it?'

  My throat choked up with such anger that I shouted at him: 'How can you be so blind? Perhaps Morjin will fall against Mesh first. And then
after he slaughters my countrymen, he will turn toward you. And Ishka and Taron, Anjo and Athar, Lagash and Kaash. The whole world, King Sandarkan!'

  'That has always been your claim,' he said to me. 'Beneath the spur of such terror, you sought to elevate yourself as the Maitreya to gain lordship over the Valari. And when that failed, you put forth an outlander slave as the Shining One.'

  How he stabbed his finger at Bemossed, waiting with the Seven behind us.

  'I have put forth no one,' I told him. 'Bemossed is who he is, and his calling does not depend on what we do or do not do.'

  'What shell we do then, King Valamesh?' he said to me. 'The Red Dragon has sent envoys to each of the Nine Kingdoms. Gifts of diamonds and gold they have brought. They have brought, too. Morjin's assurance that his dispute is with Mesh and Valashu Elahad alone. He gives a pledge of friendship to any kingdom who supports him in war against Mesh - or at least pledges in return not to intervene in that war.'

  I could not believe the words that I was hearing. I fairly shouted at King Sandarkan: 'But Morjin is the Lord of Lies! Don't tell me you believe him!'

  King Sandarkan looked to his left, at the lines of the Kaashan army still standing in the warm sun. and then to his right, at my warriors. He said, 'At such times as these, one must believe what one must believe. In any case, the Valari, even in alliance, do not have the power to stand against Morjin. Therefore each Valari king must come to terms with Morjin and arrange a peace.'

  'A peace?' I cried out. 'For a month or a year, until Morjin decides to turn on you and nail all your countrymen to crosses?'

  'What do you propose then . .. King Valamesh?'

  'To fight! Now, that we have been given such a rare chance! We know the Galdan fleet's plans, but they do not know that we know.' I pointed east, past the Rajabash at the pointed white peaks gleaming in the distance. 'We have three armies gathered here. Just over those mountains lies Delu. We can march across them and take our enemy by surprise.'

  King Sandarkan laughed at this. 'That is a desperate chance, a fool's chance. What if we are discovered? And even if we are not, King Mansul's armies will still outnumber us five to one.'

  'We can still win!' I called to him. I turned to my uncle and said, 'King Talanu - if Mesh were to march for Delu tomorrow, will Kaash join us?'

  My uncle looked at me for a long time, and the deep creases cutting his forehead and face made him seem a thousand years old. Then he told me, 'King Sandarkan is right: what you propose is a desperate chance.'

  He sighed as he grasped the hilt of the sword that he had set down by his chair. 'But it is our only chance. If we can defeat Morjin's eastern armies, then perhaps the other Valari kingdoms will join us in facing Morjin's main force as they come at us from the west.'

  This, too, was my hope. For a long time I had known that I must win a great victory to have any chance of uniting the Valari.

  'You dare too much,' King Sandarkan said to King Talanu. 'Even as your nephew does.'

  'I do dare,' King Talanu told him. 'In truth, I like the thought of Kaash marching to Delu's rescue. And having the Delians be in our debt.'

  'But you can't defeat Morjin's eastern armies! You will die with the Elahad on the march - or at the end of your road, in a desperate battle.'

  'I will die soon in any case,' King Talanu said, shrugging his great shoulders. 'And it is good for a warrior to die in battle.'

  'An old warrior can say that with good courage. But what of your men? Are you willing to see your young men cut down?'

  'Better that than mounted on crosses when Morjin burns and ravages through the Nine Kingdoms.'

  I caught King Sandarkan's gaze and said to him,'At the Culhadosh Commons, Morjin's forces badly outnumbered us, and we still prevailed.'

  'At great cost. But it was a great victory, even so.'

  King Sandarkan looked at me more deeply. I felt doubt working at his insides and the slow burn of an awe that he seemed to fight down.

  'In Delu,' I said to him, 'we can win an even greater victory. We can. King Sandarkan. With Waas's army joining those of Kaash and Mesh, we might just have enough strength.'

  I felt this as a blazing certainty deep within my blood. I sensed it all hot and fiery within King Sandarkan, too. Did my most urgent passion communicate itself to him through my eyes and the pounding of my heart? Or more tangibly, through the valarda? Or did King Sandarkan, along with many Valari, hold his own gift sleeping inside him?

  And then I felt King Sandarkan turn away from himself and his innate greatness as his face tightened with calculation. 'You ask for Waas's aid. What is Mesh willing to give in order to have it?'

  'What can I give you other than hope for the future? And a chance for life?'

  He smiled thinly at this. 'Perhaps I should have asked you this: what is King Valamesh willing to give up in the way of demands here today?'

  He might as well have slapped my face, so keenly did I feel the blood burning my cheeks. I immediately hated myself for shouting at him: 'Mesh could demand of Waas levies to march to Delu! Instead of asking for an alliance!'

  'Could Mesh demand this of Waas?' King Sandarkan said, his own face growing hot. 'If we cannot come to terms here, then battle there must be. And you will certainly prevail here, King Valamesh. But tell me: are you willing to spend your men's lives for such a victory?'

  I looked behind me at Lord Harsha, whose bright single eye stared at King Sandarkan; Lord Avijan and Lord Sharad regarded him, too. I looked out toward the gleaming lines of my men still standing in the sun. I knew that I could not hide very much from Waas's crafty king.

  'No, I am not willing,' I told him. 'I will never again be the cause of any Valari killing another Valari.'

  I took a deep breath, and held it for a count of ten as Master Juwain had taught me. Then I said to King Sandarkan, 'If you are to march with us, it cannot be because of what I have demanded - or not demanded. It can only be because you know it is the right thing to do.'

  The glimmer in King Sandarkan's dark eyes told me that he did know it was right. All that was good and noble within him urged him in this direction. But still he hesitated.

  'King Sandarkan,' I murmured to him.

  With my deepest sense, I reached out to feel inside his heart for that unbearable tension where fear and fearlessness, weakness and will, hung poised in a delicate balance. I had only, I knew, to touch him lightly in order to push him one way or the other.

  'King Valamesh!' he suddenly shouted at me.

  When I wielded the valarda to open others' hearts and brighten their spirits, my gift became a sacred sword named Alkaladur. But what should I call this terrible force when desperation drove me to seize hold of a man's heart and choke his very soul?

  No, I told myself, I must not make men into ghuls!

  But it was too late. Like a whisper setting off an avalanche, I felt my will to move King Sandarkan to a right action loose a cascade of raging emotions within him. His own will to push back at me suddenly hardened and grew as unmovable as a mountain.

  'King Valamesh,' he asked me, 'do you then offer me a free choice of marching with you to Delu, or not?'

  I gritted my teeth against the pain I felt stabbing through my throat. Then I told him, 'Yes, a choice - I do.'

  'Then freely,' he snarled at me, 'I tell you this: I will not put my men at such peril. What king who loved his warriors would?'

  With a look at King Talanu and then again at me, he said, 'Now, unless you do have additional terms to demand of me, I should like to lead my men off this field and begin the march back to our home.'

  'No, I have no terms to demand,' I told him. 'Go back to Waas.'

  King Sandarkan made no farewell either to King Talanu or myself. He stood up with a jolting abruptness. With his captains, he rode back toward his army still standing in its square formation at the center of the field.

  And then my uncle said to me: 'Some men, even Valari kings, are ignoble.'

  I took in the gleam o
f King Sandarkan's emblem, with its two silver swords. What would it be like, I wondered, truly to see my enemy as myself?

  Then I said, 'No, King Sandarkan is noble enough, even if he doesn't know it. But how should I expect him to call up his nobility when I can't even find my own?'

  In the face of the great defeat that I had just suffered, I knew that this question would torment me on the long road to Delu, and beyond.

  Chapter 14

  After the Waashians had left the field to begin their march back to Waas, my army and that of King Talanu remained encamped by the Rajabash River. For four days, I rested my exhausted men while Lord Harsha worked with King Talanu's quartermasters to ensure that we would have enough stores for our journey into Delu. Along the river for three miles, the warm summer air filled with the smells of beef being smoked over oak fires and new battle biscuits roasting. Lord Harsha grumbled that he could not calculate how many provisions our two armies would need because he did not know how far or for how long we must march.

  'We will march as far as we must,' I told him one evening as the men gathered around their campfires and listened to Alphanderry sing. 'We will march until Morjin is defeated, and if our provisions run out, we will have to find more along the way.'

  The feeding of our armies was only one of my concerns; as the day approached when we must set out upon the road, the question arose as to who should lead them.

  'You are the eldest,' I said to King Talanu in my tent later that evening. 'You have fought in a score of battles and have led your warriors in almost as many.'

  'I am the eldest,' my uncle said. 'But I think I am too old.'

  In truth, my uncle was much the most ancient of the Valari kings. My mother's father, King Yuravay, had sired him nearly seventy-five years before.

  'There is still good wisdom here,' he told me, tapping a gnarled finger against his head. 'But my brain does not work as well as it once did. And therefore I am not so clever or quick.'

  He looked around at Lord Sharad and Lord Tanu and my other captains, and at Prince Viromar and Lord Yarwan and his captains, too. Then, he said to me: 'What you propose to accomplish will require both quickness and cleverness, and more, daring and brilliance. These are qualities that you possess, King Valamesh. And have put to good use defeating the Red Dragon's forces again and again.'