by Paul Kearney
All this passed through his mind in a second. Phiron was a tall man, whose father had been from the Inner Mountains of the Harukush. He had taken his father’s pale eyes, but his mother’s dark colouring. He wore the scarlet mercenary cloak as a nobleman ought, draped over his left arm. Beneath it, the black shadow of Antimone’s Gift armoured his torso, giving back none of the light from the wall-sconces and the brazier.
Two more figures glided into the room, and behind them the Juthan attendants closed the double doors with a soft boom. Phiron bowed deeply, speaking in Kefren as correct as he could contrive. “My lord,” he said. “I am honoured. Lady, I hope I see you well.” He straightened, heart beating faster despite himself. Face to face at last.
The foremost figure towered over Phiron, topping him by the length of a man’s forearm. It had a large, equine face, with human features, but the shape and size and colouring of these were like nothing any human ever possessed. The eyes were leaf-shaped, with long, amber lashes. The iris was a pale violet with no discernable pupil.
The nose was long, narrow, aquiline, the mouth below it small, turning down at the corners. The whole face seemed elongated, with an immensely high forehead from which the rufous hair had been braided back in knots topped with gold beads. The figure’s skin was a pale gold, enhanced by the light of the lamps. This darkened around the eye-sockets and about the nostrils, and in the hollow of the temples became a pale blue.
“Phiron,” the thing said, and it had a voice of which any actor would be envious, deep as the peal of a bronze bell. “And so we meet.”
This was Arkamenes, High Prince of the Asurian Empire, brother to the Great King himself. This was a Kefre, the high race of Kuf. This was one of the rulers of the world.
Behind Arkamenes was a smaller shape, with feminine curves emphasised by a close-fitting robe of lapis lazuli. Slender as a willow, this creature was veiled, only the eyes to be seen, and these were a warm brown, brown as mountain wine. The lashes about them were black, and had been drawn out with some cosmetic.
Arkamenes saw Phiron’s quick, interrogative glance and smiled. “The lady Tiryn is as close as a wife to me. We may speak without fear.”
Phiron bowed again. He was counted a handsome man, well-made and not without grace, but in the company of these two creatures he seemed a thing made out of ungainly leather and iron, stocky and solid, a rook in the company of swans. He was about to speak, but Arkamenes clapped his long, gold-skinned hands, the nails painted lilac. The doors opened again and the two Juthan bowed deep.
“Something to sustain our spirits. And quickly now.”
With great speed but no haste small tables were set up, and upon them were set trays of sweetmeats and flasks of silver and glass. On a stand to one side a crystal basin of steaming water was placed with a click, and linen towels. The Juthan left again, the doors were shut, and the smell of the food brought water to Phiron’s mouth. His breakfast had been army bread at the break of dawn, and a mug of black wine.
Arkamenes opened his arms in a gesture of inclusion. “You must forgive our squalor, but these apartments were the best the city had to offer. And we are being discreet, I believe. Even now, discretion is still called for. Tiryn, pour the general some wine. We will stand at the window, and look down on our ships.”
A momentary shock, like some frisson of life, as the female’s hand touched his, settled within his fingers a warm, smoking glass. He met her eyes for a second; she, too, was taller than he. The eyes were full of life, but closed off. Like a locked door with sounds of lovemaking behind it.
Phiron sipped his hot wine, savouring the warmth, rolling it around his tongue.
“So the fleet has assembled,” Arkamenes said, his own cup untouched. “Are they enough? Can it be done in one voyage?”
“Yes, barely. Some of the baggage animals will have to be left behind, but we can make good those losses in Tanis.”
“And what of numbers? Tell me, General, how does my army grow?”
“The contingents are assembling at Hal Goshen. The muster is to be complete six days from now. One hundred centons of fully armed Macht heavy infantry. At full strength, that would mean some ten thousand men, but most companies are somewhat below their complement. With them are some thousands of light troops, camp-followers, artisans and the like—”
“Slaves? We have plenty of those this side of the sea.”
“No, lord. Free men, for the most part at least. Many are capable warriors, but lack equipment. Traditionally, they help protect the flanks of the phalanx, and are used for scouting and raiding parties in rough terrain.”
Arkamenes stared down at his general. “All very well. But mind me, Phiron. I am not paying a great fleet to float whores across the Tanean. I trust there will be no gaggle of soldier-families trailing behind the host. These men must move fast and travel light.”
“No women, lord; that was agreed, and Pasion will see that it is so.”
“Good, good. Then it only remains for us to embark ourselves and set sail in the van of our little expedition. I have a fast galley at the wharves. We can be on the wing in an hour if needs be.”
“I have heard rumours, my lord.” Phiron sipped his hot wine. It was heavily spiced, too smooth for his liking.
“About Artaka I suppose? Yes, the province has declared for me. One of my captains holds it.
I have Tanis in the palm of my hand, general. When your men disembark, they need fear no hostile welcome. All is in hand.”
“Yes, that I had heard. But I wondered—what of your brother?”
Arkamenes’s narrow nostrils flared open wide, like those of a winded horse. “What of him?” he asked softly.
“Your flight is known to him—”
“Of course. He sent half a dozen assassins in our wake. Had it not been for my guards and old Amasis I would be dead three times over.”
“But will he contemplate a general levy, or take the field with the Household troops alone? My lord, does he know what we do here?”
Arkamenes turned away. Now he did sip his wine, as delicately as a man taking the sacrament. “It makes little odds. Once your soldiers disembark at Tanis the news will run through the Empire faster than the flux. It is almost three months’ march from Tanis to Ashur—ample time to gather whatever he thinks he needs. We will raise the provinces we march through against him. Already, I have had meetings with the elders of the Juthan. They are with us.”
“And troops, lord? What may we expect?”
Arkamenes smiled, finding his humour again. “Myriads, General. I will raise thousands to march at your side; but it is your people who will provide the core, a heart of iron. Imagine! Ten thousand of the legendary Macht, come across the sea to war, after all this time. That news will be worth half a dozen armies.”
Phiron bowed slightly, dissatisfied with his answer but knowing that none other would be forthcoming.
“So tell me, General, how far from this port of yours to Tanis? What length of voyage are we speaking of?”
Phiron blinked. He had been through these details a dozen times with intermediaries.
“Twelve hundred pasangs, my lord. The fleet captain, Myrtaios, assures me that with the wind as it stands, the passage will take some ten days.”
“Ten days.” Arkamenes strode away from the window, fairly crackling with energy. He tossed aside his exquisite goblet to clatter on a table. “Ten days! I shall be there before you, General. I shall be standing on the docks of Tanis, watching the northern horizon for the arrival of my fleet.” His mouth widened in a huge grin, and it seemed that behind his lips there were far too many teeth.
“We will march across the Gadinai Desert in winter, so it will be no hardship, and when spring comes and the snows in the Magron Passes have melted, why then, there we will be, in the Land of the Rivers, the richest farmland in the world. My brother will meet us there, I know it. He will not march halfway across the Empire to bring us to battle, but will wait for us to come to him.
” His face blackened. “I will impale him for the killer of kin that he is.” The thought cheered Arkamenes instantly.
“We will dine together tonight, you and I, Phiron. You like our food? Have you ever seen a Kefre dance? I shall have a robe made up for you, something more fitting than that scarlet rag you insist on donning. I should be thinking of liveries for your men. I see them in gold, I think. My crest in black upon breast and back. What think you?”
Phiron thrust out his jaw. “I think not, my lord.”
Arkamenes went very still. Phiron caught the gleam of the female’s eyes watching him with sudden attentiveness, the first genuine interest she had shown since entering the room. “What?”
“My lord, scarlet is our badge. We wear it all our lives, so long as we hold spear in hand and set it out for hire. The colour is of our blood, our calling. No matter the employer, we wear it to our deaths, and are wrapped in it upon our pyre.”
Arkamenes smiled again, a false note. “Fascinating. And though I pay your wages, though you will be afloat in my ships, eating my food and drinking my wine, still I have no say in this?”
“No, lord,” Phiron said doggedly.
Arkamenes covered the room in four strides. He set one long hand on Phiron’s shoulder, and fingered the red-dyed wool of the cloak upon it. He looked incredulous, amused.
“It will, no doubt,” he said, “take some time for us to become accustomed to one another’s ways.”
Only when the doors were shut behind him did Phiron wipe the sweat from his brow. He could feel it pooling cold at the base of his spine, and the wine he had drunk sat with a disagreeable heft in his empty stomach. The two Juthan stood impassive on either side of the antechamber, yellow eyes unreadable. Phiron had killed a wolf with those eyes above its muzzle. He glared at the nearest Juthan as though the creature had insulted him.
“Kufr,” he said with cold contempt. And he spat at the thing’s feet. Then he strode away, intent on seeking the company of his own kind.
Behind him the Juthan bent, and with the hem of his robe, wiped the spittle from the patterned tiles of the chamber floor.
“Was it your intent to bait him?” Tiryn asked. Gently, she righted the cup Arkamenes had cast aside, and with one long finger traced a sigil in the spilled dregs of the wine.
“It was my intent to make him think me a fool,” Arkamenes replied with a shrug of his narrow shoulders.
“There is then some advantage to be gained by making yourself out to be a vainglorious feather-head?” Tiryn asked.
Arkamenes laughed. The beat of sound was enough to make the nearest wall-sconce flicker. “I’m no fool; you know that better than anyone. But I want to see what this Macht mercenary will do, if I saddle him with burdens. He hates us— did you see that?”
“I saw it. Hatred—and yet a kind of lust, too.”
“Your eyes, perhaps. Even the animals of the Macht can be bewitched by them.” Arkamenes bowed. It was impossible to tell if he were mocking her or not.
Tiryn unhooked one side of her veil. Underneath was a pale-skinned face, something like Arkamenes, but in a lower key. It was softer, paler, and the mouth was both wide and full. One might have said it was more human, though the resemblance was one of form, as a portrait echoes the sitter.
“Not lust of the flesh. This man is hungry. He desires power as a drunkard craves wine. He is dangerous.”
“I should hope he is,” Arkamenes said tartly, “or else my money has been wasted. He is a hound, Tiryn, like those coursers they breed along the Oskus. Turn your back on them, and they’ll hamstring you. Beat them well, and they will die in your service.”
“And will his ten thousand be happy to die in ours?” Tiryn responded.
There was a stately series of raps on the door, as though someone were knocking a cane against the heavy wood.
“Yes, yes,” Arkamenes said, rubbing his forehead. “Amasis, you heard everything, did you not?”
An immensely tall, gaunt, golden-skinned creature stood undulating slightly in the doorway. Its eyes were mere blue glints deep in a crevice of bone. The nose was a pair of black slits. It held an ivory-coloured staff in one naked arm and the other was tucked in the breast of a seven-times wound bolt of blindingly white linen. Scarlet slippers completed the picture. The creature smiled, showing white teeth inset with tiny jewels.
“Every word, my Prince. What a presumptuous beast it was.” Amasis strode over to the brazier and warmed his free hand over the red coals. “Breath of God, but I will be glad to leave this end of the world. Some warmth in the air; a blast of true sunlight! How can they live without it?”
Tiryn poured the old Kefre some wine, and he raised the cup to her.
“To learn Kefren speaks well of this thing’s intellect and ambition,” Amasis said. “He could have settled with Asurian, but chose to learn the tongue of the highest caste. I like this in him. It shows that he concerns himself with details, and argues for a more subtle mind than we have perhaps given these creatures credit for. Perhaps there is more to them than the bloody savagery which paints our legends.”
“We’ll see,” Arkamenes said. “I intend to run him with a long leash until we enter Jutha, to see his paces. These red-cloaked warriors of his shall be the spearhead of the army. I shall hone them as a man does a knife; at every opportunity it shall be they who bleed, not our own forces. At the end, if any are left, then they should be a more manageable number.”
“A curiosity,” Amasis said, amused. “When the battles are done, we should perhaps erect cages for the survivors in the grounds of the palace, and charge admission.”
Arkamenes held up a hand. “Let us not tempt God’s wrath. I do not intend to end this adventure with a Macht army intact in the heartlands of the Empire, but I shall not squander them either. These fearsome, bloody men of bronze, they are half my treasury on the march. I intend that they shall see good service. My investment will be repaid in their blood.”
SEVEN
THE LAND BEYOND THE SEA
The storm had blown itself out at last, and now from horizon to horizon the sea was a tawny, white-toothed and ragged plain upon which the ships tossed and pitched under a hand-me-down of sail. For perhaps twenty pasangs, the scattered fleet plunged in tattered skeins and clots of heavy-laden wood and flapping cordage. In the holds of the overworked vessels thousands of men sat shoulder to shoulder whilst the fetid bilge splashed around them, and from the bellies of the big freighters the mules could be heard shrieking in angry panic and kicking at the confining timber of their stalls.
“We came through better than I thought we would,” Myrtaios said with a degree of satisfaction that Pasion found quite inhuman. He bent over the ship’s rail, only to find himself manhandled by the captain. “No—the leeward rail, for Phobos’s sake. Why can you soldiers never learn to puke away from the wind?”
Pasion gave a watery belch, his face almost the same colour as the water below. “Because we’re past caring. Had it been up to me, I think I’d have wished us all drowned two days ago.”
“Aye, well, you damned near had your wish. As nasty a blow as I’ve seen, this side of Gygonis.”
“What of the fleet? What do you see?” Pasion wiped his mouth and straightened. He had left off his cuirass, and his red chiton was smeared with all manner of filth. Below-decks the stink was well-nigh insupportable, but the men down there were also beyond caring.
“I’ve lookouts up counting, but that’s no easy job in this swell. There won’t be a full accounting made until you’re numbering them off on the wharves of Tanis itself. Be prepared though, my friend; some ships will have been lost—you mark my words. You don’t come through a four-days’ blow such as we just had without some poor souls finding it their last.” The captain shook his head mournfully and ran his fingers through the matted grey nest of his beard.
“I’ll bear that in mind. So how long now until we’re out of these damn contraptions and back with our feet on the earth again?”
>
The captain tramped to the windward side of the deck, beckoning Pasion after him. The cursebearer picked a path through a tangle of snapped rigging and made way for the working party that was intent on reinforcing the cracked timber of one of the great steering-oars. Seawater washed up and down the deck-planking to the depth of a man’s hand. From the black noisome depths of the open mainhatch more of the crew were hauling up great skins of water by tackles to the mainyard, helped by those of the mercenaries who were not incapacitated by sea-sickness. The skins were tilted overboard, and when emptied were flung down the hatch again to be refilled. The process seemed unending.
“There,” Myrtaios said, pointing with one thick forefinger. “You see that line on the horizon to the west?”
“That’s land, is it?”
“That’s Gygonis, the south-eastern shore of it, and if you were at the masthead you’d see the snow on the Andrumenos Mountains. I thank Antimone’s pity the wind didn’t back round sooner, or we’d all be floating on bits of firewood by now, pounded up and down that bastard black-rocked coast. No, rough though it was, it was as good as I could hope for at this time of year. You set sail in winter, you’re thumbing your nose at Phobos, and he’ll stir up the seas against you. Why, if it were not for the fee, I’d have laughed in your face when you hired me.”
“So,” Pasion said patiently, “assuming Phobos has turned his face away, how much farther is there to go?”
Myrtaios grinned, a stale exhalation of garlic. He picked at what teeth he had with one thumbnail’. “Why, we’re past Gygonis, so that’s the worst of it over, and we’ve a good wind now, fair on the quarter. If it’s more than four hundred pasangs to the coast of Artaka, well then I’ll kiss my steersman’s arse. And we can rattle that off in three days, barring storms, shipwreck, and this old bitch under us taking on any more water.”
