Moving Water
Page 19
Beryx stopped in mid-stride. He shut his eyes. I heard him whisper, “Oh, no.” He called without looking round.
“Are you sure?”
A pause, while we all strained our eyes. Then, yet more woodenly, “I’m sorry, sir. I’m sure.”
Beryx still would not look. “Can you tell what it is?”
There was a change in the rain-smeared umber length of the Taven, that stretched blade-straight back to the Astyros’ open light. I knew the answer before Evis spoke.
“Troops.”
Silently, Beryx groaned. I wondered why he had not used farsight, recalled he had still leant heavily on me as we went, saw he was using it now. He spoke again.
“How far?”
“I think . . . two miles—mile and a half.”
“Mile and three-quarter,” interjected Sivar. I realized where Beryx had been looking when he said, summoning strength, “Hurry then. It’s a mile to the next bridge.”
We hurried, and they gained, though their pace was not fast. There was something dreadfully familiar about that steady, smooth advance. Once Beryx himself glanced back. His eyes dilated, and he began to scurry faster, with jerky, un-coordinated strides.
It was a major bridge over the first tidal channel, six pontoons anchored by a web of cables to the clethras that flanked a muscular, dirty-chocolate stream, tree-trunk bridge-spans floored with planks. Cat-footing in the slime, we crept across.
The troops had closed to three-quarters of a mile. “Phalanx,” said Amver, superfluously. We could all see the broad white shields, blazoned with a black moontree, as they shone dully in the rain, the fitful shimmer of helmet or mailcoat or the gleam of a sarissa head, fifteen feet above.
Beryx cast a hunted glance at the clethras, deep in fluid mud, at water’s shine between the mud-coated tussocks in the marshes ahead. Evis said, “Sir—sir, we’ll have to cut the bridge. No cover up there. And the children—”
No need to finish, They could never keep ahead.
For the first time I saw overt indecision in Beryx’s face. The troops had closed to half a mile. Evis said tentatively, “Sir, if you—could you—”
“I could. . . .”
And did not want to, I could hear. I said roughly, “We can do something for ourselves. Sivar, Dakis, Uster, don’t just stand there—you do carry swords!” Beryx opened his mouth, then let us go.
We hacked with strenuous haste, concentrating on the third pontoon. But those cables were set by good engineers who meant their work to last. We still had two uncut when Beryx called, “Come out of it, Alkir! I’ll do the rest.”
The troops were inside three bowshots, still coming, steady, unhurried, a whole taxis, two hundred phalanxmen, their rank kept with remarkable skill, in quadruple file for the track. Beryx gave them one last look, then turned to the bridge.
It was less summons than a supplication. He said, “Imsar . . . Math.” Then he clenched his fists, arched his back, and his eyes fired like a multiple catapult, flash upon searing flash.
The cables snapped. The planking jumped in the air. The two tree trunks cartwheeled majestically and went seaward in the pontoon’s wake with a resounding splash, and Stirsselian’s noisome waters swirled hungrily under a twenty-foot gap. With sighs of relief, we turned our attention to the troops.
It took some time to accept. Then Sivar’s voice cracked in shock and disbelief. “Sir, they’re not gonna stop!”
“Clear the bridge,” Beryx snapped. “They may try to throw—though what they expect to hit with sarissas,” he echoed my thought, “I can’t think.”
We retreated thirty yards up the causeway. The troops came on, unhesitant, unhurrying, tramp, tramp, tramp.
They were in bowshot. Fifty yards. Amver shifted uneasily, some premonition showed on Sivar’s face. I glanced at Beryx to find him deathly white. I caught what may have been an actual thought fragment, for it did not sound like speech. She wouldn’t—she couldn’t—she can’t! Then he yelled in mindspeech, nearly pulverizing my skull.
We released our ears. The troops came on.
The troops came on, thirty yards now, tramp, tramp, tramp.
The troops came on.
Twenty yards. Tramp, tramp, tramp.
The troops came on.
“Oh, Math!” he said aloud. Sweat stood in great drops on his face. He yelled again, sounding desperate.
The troops came on. I could see the front-rank faces, set, stern, expressionless. Tramp, tramp, tramp.
The troops came on, tramp, tramp, tramp.
“No!” he said in anguish. “Moriana, listen—” He changed to mindspeech, deafening my ears as well.
The troops came on, forty feet from the bridge, tramp, tramp, tramp.
The troops came on.
The troops came on, up to the bridgehead, he was tearing at my hold, yelling,
The troops came on, faces still blank, wholly expressionless. Onto the bridge, tramp, tramp, the front rank’s gaze was fixed on us, seeing but unseeing, I too wanted to scream madly, hopelessly, Stop! Stop!
But it was too late. They were past the first pontoon, the planks rumbled, the bridge bucked wildly to their unbroken stride, the second pontoon plunged under them and he screamed in pure agony, “Moriana, NO!”
Instinctively I jerked him round and hauled him up the road and slammed a shoulder into Callissa as I panted, “Get the boys away!” He fought my hold with the whole remnant of his physical strength. I put a headlock on and literally ran him off with thanks to someone that my arm was over his ears, so he at least would not hear that awful repeated sickening splash.
* * * * *
In a hundred feet he collapsed. I picked him up and carried him, driving the rest. Zyr was about to throw up. Dakis was in tears too, Evis whispering, black stricken eyes in a papery face.
“Why did I look, oh, why did I look? They went straight in—all of them—two hundred phalanxmen—not even trying to stop!”
His voice shot up and cracked. I thumped an elbow in his ribs and snarled, “Thank Math they were phalanxmen, in that armor they’ll drown, would you rather they smothered trying to climb up on the mud? Or got out and we had to kill them afterwards? You blind imbecile, get on!”
When Beryx came round no one dared speak to him. After one glance, I hardly dared to look. Eventually we camped, cutting open surcoats to drape over branches on a relatively high spot, then huddled cold, wet and supperless while the rain came down and Stirsselian’s stinging flies helped the mosquitoes crown the misery of the night. Beryx spoke only once, when I thought of setting a watch.
“No,” he said, and there was death in his voice. “There’s no need for that.”
Nor did he speak next day. There was no forage of any sort. We drank swamp-water and struggled on, leading him like a sleepwalker in our midst. Two days later the rain stopped, the sky cleared, the clethras shone silver-bright, and a brisk
wind blew snowy clouds down over sharp red mountains behind Phaxia’s umbrella-roofed border forts.
At Stirsselian’s edge Beryx roused himself, and in a lifeless voice bade us cut and peel a clethra bough to make a herald’s staff. Too tired and starven for fear we watched him plod forward with it to the nearest fort. Sentinels challenged. He parleyed. An officer appeared. He parleyed again. After what seemed hours, he turned and beckoned. We crept forward, steeling ourselves.
Small bandy-legged slit-eyed yellow soldiers surrounded us, jabbering frenziedly. Beryx said, “We have safe conduct to Phamazan.” Then he handed me the staff and quietly fainted clean away.
Chapter IX
After they recovered from twelve Assharran refugees’ appearance over a border uncrossed in living memory, the Phaxians were kind enough. They tried to stare no more than was humanly possible, and to Beryx they were more than kind. Doctors, the best quarters, any necessity, no expense or trouble grudged.
It was needed. For three days he did not stir out of that swoon. The chief physician did his best, tapping my belt buckle, whose height was most convenient, as he assured us, “Is quite all right, sir captain, only exhaustion, is no cause for alarm,” in that sing-song Phaxian accent which makes all sentences end in midair, but we still found it hard to believe.
Meantime they fed, clothed and housed us, causing drastic upheavals in the fort, and asked not a single question about our flight, even about the state of the Taven, which in a Phaxian general’s place I would have had out of us forthwith, manners or not. After Beryx revived we had only to walk about like visiting lords, while we adjusted to the four layers of Phaxian clothes, the pointed felt hats, the wildly spicy food, and admired the well-kept, well-designed, well-sited fort with a catapult under each of the four-storey tower’s overhanging roofs, the skirmishers’ ponies for sorties, and the clean, keen, five hundred troops.
Zem and Zam were adopted by a patrol and almost deserted us. Callissa kept close. The others, like me, were troubled that we could not repay so much kindness with trust.
I have never understood our primeval antipathy to Phaxia. It is not their barbaric customs, skull-top drinking cups, prisoners of war sacrificed wholesale to Ahlthor, ruler chosen by death duels, his bodyguard pledged to slay their horses along with themselves upon his grave. Not even their taste for fricasseed dog. Odder customs occur in Assharral. Nor is it that we are usually at war. Nor a difference in race. Our little band was a perfect sample of the Assharran stew: Sivar and I were white-skinned gray-eyed Frimman stock, Evis a swarthy hook-nosed Nervian who shaved twice on parade days, Zyr pure Axairan, red as his canyons with the same facial planes. Amver, like Krem, was all Gjerven, frizzy hair, midnight skin, squashy nose, while Karis’ yellow hide and dropped Morryan eyelids could have been Phaxian. Uster and Dakis were bronze-black high-nosed Kemrestanis, Ost had the dun Tasmarn skin and coarse horse-like black hair, and Wenver was a golden Darrian. We never noticed our differences. Yet one sight of a Phaxian would have us hackling like dogs with an intruder in the pack.
After a week Beryx courteously but adamantly left the physician protesting by his vacated bed. Physically he seemed recovered, and he was brisk enough; but we all knew the memory of that Taven bridge had not healed. His once incorrigible, often infuriating merriment had vanished, and we grieved for its memory, as you do at sight of some great swordsman with a tendon shorn.
In another week he had intimated to the commandant with the invincible charm of high nobility that he wished to be on his way. Little Phaxian horses were produced, and amid exchanges of esteem and a fifty-man guard too respectful to be called an escort, we set out for Phamazan.
* * * * *
Phaxia’s capital is a bare fifty miles from Assharral, but safe enough, for most of that stands on end. It lies on the high arid plateau beyond the even higher Azmaere range, where you boil in summer and in winter freeze. Less hardy rulers summered in mountain eyries and wintered among Gevber’s palm-lined coves, but Zass stayed in Phamazan all year round. It is a good indication of his character.
That was written, though, on every mile of our road. Phaxia is more populous than Assharral in far less space. Small yellow people swarm in the most barren and inclement districts, compensating with industry for their poor material. The Azmaeres are terraced to the very summits, minute fields that plunge dizzily down the mountainsides, ploughed by tiny sure-footed donkeys where no Assharran would dare to hoe. The Veldisk plateau is irrigated by channels from the great northern river Othan, and the narrow coastal strip of Gevber is cropped for rice three and four times a year.
All this the escort officer told me with unassuming pride. He had no need to tell me the point of the arms drill in every village, the profusion of troops on the march, the endless pack-trains of arms coming from the big northern cities of Vyrne Taskar, the bustle of supply collection and levy enrollment in every sizeable town. Steadily, purposefully, by a long-prepared program, Phaxia was winding up for war.
Natural enough, I thought. His last trouncing would rankle in Zass’s militant mind. No one could wonder if he meant to even the score, but I felt no happier now I was technically on his side. Those wicked little jungle fighters in Stirsselian had scarred and scared me far too much.
At Phamazan we were billeted in the palace itself. As Klyra said, it is a barrack of a place, sullen yellow sandstone, stuck on a hill outside the town like an oversized citadel: no concessions to the site, treeless without and few gardens within. Most of the courts are bare pavement. Fountains are rare. And everywhere wide windows offer a sentinel’s prospect over miles of glary sandstone-studded landscape, where the dust smokes from the zealously worked fields to the rienglis that circle patiently in that thirsty upland air.
When we arrived Zass was watching cavalry maneuvers from the balcony above the mile-long practice field that serves as the palace’s great court. Dust whirled above the sandstone battlements, and the chamberlain, ushering us into a vestibule, murmured, “The master is with his army. Never to disturb.” We sat on long felt cushions, tried not to grimace at the bitter black tea, and declined the services of pages with huge paper fans, until the chamberlain shepherded us into an audience hall.
At the far end Zass sat enthroned under the hall’s sole ornament, a trophy of Phaxian swords. They are lovely things, curved shimmering blue blades of the finest steel I know, hilts that include every extravagance of fabric and workmanship, gold, silver, ivory, gems, all fantastically carved. Tall copper-colored drapes were half drawn across the windows behind, so the light showed the faces of petitioners and masked Zass’s own. I made out he was in cavalry boots, trousers and over-tunic, standard issue and liberally floured with dust, his only signs of rank a truly outstanding sword and a scarlet pointed felt hat.
Like most Phaxians, he is small, bowlegged and wiry, inexhaustible. Unlike most, he has high cheekbones, barely slitted eyes, and a jaw undercut so extremely that his mouth resembles a shark’s, set straight between nose and neck. The chamberlain made obeisance. Silently, Zass crooked a finger. Then he made a pushing motion as we all moved, leveled the finger at Beryx and crooked it again.
Beryx stepped forward. His arm was in a silk sling, the fort commandant’s one victory. Since no ordinary size would fit, some hastily conscripted tailor had made him Phaxian clothes, and he carried off the baggy trousers, voluminous shirt and close-fitting mud-brown tunic well enough, though the tailor had closed his eyes at the sight. But as he stepped toward Zass his bearing set a royal cloak swirling at his heels. He was no longer a fugitive wizard. He was a journeying king.
Zass had read it in the first stride. The finger crooked again. Stewards flew like hail. A state chair materialized on the dais to the right of the throne, an inlaid table set with ornately enameled jar and cups for Phaxian rice wine followed it. Beryx inclined his head and seated himself with the same regal air. Zass swiveled sideways on his throne. I saw his hawk-yellow razor eye, and knew that if a sword had made him, he had no s
wordsman’s mind. Then a steward plucked discreetly at my sleeve. Our presence was no longer required.
To our relief we were quartered together, in the eastern wing. Forbidden to explore, Zem and Zam resorted to making cushion castles and sliding down to flatten them. Evis prowled. The others were out of their depth and showing it. A hundred questions about our future hung in the air.
There was time to ponder them. Being mere chattels, we were left to cool our heels while Zass gave Beryx a conducted tour of Phamazan, then had him to dinner in the royal rooms. Bugles had called the Phaxian Lights-out from a hundred different barracks before he came to bed.
He still wore the polite mask of a diplomatic duel. It melted far enough to assure Sivar and company, though without his former gaiety, that they were not yet for the rubbish heap. Then he quirked a brow and asked, “Fylghjos, can I degrade you to body servant? I’ll never worm out of this tunic alone.”
His room was furnished with the usual austerity, though with a few additions: a splendid silver ewer, a silk quilt on the low wooden bed, a conspicuously posted scarlet hat. Eying it, he observed with a trace of his old self, “Show your rank, or else.”
As he sank rather heavily on the bed, I essayed his own tactics and asked, “Shall I start with the boots? My squires always did.”
He answered in mindspeech, without looking up.
It was sheer incomprehension that muzzled me.
Confusion whirled in me. Wasn’t that why we came, it’s better than beggary, did you mean to forget the whole thing, surely you wouldn’t mind a little of your own back, won’t conquering Assharral remove Ammath?