by John F. Carr
Sirna had never thought of a long life as anything but a benefit; suddenly she could see there were two sides to every coin. "Not if they have to shoot me first!" Then she started to laugh as the wagon sped up, rocking back and forth.
"What are you laughing about? Eldra asked. "This is no time to get hysterical."
"I was just thinking of Varnath Lala being drug into a Nostori brothel—giving one of her lectures on male-paternalism and it's deleterious effects on woman's rights to the madam!"
Eldra laughed. "Better yet, envision her, with her bony shanks and flat chest, in one of the shifts the harlots at the Silver Stag were wearing!"
"Now, that's a vision!" Sirna said, trying to keep from falling out of her seat. There was an explosion and she turned to see what was happening with the rest of the wagon train—all she could see was a cloud of smoke.
"One of the kegs of fireseed must have gone up!" Eldra cried.
Two of the wagons were on fire and there was the distant pop of firearms. For the moment, they appeared to have gotten clean away as there was no one in pursuit. Sirna said a quick prayer to Dralm for the rest of the Team.
IV
Archstratagos Zarphu, who had fought in thirty battles in as many years without giving in to fear, noticed a tremble in his legs as he entered the Lord Tyrant's audience chamber. Dyzar, the Tyrant of Antiphon, was truly one of the greatest rulers in Antiphon's history, but that was not enough to make him a great man in Zarphu's eyes. Neither was the sparse beard that grew upon Dyzar's cheeks.
Dyzar did not view other people as living, feeling beings like himself; instead they were pieces to be moved or removed from life's game board. His outbursts of temper were as notorious as his women's quarters, which were filled with young slave girls and other young ladies 'lost' on the city streets after catching Dyzar's eye.
These days there was more silver than bronze in Zarphu's hair, and despite the recent victory over the Army of Leuctramnos, Dyzar might finally have decided that it was time for a younger man to command the city's army. Maybe one more malleable to his will. He was certain he had not done anything recently to make Dyzar doubt his loyalty and good service. Yet, since when had the Lord Tyrant ever needed proof of anything beyond his own whims and suspicions?
The two palace guards, both Eternals, wearing gilded chain mail and sporting red horsehair crests in their helmets, stood as if cast in metal. Zarphu wondered how they endured the constant inactivity; perhaps they were secretly amused by the parade of visitors into—and sometimes—out of Dyzar's chambers.
The door swung open and the Chamberlain bade him enter.
The Lord Tyrant Dyzar wore a rose and black velvet robe and his scruffy beard was intricately braided with gold wire. The Tyrant was reclining on a long red divan trimmed with gold mesh. He indicated that Zarphu was to sit on the other end of the divan.
After kneeling and touching the floor three times with forehead, Zarphu rose. "Your Magnificence, I am your slave to command—"
"Arch-Strategos, We will dispense with the usual formalities for We have an urgent matter to discuss with you. Are you familiar with the former refugees from Our lands who have settled beyond the Iron Trail?"
"No, Your Magnificence."
"Certainly you have heard the fables from the Time of Troubles about those who chose to flee to the lands beyond the Sea of Grass?"
"Yes, Your Magnificence. But I did not know there was truth behind those tales."
The Lord Tyrant nodded his head. "They are mentioned in the Lost Chronicles of Domitios. These I'm sure you have heard whispered words about."
Discourse with the Lord Tyrant was like sword fighting against a skilled blademaster; any feigns or missteps could be instantly fatal. "Yes, Your Magnificence, I have heard about them although I did not believe they still existed."
The Lord Tyrant grinned. "The Chronicles are part of my secret library. Of course, any mention of what has passed between us in this chamber will cost you and your family dearly. Is that understood?"
Zarphu nodded.
"Good. As you know the Time of Troubles began with the Echini War against the Echanistra Confederation and lasted for almost a thousand years. Near the end of the war, Echanistra's fleet was nearly destroyed; so many of the northerners decided to flee their homelands. Invited by King Chaldorec of Grefftscharr, many of them followed the Iron Trail and beyond to new lands, where in the winter snow is as common as the sand on our beaches. There they conquered the Ruthani, as our ancestors did three thousand years ago, and took the land as their own.
"We know few details about their conquest, but in time five major kingdoms were established—each dominated by a great city-state, much like our own rule. For many years they have grown and prospered, all without tribute or tithes to the lords they fled. Now a new kingdom has formed and they have asked for our help. Maybe the time has arrived for us to reestablish our dominion over these strayed children."
There was an intense inner light in the Lord Tyrant's eyes that worried Zarphu. The Tyrant Laertru, Dyzar's father, had built the greatest army in the history of Antiphon. His son had used this army to subdue and conquer his neighbors, a feat no one had accomplished since the Time of Troubles. Now the Lord Tyrant's power extended from Amcylyestros in the south to Tyrantor in the north. Apparently, not even the domination of the Great Cities was enough to appease Dyzar's appetite for power. Were the rumors that the Lord Tyrant wanted to forge an empire from Great Sea to Great Sea actually true?
"We have been approached by agents of Styphon's House—the Temple of an Eastern god—with a request to hire part of our army. The terms are generous and we have accepted their offer. Now that we have wrested peace from Amcylyestros, and have so soundly defeated Leuctramnos that they too seek a settlement—all due to your brilliant generalship—we have an unparalleled opportunity to learn about the land and their peoples."
"Who is this Styphon, Your Magnificence?"
"Some false god of war they worship." Dyzar continued. "He cannot be a very good god or they would not need our help. According to their emissary, they are embroiled in a war with a demigod named Kalvan and desire our help to defeat him. Demigod indeed! I care not one whit for their petty struggles, but there can be much to gain by going to their aid. We need to know more about these barbarians if we are to exploit their troubles to our advantage."
"How much of our army do they wish to hire?"
"Four stratgi of horse and fourteen of foot, including two stratgi of plumbati."
"Your Magnificence, that is almost a quarter of our entire army. Can we afford the loss of so many valuable men?"
"Yes. With Leuctramnos suing for peace there is no other city-state left to oppose us but Sybariphon in the north, and they are still at war with
Echanistra. We may never have a better opportunity to search out the Easterners' weaknesses."
Zarphu felt weak in the knees, as if he had been ordered to run his army into the ocean to fight the waves. What madness was this? He would have to cross the Sea of Grass, fight the warriors of Greffa and defeat the barbarian kingdoms, who—if stories were to be believed—fought with fire and metal, shot by sticks farther than the fleetest arrow.
"I need you to lead them, Arch-Stratego. Only you will be trusted with the true secret of our mission."
Yanked out of his reverie by this pronouncement, Zarphu knew chances were small he would ever return and see his beloved city again. Maybe, as his friends had warned, his own success on the battlefield had made him too dangerous to be left alive. Certainly an honorable death on the battlefield, no matter how far from home, was to be preferred to the assassin's dart.
"How long will we remain in the barbarian's employ?" Zarphu asked.
"Until next winter, or this Kalvan—be he man or demi-god—is dead."
Seeing the boy—for boy he still was, to Zarphu, for all his arrogance and lofty ambitions—seated there looking so completely alone, an upsurge of that wretched emotion called loyalt
y stirred in Zarphu's heart. Without thinking he knelt before his sovereign with the ridiculous gold-threaded scruffy beard, took his hand and placed it atop his head in the older gesture of fealty among the Ros-Zarthani and quietly said, "I will serve Your Magnificence, until I bear Kalvan's skull as a drinking cup or my shield is hung in Hadron's Hall."
"I knew my trust was well founded," Dyzar purred. "I want maps drawn of the entire journey, a list of all cities and fortifications you encounter, samples of all new armor and weapons, notes on how an army can be supplied on each part of the journey and any documents of military importance you can obtain. I will send scribes and mapmakers to aid you with these chores. In addition, I will entrust you with a bodyguard drawn from my Eternals; they will guard you with their lives."
The Eternals were the Lord Tyrants own personal bodyguard, as well as his eyes and ears, and occasionally his assassins. Zarphu was being both honored and kept safe. Why couldn't he shake the feeling that he was caught in an invisible undertow?
"Do not worry about your affairs in the city, Zarphu." Dyzar paused to stroke his beard. "Should you not return to us in two years time, We will gift your heirs Our weight in gold."
The Lord Tyrant was notoriously tightfisted; Zarphu couldn't help but wonder why the sudden benevolence. While a few of his friends had whispered their complaints about the Lord Tyrant's growing capriciousness, he had never in any way encouraged this kind of talk. He had also heard from one of his confidants that there were actual factions opposed to the Lord Tyrant's rule, so perhaps Dyzar had some justification for his worries about his security and the loyalty of his stratagi.
His own loyalty was incorruptible. "I thank you for your generosity, Your Magnificence. I shall return before the passing of two winters so your generosity will not be wasted." Zarphu prostrated himself before the crown again and kissed the Lord Tyrant's feet. He then rose, pausing only as he was about to cross the threshold to ask one last question. "When do we leave?"
"In a moon-quarter, Arch-Stratego. We are having the fleet fitted and provisioned to take you and your command as far as Mythrene. There you will disembark, buy additional provisions and wagons, and take leave for Olythrio. The Styphoni will have additional guides there to help you with your travels. Now We will give you leave to muster your men and prepare for the coming journey."
TWENTY NINE
Thunder roared and shook the rooftree of Ranjar Sargos' temporary longhouse. For a few moments it drowned out the squeal of horses and the babble of more tongues than he had heard in all his days. Not since the time of his grandfather twice removed had such a great wave of humanity flooded over the Great River and spilled its way into the Sastragath. Like flotsam tossed by the River, Sargos and his tribe had been picked up and pushed up into the Lydistros Valley.
Yet, as a flood replenishes the land it destroys, there was good which came with this river of humanity. Since few of the chiefs knew these lands, the Plainsmen had been forced to rely upon the knowledge of those who did. Ranjar Sargos, having spent four years of his youth as a mercenary in the Army of Gyroth, knew more about the Trygath than all but a few headmen in the great war band. This, along with Sargos' renown as a warrior, had placed him at the forefront of this human tidal wave.
Now only the constant pressure of the Black Knights gave the wave its form and kept it from dispersing into hundreds of separate war bands. Once that push was gone the horde would break up and lose its cohesion, whereupon they would all be destroyed piecemeal by the Trygathi iron hats and their allies. The time had arrived for a great warlord to guide the horde and Ranjar Sargos knew that there lay his own destiny—for had not his own dream vision foretold of such triumphs? So it had and much more!
Sargos took several deep breaths, held them, and waited until Thanor's banging upon his great anvil in the sky had ceased, then he spoke again to the assembled Plains headmen and Sastragathi chiefs. "The gods have allowed the Black Knights to take the field. They have allowed the demigod Kalvan of Hostigos to enter the Trygath—"
"Demigod or daemon, this Kalvan is no friend to the Trygathi, less so to the Black Knights," Chief Alfgar interrupted. "Let all three of them fight one another, I say. This is what the gods intend. Then let us pick the bones of the survivors!"
"Or Nestros and Kalvan swear brotherhood and pick our bones," Sargos snapped, his voice growing in volume. He had never been even-tempered and knew it. He also knew that since the Tymannes had left their ancestral hunting grounds he had grown even sharper of tongue.
"By Thanor's Hammer, that is as the gods will—" Chief Alfgar began.
A wordless muttering interrupted him, as Headman Jardar Hyphos once more tried to form words with a mouth and jaw yet unhealed from the blow of a Knight's mace. His son held his ear against Hyphos' mouth for a moment, and then nodded.
"My father says he doubts the gods have willed it that we come so far only to fall to our pride as well as our enemies."
"You yapping puppy!" Chief Alfgar roared. "Your father is a man. You are—"
"Silence," Sargos bellowed. He did not know what this would do, except perhaps make all the chiefs angry at him rather than at one another. That could be a gain, if he were able to do something with their attention.
"To be proud is the mark of a warrior, as all are here," Sargos began. "To let everything yield to that pride is the mark of a fool. More than four hands worth of tribes in this great warband have set aside their pride and sworn to follow me. The gods have not punished them. Why should you fare otherwise?"
"Witlings and women," Alfgar muttered just loud enough that Sargos alone could hear. Sargos decided for the moment to ignore him and willed his blood to slow its pounding beat.
"How many of those tribes are now north of the Lydistros, fighting as they please?" Chief Rostino asked. Of all those present, he seemed to have the most Ruthani blood as well as the most dignity.
Sargos chose an equally dignified answer. "I am not a Great King, with a host of armed slaves to punish disobedient warriors as if they were children.
I am Warchief over the Tymannes, and those who swear to follow me as Warlord do so by choice."
"Well, then," Chief Alfgar said. "It is my choice not to swear any oaths to Ranjar Sargos, nor any other sachem or chieftain. We of the Sea of Grass have held that each chief was his own master since the Great Mountains rose from the earth. Maybe the dirt scrapers and log builders of the Sastragath are more accustomed to following at the heels of their masters like curs!" Alfgar punctuated his words by slamming his hands against his bone vest, making a sound like that of a shot being fired.
The hands of about half of the two score of chieftains inside the long-house streaked for their knives, the only weapons allowed inside during the parlay. Sargos was glad that Althea had obeyed his request to stay in their hut. He hadn't had to explain to Althea that her presence would a strike against his leadership by the more hide-bound Grassmen and clansmen. He also knew that she would not only have drawn her knife, after Chief Alfgar's insult, but used it as well!
Sargos signaled for attention. "This is not the time to hurl baseless insults nor fight among ourselves. There is great treasure to be won and much glory to be gained in fighting our real enemies, not each other.
Most of the chiefs sat back down and nodded their agreement to this sage advice.
But Hyphos' son held his ground. "You have not fought Kalvan, Alfgar. We have fought others like him many times in the Trygath and we have learned that to win we must stand as one—like wolves, not curs."
"You, a milksop not long from you mother's teat, dare instruct me!" Alfgar replied, with his face twisted into an ugly leer. "What has Sargos given you, that you take his word about the Daemon Kalvan, whom he has never seen?"
Hyphos' son would have drawn his knife if his father's arm had not been sounder than his jaw—the bronzed arm gripped the young man's wrist and twisted. He gasped and dropped his knife.
"See! How the Sastragathi lick their master's h
and. When Sargos nods his head, the old rein in the young. This is not the way of the Plains!"
Rage flowed into Sargos, lifting him like a giant's hands—or perhaps the hands of the gods. Certainly he had never felt their presence more strongly, even in the sweathouse of his manhood rites.
"Let us submit this matter to the judgment of the gods." Sargos drew from the hides of his chieftain's chair the sacred ax of the chiefs of the Tymannes. "With this ax and no other weapon I will fight Chief Alfgar, this day, in this place. He may use any weapon his honor allows him."
"No!" Chief Ulldar exclaimed. Next to Sargos, Ulldar Zodan was the wisest man in the room in the new ways of warfare. Two of his sons had served Chief Harmakros in Kalvan's wars and told him much. They had also brought him a tooled and engraved horsepistol that was the envy of every chief in the longhouse. "The gods have taken away Chief Alfgar's wits. What if they have taken away his honor as well?"
Several of Alfgar's fellow chiefs had to restrain him from trying to kill Ulldar with his bare hands. When the uproar had subsided, Alfgar had found his voice again. "I will fight with the handspear against your ax, you godless son of a she-bitch who weaned you on stinkcat piss!"
"Let it be done, then," Sargos pronounced. His rage was already fading, and in its place were doubts that he was really in the hands of the gods after all. If he fell—and Alfgar promised to be a formidable foe—neither he nor his son would ever see the Tymannes great longhouse again.
Why not be hopeful ? he thought. If I win, it will prove the gods' favor and my own prowess as well. Then all the chiefs and clan headmen assembled here will proclaim me Warlord, and those lesser chiefs who are not here will quickly follow. Cast the bones and let the gods see to where they fall —by Thanor's Hammer !
Sargos led the chiefs and headmen out to the square in the middle of the longhouses. The rain was still falling and what had already fallen made the square a sea of foul-smelling mud. Sargos judged this would be to his advantage: Alfgar, a plainsman, could seldom have fought on foot, on a slope and in mud up to his ankles.