by Hugh Cook
Nevertheless, the imperial hunting party was nothing like one of those shambling circuses which traipse around behind the effete lords of the debauched and dissolute south. Even in his days of triumph, Lord Onosh never forgot that he was of the Yarglat, a people who conquered by horsepower, who ruled by horsepower, and who must trust to their horsepower to survive if the fates ever turned against them.
All who went with the emperor could ride hard and long when the day demanded it; and so, despite its complement of concubines and bootmakers, the hunting party rode east from Gendormargensis like the advance guard of a wind-riding army. Swiftly the hunt campaigned deep into the mountain wilds, disregarding the lateness of the year and the inclemency of the weather.
When Lord Onosh had won the rule of the Collosnon Empire (something he had done by adroitly masterminding a potent combination of witchcraft, conspiracy and murder) he had made Gendormargensis his capital, as had all the rulers of the empire before him. The city commanded the strategic gap between the Sarapine Ranges and the Balardade Massif, and hence was ideally placed to control all intercourse between the eastern hill country and the widespreading western flatlands dominated by the Yolantarath River.
Since no wild animal of any consequence had been seen anywhere near Gendormargensis for a generation or more, when Lord Onosh went hunting he necessarily rode into the mountains in pursuit of bandits.
The lord of the Collosnon Empire had sported after bandits so often that very few were left; indeed, such two-legged prey were so scarce that one wit had lightly proposed that they be declared a protected species. But Lord Onosh persisted in hunting to the highground to capture and to kill, seeking the last of the lawless in their mountain retreats.
On this occasion, the emperor hunted for a full ten days without success, until at last his party surprised a bandit encampment. There bandits they fought and bandits they killed, though some of the lawless escaped from this first attack.
The first attack was led by Thodric Jarl, the gray-bearded uitlander who was renowned as the mightiest of the Witchlord's warriors. In that autumn, the autumn of the year Alliance 4305, Thodric Jarl was only 24 years of age, yet he was as gray as gnarled death and as cold in his killing as icelock rapture or midwinter famine.
Cleaving the air with bloodstroke upon bloodstroke, Jarl made his bitter steel sing. He hacked the bandit leader down, then claimed for himself the choicest treasure found in the bandit camp - a thing of female gender which named itself Yerzerdayla.
The female thing was brought in chains to the imperial battle base, where it was seen by the young Guest Gulkan, the self-styled Weaponmaster, he who at the age of 14 laid claim to a man's estate, though he was still possessed of much of a child's impetuous unreliability. Guest Gulkan stood in his muddy boots, smelling like a slaughterhouse, and gaped at Yerzerdayla. For this captive slave - dressed in silks and chained by jade clasped with silverbright - looked more like an imperial aristocrat than one of common flesh.
"I am in love," said Guest, who was of a certainty in lust.
Such was the first meeting of Guest Gulkan and the elegant Yerzerdayla, she of the blonde body and the perfumed hair.
Then:-
"Who is the woman?" asked Guest.
"She is a thing claimed already by Thodric Jarl," answered Yerzerdayla's keepers.
"Claim he may," said Guest. "But I will have!"
In fact, it would have been politic for Guest Gulkan to lose interest in any flesh owned by any killer as grim and humorless as Thodric Jarl. But Guest, in those days of his ego, felt free to conduct himself like the imperial heir he was not. So he sought out Thodric Jarl, meaning to demand the surrender of the woman Yerzerdayla.
Young Guest found Jarl supervising the forced labors of the surviving male prisoners, who were digging pits for a purpose which had not been explained to them. It was cold, but Jarl was warm in a weather jacket bought from the emperor's league riders - uitlander mercenaries every bit as barbarous as himself. The prisoners were also warm, for under Jarl's surveillance they were digging themselves into a mass of sweat and blisters.
"Ho, Jarl!" said Guest.
"Ho!" said Jarl.
"I'd like a word with you," said Guest.
"Then speak," said Jarl.
So far, so good; for at least they had exchanged several civil words without swapping threats of violence. Given that both were extremely dangerous men - Guest being at that age a danger mostly to himself, whereas Jarl was a menace to other people - that was something to be thankful for.
Now Guest had long been tutored in diplomacy by Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin. The excellent Sken-Pitilkin had introduced Guest to all those notions central to successful negotiation; but Guest was a poor student, and proved it by botching his confrontation with Thodric Jarl.
When Jarl refused to give him the woman, Guest did not offer him horses and hogsheads of wine in return; or let the matter drop for the moment; or take no for an answer. Instead, he began to rant, rage and bluster.
"I am Guest Gulkan, son of Onosh Gulkan and rightful heir to the lands of Tameran," said Guest. "How dare you deny me?"
"I dare deny you," said Thodric Jarl, "for you are no heir to anything but the lice in your father's bootboy's hair."
"I'll have your blood for that!" said Guest in fury.
"To have you must take," said Jarl.
"Then take I will!" said Guest, lugging out his sword.
But the sword was only half-lugged when Jarl gave young Guest a push which sent him staggering backwards. Guest found empty air beneath his boot - and fell. The boy Guest fell backwards into a pit which four bandits were excavating. These four exhausted wretches thought Guest had jumped down amongst them with murder his intent. Despairing of life, they nevertheless put up as much of a fight as they could, and Guest was put to the necessity of killing them before he could scramble out of the pit.
As Guest was scrambling, Jarl kicked him under the chin, sending him tumbling backwards onto the cushion of the corpses he had so recently created.
"Nicely timed," said the dwarf Glambrax, who was following this conflict with the interest of a born spectator.
"I've had practice," said Jarl.
"That wasn't fair," said Guest, looking up from the blood and muck at the bottom of the pit.
"Neither is this," said Jarl, picking up a huge rock which required both hands to lift it.
"You wouldn't dare," said Guest, doing his best to sneer at the rock.
Jarl dared.
He hurled the rock down on the hapless Weaponmaster.
Guest screamed. He couldn't help himself! He threw up both hands in a hopeless attempt to protect himself.
The rock smashed into his hands.
And burst into fragments, for in the proof of the impact it proved to be no rock at all, but, rather, a cohesive mass of earth.
As Guest was spitting out bits of earth - he had been screaming as the stuff smashed into his arms, and in consequence had been gifted with a mouthful of the stuff - Thodric Jarl completed his victory by spitting on the unfortunate Weaponmaster.
Thus Guest met Jarl in combat, and was defeated, which was only to be expected. For Jarl was as handy with fist and boot as he was with edged weapons; whereas Guest, though he had long studied the art of the boast under the guidance of Rolf Thelemite, was no match for the professional brutality of Thodric Jarl.
In the disappointment of his defeat, Guest lacked the sense to abandon his woman-quest. Instead, once he had rescued himself from the pit, Guest Gulkan went to his father to demand revenge upon Jarl, and to demand likewise the possession of Yerzerdayla's loins.
The young Weaponmaster discovered Lord Onosh seated outdoors by a roaring bonfire, snugged against the weather in the warm folds of a snow-coat. The emperor was feeding upon a fine wheat loaf which smelt as if it had just been freshly baked, as indeed it had, for the imperial master chef Pelagius Zozimus had been giving a bravura display of field cookery.
"Father," sa
id Guest, without preamble, and without asking permission to speak.
Lord Onosh tossed the remains of the machet to the dwarf Glambrax, who had already given him a vibrant account of the epic battle between the man Jarl and the boy Guest. Glambrax bit gleefully at his fresh-caught trophy then started to juggle with it. As the dwarf performed, Lord Onosh turned his attention to Guest Gulkan.
"So," said the Witchlord, "the larger of my two fools has decided to put in an appearance. What tricks will it play for us today?"
"My lord," said Guest, doing his best to ignore this sally,
"I have a need for justice."
"You," said Lord Onosh, looking him up and down, "have a need for a bath."
"A bath?" said Guest in astonishment.
"You know the word, do you not?" said Lord Onosh. "It denotes a thorough lavage of the body, a task best accomplished by immersing the said body in a tub of warm water. In your case, the use of wire brushes and sandpaper might also be advisable."
"My lord jests," said Guest, who had had his last bath only three years previously, and was not due for another until high summer two years hence.
"You have obviously not seen yourself in a mirror," said Lord Onosh. "Glambrax! In the absence of a mirror, describe the boy to himself!"
"My lord," said Glambrax, accepting this assignment. "The boy looks like an over-large mud beetle crawling drunk from a full-to-overflowing spittoon."
"You dislike my appearance!" said Guest. "Why, then know Thodric Jarl to be the cause of it!"
"That much I have heard," said Lord Onosh imperturbably.
"When you see that good gentleman, be sure to thank him for the lessons he has taught you."
"The lessons?" said Guest in astonishment.
"You have learnt, I hope, not to fight with a pit at your back. That is the first lesson, and doubtless meditation will reveal others of equal importance. But enough of the lessons! Pray tell - what started your quarrel in the first place?"
Guest, having a delicate matter to broach, should now have asked for privacy - as he knew, for the scholarly Sken-Pitilkin had taught him as much. But, instead, the foolish youth got right to the meat of the matter.
"There is a woman," said Guest.
"At your age," said Lord Onosh, "there is always a woman.
Such is the nature of youth. Such is the nature of the greedy child."
"You call me a child?" said Guest.
"Yes, a child come to beg at the boots of his father," said Lord Onosh.
"Can we discuss this in private?" said Guest, belatedly remembering Sken-Pitilkin's advice.
"Since you so rudely interrupted me in public, no," said Lord Onosh.
"Why not?" said Guest.
"As a punishment for your insolence!" said Lord Onosh. "If you come here to ask for a woman then ask for her, and the answer is no, you can't have her, particularly not if she belongs to Thodric Jarl."
"Who said she belongs to Jarl?" said Guest.
"If she occasioned your quarrel, who else could she possibly belong to? Sken-Pitilkin, perhaps?"
"The woman is but a slave," said Guest sullenly. "A slave, a thing of no possible importance."
"It is but a thing which belongs to Thodric Jarl," said Lord Onosh.
"He claimed it," protested Guest, "but all booty from bandits is yours. Thus runs the law."
Thus ran the law indeed, but by quoting it the young Weaponmaster merely proved his poor grasp of the politics of an imperial court much beset by assassins. Like Rolf Thelemite, Thodric Jarl was a Rovac warrior, and hence his sword was of inestimable value.
To Guest, his father's few Rovac warriors had no value beyond their novelty, and hence were disposable. But to Lord Onosh, these uitlanders were valued bodyguards who, unlike the Yarglat, could be trusted not to embroil themselves in the local clan-struggles.
So while Guest thought Jarl could be cheated with impunity, his father thought otherwise; for Lord Onosh relied upon Jarl for the security of his sleep.
"Mine to give, mine to bestow," agreed Lord Onosh. "So I bestow the thing on Thodric Jarl."
"If I could," said Guest, rage overmastering sanity, "I would fight you and kill you."
"You would, would you?" said Lord Onosh coldly.
Guest realized his error.
But there was no unsaying such words.
"I would," said Guest, struggling to match his courage to the impetuosity of his tongue.
"Then I will meet you by proxy in Gendormargensis," said Lord Onosh. "I will be represented in the challenge by Thodric Jarl, who will hack down your pride and leave it bloody on the stones."
Guest Gulkan absorbed the implications of this, and backed off, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. Then he turned on his heel and fled.
"Where are my camp marshals?" said Lord Onosh, rising to his feet, his face as thunder.
The marshals were produced, and the emperor gave them his orders.
"Ready the camp for the move," said he. "We ride before dusk and we ride by dark once night has come upon us."
"But, my lord," ventured one of the marshals, "there is tonight no moon."
"So we ride by dark," said Lord Onosh. "We ride by dark, as I said we would. If I must say it again then I will kill someone!"
And, since no-one doubted that the emperor would be as good as his word, ride they did - and soon!
Chapter Two
Name: Eljuk Zala Gulkan.
Birthplace: Gendormargensis.
Occupation: student.
Status: heir to the Collosnon Empire.
Description: timorous Yarglat male, undersized at a height of 9 qua. He is so birthmarked that he appears to have let a mouthful of purple wine dribble from the corners of his mouth then flow to a merging at his throat. But his most remarkable aspect is surely his ears, which are small - a singular oddity considering his father's gargantuan head-flaps and the size of the equally ostentatious protruberances flaunted by his brothers Morsh and Guest.
Hobby: the memorization and word-perfect recital of the more elegant kinds of lyric poetry.
Quote: "I don't really want to be emperor, but I suppose it's no worse than what most people have to put up with."
Thus in his anger the emperor rode forth in pursuit of those bandits who had escaped his earlier attack. Riding with all the ferocity of Obela Ukma, the warrior of legend who had sought to outpace his own mortality, Lord Onosh and his party performed prodigies of roughground speedleaguing in the days that followed.
The first ice of the oncoming winter smashed beneath the hooves of their horses as they chased bandits from highground to low. The stars of the night sharpened to needles, intolerably cold in their burning.
Cold, frost, ice and steaming breath - these things reminded Lord Onosh of his childhood. He punctured a vein to draw blood from his horse, and sucked down that blood, and the heavy taste brought to mind the ordeals of his youth. He looked up at the stars, the stars so cold and remote in the scorn of their burning.
Stars of cold green - as cold and green as jade under water. Chips of blue opal. Lambent red and sullen-sulphur purple.
Those stars - Lord Onosh knelt to a pool of dark water by night, knelt to the stars, knelt to the bright gold and the needlework of liquid silver, to the bloodline-brightness of scarlet and the dull vulcanism of cooling lava. The shadow of his head blotted out the stars as he knelt, and the shadow was faceless, eyeless, noseless, and in that moment Lord Onosh knew.
- I am going to die.
As the Witchlord Onosh knelt to the water by night he realized that he was going to die. He was going to die, and die not far from here. A death by water would take him, thrust him under, haul him down and suck him under. He was going to drown, quenched by water, smothered, suffocated, gulping slime and groping for the light. He was doomed, dead, a dead man with but a day or so to breathe.
Carefully, trying to silence his terror, or at least to control it, Lord Onosh took the leather glove from his right hand a
nd dipped his hand to the water. The water was so cold that it burnt his flesh - as if the flesh lacked skin. The Witchlord cupped water in his hand, then brought it to his mouth. It was cold, so cold that he expected it to brightspark pain from those few teeth which remained to him. But there was no pain.
Lord Onosh held the water in his mouth to let it warm before he swallowed. Then swallow he did, and rose, looking at the men who sat faceless on their horses in the shadows of the stars.
"How is the Blood of the Earth?" said Morsh Bataar, speaking from the height of his horse.
The Blood of the Earth. The old and formal term for water. It spoke of a learning of the Yarglat legends which Lord Onosh had not known his son to possess.
"It is as it should be," said Lord Onosh. Then, testing his son, he said: "The blood is the blood, and the earth is a horse for our horse."
"The wind is its voice, and the wind is the measure of our riding," answered Morsh, catching the legend-line reference and responding in kind.
Then Lord Onosh said:
"As the horse is ours, so the blood is ours."
It was an invitation to drink.
Now to this there was a response that could be lifted from the legend-lines of the Yarglat mythos. A young man ardent in his ambition could answer thus: "My father may drink from the blood of the horse, but I will drink blood." That line, savage in its implications, is amongst the Yarglat one of the traditional challenges of youth to age. But Morsh Bataar said:
"My lord is a great provider, and in the hunger of our victory I will eat."
That also was traditional, but of course it was not a challenge - rather, it was an acknowledgment of fealty.
"Sa-so!" said Guest, who had no learning of legends with which to trifle. "My brother is a horse and my father likewise, but the bandits escape us while we gossip."
Though many had already been brought to collapse by the wrenching rigors of the hunt, the arrogant impatience of Guest's aggression spoke of slaughter-strength confidence with strength yet to spare.
