Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn 2 The Divine Queen

by Adam Corby

  ‘Old tales,’ dismissed Ankhan. ‘The two were made for each other, and that’s plain enough to all. My chara requires fresh grist.’

  ‘Well, then, my lady, here is a new thing. It was to be a part of my message to you both, and if you will forbear to hear business: they are to be wed before the end of summer.’

  ‘Married?’ cried Lisalya, and Ankhan laughed.

  ‘My bed is secure at last,’ he joked. The chara turned her head, and stared sullenly at the stony ground. ‘Come, my love, it was but a jest,’ he said soothingly; but she refused to be reconciled. So they rode in silence for a while, hearing only the clank of the lances behind them.

  The Gerso broke the silence. ‘I hope this was not too sudden, but she charged me tell it you, and invite you to the ceremonies. And it is a truth that Ampeánor will make a good Emperor. Many have said that the Empress needs a strong man to curb her excesses.’

  ‘Say no words against the Empress, or you’ll risk our displeasure.’ Ankhan frowned. ‘As for Ampeánor, my spirit soars for him. He will be the best Emperor for many a generation. If any can turn back this barbarian, it will be the High Charan of Rukor.’

  ‘Does my lord favor the League then?’ asked the stranger sadly.

  ‘Favor it! Why, it was partly of my own imaginings. You may be certain of one thing if of nothing else, Ennius: Raamba lancers will ride to hold the center against the barbarians.’

  ‘Yet you cannot spare many, surely,’ insisted the Gerso, ‘not with these Madpriests threatening you at your own back door?’

  ‘We’ll be gone and back before they see the light of it. For Allissál, I will give nothing less than all that is mine – my life, even, and that of my chara, if it comes to that.’

  ‘Gladly,’ seconded Lisalya.

  ‘Yet,’ persisted Ennius, ‘will you come yourself, to play the lackey to Ampeánor Emperor? Surely a man of such high honor as yourself would have too great a pride for that.’

  ‘Pride is for moralists and playwrights,’ said Ankhan. ‘The Charan of Rukor was my friend the first year I bore arms, when we were both beardless youths; and he remains my friend yet. Like leaf and branch are we: for one without the other would not survive. Yet even if it came to an argument over the battle, I would cede to his authority like a peasant to his charan: for he is the better man, and I acknowledge it freely to all. If the Empress sent you to feel out our loyalty, you may tell her, Ennius, that it remains as unshaken as Goddess in the sky. We’ll not forsake her as those several others have done, promising to aid the League and then suddenly withdrawing out of fear or greed or envy. No more of this. Let us hunt, and put our minds to the game.’

  ‘If such is your unshakable will, my lord, then I am glad to hear of it,’ said the Gerso dully. He was silent and thoughtful thereafter as he rode among them, and his eyes bore a pensive, distant look.

  The game was indeed plentiful that time of year; and that the king and his lady devoted much of their spare time to the pleasures of the hunt was shown both by their woodsmanship and the clean strokes with which they brought down their beasts. Nor did Lisalya draw back when the game was forced forth, but rushed in bravely with the others. With her own lance she slew two large beasts, evincing a skill as great as her courage.

  They made camp in clearings they surrounded with stout walls of bramble and branch. Charan Dilyardin posted the lancers to guard against any attacks by the Madpriests, while Ankhan, Lisalya and their guest roasted the flesh of their kills over roaring fires. Ankhan and his lady reclined together against the mossy root of a high towering tree. Their faces were flushed in the firelight, and the dappled light of Goddess fell across their extended limbs. Somewhat across the clearing from them, the stranger regarded them silently from where he sat. And now there was no trace of the flashing green flecks in his darkened eyes. The lancers nudged one another: already, it was clear, the stranger had fallen under their lord and lady’s spell.

  ‘Do they not make a wonderful pair?’ asked Dilyardin, sitting at the Gerso’s side. ‘Why, the great Empress herself, lying in the arms of her lover, could not match them for happiness, or love, or the sheer matching of spirit to kindred soul. Though I am her sire, I must say it: Lisalya was born a fit match for even the greatest of earthly monarchs.’

  The Gerso was silent, offering none of the courtly compliments the old warfarer had desired. The royal couple bade them all good-resting, and retired to the privacy of their tent. Then others of the lancers joined them at the fire, completing a circle, and began to tell tales before they slept. For a while the Gerso said nothing, but only looked upon the royal tent, idly uprooting stalks of grass with his fingers.

  ‘I have a tale for you,’ he said at length. ‘It happened far from here, and long ago, that beyond the shores of the endless Desert a city was built round a spring. Long before, a group of homeless exiles had wandered in the Desert blindly, until at last they found this oasis, a thing no man had seen before. They built their city round it, naming her Khoraunlwin, which meant Water’s Haven in their speech. It was the way of them never to deny entrance to their city to any wayfarer who asked it of them. Goddess and the Spirit of the spring had granted them haven, they believed, and so considered it their duty to offer like shelter to all others. It became the main pillar of their fame, and along the shores of the Desert it was a saying of any generous man, that he was like a Khoraunlwany.

  ‘One pass there appeared at the gates of the city a solitary man wrapped brow to toe in dark brown linen. Not even his eyes in the shadow of his headdress could the watchers on the gates see. His name, he said, was Reaver, and he asked them for shelter. Nor would he blame them much if they refused to open the gates to him, he said, for there was a curse laid upon him, and no city yet had taken him in, but it had been sore afflicted.

  ‘The gatesmen had not even considered denying him entrance. They had built walls about their city to keep the sands of the Desert out, not men. So they opened and let Reaver into Khoraunlwin. Straightway he went to the well of the spring, did off his wrappings, and bathed himself. As soon as he put off his garb a noisome stench mounted from him, and those near the well said that the sight of his unclad body was a loathsome thing.

  ‘Thereafter it fell out that a sickness spread among the folk of Khoraunlwin, and people died young and old, and the beasts of the city lay dead upon the streets. At length only an old man, Ishbar, and his young wife Alanin survived. With cloaks held tightly over their mouths, they went to the stranger to demand of him why he had done this thing to their city. But when Ishbar touched it, Reaver’s body fell open, and maggots and horrid flies sprang out of it with an odor of corruption that was unbearable.

  ‘Therewith Ishbar and Alanin burdened the last surviving pony with figs and skins of wine and departed Khoraunlwin, leaving the gates open behind them so that the Desert blew in freely, and took possession of the silent city. But when at last Ishbar and Alanin, nearly perishing of thirst, reached the nearest city and told their tale, they were reviled, and none would succor them. Weeping piteously, Ishbar and Alanin returned into the Desert, lay down in each other’s arms, and died. Carrion ate their flesh, and the sands wore away their bones.’

  The lancemen frowned and shook their heads. They had not liked the Gerso’s story much. Putting back the meat he had not eaten, one of them muttered, ‘They should have refused that man entrance and rather slain him in the Desert than let him enter to spread poison in their well.’

  But Dilyardin, though he also frowned, disagreed. ‘That was not their way,’ he said. ‘Should they have ceased being what they were? Then they must have lived in fear and suspicion of all strangers, and been no happier. Besides, it is said Fate is a hall with a hundred doors. It was the doom of Goddess that this man die in their city.’

  ‘Yet others tell the tale differently,’ the Gerso said. ‘They say that this Reaver carried the illness, but could not himself die of it – and that Ishbar and Alanin were but a fable. They say Reaver dep
arted Khoraunlwin when he had finished the last of the dead people’s food, and went to the city on the Desert’s shore. And when those people heard what Reaver had to say, then they stoned him from their walls and burned his body downwind of the city. And they live there still and prosper; but Khoraunlwin is nought but a rumor of fear, never after visited.’

  ‘I know not what I should make of this tale of yours now,’ Dilyardin muttered, pulling at his beard.

  ‘Make nothing of it, if that please you,’ the Gerso said, rising. ‘Say it was only the campside pleasantry of a poor wanderer who has himself seen the deaths of many cities.’

  He squatted by the coals and thrust at them with his dagger. The embers fell apart hissing and the fire sent forth its last convulsive waves of heat into the stranger’s flushed red face. But the lancers felt a shudder of cold enter their hearts, though they were all the bravest of men.

  * * *

  On the second waking afterward the royal hunting party pursued the spoor of a large elbuck, and were strung out along the narrow path. Ankhan and Lisalya were in the fore, surging on in their lover’s rivalry; the Gerso rode some ways behind them. They flew through the dappled dim light of these woods on the hills at the edge of the world. Far behind them and lost from sight, Dilyardin tried to keep up the pace with the weighted lancers.

  Suddenly a cry sounded from the surrounding brush – black shapes swarmed over the bright figure of the king – others leaped upon the queen. There were the rasp of steel upon steel and the cry of the Chara Lisalya: ‘Father, to our aid!’

  The Gerso spurred his mount forward, sword swinging over both sides of the saddle. The blade bit deep through flesh and bone; then it caught upon a length of bone or metal it could not sever and stuck fast. Hard fingers grappled with him and he was torn from the saddle. Still he did not lose his grip upon the sword, but kicked out against the body that held it and tore it free. He swung out to make room, rolled upon the soft moss and fought his way to his feet. His attackers fell back for a moment, surprised by the ferocity of his blows. With a hollow laugh, he took the sword two-fisted and whirled it over his head, forcing them back.

  Several paces from him, Lisalya was struggling with four opponents, her eyes flashing angrily. She fought to gain the room to wield her sword, which she clutched in her gloved hand despite all her enemies’ efforts to wrest it from her. Paces beyond her, on the far side of a large bush, Ankhan was on his feet hacking at six foes, desperately trying to reach the side of his lady. All of this flashed before the Gerso’s eyes; then his own foes closed darkly about him.

  He fought them with the sword in one hand and a hunting-knife in the other. He disemboweled one with an upward thrust of the sword, ducked the blow of another turning and swept the blade about in a wet wide arc, parrying with the knife. The unprotected throat below a pallid, fierce face opened to form a nether mouth, wide and redly slobbering; the Gerso twisted about, bringing his shoulder up, and with a stab of the hunting-knife planted a red flower in the breast of the last of his attackers. He leaped to Lisalya’s aid.

  Before they were even aware of his presence, two Madpriests lay dying on the moss at the Gerso’s feet. But as the second one fell, he caught the Gerso’s blade between his ribs, and the strained steel snapped; so that Kandi faced the other two with only the hunting-knife.

  They swept in, unbelievably agile fighters, dodging his blows this way and that, closing to deliver the deathstroke with curved and curious short, black blades. And so swift were they that they would have surely spilled the Gerso’s blood onto the soft earth then and there, had not Lisalya risen to his aid.

  They had made no attempt to slay her outright, either because of the contempt with which all their race held women, or because they had desired to debase and abuse her in the face of her lord so as to make his strong heart quail before they slew him. Now she had the room to wield her sword and the skill to revenge herself for their affronts. One she slew with such a tremendous stroke that the bright Raamba blade sheared crunchingly through all the bones of his back. The other she struck a murderous blow on the back of the neck just as the Gerso stabbed him in the belly; so that he fell dead at both their hands.

  ‘So may all such receive their due reward,’ she panted, throwing the red-gold hair from her eyes. ‘But what of my charan?’

  They turned. Ankhan was exchanging blows with a Madpriest at the side of the Shansith brush. The king was bleeding from a dozen wounds; but now that he saw his chara safe, he was laughing as he fought; and not all the blood splashed upon his tunic was his own. The five other Madpriests who had faced him lay beyond his dancing feet now, stone dead.

  A thunder of hooves sounded from behind them: Dilyardin and the lancers burst upon the scene. The Madpriest the king was fighting gave a glance at those grim armored men, and forcing the king back with a sudden rush, dove into the underbrush and disappeared.

  ‘My king, are you hurt?’ cried Dilyardin.

  ‘Father-in-law, you grow slow in your old age,’ the king panted huskily. ‘You had almost made a widow of your daughter. Shall we need to fashion bronze wings for your horses henceforth?’

  The old man fell to his knees at Ankhan’s feet. ‘Sire, I am ashamed.’ He held forth his sword hilt first. ‘Take back this unworthy life.’

  Ankhan of the Strong Heart laughed, and took his lady into his bloodied arms. ‘Old friend and comrade, do not take it so to heart. It was all great sport – love, did they harm you?’

  ‘Nay,’ she said. ‘Yet you are hurt, and should be bandaged with haste. Yet it might have gone the worse for me, had it not been for the aid of our guest. My lord, we owe him thanks.’

  ‘More than mere words, lady,’ responded the king. ‘He has spared both our lives, for know you, if you had been slain I would not have been long in following, wherever you had gone. No gift shall be deemed too great for the savior of Ul Raambar. Ennius friend, stand you forth!’

  But when the lancers parted, looking around the scene, the Gerso was not to be found. He too had disappeared.

  He was beyond them in the depths of the forest, straining his legs in a desperate race. His lungs heaved, his long hair streamed from behind his head, and his arms darted forward to brush the many low branches from his path, as he chased the last Madpriest.

  Ahead of him, that one also strained. He did not stop to look behind him: he only heard the pounding of racing feet, and believed that all the lancers were on his trail. So he ran like the wind, with the sure feet of a man who has passed his life in darkness. Rapidly he pulled away from the Gerso.

  They broke into a long glade, green below the crimsoned tops of the towering trees. A thirsla saw them and dashed into the green. The long grass whipped at their feet. The Gerso pulled from his belt the long leather cord used to tie the feet of game together; opening the loop, he flung it forward. The loop caught about the ankle of the Madpriest; the Gerso gripped the cord and drew it back.

  The Madpriest fell heavily on the soft ground, rolling to take the force of the blow away; but before he could rise the Gerso had fallen on him and struck him a savage blow on the side of his head. A grunt escaped the lips of the Madpriest as he lost all sight of the green glen.

  The victor trussed the fallen man securely. Panting, he raked back the ragged hair about his brow, and smiled. Heaving the burden to his shoulders, he started wearily back to the scene of the ambush.

  They were overjoyed to see him; yet even greater than their joy was their amazement when they saw what he was carrying. He shrugged, and let the burden fall to the ground like an offering at the feet of the royal couple.

  ‘Truly I had underestimated your great worth,’ exclaimed the king. ‘You are a man of many talents, indeed, and a worthy agent for the Divine Queen! Ennius, if ever you should wish for other employment, be sure you would find it here! To save my chara and capture a living Madpriest in a moment’s work! Take my hand, Ennius, and with it all my heart. You have the love and gratitude of Ankhan, who doe
s not bestow such things lightly.’

  Reluctantly, the Gerso took the proffered hand. Then Chara Lisalya stepped forward.

  ‘Some say that the female heart is made of inconstancy,’ she declared. ‘If that be true, then know you, Ennius, that I was formed unique: a woman with a man’s heart. No matter how many lives are mine, I shall not forget what you have done for us this pass. Come to me whenever you will in the future and ask me whatever you will, and it shall be yours.’ So saying she embraced him and kissed him lovingly upon either cheek and brow.

  Below them the Madpriest stirred, groaning as he rolled on the blood-stained grass.

  ‘Great game, indeed, and Ennius Kandi of Gerso the hunter!’ exclaimed Ankhan. ‘Loose him, Dilyardin, and let us see what he will do.’

  The stout old warrior cut the bonds to the Madpriest’s ankles, leaving his wrists still tightly bound. Then he signaled the lancers to stand closely about the prisoner with ready weapons. He had made one error, and not for Dilyardin a second.

  The captive struggled to his feet. From the pallid face beneath the ragged shock of black hair, his deep-set eyes glared at them, red with madness and hate. He was clad in skins and cloth scraps poorly sewn together, and a few ornaments of fine workmanship doubtless stolen from hapless victims long since dead. His face and arms were covered with a dark black filth, probably, as the king remarked, to conceal himself in darkness.

  ‘He must be thirsty,’ said Lisalya. ‘We have refreshed ourselves, my lords, but he has had nothing. Fellow, do you wish to drink?’

  The Madpriest spat upon her tunic. ‘There’s all the water you want,’ he growled. ‘Do I wish drink? Give me your heart’s blood, then, and I’ll be content.’

  Dilyardin clubbed the savage to the ground with the butt of his lance. ‘Mind your tongue, dog. Do you not know it is the Chara Lisalya to whom you speak?’

  ‘I know you Raambas are so cowardly you must let your women do your fighting for you.’