The Hordes of Chanakra (Knights of Aerioch)

by David L Burkhead

  "Then we must cross the mountains," Shillond said.

  Kaila sighed and nodded. "With Elam besieged, I think not that we will be able to use the pass."

  "There is being Harrow's Perch," Faron said.

  "Harrow's Perch?" Kreg asked

  "It's the name of a small pass. It is starting two days' ride west of here," Faron said, "It is no good for trade caravans. It is less good for armies. For a small group like us, it should be sufficing."

  "But, Father," Kaila said, "Harrow's Perch passes into Shendar, not Aerioch.

  Shillond sighed. "I know it."

  Faron nodded. "It is why I was loath to suggest it."

  "Shendar?" Kreg said. "I don't understand."

  "Shendar was the principle Kingdom of the Empire of Shend," Shillond said.

  "Aye," Kaila added, "and they forget not that it was Aerioch which had the strength to stand before them and say we would be subject no more."

  "And so, "Shillond said, "although Shendar and Aerioch have an uneasy peace, and I think the two nations will in time find their way to friendship, it will pose problems for us to pass through Shendar on our way to Aerioch."

  For his part, Faron stared at Kreg and then shrugged. "If we must, then we must. So let us be departing."

  The sun was just starting to crest the ridge to the East.

  Faron stood. "There is a small village of herders where the pass begins. If we can be going that far, we can be getting water, maybe food, for the rest of our journey. We should be starting now. The heat of day will be beginning soon."

  Kaila started to say something but Shillond laid a hand on her arm. "We have company."

  Kreg looked in the direction of Shillond's gaze. Standing on the ridge, silhouetted against the red of dawn, was a lone horseman. He carried a standard topped by three overlapping point-up triangles. By ones and twos others joined him on that ridge. In moments, more than a score moved down the ridge toward them.

  Kaila reached for her sword and this time it was Kreg's turn to lay a restraining hand on her arm. He had recognized the standard one of the horsemen was carrying. "I think I know these people."

  #

  The herder village was gone, scattered, and the broken lances and swords that remained told of an army that had passed through.

  Kreg sat one of the nomads' small desert ponies and watched as Shillond, Kaila, and Faron examined the ruin of the small village.

  On a hilltop to just to the north of the village, a pyre burned brightly, even in the late morning sun. Kreg's muscles still ached with the task of taking wood from the broken homes of the village, and piling it on that hilltop, then helping Kaila and Faron drag bodies to lie upon the pyre. While Shillond lit the pyre, Kaila had said a short prayer to Pireth the Guide, that he may take the souls of these people gently yet swiftly to the Halls of The Nameless One.

  "You should stay with us, Kreg," the chief of the nomads said to Kreg at his right. He jerked his head at the others. "What can they offer you? Houses of stone? Dirt and filth? Stay with us. Ride in the clean air of the desert. Take wives and raise strong sons to ride with you. He slapped at the bow, protected in its leather casing that secured it to his scabbard behind his right hip. "The bow is a weapon for a man, and the knife and axe when the bow will not serve. Leave them to their swords and their lances and their tunics of steel.

  "And what are oaths to such as they? City dwellers. If they will contest your staying with us, I have two hundreds of warriors who will argue that they shall go while you stay. Stay with us."

  Kreg smiled. The nomads that had found them two days ago were the same group that had befriended Kreg. For two days Kreg and the others had ridden with the nomads.

  Riding with the nomads had been a relief to Kreg. For the first time since he had left the nomads to make his way to Trevanta, Kreg had been able to relax. Even his headaches had faded to memory.

  Just that morning they had reached the site of the village where Harrow's Perch began.

  "Stay with us, Kreg," another voice said from Kreg's left. "This is the advice that fool would give you."

  "Shaman you may be," the chief said, "but I will have your tongue if you continue to speak so about your chief."

  The shaman snorted, then smiled. Teasing could take a vicious turn among the nomads, but Kreg had seen the deep friendship between these two.

  The shaman looked Kreg up and down. "I see you have learned to sit a horse."

  Kreg shrugged.

  "Nothing would please me more but for you to stay," the shaman said, "but I have seen a different path for you written in the smoke. Your path does not lie with us. Your path is elsewhere." He nodded toward where Kaila knelt to pull a broken arrow from the ground. "Your path is with them."

  "Do not listen to this old fool." The chief clapped a hand on Kreg's shoulder. "Your size and strength will earn you the respect of warriors. You have healing magic that even the shaman cannot match. Although you are no horseman, I have seen you shoot a bow on your own feet. Perhaps someday when my eye dims and my arm withers, I shall name you chief in my stead."

  Kreg smiled. He placed his own hand over the Chief's. "Your eye shall never dim. Your arm shall never wither. But even so, if I felt free to make my own choice, I think I would stay here."

  "Then stay with us."

  Kreg shook his head. "I'm afraid the shaman has the right of it. When my friends leave, I must leave with them."

  The chief sighed then nodded. "So be it. Once the smoke has spoken, mere men must bow before its will. But know this. You shall always have a home with the Three Mountains clan. I owe you life debt. All that I have, all that I ever will have, from the day you turned death's demon from my door, is yours to claim."

  Kreg shook his head. He did not know where the words came from that he spoke. "Between us, there can be no talk of debt. I would have died had your people not found me in the desert."

  "If there is no debt," the shaman said, "then you two must be brothers."

  "Then we are brothers," the chief said.

  "Then we are brothers," Kreg heard himself answer.

  "City dwellers!" The chief urged his horse forward as he called. "Can any of you shoot a bow from horseback?"

  Kaila stood and wiped the dirt from her knees. Shillond turned, caught Kreg's eye, and smiled. Only Faron spoke, "It's not something we are doing much in Aerioch. I am having some small ability."

  "Good," the chief said, "then you can join the warriors when they go out to hunt. You three have been enough burden on my clan. It is time to repay."

  #

  As the sun sank low toward the western horizon, the party Faron had ridden with returned with a large mountain goat tied across the pillion of his saddle. Kreg learned that it was Faron who had spotted it, Faron who had run it down, and Faron who had killed it with a single shaft from the bow he had borrowed from the nomads.

  "Ha," the chief shouted as he rode up to meet the returning party, "even among city dwellers there are those who know what a bow is for."

  Near the river, and the remains of the village, there was plenty of wood in the form of the broken houses. Instead of just small fires of dried animal dung, the chief had built a large bonfire in the last light of the setting sun. As meat simmered in mare's milk in pots near the fires, the young women of the clan danced in the firelight. The young men of the clan sat on the ground in a larger ring around the fire.

  Kreg, Kaila, and Shillond sat just outside the ring of young warriors and watched. Faron had joined a group of older men near one of the smaller fires.

  "Do your nomad friends hate us so?" Kaila asked.

  "I don't understand."

  "A village was destroyed, Kreg," Kaila said. "Every man, woman, and child was put to the sword. Is this cause for celebration?"

  "I don't think it's like that," Kreg said. "The time I was with them, the impression I got was that they didn't care about city dwellers one way or the other. I think the celebration is that the hunting has
been good and they have more food than usual."

  From the circle of dancers, one of the young women raced out and grabbed the hands of one of the watching young men and pulled him into the circle of dancers. They pivoted twice, clasping each other’s outstretched hands, then the young woman released the young man to have him snatched by another of the dancing young women.

  Another young woman ran out to grab another of the young men, repeating the process. Then another. Soon the lighted circle around the fire was a maelstrom of dancing men and women.

  Kreg turned his head to say something to Kaila but what he wished to say was driven out of his head as small, warm hands grabbed his where they rested on his knees and he turned back to find one of the young women pulling him into the circle of dancers.

  It took some time before Kreg could extract himself from the circle of dancers. Every time he tried to slip away, another of the young women would grab him and pull him back into the circle. No sooner had he extracted himself and returned to his place next to Kaila when she stood. Shillond was not where he had sat and Kreg looked around to see that he, too, had joined the dancers.

  "I am to bed," Kaila said. "We ride early tomorrow. Stay with my fool of a father and carouse with your nomad friends if you wish, but seek not sympathy of me an' your head throb on the morrow."

  Kreg did not know what to say. Before he could think of anything, the Shaman stepped out of shadows. "Sit for a while, please. There are things you should hear before you go."

  The shaman's gaze locked with Kaila's and she lowered herself to the ground.

  "I have read the smoke again," the shaman said. "It has confirmed what I read before. As welcome as Kreg would be among the Three Mountains clan, his path lies with you. But strangely, no counsel did the smoke give for Kreg. Instead, the counsel was for you."

  "I need no counsel of desert nomads," Kaila said.

  "No?" the shaman said. "Do, then, the Gods speak only to nobles of Aerioch, city dwellers as my cousin the chief calls them, or do the gods speak to those who pay heed to them."

  "The Gods?"

  The shaman nodded. "Although we call them by other names, we, too, know your Threefold Twins and the other Gods. In cities, it is said, men retreat into temples and silence in an attempt to hear the Gods' words. Some say that what men hear is often only the desires of their own hearts. Among the Shamans of the desert clans, we seek the will of the Gods in the smoke. I cannot swear that our method is more true, but it is ours."

  Shillond returned at that moment and sat next to Kreg. "I suspect you do read the Gods' will more clearly, but not because of reading smoke." His gesture took in the encampment, the dancers, the fires, and the hobbled livestock. "You live your lives more directly, more openly. With little need to deceive others, you have less need to deceive yourselves."

  The shaman nodded. "Rarely do the Gods choose to speak, and when they do, they speak in riddles and choices. But when they speak clearly, a wise man heeds what they say. And they said most clearly that Kreg is to journey with you."

  He paused. "But for you, warrior maid named Kaila, they had a deeper message."

  "A message," Kaila said, her anger apparently forgotten, "from the Gods?"

  The shaman nodded again. "You must learn to bend. You are strong as your people count strength, a mighty warrior. None doubt that. Or let us say, none of wisdom doubt that. But your strength is also your weakness and if you do not learn the lesson of bending, then greater will be the suffering to come, not just for you and those close to you, but for untold numbers of others.”

  He leaned closer. "Consider the coyote and the wolf. The wolf is larger, stronger, more powerful. Many consider the wolf a more noble fighter. But when men come to the lands of the wolf, the wolves decline. Yet there is the coyote. The coyote is weaker than the wolf, with less of pride and nobility, but the when men come to the lands where the coyote dwell, the coyote prospers."

  He stood. "Learn this lesson if you would spare the world much suffering." With that, he turned and left.

  "The wolf and the coyote?" Kaila said. "The coyote is a coward. It cowers and flees rather than fight."

  "Or perhaps," Shillond said softly, "it knows when to fight and when it need not fight."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The next morning, Kreg arose more rested than he had felt in weeks. Shillond was energetic as always, despite having spent most of the night tending the clan’s sick and injured. Kaila was silent, as if deep in thought, as they packed the two pack-ponies that the nomads had given them in addition to their riding beasts. These gifts came partly in response to Shillond’s care of the tribesman and partly, as the Shaman said, “The Chief’s brother shall not go forth as a beggar.”

  Their path took them along a small stream running between hills that rapidly grew into mountains. Along the stream, the going was easy while Kreg could see the mountains loom ahead and to either side like towering walls. Since they did not have to carry water, their packs were considerably lighter.

  "Shillond," Faron called from his place in the rear, "We should be reaching the first Stair by mid-afternoon. I am thinking we should camp there. We should ascend the Stair in the morning, when we are rested."

  "Agreed," Shillond said.

  "Then I will be departing now. I will see if I can be bringing us meat for the evening meal. I will be seeing you at the Stair."

  Faron brought his pony alongside Kreg's. He handed the leads to the pack ponies to Kreg, then wheeled and directed his saddle pony across the shallow stream.

  Kreg twisted in his saddle and knotted the two leads to a fitting on the saddle provided for that purpose.

  "What did Faron mean by 'the first Stair?'"

  "There's a cliff, several tens of manheights high, over which this stream falls in a waterfall," Shillond said. "A narrow ledge rises up the cliff at an angle. The ponies should be able to manage that ledge in single file if we lead them. Our path will be rougher from there but will not get truly difficult for several more days."

  That afternoon's ride was the most pleasant Kreg had experienced since his arrival. Although they only passed a few stunted clumps of trees, from them Kreg heard the first birdsong he had heard since his arrival in this world. The ground near the stream was rocky, but grass grew between the rocks in brilliant green tufts. The water in the stream was sweet and clear and tasted far better than that in their water bags.

  When the sun reached its zenith, they stopped for a short lunch. Roasted meat and bread that was still almost fresh lightened Kreg's spirits.

  Riding no longer pained Kreg and the easy pace and pleasant surroundings did much to relieve the weariness and pain to which he had almost become accustomed.

  True to Faron's prediction, they arrived at a small valley cut off by a cliff that loomed before them. A fault line cut diagonally across this cliff, its lower part jutting outward in a narrow step that angled up the cliff. From Shillond's earlier description, Kreg supposed this step would be their route to the top.

  From the top of the cliff a small waterfall burst over the edge. As it fell, it broke upon protruding rocks in the cliff face into a shower of spray. By the time it reached the bottom of the cliff it was hardly a waterfall any longer but a steady shower of fine mist. This mist collected in a rippling pool at the base of the cliff from which ran the stream they had been following.

  Near this pool, yet far enough away to remain dry of the falling mist, they set their camp. While Kaila tended to the horses and Shillond erected frames of sticks over which they would hang the saddle blankets to form rude lean-tos, Kreg collected wood for their fire.

  "It has been overlong," Kaila said when their camp had been set, "since you have trained properly. Let us commence."

  Kreg saw that she had the two training swords. Somehow she had carried them through everything they had done.

  #

  Shadow was beginning to fall over the valley when Faron returned. Kreg looked up at Kaila's pause to see him sitting
astride his pony observing them. He rode over and dismounted next to them.

  "You are teaching him the shashyn?" Faron said. "I was not knowing the true shashyn were made outside of Aerioch."

  "Nor did I," Kaila said. "When first I saw the sword in the swordsmith's shop in Trevanta, I thought it but an imitation, but whether by chance or by skill it is sound and seems to be made of true God Iron."

  "Longsword and shield are easier for a beginner to be learning, are they not? Better for the battlefield than the dueling style?"

  "But, Faron, I..."

  "Peace, Kaila. You are doing well enough. Kreg seems to be learning swiftly under your tutelage. And yet, his play is not without faults. If I may..."

  "Please," Kaila bowed and stepped back.

  Faron held out his hand to Kreg, "If you please."

  Kreg nodded and handed Faron his training sword.

  "The first fault is the greatest. Kaila's strong hand is her left. She is grasping her sword with her left hand at the hilts. Her right is near the pommel. You are doing the same. Your strong hand is your right. Your right should be grasping the sword at the hilts. Be letting the left guide on the pommel." Faron demonstrated. "When you are striking, you are swinging too much with your arms. Punch out straight with your arms. At the last instant, be using your left hand on the pommel to guide the sword in the direction you choose. Observe." Faron launched a series of fast attacks, each one angling in at different directions from the previous.

  "Kaila, be attending," Faron said.

  Kaila stepped forward and took a ready position in front of Faron. "Be remembering, Kreg, when fighting with the shashyn always be guarding the center line." He nodded to Kaila who attacked. "Halt" he said in the midst of the attack and Kaila froze. "When you are parrying, do not be striking your sword to the side. Thrusting forward, toward your opponent." He pushed forward and the angle of his blade forced hers out and to the side. "Be continuing forward to strike." With Kaila's blade driven out of the way, Faron made a simple turn with his wrists and laid his blade alongside her neck.