Hurrus glanced over the balustrade again and saw that Deon had indeed donned his helmet. Bronze cheek plates and nosepiece shielded his face and his eyes could scarcely be glimpsed burning inside the black spaces left for them. Alternating bands of black and white horsehair crested the helmet, making him seem tall and slightly inhuman.
"They are but twenty, young lord," Nadia reminded him. "And even some of these are cowardly, deceitful men. I can spot them from here."
Every time Hurrus thought she had descended irrevocably into feebleness, she came roaring back with a vengeance. Sometimes she was exactly as she always had been. Sometimes not.
"This I know well, Mama. I inherited the men you speak of, chosen for the body by Myletos as a favor to their fathers, his noblemen cronies whose support he is forever trying to win. I will rid myself of them, but I must be diplomatic."
"They will plunge knives in your back. Remember that," Nadia said. "But the others… By the gods! You would think they really had marched in Xarhux's columns. They are the sons of men who have never known what it is to follow a madman, as the others did. These men's fathers knew only greatness, and it shows in the sons."
Hurrus felt a familiar burning coal in his belly. Nadia was wrong about one thing. Xarhux had not been mad. Not before he entered Tygetia, and not when he left. Hurrus would not allow the coal to blaze upon his face. He would never show it -- not the rage, not to Nadia.
His ambition commanded his voice, however.
"Xarhux gave the fathers estates in Tygetia," he said in a firm voice. "I will give the sons the wealth of Epiria."
"Indeed you shall, Hurrus," Nadia said. "I am not long for the world, but I vow that I will not pass until I see you home."
Hurrus shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "You are not dying anytime soon."
Nadia ignored him. "These men are attracted to you, Hurrus, because you are the kin of Xarhux. They sense greatness in you." She bobbed her head toward the balustrade and the wispy gray strands of her hair floated for an instant in the breeze. "Men such as these do not follow the common lout of a general. Look at Garon's men."
Hurrus felt his face grow tight. "Or Kerraunus'," he said.
"Or Bellog's, for that matter, and that dreadful boy of his…"
"Tepes, Mama."
Nadia waved a bony claw dismissively. "Their men are nothing like these. Nothing like this…Xandros, you call him?"
Hurrus nodded at the same time that a servant laid a great bowl of fruit on the table between them. Nadia plucked a green grape from the bowl and bit it in half. As far as grapes go, it was a giant, but in her hand, it looked as big as an apple.
"These men will follow you to Epiria as they would follow no one else. I have seen men like these before." She reached across the table and gripped Hurrus' arm. "And I have seen a man like you before leading them."
"Mama, please…"
Nadia gazed at him with an intensity that was almost frightening. He could feel the talons of her fingers digging deep into his arm. He thought for an instant of the faceless man. He instinctively lurched back lest she start spitting blood. "When I look at you, Hurrus, I see Xarhux."
This did not fill him with any great confidence. When she looked at Xandros, she saw Kelios. He sighed and laid a hand atop hers, leaning close this time. "But I must build an army, Mama. Even my companion body is incomplete."
"It is my dream to see you on Arrhus' throne, where you belong. Ever since the day Clautias brought us here to Myletos, it has been my dream to return. My dream -- and your destiny."
He felt the burning coal again at the mention of his father's name. Demetrius had stolen the throne through cunning and murder, though Demetrius called it war. Who knew what he called his witch's tender mercies? But it was more than murder. Only Hurrus and Nadia escaped, smuggled out of Gyriece by the man who would have been Hurrus' tutor, Clautias.
"Demetrius learned of Clautias' treachery and Clautias is hunted still, if he yet lives."
Every year on his birthday, Hurrus vowed before the gods and Nadia that he would one day reclaim his throne. At the same time, he and Nadia prayed together for Clautias. Whether dead or living still, the man would never be forgotten.
But they were not alone in marking the anniversary of Hurrus' birth.
"Every year, Demetrius offered to buy you from Myletos," Nadia told him. "Every year his offer increased. One year, Myletos sent him the Mejadym in reply. Your mother, the Queen Eunice, was his half-sister, you see."
"The Mejadym? In Gyriece?" Hurrus had been amazed to learn this.
"Demetrius' firstborn could not escape them. Murder is repaid with murder, my son," Nadia had told him, and he held it as an axiom ever since.
Hurrus leaned back in his chair, thoughtlessly fingering a pear he had taken from the bowl. "But I am not ready…" he said and instantly regretted it. A simple truth, but in his ears, it sounded hopelessly weak. He was grateful when he heard Nadia cackle softly. He knew she understood.
"Your time is coming sooner than you think," she said. "This is the day we have been waiting for. Today you will wear the…big crown…of the…bird…feather man, or some such."
Hurrus started to correct her, but then stopped. "Yes, Mama," he said instead. "The bird feather man." He could not help laughing behind his hand.
Nadia's eyes sparkled at that moment. Hurrus had never known her at any age but generally old, but her eyes for an instant were those of a young girl. "Oh, look at you," she said. "Cruelly mocking an old woman's feebleness…"
"I am sorry," he said with a final chuckle. Then he grew serious. He reached across the table and took both of Nadia's hands. "Look at me," he said. "I swear to you, Nadia. You will see me again in Epiria."
"Then I will pass happily into the land of the dead."
Hurrus shook his head. "Oh, no. You are coming with me. Someone will need to look after my heir, as you always looked after me."
Nadia squeezed his hands. He knew she loved the king's daughter Antona as well as Hurrus did. He only hoped she lived to see them married.
"Your companions fight well, Prince," said a deep voice.
Hurrus looked up at the sound of the familiar bluster: Bellog. He had already stridden halfway across the balcony by the time an out-of-breath servant appeared in the doorway behind him. Hurrus supposed the poor fellow had had to chase the heavy-footed commander all the way up the stairs. The man moved like a storm front. He carried his helmet in the crook of his elbow and the servant's call was all but lost in the creaking and clanking of his blue-black leather armor with bronze fittings and the clacking of his hobnailed sandals across the balcony floor. His dark cloak billowed behind him.
Hurrus sat with his legs crossed and watched him as he approached. He wore neither wig nor helm. The Master of Arms' smallish cranium left little room for brains, though it did accentuate the squareness and strength of his jaw. Hurrus would grant him that.
Bellog smiled broadly. "I took a moment to admire your men training in the field below," he said. "Magnificent! I made my own men observe them. 'Now this is what fighting men look like,' I told them." He turned his beaming face to Nadia. "It pleases me to see you looking so fit this fine morning, my lady." He bowed extravagantly.
"Oh, please, General," Nadia said in a scolding tone. "I am as fit as a cadaver, and you know it."
Hurrus took a pear from the bowl and tossed it to him with a flick of his wrist. Bellog came out of his bow just in time to catch it. He looked likely to crush the thing in his big, beefy hand.
"They're really quite good," Hurrus said. "Help yourself."
"Would that I could," Bellog replied, amiably. "But there is no time for your lovely fruit, I'm afraid." The general stepped stiffly forward and placed the pear on the table as if it was made of glass. "I have come to fetch you to the parade grounds, Prince, for the presentation of the war crown. It is time. King's orders. Myletos and Garon have gone on ahead."
"Ah, yes," Hurrus stood and made a show o
f craning his neck to see behind Bellog's back. "And where is the current Eagle Man? Surely, he has accompanied you."
Bellog frowned. "Tepes went along ahead with the king's party," he said. The general's own son wore the crown and would be relinquishing it to Hurrus in the official ceremony. Bellog brightened. "Remember when the king would send me to fetch you when you were but a child…"
"And here I am, a grown man, and you are still fetching me," Hurrus said. "Some things apparently will never change, eh, Bellog?"
Bellog's mouth tightened. Hurrus leaned down and kissed Nadia on her sunken cheek.
"When you see me next, Mama, I will be the Eagle Man," he said. Nadia nodded happily.
By the time he had assembled his men and mounted up with Bellog and his escort, Hurrus wore his full panoply of armor. His sculpted bronze breastplate glittered like gold and a pair of shining greaves covered his shins. Likewise attired, his companions had donned their crimson cloaks and made a striking contrast to Bellog's darkly leathered horsemen. The darkness seemed to match their mood. Xandros kept up a stream of ribald commentary as they rode. His jests earned a share of sneers from Bellog's riders but had Hurrus' companions convulsing with laughter.
Led by the burly strong man in dark leather and the golden prince on his high-stepping white stallion, the hundred-rider column quickly attracted crowds of city folk. Outriders cleared the roads, and people scrambled to line the column's path, bowing in reverence or waving or simply gaping in awe. Bellog rode with square-jawed solemnity, Hurrus smiled and waved, and Xandros blew kisses to the pretty girls. The procession had the feeling of a lark. It wasn't until the crowds thinned and they crested the ridge above the parade grounds and saw the ten-thousand-strong corps of the Eagle Man arrayed on the plain below that Hurrus was struck by the enormity of the day.
King Myletos was the first to greet him.
"Hurrus, my boy!" he shouted. He approached on foot and Hurrus dismounted. The king embraced him. "Look at you! You look splendid!" He held him at arm's length. The king's lined face was beaming. "It is Xarhux reborn, I tell you!"
Hurrus smiled. He would take Myletos' word for his resemblance to the great Gyriecian conqueror. No one had been closer to Xarhux than Myletos. He had campaigned by his side from Gyriece to Tygetia to the unnamed lands in the east. When the fighting ended, Myletos, the greatest of Xarhux's lieutenants, was granted the juiciest of Xarhux's plums: Tygetia. His other generals, including his twin brother Arrhus, took all the other lands of the conquest -- and they had been at one another's throats ever since. Only Tygetia enjoyed relative peace. Xarhux himself, after conquering the world, had succumbed to poison.
"Perhaps the resemblance is but skin-deep," Hurrus said. "When Xarhux was my age, he had already conquered half the world. I have not yet conquered this parade ground."
"Ah, but in moments, all will be yours," Myletos assured him.
He was wearing the formal attire of his office, a flowing purple robe trimmed in gold. His head was bare. A servant carrying the royal headdress followed him solicitously around the field. The crown was made of snow-white jewel-encrusted leather over a foot tall and the servant anxiously scurried after the king as if it was attached to him by an invisible cord.
The hundred riders of Bellog's troops and Hurrus' companions along with their servants and attendants swelled the throng that had already assembled on the rise above the parade grounds. Amid the bobbing horsehair crests adorning the helms of milling guardsmen and the checkered headscarves of soldiers, Hurrus picked out of the crowd a bevy of familiar faces. Among them was Jhar. He was speaking to the high priest of the Zarceni, a man named Kemhet. He would bless the crown as it passed from Tepes to Hurrus, Nadia's 'mumbo-jumbo'. Hurrus' stepbrother Garon approached on Myletos' heels and embraced Hurrus in turn. Garon was a soft and affable young man, Myletos' natural son, four years' Hurrus' senior.
"Whatever will I do without your wise counsel, brother?" he asked as Hurrus broke away from his embrace. Even in his military regalia, Garon did not achieve much of a martial bearing. Smiling out from beneath the grinning crocodile of the blue war crown was the double-chinned face of a child. Guileless, lazy and effete, Garon could also be charismatic and engaging in small doses. He was most well-known for his love of food, the spicier the better, and one could usually detect a hint of garlic on his breath. Hurrus felt a genuine, if sometimes detached, affection for his stepbrother. He was at least sincere, if nothing else.
"Wise counsel," Hurrus scoffed. "Parade planner, you mean."
"Oh, but what parades!" Garon exclaimed.
For the past two years, Hurrus had worked on Garon's staff. The corps of the Crocodile Man considered itself an elite body but only because tradition called it that. The men were recruited on the strength of their good looks alone. Under Garon, the unit had never lifted a spear in anger, and excelled only at preening their pretty uniforms, marching in cadence and catching flowers as they paraded past throngs of admiring girls in Archentethe. Hurrus would not miss it.
"And where is my brother Kerraunus?" Hurrus asked. He didn't even see any of his white-cloaked troops among the crowd. Not that it surprised him.
"The Sarians raided Cunama last night," Bellog blustered from somewhere outside the royal enclave. He strode self-importantly into the center of the group.
Hurrus made a quick calculation. Cunama. A tiny village on the northeastern frontier. This was not the first time the Sarians had attacked it. An unimportant place, populated mostly by Sarian half-breeds, anyway.
"What do you think, Bellog?" the king put in jovially, ignoring the plight of Cunama. "Does Xarhux walk amongst us again?" He spread his arms to indicate Hurrus.
Bellog bared his teeth in what passed for a smile. "And the men he has assembled could be the conqueror's famous companions themselves." There was no smile in Bellog's eyes as he took in Xandros and his twenty in crimson and bronze. All the men on the ridge had begun shaking themselves out and now stood in separate ranks.
"Kerraunus is off to Cunama, then?" Hurrus asked.
"He has taken a fang to deal with the Sarians."
Five hundred men. In the corps of the Snake Man, such a unit was called a 'fang'. In Eagle Man's corps, it was a 'talon'. Hurrus could see his men below arrayed in twenty talons of five hundred men each, a mighty host of rotten troops.
"But surely it is useless now," Hurrus said. "The Sarians will be long gone by the time Kerraunus gets there."
"They are forever hiding behind their desert," Myletos said. "They come out on plundering raids and we chase them back again. No army can cross that wasteland."
"Apparently, the Sarians can," Hurrus observed.
"Kerraunus will be too late to stop them, it is true. He will not be too late to deliver retribution, however," Bellog said. Hurrus caught a whiff of condescension in his tone. He was always catching a whiff of something emanating from the oaf. "Kerraunus is just the man to hand out some much-needed pain to that scum."
"Trading plunder for plunder," Hurrus said. "No doubt a mode of warfare that suits my dear brother and his noble corps well."
"Oh? And what would do you in his place?"
Hurrus cocked an eyebrow. "I would destroy the Sarians," he said simply.
Bellog unleashed a belly laugh at that notion. Even Myletos chuckled. Garon, sensing that something humorous had been said, laughed along. Clearly, Hurrus did not understand the first thing about the Sarian question.
"Hurrus the Conqueror!" Bellog bellowed in great mirth. "A conqueror without an army! Oh, wait…I forgot about your vaunted twenty. My apologies, Xarhu--I mean, Prince Hurrus."
Bellog gave a great bow. Nodding, Hurrus had smiled throughout the Master of Arms' amusing little tirade, all the while wondering where the nearest staff was sheathed so he could crack the man's smallish skull again. Perhaps he would not let him up this time.
Tepes came trudging up the slope, followed by his companion body.
"The corps is ready," he announce
d. He was wearing the blue war crown of Zarcen, the bronze eagle wings spreading over his forehead. He looked put out, as always. Bushy black eyebrows pinched in toward his nose, giving him a permanent scowl so that his eyes appeared to frown even when the rest of his face smiled. What would have been a spirited, mischievous look in a lad was a wicked, devious face on a man. Hurrus had long ago decided that Tepes must take after his mother -- surely some Sarian whore -- for he little resembled Bellog except for his strongly muscled physique.
Tepes' men followed him three-abreast up the slope. Like his father's troops, they were dour, unhappy men. They were garbed in the same dark leather, but in place of the blue-black cloaks, they wore leopard skins draped over their shoulders. Tepes led them past Xandros' twenty as they stood at attention in a two-deep line. To a man, they eyed Hurrus' companions contemptuously.
"Whatcha all dressed up for?" one of them asked in a mocking tone. His fellows laughed as they passed. Scarves of checkered cloth that descended over their shoulders and draped across their throats covered their shaved heads. Xandros' men had all donned their horsehair-crested helmets. Their eyes glinted dimly inside the iron masks.
"Don't look now," Xandros said to the laughing men, "but I think there's a leopard on your back. You should be careful, for its claws are as sharp as the points of our spears."
"You make idle threats well enough," the man said. "But do you also juggle and dance?"
Tepes' column marched so close to the Gyriecian line that they brushed the men as they passed. One of Tepes' men extended an elbow into Deon's breastplate, causing him to stumble backward. Xandros reached out a single strong hand and grabbed that man by the scruff of his neck, leopard skin and all. He cried out and fell to his knees in pain. Deon let his spear fall to the ground and stepped forward.
Xandros towered over the cringing man. "Who's dancing now?"
The Blood Gate Page 9