The Warrior's Tale

by Allan Cole, Chris Bunch

  I almost asked her again if she'd really never thought of sitting on the throne. But I could see by the look in her eye that I'd be wise to take her word for it. Royalty never lies. It only changes its mind from time to time.

  One of the best things Xia's brave volunteering produced was to make the war into a sacred crusade. It's been my experience that wars are begun by noblemen with paper, and ended by peasants with blood; while those who'll benefit the most from a victory make sure to stay as far away as possible from the battlefield. But following Xia's lead the young aristocrats of Konya flocked to the colours.

  Despite Xia's example, however, I noticed that all the volunteers were men, and reflected that as much as I groused about the treatment of women in Orissa, at least such a thing as the Maranon Guard existed. It wasn't much progress, but it seemed large when measured against the dim-witted policies of other cities and kingdoms.

  I hadn't realized how popular Xia was with the others of her class and generation until I saw the long lines of richly dressed men, waiting with a measure of patience at the recruiting booths in the marketplace. Those who'd had some training or experience with sword or sail were easy to fit in, but all too many of them had no developed skills beyond hawking, hunting and the other indulgences of court. It didn't matter, they said. They would serve in any manner we wanted them to, quartermaster to galley scut. We took them at their word and, for the most part, they served willingly and well. I was surprised, since I thought these soft youths would never be able to handle being chased up a mast by a mate, or bellowed at by Sergeant Ismet or one of the Konyans' own leather-lungers.

  Still, it was amusing to hear, as I did once, a bosun with his nose and rum-breath flush against a pretty lad's face, screaming at the boy as if he were a parade-ground distant, 'Lord Hilmuth, sir, you ignorant excuse for a six-legged pig with no more gods-damned sense than th' gods gave goats, sir, if I ever see you clew up a sheet like that again, you shitbrain, you prickear, I'll have you for my fancy-boy for th' rest of th' cruise, you futtering fool! Beggin' yer pardon, sir.'

  Two other benefits these noblemen brought - now we could have anything and everything we wanted. Also, the nobility brought the commoners in as well to serve, and the ships and the men to serve or fight from them were a bottomless barrel. I've often wondered why peasants espouse the most savage hatred for the gentry, but have an abiding fascination for their antics, to the point of relentlessly aping them.

  The fleet was beginning to look like a navy, instead of a motley assemblage of ships. We were nearly ready to sail and confront The Sarzana and his far more dangerous ally and secret master, the Archon.

  During those long weeks of preparation, I saw little of Gamelan, even though he was housed in the same villa with me. When I did seek him out for advice on a thorny matter he was maddeningly non-committal; only saying to do what I thought best. He even refused to attend the morning bone-casting, claiming to be too weary, or sick. What I missed most was our nightly ritual of discussion, where everything under the sun was fair game for debate. I never saw him smile during that time, and he'd begun to shuffle like an old man - he, who even in blindness, always had a youthful spring to his step. The women I'd assigned to attend him said he ate little, no matter how much they tried to tempt him with delicacies, and he drank no spirits at all - only water. All this from a man who'd previously berated us for losing hope; who pressed on no matter how difficult the circumstances.

  As I watched his spirit shrivel before my eyes I thought perhaps the experience of the dungeons had been too much for him. I began to fear he might soon die.

  I sought him out one night to ask him what was the matter. I thought perhaps there was some elixir he could direct me in making that might help him recover some of his former vigour.

  Tm just old, dammit!' he said, his voice quivering.

  'But, Gamelan, my friend,' I said. 'I need you. We need you.'

  'Your needs are sucking me dry,' he shouted. 'Now go away and leave me be.'

  I left. What else could I do? I did notice, however, the closer we came to being ready, the more despondent he became. If I hadn't been so busy, I might've found the cause sooner. No, that's not the truth. Hang duty. I should have made the time; but I was too smitten with Xia to do so.

  It was a wondrous spell she wove about me; and I'm Vain enough to still believe I did the same for her. She was meat and drink to me. The more I bedded her, the more I lusted for our next bedding. She found forbidden books on sexual tricks and we tried everything, save those that are degrading, or cause pain. We daubed each other with honey and wine and took hours licking off every speck. We rubbed perfumed oils into every crease in our bodies, then wrestled until one or the other would pretend to give way. Then the victor got to choose her pleasure as a reward.

  There were also long, languorous afternoons of talk in which we shared secrets one only tells to lovers. She wept with me when I told her about Otara. But when I spoke of Tries and our fight, she grew angry and turned away and when I attempted to massage her back she snapped: 'Don't touch me!'

  'What have I done?' I said.

  'You still love her,' she accused.

  I sputtered: 'Don't be silly. She left me. It's over.'

  'No, it's not,' she said. 'I can tell when you speak her name. It's a game she's playing. The whore! Soon as you return she'll wrinkle her nose and you'll be in her arms again.'

  'I swear, Xia,' I protested. 'I love only you.'

  She cried and finally let me comfort her. I whispered her name over and over, demanding she believe that I loved no other. Eventually we made up. The sex of forgiveness was hot and violent; and Xia was all sweetness and smiles when she finally left for home. The subject was never raised again. But I must confess, I certainly thought about her accusation. Did I still love Tries? The remarkable thing was, I couldn't swear to myself that I didn't.

  The tales of The Sarzana's latest atrocities came with every fresh arrival to Isolde. I imagine his deeds were supposed to send us into paroxysms of panic, and either make us battle-foolish or even surrender. But, for the most part, they had the opposite effect. Since his ghouls laid waste to every island and port they came across, whether hostile, neutral or festooned with white flags, resolve actually stiffened. It was very clear to almost everyone that there could be no truce, no compromise, no quarter offered or given. Even those who might've hesitated, or who'd managed to convince themselves The Sarzana's regime wasn't that terrible - or even to be preferred to the present rulers - held their tongues and professed patriotism.

  I did hear, once or twice, wonderment expressed at how The Sarzana had 'changed, had darkened'. I knew his alliance with the Archon made his deeds more black-handed, but that the difference between what he was doing now and his past tyranny was only a matter of degrees.

  I had a grisly confrontation with his evil one early morning, when the gangwatch summoned me on deck. I was maintaining two headquarters - one in the Council's palace, for large or formal meetings, the second in Xia's old cabin on board Stryker's galley, for secret or highly important matters. Perhaps I also needed it to remind myself not to become mired in the politics, treacheries and problems of the Konyans. My duties were simple - first to Orissa, to end the menace of the Archon, and then to my Guardswomen and finally to Cholla Yi's mercenaries. In the final reckoning, nothing else, beyond my obligation to my own soul, was to be given much weight.

  When the deck officer asked if I had time to meet someone, I hurried topside, being bored orry-eyed with lists of lading, duty rosters and all the rest of a soldier's task the sagas never sing about. Waiting was a slender man in his early fifties. His beard was close-cropped and his hair tied back in a tiny queue. He wore a plain, loose-fitting tunic and pants. A sword and dagger hung from a belt with a supporting shoulder strap and I noted both sheaths were dark with age - the hilts of the weapons polished from long usage. A soldier, then. There was one odd thing. He wore no rings or jewels, but tucked above one ear was a tub
e perhaps four or five inches long, and I noted it was gold, and crusted with jewels.

  On the nearby wharf I saw, drawn up in company order, perhaps another hundred men dressed similarly, aged from twenty to sixty. I greeted him warmly, hoping his fine body of soldiers had come to join us. Nor, who was their leader, assured me they had. He said the men below were only half of those who followed him. I was even more pleased, since I was having great difficulty arranging my own forces for the battle, needing and facing the dismal fact I had no more than 125 warriors I could truly depend on, my own Guard.

  I asked Nor his rank. 'I have none,' he answered. 'And the rank I held before I would be shamed to say.'

  I looked long into his eyes and they were stark, burning. I'd seen eyes like that before - from the poor souls we freed from the torture-dungeons of the Archon when we took the sea-castle in Lycanth. I knew the man had a tale in him, and somehow felt it was not one for all listeners. I saw there were curious ears, both from my own women and from sailors pretending to find tasks nearby. I told Nor he could dismiss his troops and let them find shelter, since it was misting, the mist promising to become a summer rain shortly.

  He shook his head. 'My men will remain where they are. They don't melt.'

  I led him to the deserted foredeck, where a tarpaulin had been rigged overhead. I asked if he wished wine, and he said no. Very well, if he wanted to deal with the business at hand, that would be the style of our meeting.

  'So you wish to serve,' I said. 'Why have you come to me, rather than to Admiral Trahern, or one of his generals? Surely men like yours, assuming they can fight as hard as they look, could serve where they wished.'

  'First, I came to you because I've heard well of you and your women. I don't think you have any interest in the game-playing most Konyans call fighting, with their feints and bluffs and champions and such.'

  'I do not,' I said. 'War is what it is, and to be fought as hard and as briefly as I can manage.'

  He went on as if I'd not interrupted. 'Second, though, is that my men are hardly welcome in most ranks.'

  Shit! I thought. They're probably posers, bandits or convicts. But I didn't let my disappointment show. Instead, I merely waited.

  'These men are my brothers,' Nor said. 'Once there were a thousand of us. But that was five years and more ago, when we were known as The Sarzana's Own.'

  Nor caught my shocked reaction. 'Yes. We were the bastard's bodyguards. His elite, who surrounded him day and night - in his travels or at his castle. Our lives were his, and his safety and pleasure our only concern.'

  'Most rulers have such a guard,' I said, 'but generally they die when he's overthrown, trying to keep him alive. Or else they're killed in the aftermath. And seldom have I heard such men, who're generally given great favours by the ruler unless he's an utter fool, curse his memory.'

  Nor said nothing, but abruptly lowered his pants. I started back, momentarily sure I was in the presence of the commander of a band of lunatics. Then I saw what he'd meant to show me, and my stomach roiled. He had no penis at all, but rather a small protuberance, less than a fingerwidth. Strangely, underneath that hung a normal-looking scrotum. I'd seen eunuchs before, but they'd always been either completely gelded, or with just the testicles cut away.

  I nodded - I'd seen. Nor lifted his pants, showing no sign of shame, nor did he apologize. Now I also knew that jewel-crusted tube was for the men to relieve themselves. I'd heard of such mutilations before; just as I've heard of cruel tribes who mutilate all their girls so they cannot enjoy the pleasure of sex.

  'That was the way The Sarzana sealed us to him,' Nor said. 'He wanted warriors with their manly virtues, and my pardon for using such trite words to someone who must know better, undamaged. Even better, a man with his seeds intact, but with no way of relieving his desires or needs, would make a deadly fighter, always brimming with blind rage. That was The Sarzana's thinking, and he was quite right. We were terrors and would kill or maim anyone, child, man or beast, at his slightest whim.'

  'How could he hold you to him, considering the crime he'd done to you?' I wondered. 'Magic?'

  'A bit of that,' Nor said. 'When he was torn from the throne, a veil was lifted that he'd cast on us. But there was something more. He took all of us when we were small children. None of us know who we are, who our parents were, or even where our homes might be. The Sarzana had us kidnapped and ... cut by a special team of men -although I find it impossible to claim them as human - who also ran his torture chamber; or for such tasks even poor bastards such as we would refuse. None of them lived beyond the day The Sarzana fell.

  'We were raised and trained separately from the rest of the people; always told we were special and the gods had caused us to be birthed with only one goal - to serve and die for The Sarzana.' Nor grimaced. 'You tell a child that ten or a thousand times a day from the time he can walk, and you will produce, well, what you see standing out there.'

  'So you want revenge?'

  'Yes,' Nor said. 'That is the only dream we have. Somehow most of us managed to survive the day the palace fell and somehow we found each other. That was five years ago and we had but one goal - to send The Sarzana into the worst hell the gods can design. We called ourselves the Broken Men. I will tell you frankly we were attempting to mount a conspiracy, to find the island where The Sarzana was exiled, and seek him there. We'd already purchased five ships for the mission from some Konyan corsairs; ships not very different in design from yours, although I doubt if they're as easily sailed or rowed. We'd spent time teaching ourselves how to sail them as well, both in storm and calm.

  'None of us gave, or give, the slightest damn for the curse that comes on he who slays a king of Konya. What curse could be worse than waking each morning and having to piss through this straw,' and he touched the jewelled tube in his hair, 'and know no woman will look at you, no child will carry your name down the ages, and no one will bother sending your ghost to peace when you lie dead?

  'So when The Sarzana used his magic against you Orissans, and found freedom, while most Konyans wept and tore their hair, we celebrated. He was ... is ... approaching his final doom.'

  'You think you're that invincible?' I said, not bothering to sound impressed.

  'Of course not. I'm a soldier, not a fool. Perhaps he will return and regain the throne. But none of us will be alive on that day. Captain Antero, I know one thing - that if you believe something strongly enough, to the point your own death is meaningless, you have a good chance of reaching that goal.'

  'True,' I said. 'So you wish to serve direcdy under me?'

  'That is the only way we'll join this fleet. Otherwise, we'll find a way to fight our own battle. We can buy more ships, or steal them if necessary. And even a sorcerer like The Sarzana can be taken from behind with a dagger at midnight, if there's no other way.'

  I didn't reply at once, thinking of the problems that could well arise. I decided since Nor had been brutally honest with me, I would return the favour.

  'If I accept your service, you must obey me, and all my officers and sergeants, absolutely in all ways.' 'Of course we will! We aren't babes.'

  'You don't understand me. I mean you must obey any of us if we tell you not to fight, not to charge, not to throw your lives away in some futile attack merely because there is the slightest hope of seeing The Sarzana within bowshot. There's an old soldier's joke that says you must never be shield-companion with someone who's braver than you are. Braver, or more reckless. That is my only condition, Nor; but one you must accept completely. I shall also require your men to swear an oath to do the same, in front of whatever gods you hold most sacred.'

  Now it was Nor's turn for silence. He grimaced, thinking hard. Finally he looked up.

  'I accept. I don't necessarily agree with you - the gods have always blessed those who go mad in battle, and care nothing for their own safety. But... I accept your conditions.' He drew himself rigid and clapped his right hand against his heart.

  I return
ed the salute, while privately wondering whether I believed him or not. The Broken Men were unlikely to hold god-oaths any more sacred than anything else, especially when the fight waged furious. But I decided I could deal with that problem when it arose. Until then, I had twice the number of warriors I'd had an hour earlier, and the inexorable game of numbers requires many compromises.

  There is never any real end when it comes to preparing for battle. No matter how hard you train, it can always be argued more is required. No matter how well you're armed, there's always a newer and better weapon about that someone will want you to carry. And ships can be made more seaworthy until the oceans run dry. But there comes a moment when every soldier knows it's time to face her enemy. From that point on, your enemy can only get stronger and more deadly.

  That day finally came for us. The tide was right; the winds were right; and even the soothsayers had their last say.

  All of Isolde turned out to see the great fleet depart. There were processions and speeches and wine and incense. Soldiers dallied with maids on the wharf for one last rutting, and even the most prudish smiled and said, isn't that sweet, poor things. Horns blew, drums rolled, and bright clouds of ceremonial kites swooped in fantastic patterns across the sky. Mothers cried out the names of their sons as they boarded; fathers wept in envy for not boarding with them; and sisters wept for not being considered at all. Then pipes were piped and sails were hoisted and soon the entire sea was alive with white -winged ships speeding for their destiny.

  As for me, while I watched all the well-wishers on the shore diminish, I recalled another day when we marched from Orissa.

  It seemed like such a long, lonely eternity, Scribe, since the prayers of good fortune had been for me and mine.

  Nineteen

  Windrider

  FLEET ADMIRAL TRAHERN may have made all the correct sounds about being equals, but once we were at sea it was firmly fixed who was in charge, at least in his mind. Both Cholla Yi and I were clear subordinates. Important ones, yes, but certainly not to be taken into Trahern's confidence unless he deemed it fitting. That became obvious when Trahern sent a fast courier boat with his chief aide, carrying orders thinly veiled as a report.