A girl’s voice called out to them. They’d ridden right back to some of the baggage wagons: there was Ryn’s pretty acrobat, riding on a pretty ribbon-decked cart. She cheered and waved. Blew kisses. They rode up to her, dismounted, Ryn shouted for someone to take the horses. They both scrambled up onto the cart while it was still moving, just to show off further. She laughed and kissed them both. She could do this amazing thing balancing on her hands on the back of a moving horse. Naked. Not that it should be any more impressive than doing it fully clothed, but.
Ryn was a simpler man than Osen. Marith had the feeling she was happier with him.
“Shall we have a party tonight?” she said to Marith.
“We could.” Scouts reported an oasis up ahead, they should reach it well before sunset. A local guide reported it also, but local guides were not to be trusted. A muddy well, a ruined caravanserai, a chance to stop and replenish their water supplies, so why not have a party? We’re running over with wine and hatha and all the good things. Elarne had been poorer and uglier than Marith had imagined. The magelord Nevet burned the place to ashes with a single word: it wasn’t worth more than a single word. Six months ago, the Army of Amrath would almost have turned their noses up at sacking the place. The one thing it did have in great quantities was hatha. He’d had a very good few days, after Elarne fell, Ryn assured him.
The acrobat prodded her new servant girl. “A party. See to it.” The girl nodded. Got down from the cart to run back through the columns, talk to people, start getting things prepared. She limped as she went. She’d be almost as pretty as the acrobat, when her bruises healed, poor thing.
A lot of new servants in the trail of camp followers. Tired, grey-looking women. Men carrying soldiers’ baggage like pack mules.
The people of Chathe had no love of magecraft. Feared and hated magery, since the day a thousand years ago and more when the first Amrath came down upon them, ordered the magelord Nevet to burn the city to ashes. The men of Elarne fought before the gates of their city, throwing rocks and spears. Nevet spoke a single word and the city burned and every living thing within it burned up into dust. That was a thousand years ago. But not a thing one can easily forget. So the people of Elarne banished magecraft. Punished mages with death. Stupid, really. Given the only thing that can hold off magecraft is another mage. But one could perhaps sympathize with their desire to make a point. They must have learnt something, anyway, from the whole experience: they did not accept Amrath as a god, the heathens, but when they raised up a new city on the congealing remains of the old one they built temples to the god Fire, and to the god Pestilence, and to the god Grief. The people of Sorlost gave thanks each night that the sun had set without them dying. The people of Elarne gave thanks each night that the sun had set without them dying of fire or plague or heartbreak. And when Marith Altrersyr was crowned king in Ethalden, they did him homage. Gave him troops and money. Burned the Rose Forest at his command. Knelt to swear fealty to him.
They had crowded into their temples when he came for them. He had cut them down like the corn in a good harvest, sweet plump golden corn in the sweet fresh breeze of summer warmth, and the farmer comes with his scythe to cut it down. Blue fire on his sword glowing. It lit up their skin blue as they died. They had crowded into the temples. He led his men to the temples. Fire and Pestilence and Grief. Fire is wonderful. Divine, glorious; Thalia had asked him if the people of the White Isles worshipped fire, once. Pestilence is a terrible thing, carries off whole villages, kills in long-drawn-out ways that a sword can rarely match. Grief is grief, and worse than fire and worse than pestilence, grief is a knife in a man’s mind, ruining him. But fire and pestilence and grief are not gods. He led his men into the temples. They killed and killed there until there was no one left. They took the city apart stone by stone with their bare hands, ripped the buildings into rubble, ground the rubble into dust. They had been nervous and reluctant at first, on edge, uncertain. Their homeland, their families, their friends. Ryn had reassured them. Then they had done it eagerly.
And then a few days’ rest, and a few days’ gathering themselves, and they went on. Defeat had shown them the truth of themselves. We have not come to conquer a kingdom. We have come only to kill. They marched into the sunrise, while behind them the air was so thick with flies they blocked out the sun.
The party was a good one, given the circumstances. The oasis was indeed a muddy well with a ruined caravanserai looming beside it, an immense thing still painted with fading birds and flowers, the central courtyard tiled in blue to look like a pool of water, some of the rooms around it even had the remains of roofs. Alis Nymen got Marith’s things set up in the best of them. The well was reached using a wheel and a pulley, the well shaft so deep that the water couldn’t be seen; when the buckets came up the water was brown with sand, but ice cold even in the desert heat. Once the goat shit had been cleaned out of the caravanserai courtyard, it was a fine place for a party. Marith’s beautiful white horse was brought in and the acrobat did her handstand trick on it. They were all a bit drunk by then and Marith had a vague worry the horse wouldn’t understand what was happening, but it came off well. Kiana’s leg seemed a little better, her pain a little less obvious; and like the acrobat she was more relaxed without Osen moping over her trying to look down her dress. Even the ache in his own shoulder was somehow more bearable since Elarne fell. After the girl had finished her act Marith stumbled over to the doorway to look at his army feasting, the flicker of their campfires, laughter and song. It was strange thinking that only a short while past they had been fleeing in terror away from him, broken and afraid that they would lose, cursing him.
“I should bloody kill you, Ryn.”
“I know you should. Give me a chance to make it up to you. Please.”
“They look fine, don’t they?” Ryn came up to lean beside him, looking out at the army also. Singing and dancing; men in full armour fighting mock-duels; men naked and wrestling with each other, showing off the strength of their arms and legs. Some simply sitting quiet in the dark, looking out into the east, dreaming of what was to come. “Elarne was good for them,” Ryn said. “Gave them their confidence back.”
“Yes.”
“Gods, it was splendid, wasn’t it? I haven’t felt that good for years. That first charge, riding down on them, and they just ran, gods, the look on them, when they ran! And then going through the gates, when the gates gave way, going in, and the noise they made, when they saw us, and the feeling inside me, when I saw the first of them go down to me…”
“Yes.”
“Yes. Anyway.” Ryn frowned. “Yes.” Tried to brighten: “I’ve sent for some more of that rosehip spirit you were so keen on. Drinking game, Marith: can you down a drink for every city you’ve sacked?”
“I could the last time we played it.” It was boring then. “I don’t recall having sacked that many cities since.”
Ryn would be loyal forever, now. Could see it in Ryn’s eyes. “Let me take Elarne for you, Marith. Let me march the army on Elarne, show you my loyalty. I’ll kill everyone in Elarne for you, Marith. I swear. I’m so sorry. Gods, Marith, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I abandoned you.” I’m at your mercy, Ryn. I have a handful of men and Kiana Sabryya with her wounded leg. You have an army. But you’re down on your knees, grovelling to me.
“And Callisa wants to show you another trick she’s been working on. Just for you. She’s very proud of it.”
Callisa? Oh, yes, that must be the acrobat.
Ryn leered. “Her servant girl takes part in it, too. Two of them.”
“Two of them.” Two women. Imagine that.
Down in the camp someone was playing a flute. A faint little tune, the same few notes repeating, like a young boy might play. Someone down in the camp was sober and clearheaded and feeling melancholy. Looking up at the stars and the endless dark of the sky, feeling the desert pressing around them, empty, vast, grieving over it, turning it into music.
I shou
ld find them and bloody kill them, Marith thought. Get a few more drinks down me and I probably will. He went back to join the party. Callisa and other girl did their new trick. They played the drinking game. Marith won. Twice.
The flute player’s brother complained loudly the next morning about how upset he was. Alis Nymen gave him a bag of gold and exempted him from latrine duties. The flute player’s brother went off with a spring in his step, whistling.
There were other things, once. I remember. I thought of… of other things. I used… when I was a child… when… And with Thalia, sometimes, I thought… when I looked at her… I hoped…
Beyond this, fuck it.
More and more soldiers drifted in to join them as they marched. A handful of desert people, a trickle of them every day, looking for anything more than sand and goats and sand again. Familiar, isn’t that, somehow? Sure he’d heard it before. They were scrawny and ignorant of soldiering, but tough as anything, could march for days on bad water and worse food, bloody good with a knife. Survivors from the Army of Amrath, creeping out from hiding; they had thrown away their weapons along with their pride, came meek and fearful of the welcome Marith might offer them, half-expecting, all of them, that he would have them killed as traitors, frightened now of their own weakness. “You were dead… We thought you were dead…” Hollow little voices. Astonished at themselves, ashamed of themselves. The army embraced them delightedly, welcomed them back as old comrades. “How could the king be dead? How could we lose? Look at him! Look at us!” Every night came the sounds of song and laughter, another man found, welcomed home. Newcomers, men from all over Irlast who had heard tell of the miracle, came running to offer themselves. Immishmen; men from Medana and Maun, eager to tell of the riches of their own homes, how easy the conquest would be; thin, bitter-eyed survivors from Calchas, Tarboran, Eralad, tired of starving in the ruins, forced at last to embrace their rightful king. A well-equipped cavalry troop from the White Isles, even, that had been half a year on the road and had never heard the story that King Marith was dead; they were welcomed with wild rejoicing, stared in wonder as they heard the tale, roared and screamed at the absurdity. And, one glorious morning, fifty men from Alleen Durith’s forces, weeping with shame, kneeling to kiss the lowliest camp servant’s hands, they had killed their commanding officer, turned and run back across the desert going day and night, when they heard the rumour that Marith was still alive. The Army of Amrath, reborn in glory. We have merely been tested in the fire, we have been remade stronger, more determined than before. We know the taste of defeat, now, we know what it is the vanquished must endure. We will enjoy it more than before, now, when we inflict it, for we know what it is our victims feel. The Ansikanderakesis Amrakane’s sword is made of iron, it was forged and cooled and heated again and again, it was tempered in blood. Bronze is brittle, blunts, shatters: iron is made stronger each time it is plunged into the fire and the blood. We are men with hearts of iron. We doubted once. We shall never doubt again.
It rained, the day after Alleen’s men had come, and that felt like a gift to welcome them. Gods, gods, he remembered the desert in the rain. The smell of the water. The life there, so suddenly. Men dancing in the rain. Marith lay in the acrobat girl’s cart listening to the raindrops beating on the canvas covering it, drumming hard and fast, dripping in through a hole somewhere in the canvas and that sound, too, was musical. Distant shouting and talking. The motion of the cart changed, the horses splashing through the water, the sound of their hooves changed. The cart must be going slower. The men were laughing in the rain. The light in the cart was different. Clouds blocking the golden sun. The dim light was moving, he could feel it spreading around him. There was a damp mark on the canvas, where the water was coming in: it looked a little like a tree, he could see the shape in it like looking at a cloud. It rippled, there were colours in it, flashing and fading to the rhythm of the drips coming in. It was green, a forest spreading, he stared at it and saw tall heavy trees, their leaves rustled, a bird flapped pale pink wings in time to the rhythm of the water, now the bird was in a golden cage, and the bars of the cage were moving and trembling, the bird flapped its wings, the bird was in the forest again and the forest was changing into a wild dark sea, he was moving up and down with the waves, floating. He was falling through the night sky, tumbling over and over, and the waves were silver stars. He was looking up at the ceiling of a huge building, and the ceiling was painted with flowers and trees.
The hatha in the vial tasted of rainwater. The flowers faded and he could no longer see anything. He had a hangover worse than he’d had for ages the next day, and Ryn looked at him blankly when he asked about the rain.
“This is a bloody desert, Marith, My Lord King.”
They were getting very near now, Ryn and Kiana told him. They needed to make proper plans now. The journey seemed to have gone much more quickly than he’d realized. “You said it would take a month, at least,” he said to Ryn, and Ryn looked at him in astonishment again.
“Marith—”
“Ryn?”
“Nothing. Never mind.” Ryn shrugged. “Plans.”
“Plans. Yes.”
That afternoon it really did rain, and the men really did enjoy it, laughing and whooping for joy, and there were insects, suddenly, and pink flowers, and the smell of the rainwater, and the light was changed. And it was beautiful. He set out his plans: sack it and burn it and kill everyone. That done, he sat in the cart with the cover open to the rain. But today the hatha didn’t taste of rainwater.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“The scouts say there’s a town about an hour up ahead.”
Marith sat up groggily, rubbed at his eyes. He seemed to be in a baggage cart. He banged his head on the side of the cart and winced. The cart seemed to be moving. Ryn Mathen seemed to be speaking to him.
“What?” Thought that was what he got out. It sounded strange. Echoey. Might be his head or his ears or his mouth. His mouth was very dry.
It was Ryn, wasn’t it? Blinked. Yes.
Ryn passed him a bottle. “A town, Marith. You wanted to be informed. The scouts say that it’s larger than anything we’ve come across for weeks now.”
Reached out to take the bottle. He was holding something. He squinted at it. A hatha vial. Empty. Sadly. Took the bottle from Ryn, had a long drink. Sat up again, more carefully. Managed to stay upright. “Good.” He crawled past Ryn, poked his head out of the canvas, blinked and cursed at the light. Yellow desert. The tail end of the army, marching, the baggage train and the camp followers stumbling along. There, if he squinted, surely, on the horizon, a flash of fire that must be the sun catching the bronze walls of Sorlost.
“What time is it?” The shadows suggested late afternoon. Or early morning, if they’d turned around and were now marching back west. Which would be stupid. He shook his head. Late afternoon. Definitely. And there was a town up ahead. Ryn had just said that. I think?
Ryn said, “I was about to give the order to stop for the night. The town is about an hour further on, north-east of here. Give the men a rest and a meal first.”
“Yes.” Marith thought about jumping down from the cart while it was moving. Ryn must have just clambered onto it while it was moving. Decided that might not be the best idea in the history of Irlast. A town. Yes. “I’ll lead them.”
Ryn looked at him, said, “Of course,” in a commendably unperturbed voice.
The wine was beginning to clear his head a bit. “I’ll take—did the scouts have any thoughts of how big the place is? Walled? No, not walled, the towns and villages around here aren’t as I remember. They’re small places, as I remember, piss-poor, defenceless, all of them, locals can barely speak their own language, no taste in clothes or drink.” I’m rambling. Shut up. “Yes. I’ll take… a hundred horsemen, and as many again foot. The men from the Whites among the horsemen, the new ones. Test them. Kiana can come. You stay here with the rest.”
Poor Ryn looked most disappointed. Marit
h jumped down from the cart, almost ended up in a heap in the sand but Ryn caught him and held him up.
“All right, all right, you can come. Tell Alis he’s in charge while we’re gone.”
They got settled on a stretch of rockier ground that dipped and then rose again, a low hill between the army and the town. Someone had lived here, once: there was a ruined wellhead, the remains of a house and garden, a withered copse of cimma fruit trees. The well still had water, when they could find a rope long enough; they put Marith’s tent up next to the largest of the trees so that he could see it from the doorway. There was time for a bath while the camp got settled. Luckily. Wasn’t sure how long he’d been… enjoying himself, but it seemed to have been a good few days. Distinct impression he must have developed an unpleasant smell from the way the servant girl reacted when she came to wash him. Tried to eat something, but between the excitement and the hangover he couldn’t manage it. A few cups of wine and a handful of keleth seeds to take the hangover away. The men were buzzing excitedly, he could feel the happiness in them; the sound was like the droning of honeybees. Peaceful: drinking wine in a hot bath on a warm evening, while the rose of sunset paled and the shadows fell long behind him. He dunked his head under, leaned back and closed his eyes as the servant girl rubbed his hair with oil that smelled of jasmine.
After the bath he dressed and armed himself slowly. This was the worst part. Perhaps it was the last of the hatha… the ghost of her, he could see her there in the tent, helping him dress himself, belting on his sword, fastening his blood-clot war cloak, her slender fingers on the silver, her eyes reflected in the dark ruby, serious look on her face as she adjusted the brooch and the cloak just so, her fingers cool as they brushed the bones at the base of his throat. The people of Chathe say that the seat of the soul is there, at the base of a man’s throat. Used to say, rather. And then she’d smile, as she always did, and sigh, and kiss him, and tell him to stay safe. He had to fasten and refasten and refasten the brooch of the cloak to get it to hang right.
The House of Sacrifice Page 34