Diamond Warriors

by David Zindell

  'Lord Tanu!' he called out, turning to his right where Lord Tanu stood with Lord Manamar and his other captains. 'We have marched in many campaigns and fought in many battles together. Your men trust you, even as King Shamesh did, and all those who know you. If I should be struck down here today by a bolt of lightning, is there anyone in Mesh who would make a better king? It is in recognition of your services to our land and your prowess as the greatest of knights that I would like to honor you. Command your warriors to pledge to me, and I shall make you Lord Protector of Mesh and Lord Commander of my army!'

  Lord Tomavar's captains - Lord Vishand, Sar Jarval and the elegant Lord Arajay Solval - pressed up close behind him as if they could not quite believe what they had just heard. They seemed as surprised as the rest of Lord Tomavar's warriors, drawn up across the square. It seemed that Lord Tomavar's offer to Lord Tanu had been an inspiration of the moment, based upon Lord Tomavar's keen instincts and his reading of Lord Tanu.

  'Lord Protector, you say!' Lord Tanu cried out. He tried not to let his amazement show on his tight, sour face. 'And Lord Commander of all the army?'

  'Second only to myself,' Lord Tomavar told him. 'The command of all the infantry shall be yours.'

  As the infantry in our army outnumbered the cavalry by more than ten to one, it was a magnanimous offer.

  'Command your warriors to pledge to me,' Lord Tomavar said again, 'and we can bring an end to this conclave, here and now!'

  If Lord Tanu did as Lord Tomavar asked, then more than ten thousand of the nearly sixteen thousand warriors gathered around the square would stand for Lord Tomavar, and he would become king.

  'Val,' Maram murmured at my shoulder, 'do something, before it is too late!'

  Slightly behind Maram stood Daj, Estrella, Master Juwain, Liljana and Atara. And Kane, who growled out, 'So, it's a deal that this Tomavar would make!'

  As a tactic, Lord Tomavar's offer to Lord Tanu was bold and brilliant, and I could feel Lord Tanu nearly burning to incline his head to Lord Tomavar. In the moment before he commanded his muscles to move and changed the future forever, I called out to him: 'Lord Tanu - you have promised to release your warriors from their pledges so that they may stand for whom they will!'

  Lord Tanu, always a thoughtful man, regarded me deeply as the tension flowed down from his jaws into the rest of his compact body. For the moment, it seemed that he could not speak.

  'Lord Tanu,' Lord Ramjay shouted out in his lord's stead, 'has made no such promise! He has said only that he agreed with you that the warriors should be released from their pledges. Well, perhaps they should be, if no solution other than war can decide who should be king. But Lord Tomavar has proposed an honor able way out of our troubles.'

  I heard murmurs of assent ripple up and down the lines of men behind Lord Tomavar and then pass even to Lord Tanu's warriors, drawn up in their ranks ten deep. And then the fiery Sar Vikan, standing with the others in my escort, cried out: 'You speak of honor, but Lord Tanu has said that the warriors should decide who will be king! By the lake, Lord Ramjay! In front of you and many who are gathered here, Lord Tanu said this thing!'

  'He did say it,' Lord Ramjay agreed. 'And it shall be the warriors who will choose our king. They have given their pledges of their own free will, and if Lord Tanu then asks them to stand for Lord Tomavar, that, in the end, is nothing but their will, and is the very essence of honor.'

  For a while, various knights and lords gathered in the square bandied words back and forth. And all the while Lord Tanu stared at me as I did him. I felt my heart pushing my blood through my veins up into my hot, hurting face. I felt Lord Tanu's blood rushing through him, too. I did not want to think that Lord Tanu would equivocate and try to take Lord Ramjay's ignoble way out of his promise to me. In the end, as my father had said, either one believed in men, or not.

  'Lord Tomavar!' Lord Tanu finally said, turning to this great lord. 'Your proposal is fitting, fair and indeed generous.'

  He paused to take in a breath of air as he looked up at the grin-ning Lord Tomavar. Lord Tanu's face seemed to sour even more, if that were possible. Then he continued, 'But it comes too late -I have indeed given my word to Lord Elahad that the warriors should be free choose our king.'

  'You have promised that,' Lord Eldru said, glaring at Lord Ramjay.

  'And the warriors should choose you as king!' Sar Shagarth said.

  'Lord Tanu for king!' a hundred warriors standing behind Lord Tanu cried out all at once. 'Lord Vishathar Tanu for king!'

  Lord Manamar Tanu, the father of Lord Tomavar's abducted wife, cast Lord Tomavar a dark, angry look, and muttered, 'Why should we, in any case, negotiate with a man who won't even return a brooch to its rightful owner?'

  As a strategy, Lord Tomavar's offer to Lord Tanu had been a poor one and had ultimately failed. It antagonized not only me and the men whom I led, but many of Lord Tanu's followers as well. And worse, Lord Tomavar had betrayed his essential weak-ness: he sought Mesh's kingship with such desperation that he was willing to stoop to bargaining liike a merchant rather than relying on sound arguments and force of character to win the warriors.

  'All right then!' Lord Tomavar shouted. 'Do you think I have any cause to fear the judgment of the warriors? Let it be as you have said! Let them stand for a king, here and now!'

  Lord Tanu positioned himself like a ram before a furious bull. Even as Lord Tomavar's face grew darker, hotter and angrier, Lord Tanu stared at him stubbornly as if he had ice in his veins.

  'We all can agree to that,' Lord Tanu called out to Lord Tomavar. 'Release your men from their pledges, that they can stand for whom they will!'

  But Lord Tomavar only shook his long, heavy head at this. 'My men gave their pledges of their own will, and so they have already chosen who should be king.'

  'Yes, they chose - but in different circumstances. The times have changed.'

  'The times are as they have always been! And they demand a king, tested in many battles, loved and trusted, who can lead his warriors. To glory and victory!'

  As he said this, his warriors behind him let loose a great cheer - though it seemed not so great as Lord Tomavar might have wished.

  'We cannot,' Lord Tanu said, 'allow a king to be chosen this way, with two fifths of the warriors pledged to you, and everyone else standing free.'

  Lord Tomavar turned to glare at me then. And he shouted, 'I won't allow my warriors to stand for this one! They call Morjin the Lord of Lies, but Valashu Elahad deceives men into following him!'

  A dark fire leaped in Kane's eyes at this, and my fearsome friend stepped forward as he grasped the hilt of his sword. And he snarled at Lord Tomavar: 'Say it to my face, Gorvan Tomavar, that I am a man who has been deceived !'

  In horror of what might soon occur, both Master Juwain and Maram grasped one of Kane's arms and eased him backward. Lord Tomavar tried to ignore the furious Kane. He continued staring down his long nose at me.

  'I won't let my men stand for the Elahad,' he reaffirmed. 'Not this Elahad.'

  He whipped about to look at Manamar Tanu and bellowed: 'And I won't return the brooch! It belongs to Vareva, and my beloved wife is not dead!'

  'The Red Dragon,' Lord Manamar said in a venomous voice, 'took my daughter more than a year ago, and so we must assume that she is dead - or worse. Return the brooch. Lord Tomavar!'

  'You ask me to send diamonds to you,' Lord Tomavar snapped, 'when you command your smithies to cease shipments of diamond armor to us?'

  'It is not the same thing - return the brooch!'

  'You may have it,' Lord Tomavar said, grasping the hilt of his sword, 'when you pry it from my dead fingers!'

  'I should like nothing better!' the small deadly Lord Manamar said. His hand, too, locked onto his sword. 'Tell me you are willing, and we shall settle this matter here!'

  Now it was Lord Tanu's turn to cool things down. He grasped Lord Manamar's arm and pulled his bellicose cousin a few paces back from Lord Tomavar. It might have been thou
ght that Lord Tanu would want Lord Manamar to put his sword through Lord Tomavar's neck, and so remove at least one contender to the throne. And Lord Tanu might have wanted this. But the most likely outcome of a duel between the two lords would see a flash of angry swords and Lord Manamar's head rolling bloody across the grass.

  Lord Tomavar, with a great show of restraint, relaxed his hand from the hilt of his sword. He stood proud and too obviously pleased with himself, and he strode back and forth before his warriors in their gleaming ranks as he called out to them: 'Do you see? Do you see the madness that Valashu Elahad has brought upon our land?'

  He turned to pace toward Lord Tanu's warriors as he continued his tirade: 'A brooch, your Lord Manamar wishes returned to him. My wife I demand be returned to me! How did it come to be that the Red Dragon stole the most beautiful woman in the world from me? How is it that many of you have lost brothers, sons and fathers in battle? And seen your daughters and wives slaughtered in the sack of the Elahad castle? It is because Valashu Elahad called down the Red Dragon upon Mesh! As he now calls down discord upon this field! Is this the man you would stand for as king?'

  I knew that I must make a riposte to this, and soon. But Liljana was quicker with words than I. She had spent a whole lifetime manipulating men in service of her secret purpose. I sensed her will to provoke Lord Tomavar into talking himself into a trap.

  'And what would you do, mighty Lord,' she said to him in a voice as sharp and precise as an acupuncturist's needles, 'to see Mesh restored and your wife returned to your arms again?'

  Her calculated ridicule drove him to a fury. And he bellowed out: 'I would make Mesh strong, and lead her against our enemies! The Waashians we could defeat without too great a loss. And then, if need be, the Ishkans. And so we would gain great glory! And so the Valari would have to follow us, to the war against Morjin. We shall have our revenge! We shall storm the Black Mountain again, and this time, we shall triumph! We shall take all of Morjin's treasure, and I shall take my most beloved of treasures back!'

  As Lord Tanu had observed in the pass, Lord Tomavar was a poor strategist. Everyone standing at the center of the field listened to him with doubt beginning to work at their hearts. The warriors in the front lines of each of the forces crowding the square took in his words and passed them back to the deeper ranks. I heard some shouts of acclaim, but even more grumblings of dismay. Once, at the very end of the Age of Law, at the Battle of Tarshid, Morjin had destroyed an army of Valari assaulting his stronghold inside Skartaru, the Black Mountain. The six thousand survivors, many from Mesh, he had crucified. It was the worst defeat in all the history of the Valari, and the minstrels still sang of it with mourning and lament.

  Lord Tomavar, perceiving that the tide of the warriors' sentiments might be turning against him, moved quickly to the offense by attacking me: 'And what would Valashu Elahad do if you stand for him as king? Only this: he would fail you as he did before and leave your wives and daughters to be ravished!'

  I knew that I must respond to this calumny, without hesitation and in a clear, strong voice so that the warriors could hear the truth of things. I knew that I had this power, to open my heart to men and speak straight from my soul. What would I do if made king, I wondered? Only this: I would use all my power and call upon every particle of my being to defeat Morjin. Strangely, Lord Tomavar's blood burned with same desire as mine to see Morjin brought down, even if his plan to do this was folly - and even if he dreamed too much of revenge and glory.

  'If you stand for me as king,' I started to say to the fifteen thousand warriors assembled around the square, 'I will -'

  'He will betray you!' Lord Tomavar cried out, interrupting me with an unforgivable rudeness. 'As he betrayed all of us at the Elahad castle! How could our women and children have been slaughtered like animals? How could they? It is only because Valashu Elahad deserted the castle! Out of his criminal pride! And then lied about it, putting the blame on Lord Lansar Raasharu, a great and noble man, whom King Shamesh loved and trusted as much as he did myself!'

  'No, that is not true!' I cried out. 'I thought my father was dead and that my brother had summoned me, and I wanted only to -'

  'You wanted to usurp your own father! By gaining glory on the battlefield, you hoped your renown would lead you to stand before the warriors! In place of your father, killed in the very battle you brought down upon us!'

  His words drove me to a fury. I felt my spleen pouring out poisons into my blood and a sick heat tormenting my brain. A terrible pressure built inside my throat. I opened my mouth to draw in air and deny his vile accusations. And in that moment, the Ahrim struck. It came out of nowhere, a boiling blackness that fell over my face and eyes. For three long, bitter beatings of my heart, I could not hear nor could I see. And then the Ahrim's icy cold substance seemed to gather about my neck. It clamped down, hard, like a iron fist, squeezing the very breath from my throat with such a crushing force that I could barely speak:

  'My ... father,' I gasped out, 'I . . loved .. like . .'

  'Do you see?' Lord Tomavar called out, pointing at me. 'He chokes on his own lies!'

  I wanted to kill him, then. He stood glaring at me in his dark, doubting manner, and I wanted to whip free my sword and plunge the point straight through his slanderous mouth. And then I recalled a much darker encounter with a much greater enemy, far away. In Hesperu, with the help of my friends and a great, good man, for one shining moment, I had managed to transmute my hate into something beautiful and bright. I felt this grace still warm and alive somewhere inside me. It made me believe in myself. This certainty of power and purpose had nothing to do with the delusion that I might be infallible or the destined Maitreya, but only that like any man I could keep the evil inside myself at bay and exert my will to do the right thing.

  'Lord . . . Tomavar!' I gasped out. 'Your ... heart...'

  I must not, I told myself, regard this man as my enemy. My father had believed in him and trusted him, and so must I. All men, as I knew too well, could be driven mad by hatred and a rage for revenge.

  'Your . . . heart,' I tried to tell him again.

  But my desire to see him healed was not enough. The Ahrim only tightened its hold upon me, and I could not speak. And so I took a step closer to him, holding out my hand. I thought only of resting it upon his chest, and trying to drive away his doubts, as I had with the warriors in Lord Avijan's hall. Lord Tomavar's hatred, though, ran deeper than a gorge cut into the earth; I could touch neither it nor him. The anguish in his black eyes warned me to stay away from him even as he drew his sword from its scabbard, and nearly cut off my hand.

  'Stand back, Elahad!' he cried out. 'Don't try your trickery on me!'

  'He draws!' Sar Vikan called back from beside me. 'Lord Tomavar draws on Lord Elahad! A challenge has been made!'

  According to the laws of the Valari, any warrior who drew his sword on another made an irrevocable challenge to a duel.

  'He draws!' Sar Vikan called out again. The thirst for blood I heard in his voice made me sick. 'Let them fight, here and now, sword to sword! Let honor be satisfied!'

  His words were like a flaming brand held to spilled oil. Lord Sharad, who had never liked Lord Tomavar, called out, 'Let them fight! Let honor be satisfied!'

  And then Sar Jessu and Sar Shivalad and half a thousand warriors standing behind me called out that Lord Tomavar and I must face each other sword to sword, and thousands of Lord Tomavar's own men called out the same thing - along with even many of Lord Tanu's men. So did Lord Ramanu's men call for a duel, and Lord Bahrain's and Lord Kharashan's followers and the mob of free warriors to the north. Their voices thundered out into the square:

  'Honor! Honor! Honor!'

  'Fight! Fight! Fight!'

  Lord Tomavar stared at his long, gleaming kalama as if in horror of what he had done - but also in great gladness, as if relieved of a terrible burden. I tried to give him a way out of the bottomless chasm quickly opening up before us. I gasped out, 'A ... mis
take. Put . . away ... your ... sword.'

  But sometimes there can be no going back. Lord Tomavar's great head swept right and left as he listened to the roar of the warriors: 'Honor! Honor! Honor!'

  'Let honor be satisfied!'

  'Fight - let them fight!'

  'A duel to the death! Let the victor be king!'

  At last, Lord Tomavar looked at me. And he shouted out: 'I will not put away my sword! I call upon you to draw your sword, so that we might settle this matter honorably. Let it be as the warriors say: let the victor be king!'

  A great cheer seemed to shake the very earth. And I forced out a few, choked-off words: 'But. . . I . won't...'

  'You must accept the challenge,' Sar Jalval shouted on Lord Tomavar's behalf. 'Or else be called a coward! And if coward you be, then leave this field now, and let no man in Mesh give you salt, bread or fire!'

  Now it seemed that almost every warrior or knight gathered about the square shouted out that this must be. I heard the men loyal to me crying out, 'Lord Valashu Elahad - Champion, Champion! The Elahad for King of Mesh!'

  This is not my will, I thought. This is not only my will.

  Then Lord Avijan stepped forward and said to Lord Tomavar, 'Fight, if you must, but your duel will not settle who sits on Mesh's throne. The warriors still must decide who will be king.'

  Lord Tomavar, whose mind could race as swiftly as a greyhound when pressed, considered this only for a moment. 'All right then, let this be the way of things: Lord Elahad will ask your warriors to stand for me if I am the victor in our duel. And if Lord Elahad prevails, my warriors shall be free to stand for him.'

  Lord Tomavar gambled like a player rolling the dice. But it was a fair enough game. If I fell beneath Lord Tomavar's sword, then the two thousand men who marched behind my banner, standing for Lord Tomavar, would give him the edge over Lord Tanu. Even if many of them refused this realignment, then Lord Tomavar still might find that most of the free warriors would support him, and give him the numbers he needed. And if I put my sword into Lord Tomavar, then 1 still might hope to win his warriors - and many others.