CHAPTER 54
“All this magic,” Jani said after a few minutes of standing around doing nothing.
“What?” Butu asked, looking away from where Blay, Retus and Lujo stood near the edge, watching the battle.
“We’ve broken the Treaty completely.” She looked worried. “Without it, everyone can make sordellas again.” She gestured around at the playground. “More places like this will be arenas, if kids are even allowed to come here. Unless Tirud wins over everyone, today’s battle will just be the opening for a greater war.”
“I’ll try to keep the Treaty of Mnenom alive,” Butu said. “I don’t think any clan wants to see sordellas again.”
“Tirud’s almost reached the Kadrak army,” Retus said from the edge of the rock. Butu used the interruption as an excuse to get away, but Jani followed to watch.
“They’ve sent riders with a flag of truce to meet him,” Phedam said, pointing.
“Shanubu, where is he?” Jani said. “I can’t tell one from the other up here.”
“Behind their army, see the lone figure? Looks like a cactus?” Lujo said, pointing.
Three horsemen, one wielding a white flag, approached Tirud. A hundred feet away, they stopped. Butu looked around for the standard-carriers, the sordenu who marked where Aesh and Paka were. That small group of horsemen rode hard from one of the flanks. But they were too late.
The white flag fell, and its bearer kicked his horse into motion. Galloping at breakneck speed, sword shimmering in the morning sun, he rode directly at Tirud. They saw Tirud flinch before the cloud of dust from the horse’s hooves obscured him. Meanwhile, one of the other horsemen raised his arms, and a dozen more leapt forward. Aesh was still too far away.
The dust rolled away, revealing Tirud holding his sword. The horse lay on its side, and the cavalryman knelt in the sand, headless. The first casualty of the new king. In front of Tirud, a slightly larger than man-sized statue stood.
“Golem,” Lujo breathed.
“Just like a first-cycler,” Amber said.
The dozen new horsemen galloped in, bows out. Thirty yards away, they turned their horses and began to circle, kicking up a huge cloud of sand. The sun glinted off a dozen arrowheads as they fired almost level at Tirud.
Arrows flew and then turned to splinters as they neared him. A moment later, the swordsmen arrived, but their swords shattered themselves in mid-swing rather than strike the Turun king. Tirud made no motion to retaliate. Instead, he started walking toward the Kadrak army, the golem melting back into the sand.
Butu pointed to the standard-bearers. Aesh had arrived to take command, but instead of parlaying like his lieutenant — no one else would be stupid enough to fight under a flag of truce, Butu thought — he wheeled his horse back one rank, and trumpets sounded. They could hear them faintly up here.
“Form up,” Phedam said, eyes closed. “Cavalry flank. Sordenu close ranks.” He opened his eyes wide. “They’ll hurt themselves more than him!”
“Haven’t they figured out he’s the king?” Lujo asked. “Only a fool would stand his ground against him. Everyone knows kings are almost invincible.”
“They know,” Butu assured him. “They’re testing Pisor’s legend the way Philquek did. Except instead of trying to figure out how to make a king, they’re looking for a way to fight one.”
Another long, low trumpet note reached them, and the sordenu marched forward. At thirty yards, another trumpet blew, and the sordenu broke into a run. Butu felt sorry for those who would reach Tirud first.
Can he defend himself from a charge without killing anyone?
The ground exploded in a ring around the king, smashing fists of sand into the sordenu’s ranks. Many fell down, but more kept coming. Blinded for a second, though, to everyone except the group at the top of the rock, Tirud sank into the sand. The Kadrak army swirled around the place where the king had been only a minute before, and after a few seconds, came to a standstill.
“Where did he go, and what is he doing?” Phedam asked. “He can’t’ve left us up here with his kingmaker still in danger.”
Butu scanned the milling sordenu, and then looked at the two companies of cavalry, who, with the other two companies, formed the points of a square around more than a thousand useless sordenu. He looked down farther.
“Oh, shanubu,” he muttered. “That phutra Philquek.”
Jani gasped as she saw the Akdren pouring out of Urgaruna. More than a hundred were on the ground already, and the frantic sounding of trumpets brought a Kadrak cavalry company around, even as a few hundred sordenu peeled out of the mess Tirud had left them to respond before all of the Akdren escaped.
“It’ll be a bloody melee,” Phedam murmured. “Where’s Tirud?
Jani pointed to a spot beyond the Kadrak camp. “Look.”
What had appeared to be a fog along the ground rose thicker, growing redder as it drew the finest grains of sand from the shanjin. It billowed and reared, parts growing larger while others flattened, bulging and roiling in a sudden, shear wind that whipped the Kadrak banners.
“Shanubu!” Lujo cried.
“No, simam,” Jani said sullenly. “Butu, he’s going to kill everyone.”
Butu gripped Pisor in his hands, staring out over the sands at the gigantic red storm. Lightning crackled in its wine-dark depths, and the sands shifted near it, glittering like mirages from the heat.
Tirud, you promised, Butu thought. If that so much as touches one of the Kadrak, I’ll have to do what I hope never to do.
Half the Kadrak had returned to stall the Akdren refortification, but the other half had seen the simam. They hesitated no longer than a fraction of a second before they wheeled their horses in retreat or ran, weapons dropped into the sand like so many shiny bones. They passed the standard-bearers, Aesh and his two companions, and a handful of other captains and generals, who stood their skittish horses, mouths agape at the sight. Heads bent together in a worried conference.
“Can it get us up here?” Retus asked.
Jani shook her head.
“No,” Phedam murmured. “The Urgarun children will have their revenge on anyone outside the rock, though.”
“Shanubu, Butu,” Retus cried. “Stop him!”
“Wait,” Lujo said, and they all looked at him. “The simam hasn’t moved.”
That much was true. Butu felt a wave of relief wash over him. Tirud is just using it as a distraction. He has everyone’s attention, now.
Seeing the Kadrak army running toward them, any Akdren at the top of their wall had run back inside, no doubt shouting about the simam approaching. The ones on the ladders fled upward. The front line, already gearing for skirmish, heard the shouts, looked back at the deadly red wind, and froze for a heartbeat. Then everyone ran for the same cover. Kadrak and Akdren alike huddled in whatever hole they could find. Before long, even the standard-carriers ran to hide, and three horsemen waited at the edge of it all, staring up at the immobile storm.
“That thing is huge,” Lujo said in an awed voice. “Can you imagine what it looks like to them?”
They didn’t answer. From the front of the storm stepped a lone man surrounded by six tall, angular figures. He held a sword like an officer ready to call for a charge.
“Golems!” Lujo breathed. “Even newborns only have one guardian golem.”
Tirud paused for a moment, a diminutive figure before the enormous red, crackling storm behind him. Anyone else standing where he was would look like the children in Urgaruna. The golems around him flexed and bent, showing off their tremendous strength. Butu felt awed, and he was leagues away.
It doesn’t help to know that he could be here in a handful of seconds, Butu thought, grinning madly. He lowered Pisor. That should do it, Tirud.
Tirud seemed surprised the army was gone, but he rallied his golems and in a heartbeat was in parlay distance with the three horsemen. A brief exchange, and the three men dismounted and slapped their horses aside. The skittish beasts ran back towar
d Urgaruna.
Two of the golems disappeared as the four men approached each other. Then three golems picked up the Kadrak leaders, Tirud took the lead, and they raced for the top of Urgaruna.
Kingmaker Page 54