by Bunch, Chris
We dressed and went up the ramps. The women, chattering as gaily as we, came streaming out to join us.
We entered a huge dining room, with tables and benches of heavy, ancient wood. The tables were laden with brass bowls, filled with food. Taking little heed of formation or rank, we rushed them.
Our host entered as we sat down. We caught ourselves, expecting some kind of prayer.
“Go ahead,” he said. “The gods look with disfavor on hungry people.”
We needed no more encouragement. There was rice, spiced hot with Numantian herbs none of us had tasted since we left our country, and sprinkled with melted butter; aubergines sliced and fried in an egg batter; lentils so spicy tears ran from our eyes, fresh tomatoes with grated cheese from buffalo milk; rice pudding with mangoes, jackfruit, and herbal teas of many varieties.
Svalbard leaned close. “Wonder how long it takes t’ train a demon t’ cook?” he whispered.
The bearded man had preternatural hearing, for he smiled broadly. “So you’re still suspicious,” he said. “Let me ask you something. What are demons?”
Svalbard frowned. “Evil. Spirits that’ll do you harm.”
“But these beings you’re worried about are feeding you. So they can’t be demons.”
“Poison,” Svalbard said, not giving an inch.
“Poison? Then you will die. Die nobly, opposing evil forces, which will advance you on the Wheel, am I not right? Since their deed would have done good for you, they could not be demons, for demons are incapable of good work, by your definition.”
“Words!” Svalbard snorted. He looked for a place to spit, couldn’t see one, and buried his nose in his food.
The man smiled once more, and walked down the rows of tables, for all the world like the genial host of a country tavern.
• • •
Perhaps I dreamed, but I think not. I seemed to wake and walked out of my cell into the corridor. The lamps that had been burning when we came away from dinner were flickering low, and my sentries were pacing their rounds, trying to stay awake, at each end. No one saw me.
I knew exactly where to go, and went up the ramps to the main level, and walked assuredly down one hall whose ceiling was lost in gloom. There was a small door, and then I was in the temple’s heart, a vast polyhedronic room with silk hangings on the walls in blazing colors. But there were no idols, no paintings of any gods, or benches for worshipers, not even an altar.
In the center of the room the old man sat cross-legged on a purple silk pillow. There was a circular straw mat in front of him. I knelt awkwardly on it. He looked at me calmly, expectantly.
“Why did you welcome us?” I asked, without preamble.
“Why not? If I hadn’t, you would have tried to take what you needed from the villagers, and I feel duty toward them.”
“Who are you? Their priest? Their king?”
“Neither. All.”
“What god — or gods — do you serve?”
“None. All.”
“There was a young man here the last time I passed,” I said. “He called himself the Speaker.”
“And so he is. My son.”
“Why haven’t we seen him?”
“He disagreed with the manner in which you should be greeted. I decided to overrule him.”
“What would he have done?”
“You need not know. But it would not have been the best. He is young and has much to learn.”
“He told me a riddle.”
“I know,” the man said, then quoted exactly: “ ‘The god you think you serve, you do not serve. The goddess you fear is not the one who is your enemy, but your enemy is one who seeks to become more, to become a god, yet in the end shall be no more than a demon, for demons are his true master.’ Am I not correct?”
“You are.”
“The riddle went on,” the man continued. “ ‘Serve who you may, serve who you might, you serve but one, and that one will grant you naught.’
“Can you answer any of its questions now?”
I could, although my mind tried to shudder away:
The god I thought I served … Isa, god of war. Or perhaps Irisu.
The goddess I feared … Saionji, obviously. But if I didn’t fear her, then:
My enemy, he who seeks to become more, become a god?
It could be but one.
Laish Tenedos.
The emperor.
The demon king.
If this was true, he could and would grant me nothing, for demons never give more than they must, and I’d sworn an oath of loyalty and servitude of my own free will.
The things he’d given me in the past — riches, titles, power — all of those things had bound me closer to him, made me serve him better, more loyally.
Yes, I had the answer to the riddle. But would I tell it to this man? No. Not ever. He waited. A smile came and went, and he nodded, as if he’d heard someone — myself? — speak, and he’d approved.
“Good,” he said. “Very good indeed. Now, since you’ve suffered much, perhaps you’d like me to give you something.”
“Why should you?”
He shrugged. “Because it amuses me. Because it’s my duty. Does it matter?”
“I suppose not.”
“Very well then,” he said. “Of course, being who I am, or what I am, perhaps a man, perhaps a demon as your Svalbard fears, I shall speak in another riddle.”
“Naturally.”
Both of us laughed, and the sound echoed in the huge room. Now I remembered him, him and the great leopard who’d watched us climb toward Maisir so long ago.
“You were the boy who rode the tiger,” he said, and paused as I started. I began to blurt a question, but realized he wouldn’t answer it, wouldn’t explain how he could know what a jungle sorcerer had told my parents on my name day. “Now the tiger has turned on you. You’ve felt great pain, and there will be greater pain to come. But the thread of your life goes on.
“The boon I grant is to tell you that it shall continue far longer than you think now, or shall think soon.
“Some time from this moment, your thread shall change color.
“Perhaps the color I sense has meaning to you. It is a bright yellow, and is now made of silk.”
Yellow? Silk?
“The Tovieti’s strangling cord,” I growled.
“I know of them,” the man said.
“They’ve tried to kill me several times,” I said. “I’m their sworn enemy.”
“Indeed,” the man said. “But all things change. The one you serve, for instance, may become your most bitter enemy. Why shouldn’t evil become good, if perceived good is evil?” The man rose. “I think I’ve satisfied both my duty and my sense of humor, and added confusion, just as my son did. Sleep well, sleep long.”
He walked away. The chamber was huge, but he walked away from me forever, growing smaller and smaller, as if it were miles long.
I was back in my cell, and the straw was rubbing into my bare shoulder for an instant, and then I fell back into sleep.
I awoke feeling as if I had slept for ages — fresh, eager, although when my dream, if dream it was, returned, I shivered, not knowing what to think. But I didn’t have to, for there was work to be done.
The men were cheerful and loud, dressing in the corridors like so many schoolboys. We formed up outside the temple, while I sought the one who’d guested us.
My calls echoed against stone, without an answer. After a time, I gave up and went out.
It was bright, clear, and a warm wind blew up from the lowlands. Without looking back, we marched away.
Into our homeland, into Numantia, into the fairest land I’d ever known: Urey.
TWENTY-NINE
CAMBIASO
Urey was once bright flowers lining blue lakes, marble and gold, laughter and love. We came into fire, death, and desolation. The armies of the night had already passed on, leaving nothing but black ashes and emptiness.
Still-terr
ified peasants said the Numantian Army had stumbled out of Sulem Pass, with the ravening hordes of Maisir close behind. The Maisirians had been told by their king and court magician that Numantia was theirs to do with as they wished. The tales of atrocity were heartrending, unlistenable. But as my guts churned in rage and revulsion, a cool part of me reminded that we’d done no better when we invaded Maisir. What else could be expected?
But how had our army moved so fast? I’d expected it still to be entangled in Kait, slowly being butchered by the Men of the Hills. We found a wounded soldier who’d fallen behind and somehow not been captured by the Maisirians.
Oswy had declared itself an open city, which had done no good at all. Our army, beyond mercy, beyond the law, had torn it apart, taking everything when it had nothing. They left the city in flames, its streets filled with the torn bodies of innocents, and marched on north.
By the time they reached Kait, they’d heard from their officers and warrants what they could really expect from the Men of the Hills, and were ready for the worst. But nothing happened. There’d been only isolated ambushes by small groups of bandits. Most of the hillmen were afraid to face so big a force, even one as ruined as the army.
The soldier said he’d heard stories that the ruler of Kait, some pig named Fergle or Foogle, had been killed, and a new man sat the throne, and the hill tribes were frantically making new alliances, settling old feuds, and had no time for outsiders.
Achim Baber Fergana, my old enemy, had finally met someone more ruthless, more cunning?
Who … And then a strange thought struck and I knew, without any facts, who his assassin had been, and knew what Yonge’s last favor was to the army he’d served.
I grinned. Yonge would make a very good achim for Kait, and give the Men of the Hills more than enough to concern themselves with instead of raiding Numantia or Maisir. Or perhaps he’d lead the raids himself.
Anyway, the soldier went on, when they’d reached Kait’s main city — Sayana, I told him it was named — its gates were closed, and when the emperor ordered them opened, there came nothing but mocking laughter. There was no time to mount a siege, for the Maisirians were in close pursuit, and so our army went on through Sulem Pass into Urey.
“I heard we wuz supposed to make for th’ river, where there’d be reinforcements. But they wuz on our butts through th’ pass, then cut around us, usin’ Negaret, an’ took Renan, I think it’s called. We went west, intendin’ to hook around ‘em, an’ come back t’ th’ river further north.
“But I took this spear when we wuz bringin’ some cattle back, crawled away, an’ dunno what’s happening now.”
Both armies then were north of us, deeper into Numantia.
I summoned my officers and told them we had one duty: to rejoin the army as fast as we could, bypassing the Maisirians. Sooner or later, we’d be able to link up with the emperor.
Perhaps he was the demon king. But I remembered my oath, and that invaders were laying waste to my land, and that was a rock in a tempestuous sea for this drowning man. I would, I must, hold true. My officers, warriors all, didn’t argue. Their units had been stationed in Urey, and it was considered by most their home, and they wanted revenge. The Maisirians had to be stopped, or else all Numantia would be like Urey — ashes and despair.
We moved north, and we were no better than the Maisirians, except we didn’t murder or rape. Stand against us and you met the sword. We took what we needed as we went: horses, and eventually we were all mounted; food, until we were all fed; clothes, and we were clean once more. There was nothing to be done about our haunted eyes that had seen too much death and our weary bodies that’d done too much killing. All of us realized that the only peace we’d know would be death.
At least most of us, those of us who were regulars. But there were those who weren’t, and each night some would slip away. Domina Bikaner wanted to send out patrols to bring back and hang a few deserters for an example. I forbade it. Let them seek out their homes, far from war and blood, I thought, and wished them luck.
There would be a great battle to come, and why would we want the fainthearted, the cowardly? There was no room for anything but the most carefully forged steel.
• • •
Wars — armies — have a certain sound, a certain smell. Blood, fire, even fear have scents. We’d left Urey, and were riding through the poor farming province of Tagil. Smoke pillared in the skies, and we were very close, and rode farther east, then hard north, and then west, looping in a wide semicircle around the Maisirian Army.
My scouts were challenged by Numantians, even more ragged, more weary, more desperate than we were. We’d rejoined our brothers, and reached safety. Such as it was.
• • •
“I should have guessed Damastes the Fair would find a way around those bastards,” Tenedos said, trying to sound hearty. “So Yonge’s smuggler’s route is passable for soldiers, eh? That’ll be useful when we invade Maisir next year or the year after.”
It was good the emperor was babbling nonsense, for it gave me a moment to cover the shock. I thought I was battered by time. But I was nothing compared to the emperor. He was only a few years older than I, but looked as if he were of another generation. His black hair was almost gone on top, and the round face I’d once thought boyish was lined, harsh.
His eyes still blazed, but they were different, a disturbing gleam to them.
“Yes, sir. I’ve four hundred fifty cavalry. What’s left of the Seventeenth, Twentieth, and Tenth. I’ll be frank, sir. We’re not in good shape, but we’re in better mettle than the soldiers we saw riding through the camp.”
“Good. For the great battle that’ll send those ants scurrying back to their hill is close.” He forced a smile, and the corner of his mouth twitched a little. “Since you’re being realistic, I’ll do the same. This battle will settle everything. Either the Maisirians and Bairan will be destroyed, or we will.
“It’s that simple. They have the numbers, but we have the spirit. We’re fighting for freedom now. I know my soldiers will put every bit of their soul, their blood into play.”
His words sounded less as if they came from the heart than like tired phrases he’d used again and again until they had no meaning at all for him, and therefore none for his audiences. No wonder the army appeared so dispirited if this was the best their emperor could do.
“Spirit’s all well and good,” I said. “But it’s generally swords, and how many of them there are, that win battles.”
“Swords, yes. Or magic. There’s our greatest secret strength, for when we fight them next, I have a weapon that will utterly destroy the Maisirians. They won’t be able to retreat, but must either surrender where they stand or die.”
I wondered how much of our blood this secret magic would require, pushed that thought away, and asked for a briefing on where everyone was positioned.
“One thing before that,” he said. “Remember I told you before that once we reached Renan I must leave the army for a time and return to Nicias? That still holds true, even though those traitors were suppressed. I don’t want to do it, but I must, to guarantee a final triumph that will ensure the safety of Numantia for all time.”
I made no response, but he didn’t seem to require one. He called Domina Othman and led me to another tent, where a huge, newly drawn map lay across three pushed-together tables looted from farmhouses. He told the other staff officers to leave, then told me our situation. It was grim. We had no more than a hundred thousand men ready to fight.
I didn’t hear what he said next, for my world rocked about me. We’d lost how many men in Maisir? Two million? More, counting replacements? Gods. Even if Tenedos’s secret weapon worked, and we destroyed the Maisirians, it would be generations before Numantia recovered.
I forced myself back to the present as Othman continued. Some reinforcements had come in, marching overland from Amur, but they were hastily formed units of fresh recruits and the training depots’ cadre.
“We’ll break through the Maisirians, let them chase and not catch us, which they’re good at, then turn and destroy them at the Latane.”
I stared at the map without replying. The army held hasty positions just north of the small, now-ruined trading city of Cambiaso. Amur’s border was about twenty miles distant, but then it was a hundred miles to the Latane River.
And the Maisirian Army was between.
I wondered where these Guard Corps, over a hundred thousand men if they were at full strength, had come from. Tenedos had stripped Numantia almost bare for the invasion, and all new units had been fed into that cauldron as soon as they were formed. Did these units really exist? Perhaps there’d been a great rush to the colors, and various border units had been amalgamated and given Guard designation to bolster their morale. I wanted, I needed, to believe this.
I returned to the map.
The emperor wanted another frontal attack for his breakthrough. That appeared suicidal. But farther south was wasteland, near-desert, except for a great semicircular series of peaks on rising ground, nearly ten miles from horn to horn.
“Sir,” I suggested. “Instead of striking straight into the Maisirians, what prevents us from feinting north, as if we’re moving into the desert, then hitting their flank while they’re organizing to come after us? Hit it hard enough, knock it back, and in the confusion we’ll have at least a day, maybe more, to break contact. They’ve got to be almost as exhausted as we are.”
“No,” Tenedos said firmly. “We can’t do that. Not now. Not the way the army is. We don’t have the strong backbone we used to. I left too many of my best tribunes and generals, my best thrusters, on the suebi.
“The confusion would be too much, and the Maisirians would smash us while we were moiling about.
