by Tad Williams
“Because you are leaving us soon,” he said. “We will not be able to keep up with the prince’s soldiers and in truth we wouldn’t want to. We are not fighters, but there’s fighting ahead of you, the gods know.” Finn bowed his head as though he couldn’t meet her eye. “And . . . because you have been kind to me, Princess. I am fond of you. As you said, I would like to think of you as a friend—and not simply because of the power that comes with being close to royalty. Once I could convince myself that I might be mistaken, that it was none of my affair. Now . . . well, I know you too well, Briony Eddon. Princess. That is the truth.”
“I . . . I have to think.” As alone as she had felt since her twin brother marched away, this was worse. The world, already a dangerous and confusing place, had now proved to have no center and no sense at all. “I have to think. Please leave me alone.”
He bowed and went away. And when Prince Eneas came to speak to her, sensing something wrong, she waved him off as well. There was no comfort to be had in the company of other people. Not now, anyway. Perhaps never again.
38
Conquering Armies
“Some mortal men, it is said, still bear the blood of the Qar in their veins, especially in the lands around the legendary Mount Xandos on the southern continent and among the Vuts and others who once lived in the far north. How many bear this taint, and what the effect of it upon mortals might be, I can find no scholarly record.”
—from “A Treatise on the Fairy Peoples of Eion and Xand”
OLIN EDDON STOOD AT THE RAIL. He was tethered to one of his guards, with two others standing close by. The autarch might not worry about what a desperate, condemned man might do, but Pinimmon Vash did, and he had finally ordered that some kind of restraints be kept on the northern king at all times. At the very least, Olin might throw himself overboard and spoil whatever purpose Vash’s master had in mind for him. Why this didn’t worry Sulepis, Vash had no idea, although the autarch generally behaved as though he were infallible. So far nothing had proved the Golden One wrong, but Vash knew from long experience that if something did go wrong, it would be considered his fault, not his monarch’s.
“You do not look well, your Majesty,” said Vash.
“I do not feel well.” The northerner was more pale than usual, and his eyes were shadowed. “I have been sleeping poorly of late. I have many bad dreams.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.” What a strange dance the autarch had forced him into, Vash thought. Everyone on the ship knew that this man was doomed, and yet the autarch expected Olin to be treated not just with courtesy, but as if nothing were out of the ordinary. “It is good you have come out on deck. The sea air is reputedly good for many ailments of the spirit.”
“Not for this one, I fear.” Olin shook his head. “It will grow worse as I draw closer to my home.”
Vash didn’t know what to say—hardly knew from listening to their conversations whether either King Olin or his own master were entirely sane. He looked up at a castle on the rocky headlands. A flag flew from its tower, but it was too far away to make out anything but its colors, red and gold. “Do you know that place?”
“Yes—Landsend. It is the home of one of my oldest and most trusted friends.” Olin’s smile was more like a grimace—Vash could see the man was hiding some sharp pain, but whether it was physical or caused by a memory, he couldn’t tell. “A man named Brone. He was, in many ways, my paramount minister, as you are the autarch’s.”
And I would wager you treated him better than Sulepis does me, whom he considers little more than a useful pet. Vash was surprised at his own bitterness. “Ah. Would you prefer to be left alone?”
“No, your presence is welcome, Lord Vash. In fact, I had been hoping we would find a little time to talk like this . . . just the two of us.”
The skin on Vash’s neck prickled. “What does that mean?”
“Merely that I believe that you and I have more interests in common than you might immediately recognize.”
Did this fool think he could talk Pinimmon Vash into betraying the Autarch of Xis? Even had he not been frightened of his master—and the gods knew that Sulepis terrified him—Vash would never betray the throne. His family had been serving Xis for generations! “I am certain that we have many interesting things to discuss, your Majesty, although I cannot conceive of any common interests we might share. Sadly, though, I have just remembered several chores still to be done this morning, so our conversation will have to wait.”
“Do not be so certain that we have no common interests,” Olin said as Vash turned to go. “None of us can know all the truth. It is a truly strange world we mortals inhabit—that is both my greatest solace and my greatest fear.”
The next time Vash encountered the northerner, Olin was brought to the fore of the ship to join Sulepis while the priests chanted and poured two golden seashells full of the autarch’s blood over the side to purify the waves and to claim this new body of water for Xis. Other than the linen bandages around his forearms, Sulepis seemed almost bursting with health, and when Olin and his guards climbed onto the forecastle the contrast between the two could not have been greater.
“Vash tells me you are not well,” the autarch said. “If it is the sea that does not agree with you, take heart—as you can guess, we will drop anchor in only an hour or two.”
Olin did not reply. Instead of watching the spectacle of Panhyssir and his priests blessing the waters, he turned to look back at the rest of the great ship. Everything was being prepared for landfall, sailors and soldiers swarming over the deck, windlasses creaking as the army lifted out their equipment and prepared to debark. It was unusual and more than a little dangerous to begin unloading before the ship touched land: Vash could tell that Sulepis was in a hurry.
Ranged behind them up the bay was the rest of the fleet, almost half of the ships the autarch had brought to the northern continent, so that the golden falcons on their sails seemed to be flying across the water in a great flock. Hierosol’s great outer walls had fallen in a few days. How long could the much smaller Southmarch hope to resist the power of Xis?
The northerner had doubtless been thinking the same thing. “You have brought an impressive force,” Olin said, turning back to the autarch. “It reminds me of a bit of history. You are a well-read man, Sulepis. Have you heard of the Gray Companies who roamed these lands three centuries ago?”
The autarch spread his gold-tipped fingers as if to admire how they sparkled in the sun. “I have heard of the mercenaries, of course,” he said. “Such things would not be allowed in my country. In Xis bandits are impaled on sharpened posts for all to see. My people know that I watch over them.”
“Oh, I am certain of that,” said Olin. “But looking at your fleet and the vast army it carries, I was reminded of the days of the Gray Companies, and especially the famous warlord Davos, called ‘The Mantis.’ ”
The autarch seemed amused. “The Mantis? I have never heard of him.”
“I think that is because you have studied my family’s later history more closely than you have that particular period.”
“Was he truly a priest, with such a name?”
“He owned the income of a mantisery, but that did not make him a true priest. Neither did he receive that name for his good deeds. In fact, there are some who say there was never a greater villain on the continent of Eion . . . but others might argue that.”
Sulepis laughed with what seemed honest pleasure. “Oh, very good, Olin! Never a greater villain until today is what you mean.”
The northerner shrugged. “Do you really think I would be so rude to such a thoughtful host?”
“Speak on. You have my interest.”
“You will know how the Gray Companies sprang up here in the north during the chaos of the first war against the Twilight People. They roamed the lands in the years after Coldgray Moor—bands of soldiers with nowhere to go, fighting at first for any lord who would pay them, but turning at last to pillage an
d robbery for its own sake. The worst of these—and the most powerful—was the son of a Syannese noble family, Davos of Elgi. Because of the mantisery income, or perhaps because of the long, black cloak he wore, he gained the name ‘Mantis.’ In the chaos of those days Davos fought for many causes and plundered many cities, but a great warlord is like a man riding on a fierce bear—everyone fears him except the bear, and he must always remember to keep the beast fed. The Mantis was forced to continue his raids even when most of the wars that followed the Qar’s withdrawal had ended. As more and more northern cities were despoiled, the starving survivors had nowhere to go but to follow their despoiler, so the armies of the Mantis grew and grew. At last he ruled over all Brenland and large stretches of Syan. His men also pillaged parts of my own country, roaming through Southmarch and Westmarch, robbing and killing, until the people screamed out to be saved from this terror. Helping them fell to my ancestor, King Anglin’s granddaughter, Lily Eddon.”
“Ah, yes,” said the autarch. “The woman who ruled a nation! This name I have heard.”
“She earned her fame. Her husband had been killed in a fight against one of the Mantis’ fellow bandits and his son had died beside him. Lily was left to rule the country alone, and many of the frightened people argued that she should be deposed, that a warrior-knight should be elevated to the throne. But Lily was as much a warrior as any man in her court—Anglin’s blood ran hot and strong in her. She would not be put aside.
“The Mantis had long admired Southmarch, and not just because of its young queen. The land was fertile and the castle was all but impregnable. Davos sent Queen Lily an offer of marriage. She had no husband and no son. The Mantis pointed out that he was rich and strong, and that if she married him his great army would be at the service of the March Kingdoms. Many in the Southmarch court urged her to accept this proposal. What other hope did they have?
“Instead, Lily sent a letter back to Davos Elgin, the black-cloaked Mantis—master, so it was said, of a hundred thousand bloodthirsty soldiers—which read, ‘Queen Lily regrets that she will be unable to honor your invitation. She will be too busy killing the rats that are swarming across her lands.’ And that is what she commenced to do.” Olin glanced up. “Am I wearying you, Sulepis?”
“Not at all! You are amusing me and that is a rare treasure.” The autarch leaned down toward the foreign king. With his bony, long-nosed face and troublingly bright, unblinking eyes, Vash thought Sulepis looked more than ever like a human hawk. “Please continue.”
“Lily knew that the Gray Companies could not survive without plunder—they had already left destruction across all the other lands they had entered—so she sent her agents out to tell the people to retreat, not just in the Mantis’ direct path but all around, even from places it seemed he did not threaten. She told the people to take everything they could and destroy all that was left behind. If they could reach Southmarch, she told them, she would protect them there. Then she sent out her armies, still full of hard, battle-worn veterans of the war against the Twilight People, to harass the Mantis’ much greater force but never to confront him directly.
“Thus, as the mercenary armies trekked across the March Kingdoms they found the way deserted and scorched before them—no nobles to ransom, no valuables to steal, no food to eat. As they struggled on, the Marchmen appeared from out of nowhere, struck, then vanished like shadows, never killing many of the Mantis’ soldiers but making them all fearful because of the unpredictability of their attacks. Sometimes they slit the throat of just one mercenary where he lay sleeping in the midst of a dozen comrades, so that when the others found him they would know it could just as easily have been any of them. Queen Lily’s raiders killed the Mantis’ men in a hundred different ways, subtle and otherwise, weakening the bridges, poisoning the mercenaries’ water or rations, or simply setting fire to their tents as they lay sleeping. So many of Davos’ sentries were murdered that finally the pickets insisted on huddling together in groups of three or four, which meant large stretches of the perimeter were left virtually unguarded.
“At last, with his unnerved men starting at shadows, Davos the Mantis staked everything on a swift and direct assault upon Southmarch Castle itself. The shores of the bay were full of rough dwellings built by those who had already fled Davos’ assault but could not get into the crowded castle. As the mercenaries’ march drew closer these refugees fled from them again, disappearing into the caves and forested heights of the headlands. Then, as Davos and his men marched down the main street, wary of ambush, they smelled the smoke and saw the first flames—the town along the shore had been set on fire. The mercenaries looked at each other fearfully. These people of Southmarch would rather burn their towns down again and again instead of ceding one inch to the raiders. Who could fight such madness?
“And then the Mantis’ men at last saw the high walls of Southmarch Castle across the bay, and knew it would take them a year or more to overthrow such a powerful stronghold—a year of starvation, because the land had been made uninhabitable around them and their stores were empty. Even Davos’ most loyal lieutenants, the men who had enriched themselves at his side and gone from bandits to magnates in his employ, now refused his orders. They had lost the will to fight. Many of the soldiers threw down their weapons on the spot and skulked away from the overwhelming sight of unconquered Southmarch.
“But Lily had kept only a token army inside the castle. The greater part of her forces had been taken by ship to the coast of Landsend to begin their ride south. So it was that as the Mantis’ army was in its greatest disarray, with a quarter or more of its number deserting and the rest fighting among themselves, the army of Southmarch fell upon them.
“The Southmarch folk were much fewer but they were fed, and angry, and fighting for their own land. The mercenaries trapped on the beach put up only a short resistance before the Southmarch force split them in half. Those on one side were forced back against the waves of the freezing bay and either surrendered or were killed. Those on the other side did their best to follow their comrades who had fled earlier, but most were caught as they tried to climb the cliffs. The queen’s archers picked them off like birds on a low branch, their bodies tumbling down the hillside in such quantity that in Southmarch we have for centuries called a disordered heap a ‘mantis-pile,’ although few these days remember where the term came from.
“The Mantis himself, Davos of Elgi, died in Brenn’s Bay, trying to wade toward the castle with a dozen arrows in him.
“You see, the March Kingdoms have been invaded by Syan, by Hierosol, by the Kracians and all the mercenaries of the Gray Companies. We have been invaded three times by the Qar themselves. Twice we have driven them out with them suffering great losses, and we will drive them out again. And you, Sulepis, for all your power and certainty, will soon be only another name in the histories of my country—another failed invader, another man whose pride was greater than his sense.”
Even though only Vash, the autarch himself, and Panhyssir spoke enough of Olin’s tongue to understand all he had said, the northern king’s tone as he finished his tale was enough to make many of those surrounding the autarch’s litter look up at their monarch with foreboding, if not terror. This foreigner was insulting the Golden One!
At first Sulepis said nothing, but at last a smile stretched slowly across his angular face.
“Very good,” he said. “Very good indeed, Olin. A story with a lesson in it! Although I think you could have trusted your audience to puzzle out the meaning without the last bit—perhaps a bit too much honey on the cake, if you take my meaning. Still, very good.” He nodded as if taken with a new idea. “And your advice is excellent. It would certainly not be a good idea to sail all my ships and all my men into the bay at once, leaving myself open to whatever mischief these Qar have planned for me.” He leaned down as if about to impart a secret. “So in a few moments we will disembark a good number of our soldiers and let them come upon Southmarch from the land while the fle
et approaches on the water. What do you say, King Olin? Since it is your idea, will you accompany me? It may be your only chance to feel the earth of your homeland beneath your feet—or at least, to do so with the open sky above your head.” He laughed, then called out to the captain of the flagship, “Prepare to make land!”
The autarch swept down from the forecastle and his servants scurried before him like ants. Pinimmon Vash had to follow the Golden One, of course—this early landing was news to him and he had much to do. When he looked back, Olin Eddon still stood in the same place, surrounded by guards, his pale, weary face empty of any expression Vash could recognize.
If he had wished to be completely honest, Pinimmon Vash would have had to admit that Olin Eddon made him uneasy. He had only ever met two types of monarchs, and certainly all the autarchs he had served had been either one or the other—those who were oblivious to their own shortcomings or those who were overwhelmed by them. Some of the most savage, like the current autarch’s grandfather, Parak, had been of the latter sort. Parak Bishakh am-Xis VI had heard conspiracies in every whisper, seen them in every downcast gaze. Vash himself had barely survived his years in Parak’s court, and had kept his head only by recommending—in the subtlest possible way, of course—other targets to the autarch’s attention. Still, Pinimmon Vash had twice been arrested in those last, nightmarish years, and once had written his testament (not that if he had been executed Parak would have honored it: one of the incitements for an autarch to declare treason was that the traitor’s goods were always forfeited to the throne).
The current autarch was of course the other sort, the sort that believed himself infallible. In fact, the young autarch’s luck was so extravagant that even Vash had begun to believe that the success of Sulepis might have been ordained by Heaven itself.