The Seer King: Book One of the Seer King Trilogy

by Chris Bunch

  We reformed and marched on.

  An hour later, we heard screams from the rocks ahead. The Men of the Hills had begun their sport.

  Around the next bend, we found the baby. Its brains had been dashed out against a roadside boulder and its tiny corpse left for us to find.

  We went on, and eventually the screams were lost in the distance.

  An hour later we came on the village where the boy had tried to murder me with his grandfather’s bow. This time there was no one at all in the settlement. It was growing colder, so Tenedos suggested that we send a search party through the huts, to see if there were blankets or other bedding material we might acquire.

  I kept the main column outside the village, and sent our searchers in on foot. The first two huts were empty, already stripped bare. The lance leading the search party set foot in the third hut, and a crossbow clacked and he came stumbling out, looking bewildered, and tugging at a small bolt, scarcely big enough to bring down a sparrow, stuck in his chest.

  The crossbow had been cleverly rigged so anyone coming through the doorway would trigger it.

  The lance cursed, pulled out the bolt, and tossed it aside, saying it was nothing. He started for the next hut, then screamed in pain, clawing at the tiny hole the shaft had made. He fell to his knees, then on his back, convulsing, biting his tongue almost through. Before anyone reached him, he was dead.

  The tiny wound already smelled of putrefaction from the poisoned arrow.

  We found only a few things worth taking, but when we went on the village was a sea of flames. I remembered the gift of life I’d given the boy, and grimaced. I’d learned how war was fought in these lands — to the knife, and the knife to the hilt. The Kaiti would learn that Numantia could fight as brutally as anyone.

  The next two villages we also put to the torch, the second, after we’d spent the night in it.

  Late in the afternoon of the sixth day, we reached the ford where I’d met Tenedos. We’d barely made camp when the long-threatening storm broke, and icy gales lashed over us, driving snow hard into our faces.

  Tenedos cautioned us to be doubly alert, for he sensed sorcery swirling around us. I needed no caution, though. This was ideal weather for the hillmen. I put my men on half-alert, and doubled all guard posts.

  Captain Mellet set up stoves next to the wagons, and stretched canvas roofs over them. After I’d seen to my men, and those off watch had been fed, Tenedos and I went through the line for our own supper. It was nothing more than rice with some meat in it, and herb tea, but praise the goddess Shahriya for her gift of fire, it was hot.

  One of the servers was the young woman Jacoba. As I thought, she was sporting a wicked black eye. She looked at me, started to say something, then looked away. I was just as pointlessly embarrassed, and went on without speaking.

  The little girl, Allori Pares, came up to me while I ate.

  “Hello, soldier. Do you remember me?”

  I did, and told her to call me Damastes.

  “I’ve been helping that other soldier with the food.” She pointed to Captain Mellet. “He said he’s got a daughter just my age.”

  I knew Captain Mellet was unmarried, and smiled inside myself at the craggy bachelor trying to be nice to the child.

  “I like cooking. Maybe … if I grow up, I’ll want to have an inn.”

  If she grew up. Part of me wanted to cry, part of me wanted to lay waste to this whole gods-damned country.

  “You’ll grow up,” I said finally. “You and I, we’re partners. I’ll make sure nothing happens.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  “That’s a promise.”

  At midnight, I went the rounds relieving my guards, then thought I could chance a bit of sleep, giving instructions to the commander of the guard to wake me when it was time for the watch to change.

  The wind roared even louder, and the snow was drifting on the ground. I found a place to lie, thought wistfully of those civilians who had found sleeping room in or under one of the wagons, wrapped myself in Lucan’s saddle blanket and my cloak, and do not remember my head touching the saddlebag I’d set for a pillow.

  The air was rich with the scent of orange blossoms and tamarind, I lay back on the silk pillows, wearing only a loincloth, feeling the houseboat move slightly as gentle waves washed under it. There seemed to be no other craft on the lake, its water echoing the blueness of the sky. A soft summer breeze touched me and was gone.

  I felt a touch of thirst, picked up the goblet from the tray beside me, and sipped a cooling punch, its scent a marvelous combination of peaches and strawberries.

  Jacoba lay on pillows beside me. She wore nothing but a sleeveless vest and flaring pants of a material thinner than silk.

  She leaned toward me, and slowly undid the fastening of my loincloth and it fell away. My cock rose to meet her fingers. She bent, and her tongue flicked around its head, then caressed it down to its base, then she took me in her mouth.

  I felt my pulse hammer.

  She came lithely to her feet, and untied the yellow silk cord that held her pants, and stepped out of them as they fell away.

  Jacoba knelt across my thighs, and as I arched my back her fingers guided me into her. She moaned, and her hands slid across my chest, still holding the cord. She raised herself, came back down, raised once more, and as she did she slipped the cord around my neck, and pulled it taut, twisting it hard, her head going back as she cried in passion.

  The universe was nothing but my cock in her softness and the wonderful feel of that cord as joy rose within me, and I opened my mouth to shout …

  … and a child screamed and the face above me was bearded and twisted in evil, silent laughter. The blood crashed against my temples and I was looking at him through a tunnel as I brought my feet up and booted the Tovieti back into the snow.

  He came to his feet, reaching for a knife at his waist as I dove at him, the back of my fist smashing into his face, then drove the heel of my hand against the base of his nose. He cried out and fell, spattering blood and cartilage on me as I dropped on him, my rigidly braced forearm crushing his windpipe. I rolled off as he died, and I had my sword in hand.

  The camp was alive with shouts and screams, and I saw the dim form of men running away, into the snowstorm, as torches flared up into life.

  The Tovieti’s cord still hung around my neck, and now I could feel its red burm.

  I ran into the center of the rounded wagons, shouting for full alertness. Tenedos, Lance Karjan behind him, came out of the darkness, blearing awake.

  But the Tovieti were gone.

  Six of my soldiers were slain at their posts. How the Tovieti were able to creep up on paired sentries and slay them without any alarm being given, I do not know. Then they’d crept into the camp and begun their killing.

  Ten civilians had been killed, eight of them, including a month-old baby, strangled, the other two knifed in their sleep.

  I paid no mind to the wails of fear and mourning, but pulled Tenedos aside.

  “What happened to your wards? Didn’t you sense anything?”

  “I felt nothing,” the seer said, and a bit of fear showed on his face. “My magic should have worked … but it did not. I don’t know why.”

  I felt a flash of anger, then common sense prevailed. Why should Tenedos’s craft have done any better than a soldier’s? Both were but men, and their skills imperfect. I wondered what child had greater prescience than any of us, but never found who had screamed.

  We collected the bodies, and prepared them for burial. The ground was frozen hard, so I ordered well-guarded parties out to gather the rocks we’d use to build tombs.

  We built the fires up, and made more tea. Once again, I saw Jacoba, buttering bits of hard bread. She set her knife down and walked over.

  “I never had the chance to thank you,” she said.

  “It’s not necessary.”

  She was silent for a moment.

  “Just now … when they c
ame, I was dreaming of you,” she said, her voice no more than a whisper.

  I’m afraid I colored, although she could not have seen it in the dark.

  “I, uh, well … I had a dream of you, as well,” I finally managed.

  “We were in a boat,” she said dreamily. “Just the two of us. It was on a lake. Perhaps it was one of the houseboats I’ve read about, in Urey.” She fell silent. I said nothing, amazed. There was a long silence. Then she looked up at me.

  “Perhaps … perhaps, if we live …” She turned away, suddenly, and went back to her task.

  • • •

  The next morning the storm was worse. The icy walls of Sulem Pass closed about us, and the wind blew hard from the north.

  We were struck four times that day by hillmen. Two or three men would rush out of hiding, seize the person or goods they wanted, and disappear. We could not post a soldier every five feet, so we made no kills.

  The column was straggling, no matter how hard Troop Guide Bikaner and Three Column at the rear chided or threatened. I rode up and down the long line, trying to encourage, and when someone was obviously exhausted let them ride Lucan for a spell while I walked alongside. Rabbit and our other spare mounts were already carrying the sick, lame, or old — and there were still too many of the helpless afoot. Each time bandits attacked, we’d take casualties, and the wounded would go into the wagons, further displacing someone who should not be walking.

  I learned another lesson that day. I’d disparaged the camp followers the KLI had brought with them as no more than whores. But it was they who nursed the wounded and sick, bringing a bit of mercy and softness to someone’s last hour.

  We halted an hour before noon, and it took another hour for the last laggard to stumble into camp.

  I could have broken up the infantry and sent them into the civilian column to help, but then I’d have lost half my fighting men, and would have no coherent unit to support the middle of the line.

  The best I could do was order Two and Four Columns to dismount and use their horses to carry more of the helpless. If we were attacked, they were to help the people out of the saddle, then mount and form up. It was stupid — the time wasted would be more than enough for the Men of the Hills to escape — but I could not watch people in my charge just die.

  Laish Tenedos had said little that morning, and now I found him at the front of the column, seemingly unaware of the gale, the snow, or his always-present companion, Karjan. He became aware of me, and turned. His nose and cheeks were beginning to pale with frostbite.

  “Snow,” he said musingly, and I thought he was in shock from the cold, “Damastes, we need more snow.”

  I knew he’d gone mad.

  “Come. I think I’ve derived a spell that can help us, if only briefly and slightly.”

  He hurried to the wagon that held his magical gear, and took out various bits of paraphernalia. I helped him lug the materials back to where I’d found him. He paced ten steps out into the undisturbed snow.

  “Best I cast this where man has not walked,” he said. He used four small candlesticks, each ending in a spike, to make a square on the ground about two feet on each side. Into them he put four small candles, one green, one white, one black, one red.

  In the center, he put a small brazier set on a tripod that brought it almost to waist level.

  Awkwardly he sprinkled herbs onto the brazier, shielding it with one hand to keep the wind from scattering his material.

  Then he prayed, first to our goddess of the earth, then to the god whose realm was water:

  “Jacini, hear

  We are your children

  We are the earth

  Varum take heed

  I seek now a boon

  I seek now a loan.

  “Grant me this favor

  Grant me this wish.”

  He touched a finger to each candle, and they spurted fire, a high, narrow flame three times the candles’ height.

  He held a finger, without burning it, in each of those flames, his lips moving in an incantation, then touched it to the herbs in the brazier. He raised his voice:

  “There is peace

  There is calm

  All is still

  All is frozen.

  “Time will stop

  Time must stop

  You will hear

  You will heed.”

  The herbs began smoldering, and then I saw something truly marvelous. The snowflakes swirling in the space defined by the four candles froze, as if they’d been cast in an invisible amber, a cube two feet on all sides.

  “Good,” Tenedos said. “Someone … god or not … approves my wish. Now for the hard part.”

  His hands moved in a strange series of gestures, and something was born in that brazier. It was dark, speckled with light, and had form, yet no form, and my eyes hurt trying to make it out and I looked away.

  Again, Tenedos chanted:

  “I have a need

  You owe a debt

  I did a boon

  Now you must serve.”

  The dark shadow, or cloud or form, shivered, as if taken by the wind. There was a humming.

  “Thak?” Tenedos said. “He is not of your realm, nor do I wish to strike against him. You will obey me.”

  The shadow hummed once more.

  “I said you will obey.” Tenedos’s fingers moved in quick gestures, and the humming came once more, and I oddly thought it a groan of pain. The shadow bent, as if bowing in obedience.

  “Very well.” Once more Tenedos touched the brazier.

  “There are those beyond

  They are filled with hate

  They would do us harm

  They must be turned away.”

  The shadow grew tall, taller than a man. Tenedos continued his chant:

  “Varum gave me water

  This shall be our tool

  It shall be your weapon

  It shall not be seen.

  “Snow that blinds

  Snow that hides

  Cloud the mind

  Cloud the eyes.

  “They shall not see

  They shall not know

  We shall pass

  We shall pass.”

  The magical square was empty.

  “Now take your weapons and go,” Tenedos said, then resumed the chant:

  “I bid you once

  I bid you twice

  I bid you thrice

  You must obey

  You will obey.”

  Now it was the shadow’s turn to vanish. Tenedos motioned, and the four candles smoked and went out.

  “Now we shall see what we shall see,” he said. “If that spell works, it should act as a fog to those robbers. They’ll somehow know we’re not on them yet, even though we’re in front of them, or else know that we passed hours ago. They’ll know we left the road and seek us up side tracks, or else comb the villages, knowing we took shelter from the storm.

  “If the spell works.”

  “What was that shadow?” I asked. I’d been fascinated, completely oblivious of the cold and storm.

  “Something from … somewhere else,” Tenedos said, deliberately vague. “Something I performed a service for once.” I knew he’d tell me no more, but I had one final question.

  “Is Thak more powerful than that being?”

  “Who knows?” Tenedos said. “My wraith is a lazy one, and hardly gifted with what we mortals call courage. But I’d suppose he is less powerful than the Tovieti’s demon.”

  “Will Thak attack us, as he did in the cavern?”

  “I don’t know,” Tenedos said. “I’ve been preparing some spells if he does … but have no notion if they will work. I don’t think they will. I need something more.”

  “Such as?”

  “No, Damastes. That I cannot, must not, tell you. Not now, not ever.”

  That was the first moment I touched on what was the Seer Tenedos’s great secret, the secret that would bring him an empire. When I revea
l it, it shall be obvious, but it never was to Tenedos’s friends, tribunes, army, or his enemies until far too late.

  “Now, let us travel on,” he said.

  After we’d reformed for the march I saw there were still four people huddled in the snow. I went to the first. It was one of my cavalrymen. His mustache and eyebrows were thick with frost, and his eyes were glazed.

  “On your feet, Lance.”

  He stared up, without seeing, rocking back and forth. I pulled him up, but it was as if he were boneless. He sagged back to the ground.

  Troop Guide Bikaner ran up, and yanked the soldier to his feet, as I’d done. Once more the man fell. “Son of a mother-stabbing bitch,” he swore. “Th’ shortcock’s given up!”

  And so it was.

  “Shall we leave ‘im?”

  I thought about it. The Lancers never abandon their dead or wounded except in the last resort, and this man, someone with a weak spirit, was as much a casualty as if he’d been slashed by a hillman’s sword.

  “No,” I said. “Find a place for him on one of the wagons. Ask Captain Mellet to put one more civilian into his saddle.”

  I went on to the next huddled figure. It was an old man, and he was quite dead, frozen as he sat. So were the other two. One was an equally aged woman, the other a boy in his teens. I was startled.

  “Don’t be s’prised, sir,” Bikaner told me. “There’s some-thin’ at I’ve learned, an’ that’s th’ young don’t cling t’life that hard. Damned if I know why, but they’ll lay down in their tracks long afore a mean old bastard like me’s even feelin’ puny. Mebbe they’re so fresh from th’ Wheel they don’t mind returnin'.”

  We moved on without burying the dead — we had no time to gather rocks for their tombs. I muttered a short prayer as we rode away.

  The road climbed, not steeply enough so a traveler in normal times might even notice, but it was like a mountain to some of us. Now men and women started dropping, falling off to the sides of the column. Soldiers would kick, curse, help them, but too often to no use. Sometimes these people, desperate to be left alone, desperate for some final peace, would just wander off the track and be lost in the storm.