The Treasured One

by David Eddings

  “Did you chase the slave down?” Narasan’s mother demanded in a bleak-sounding voice.

  “Oh, yes,” Kalan replied grimly, “and it took him a long, long time to die.”

  “That’s something, I guess,” Narasan’s mother said.

  “It’s not much, dear,” Kalan apologized, “but it’s about all I can give you. We put down that stupid rebellion in short order after that. The men were very unhappy about what’d happened to your husband, so they made examples of every runaway slave they got their hands on. I’m fairly sure that the slave-owners will have to do their own farming for the next few years, because we didn’t return very many live slaves to them when it was all over.”

  “That’s just too bad,” Narasan’s mother replied. Then she rushed from the room, and Narasan could hear her wails of grief coming from the adjoining chamber.

  During the next days and weeks, Narasan’s mother grew increasingly distraught. Narasan was trying, without much success, to deal with his own grief, but in time his uncle Kalan helped him through the worst of it. As his mind returned to some degree of normalcy, he came to realize that his mother was no longer rational. It was quite obvious that her grief had unhinged her mind. Narasan decided at that point that he should never marry. A soldier’s life could end quite abruptly, but the grief of a soldier’s wife could obviously go on forever. Narasan saw quite clearly that a real soldier was married to the army anyway.

  Narasan’s uncle Kalan had filled his brother’s shoes as the commander of the army, and he kept a close eye on his nephew.

  When Narasan reached his twelfth birthday, army custom placed him in the ranks of the cadets—the boys with army backgrounds who were extensively trained so that they’d be ready to receive commissions when they reached a certain age. Narasan excelled as a cadet, and when he turned fifteen, he was offered a commission as a very junior officer in his uncle’s army.

  He went through several wars before he turned twenty, and it was quite obvious that he was going to go far and fast—assuming, of course, that he lived long enough to move up through the ranks.

  He’d reached the rank of subcommander by the time he turned thirty-five, and his boyhood friends, Gunda and Padan, were not far behind him. The three of them served very well, much to the satisfaction of Commander Kalan. Narasan was fully aware of the fact that his uncle was keeping a close eye on his progress, so it came as no great surprise when, as the climax to the celebration of Narasan’s fortieth birthday in the officers’ lounge, his uncle rose to announce that he was retiring, and that Narasan would replace him as army commander.

  “I’m not really ready for command yet, Uncle Kalan,” Narasan protested.

  “You’d better get ready then,” his uncle declared, “because like it or not, you will be the commander when the sun comes up tomorrow.”

  “How do you plan to spend your retirement, Commander Kalan?” Narasan’s friend Gunda asked.

  “I thought I might catch up on my sleep,” Kalan replied. “Since I won’t be a soldier anymore, I won’t have to roll out of bed at first light the way I’ve been doing for the last forty years. Noon sounds about right to me. Then I’ll grab a quick bite to eat and go back to bed until suppertime.”

  “You’re a cruel man, Commander,” Narasan’s friend Padan protested. “We’ll still have to get up at daybreak but you’ll spend the whole morning rattling the walls with your snoring.”

  Commander Kalan grinned at him. “Just knowing that you’ll have to be up and moving when the sun rises will make my sleep all the more pleasant, Padan,” he replied.

  Narasan had been groomed for leadership since his early childhood, and despite his feeling that his recent promotion was premature, he found his new status as comfortable as an old boot.

  After a few minor wars, Narasan’s reputation began to grow, and other army commanders let it be generally known that their price would double if the opposing army happened to be commanded by “that Narasan fellow.”

  To make matters better, even when the renters of opposing armies tried to conceal Narasan’s likely appearance on the battle-field, his opponents always sent scouts out to make sure that Narasan was nowhere in the vicinity. If it turned out that he was there, the opposing army would immediately surrender.

  That made for a lot of easy wars.

  One of an army commander’s more important duties involves the selection of the man who should replace him in the event that he happened to be killed in action. Narasan already had a candidate in mind—even though his youthful nephew had not even been commissioned as yet. Though it pained Narasan to admit it, his nephew Astal was at least twice as gifted as he was. Should the young fellow survive his early campaigns, there was the distinct possibility that he might be able to reunite the scattered armies of the Empire and change the course of history. The current government of the Empire was so corrupt that it very nearly made Narasan ashamed to even be a Trogite. A strong military could ram ethics down the collective throats of the Palvanum and place certain insurmountable barriers between the greedy Church and the government. A supreme army commander could slap things into shape in almost no time at all. “I might even show up in a few history books as the man who engineered the saving of the Empire,” he mused. “God knows that sooner or later somebody’s going to have to do that.”

  2

  I’d be willing to pay you ten thousand gold crowns, Com-mander Narasan,” the duke of Bergalta declared. “Your reputation alone should settle the matter once and for all.”

  “That’s a very generous offer, Your Grace,” Narasan replied, looking out across the drill field at the center of the army compound. “Is that barony really worth all this trouble?”

  “Well, not really, I suppose. What it all boils down to, I guess, is that it’s high time to jerk the duke of Tashan up short. That half-wit seems to believe that he can get away with just about anything. When old Baron Forlen died without an heir, Tashan brazenly announced that he was annexing that barony as ‘a protectorate,’ and that rubbed me the wrong way. Then too, the barony has always been a sort of buffer state between my duchy and Tashan’s. If I let him get away with this, he’ll be camped right on my eastern border.”

  Narasan rather ruefully conceded to himself that the growing reputation of his army was attracting more and more of these petty little squabbles. He shrugged. Probably all that was going to be involved in this one would be a leisurely march to the region in question and a bit of muscle flexing to persuade the duke of Tashan to come to the bargaining table. The pay was good, and it was highly unlikely that there’d be much bleeding involved, so he accepted the duke of Bergalta’s offer.

  The one thing that perhaps more than any other had persuaded Commander Narasan to accept the offer was the fact that his gifted nephew Astal had recently been commissioned, and he was now a very junior officer in the ninth cohort. An easy campaign with little danger was quite probably the best way for the young fellow to get his feet wet. Astal was not the only recently commissioned officer in Narasan’s army, so Narasan’s decision to accept the duke of Bergalta’s offer would provide training for several other junior officers as well as for his nephew. Narasan had noticed that Astal’s closest friend was the well-educated young Keselo, who indeed showed at least as much potential as Astal himself. There was another junior officer, however, who showed almost no promise whatsoever. His name was Jalkan, and he’d formerly been a priest in the Amarite church. That in itself should have immediately disqualified him. There was no question that the Empire was corrupt, but the Amarite church took corruption to its outer edges. After he’d somewhat reluctantly agreed to sell Jalkan a commission, Narasan almost immediately began to regret the decision. Jalkan proved to be lazy, stupid almost beyond belief, arrogant, and unnecessarily cruel to the men who served under him.

  After Jalkan had made several serious blunders, Narasan began to draw up a list of the scrawny little officer’s misdeeds. He was fairly certain that the time would come in
the not too distant future when that list would be very useful. Jalkan was obviously convinced that his purchase of his commission protected his status. Narasan yearned for the day when he could disabuse Jalkan of that misconception.

  Following a rather brief conference in the war-room, Narasan’s army began the march toward the Duchy of Bergalta, moving south in easy stages. It was late summer now, and the weather was very pleasant. The slaves of the various landowners in the region were at work in the fields, lending an almost bucolic air to the march.

  The army was not too far from Bergalta’s northern border, and about noon on a sunny day, Subcommander Gunda returned from a scouting expedition to the south. “There’s a ridge line about a half-day’s march on ahead,” he reported. “The road we’re following goes on through a fairly narrow pass, and we might want to set up our night’s camp before we reach that pass—just to be on the safe side. We haven’t seen any signs of an opposing army, but why take chances? The road gets steeper anyway, and the troops can make better time if they start out fresh.”

  “That’s the way we’ll do it then, Gunda,” Narasan agreed. “Just as a favor, would you have a word with Morgas of the ninth cohort? Tell him that I’d like to have Astal lead the march. That should give his ego a bit of a boost. Sometimes that boy has a retiring sort of nature. If we put him out front, it might make him feel a bit important.”

  “That’s got a familiar sort of ring to it, Narasan,” Gunda said with a broad grin. “Your uncle Kalan used to shove you out front just about every time we were on the march.”

  “It worked out quite well, Gunda, and when something works, it doesn’t make much sense to change it.”

  As always, Narasan’s army was roused by the sound of horns at first light the following morning, and immediately after breakfast they broke camp and began the march toward the pass which lay just ahead.

  The ridge line could hardly be described as a mountain range, but was more in the nature of a string of relatively gentle hills rising up out of the flat plain of the southern reaches of the Empire. The soil appeared to be quite rocky, and the local nobility had evidently decided that trying to farm it would just be a waste of time and effort, so the hills were covered with fairly dense brush and clumps of stubby trees.

  Narasan’s nephew Astal marched at the front of the ninth cohort, leading the army up the slope toward the narrow pass at the top of the ridge. As was customary, the bearer of the army banner marched just behind the young officer. The army’s reputation tended to make potential enemy armies a bit nervous, so Narasan always made a point of displaying the banner to ward off any misunderstandings.

  Gunda was marching beside Commander Narasan to keep him advised of the terrain lying to the front.

  “Just exactly how narrow is that pass up there?” Narasan asked Gunda.

  “It’s pretty skimpy, Narasan,” Gunda replied. “I’d say maybe no more than fifteen men wide. If there was anything serious about this little outing, I’d probably recommend avoiding it altogether, but it’ll probably be all right in a situation like this. Astal’s going to have to break formation to get his men through. I hate these narrow places. It’s probably going to take us until long past midnight to get the entire army on through to the other side.”

  “Does the road widen out at all after it goes through the pass?”

  “Not enough to make much difference. It’s a good thing that the duke of Tashan doesn’t have much in the way of an army. If there were opposing troops with any kind of experience, that pass up there could give us a lot of trouble.”

  Narasan shaded his eyes from the newly risen sun and squinted up toward the pass. The morning sky was clear blue, untarnished by any clouds, and the thick brush on the steep side of the ridge lay almost like a green carpet. It was one of those very pretty days.

  Astal called the ninth cohort to a halt near the pass and issued the order to re-form in a crisply military tone. His soldiers assembled in a narrow ten-man-wide column, and then Astal took his place at the head of the column and gave the order to march.

  Narasan felt a certain family pride. Astal was handling things exactly as they should be handled, and his men marched very well behind the crimson and gold army banner.

  “It’s going to take us all day and half the night to get on through to flat ground, Narasan,” Gunda advised. “That pass isn’t really very steep, but that narrow section’s definitely going to slow us down.” He vigorously rubbed at his receding hairline.

  “It’s not like we had some kind of appointment, Gunda,” Padan reminded his friend. “We’ll get there when we get there.”

  “I know that,” Gunda replied. “I just don’t like the idea of being all strung out like this. If somebody happened to jump us, we could be in a lot of trouble. I hate mountains.”

  Padan shrugged. “Why don’t you go up there and order them to lie down, then? I don’t think they’ll listen to you, but it’ll give you something to do instead of standing around complaining about every little bump in the road.”

  “Very funny, Padan,” Gunda growled. “Ha. Ha. Ha.”

  “You ought to work on your laugh just a bit, Gunda,” Padan teased his friend. “It’s not really very convincing.”

  The tedious business of marching through the narrow pass continued as the sun rose higher in the morning sky, and it was somewhat past midmorning by the time the twelfth cohort had marched on through the pass at the top of the ridge line.

  Then there was suddenly a great deal of noise coming from beyond the pass, and Narasan came to his feet in alarm. “Find out what’s happening!” he shouted at Gunda.

  “On the way!” Gunda replied sharply, running as fast as he could up the narrow road toward the pass. When he was about halfway up, a runner came down the road to meet him. They spoke for a few moments, and then Gunda spun about and ran back down, spouting sulphurous curses every step of the way. “We’ve got trouble, Narasan!” he bellowed. “There’s an enemy force on the other side of that pass, and they’re attacking our people!”

  “Spread out!” Narasan barked at his men. “Never mind the road! Move!”

  The army fanned out and scrambled up the side of the ridge, but before the main force was even halfway up the north side, vast numbers of well-armed soldiers began to appear along the ridge line on either side of the narrow pass.

  “I make it to be three armies, Narasan,” Padan reported. “I don’t think we’ve got much chance of breaking through.”

  “We’ve got twelve cohorts on the other side, Padan!”

  “I don’t think so,” Padan said bluntly. “I don’t hear any noise coming from over there, and that means that our cohorts are all dead.” He peered up the ridge. “Those banners up there look very familiar, don’t they?” he said from between clenched teeth. “The green one’s definitely the banner of Galdan’s army, and the blue one looks to belong to Forgak. I can’t quite make out that third one.”

  “Tenkla,” Narasan said shortly.

  “Isn’t that interesting. We’ve defeated all three of those armies during the past year, and it looks like they’ve decided that it’s payback time. They’re probably working for short pay—just to get the chance to climb all over us. Do you want us to keep on charging?”

  Narasan clenched his fists in a futile gesture of fury. “No,” he replied in a choked voice. “There’s no point in that now. We’ve already lost twelve cohorts. This silly war wasn’t worth that. Sound the retreat, Padan. Let’s get the men out of here if we can.”

  Narasan pushed his grief firmly behind him as he led his army in the retreat. It was obvious that his men had been very disappointed by his decision to fall back. They’d all had friends in the twelve lost cohorts, and the yearning for revenge hung over them as the army marched back to imperial Kaldacin.

  Narasan had lost friends and family members in previous wars, and he was certain that in time he’d be able to set his sorrow aside and go on with his life. What made his grief so sharp this ti
me lay in the fact that the loss of Astal was his own fault. Had he not placed Astal at the head of the column, the boy would almost certainly still be alive. Under ordinary circumstances, the ninth cohort would not have led the march through the pass. Narasan painfully realized that many of his decisions had grown out of his own egotism. Astal had been the closest thing to a son Narasan would ever have, and he’d pushed the boy into situations he hadn’t yet been ready for as a way to boost his own image.

  That cut into Narasan like the edge of a very sharp knife.

  “Absolutely not!” Narasan told the pale-faced Gunda. “Just put it in a suitable container and bury it in the army cemetery. I don’t want to see it!”

  “I sort of thought you might feel that way, Narasan,” Gunda replied through his tightly clenched teeth, “but it was my duty to ask. Quite a few things are starting to come out into the daylight now. Did you know that the duke of Bergalta’s related to Adnari Estarg?”

  “No, actually, I didn’t. How did you find that out?”

  “That young officer Keselo tracked it down. He told me that Adnari Estarg and the duke of Bergalta are cousins, and it was one of Bergalta’s servants who delivered Astal’s head here to the compound. As I remember, Estarg was very put out with you when you refused to fight those southern armies that came here and put that fellow Udar on the throne of the Naos, and I’m catching a very strong odor of Church involvement in our recent defeat. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to find out that the money that paid all those scoundrels came out of the Church treasury, and the whole thing was nothing more than a trap.”

  “And I was the one who was stupid enough to step into it,” Narasan added glumly.

  “Don’t beat yourself over the head with it, old friend,” Gunda advised bleakly. “There’s probably a big celebration going on down there, but I don’t think their celebration’s going to last very much longer.”