Swords of the Empire

by Edited by Marc Gascoigne

  The Kul dead, of which there were a great many, we left upon the cold earth, their split bodies steaming out their life-heat into the mountain air.

  Lipfert brought my horse back to me, and as I rose into the saddle once more, I praised Subarin for his help, and also for the efforts of his comrades. He greatly surprised me by returning my praise tenfold. He had, it seemed, seen men of the Empire in battle, and these had not disgraced themselves, but he had never yet seen a knight of the Reiksguard in full fury. I believe I had impressed him greatly, and this made me feel pride in my rank and office, though I rued that he had not seen me girt in my full plate and caparison, for there is no finer sight in war than a knight of the Empire in his livery.

  Thereafter, I rode to where the wagon stood. Sigert was pale of face, and was sipping wine from a flagon. Sire Jochrund dismounted and also praised me for my efforts, wishing that I communicate his gratitude to the company, and commiserating over the dead.

  I felt foolish, but I questioned him. He was a great wizard, schooled in battle magic, yet he had not been able to intercede in this bloody fight. Could he not have conjured some marvelous spell that would have sent the Kul running, and spared our pains and our losses?

  Sire Jochrund smiled, as if not slightly rebuked, and apologised, saying that he had been sleeping in the wagon when the attack began, and by the time he had roused, the fight was all around, with friend and foe intermingled in a terrible confusion. He had certain spells, but he feared to cast them lest their deadly enchantments smite down men of the company in error.

  This seemed answer enough, though it did not please me. And he called me by the name of ''Jozef'' again. We drew to order, and made on for Kzarla.

  It was a dismal place, in a long valley high amongst the hills, remote and unked. It stood upon the shores of a long lake, where the waters were so cold and black, like obsidian glass, that there was no assaying its depth. The ibzas and halls of the town were dark and timber built, and the wood thereof must have been drawn up this distance from the lowlands under the hills. Kzarla was girt about by a picket of stakes, and also by a ditch and bank in the shape of a circle. As we approached the place, I spied what seemed to be an island in the lake, close to the shore where the village stood, and joined unto the shore by a causeway of stone and timber that seemed some three horse lengths long.

  The rota of Kzarla came out to meet us. Three dozen men, in silver armour bright as the sky, their mail shirts fixed with ingots of polished jet. Their horses were tinted coal-black along the backs and powder white upon the legs and bellies, and silver bells had been threaded into the hair of their tails and manes. Each rider wore a black horsehair plume upon the spike of his silver helm. One carried the banner, fluttering upon a long pole, and this was a triangle of black with a key-patterned edge, with a silver circle in the centre. They seemed surprisingly prepared for battle, but if warbands of Kul and their ilk were haunting the highlands, then it was meet that they should be ready to drive them off.

  They were a fierce sight, and had already drawn forth their shashkas, that is their war swords. Their painted horses pawed the ground, as if eager for the charge.

  We came to a halt. Subarin nudged his mare forward, and gestured for me to accompany him.

  'I will come also,' Sire Jochrund said, already astride his black steed.

  Subarin nodded his assent, and the three of us rode across the lakeside heath towards the Kzarlan rota. None came out to meet us. They kept their line and waited until we had drawn up face to face. Only then, the wings of their line moved outwards, so that Subarin, the wizard and myself were flanked within a semicircle of silver-armoured riders.

  Subarin dismounted and walked to their lead horseman, a tall grey-bearded warrior with silver wings rising from the cheek-guards of his helm. Subarin then made greeting, and the two conversed at length. I did not follow the words, but Subarin made courteous gesture over his shoulder at the pair of us, and the winged leader glanced our way, as if reviewing cattle he was being invited to purchase.

  Then Subarin turned and beckoned. I thought he meant me, but he did not. He brought Sire Jochrund forward, and introductions were made. I sat alone, the eyes of the silver warriors upon me, to my disquiet.

  The Kzarlan rotamaster - whose name I was to learn as Pyotr Gmelin - raised a polished bone horn and blew, and the strong, pure note was answered by two horns at the stanitsa fence. He motioned us to follow as he turned his rota at a swift trot towards the gate.

  Subarin turned to me. 'Bring the company, Sire von Kallen. They will admit us to the krug.'

  The summer's mission had shown me that there are few more honestly welcoming places in the world than a Kislevite stanitsa. The gathering of folk, the drumming and clapping, the unbidden food and hearty toasts. All who come to the krug are welcome guests for as long as they desire, no matter what their wealth or status.

  But the Kzarlan welcome was a different matter. Villagers came out to stare upon us as we came in through the gate, but their faces were unfriendly and they made no clamour. Untethered goats ran to and fro across the black mud of the trackway. Eyes stared at us from the flaps of windows and doors. No one brought out flatbread, or pickled fish, or koumiss.

  In a bare mud yard before the longhouse, the rota dismounted and led their horses away. The ataman, an old, robed man with a limp who leaned upon a gnarled stick, came out with his esaul and two swordsmen, and spoke with Subarin and Pyotr Gmelin. Then he hobbled down from the timber boarding, and solemnly greeted Sire Jochrund. Thereafter, he came to me, and placed his knobbly hands upon mine, and looked at me with rheumy eyes.

  'Welcome,' he said.

  I had the company make good the horses, and some modest fodder was brought. I went into the longhouse with Subarin, the wizard and his clerk at the invitation of the ataman. Pyotr Gmelin and four of his rota watched over us as we sat by the fire and took at last a little food and drink.

  After some lengthy discussion, most all of which I could not follow, the shaman of Kzarla came forth from some secret chamber in the back of the longhouse. He was a shrivelled thing, with a weather-beaten face as lined and dry as a saddle kit. He wore hides all sewn along the edges, and marked with the figures of men and horses embroidered into the front of it. Beads hung around his thin neck in long strings. He carried a round tambor in one hand, and struck upon it slowly with a tasselled wooden rod as he walked around Sire Jochrund in wary circles. Then - once, I presume, the shaman's spirits were placated by the rite - the wise man and the wizard sat down apart from us and fell to talking.

  I grew fatigued and walked beyond the walls of the longhouse, biding my time. I wandered along the boardwalk laid out above the silt at the back of the longhouse, and looked upon the causeway that led out to the island. It was a strange place: a mound of rock rising just above the surface of the black water, upon which some structure like a tent or a steppe yurt was raised. Its canvas sides were finely decorated with sewn patterns and shell beading. I wondered what it was for.

  I saw the girl at that time. She came out of the yurt on the islet and walked back down the causeway towards me carrying a pot under one arm and a sheaf of herbs under the other. I had seen women in the stanitsa as we were riding in, but none so young or fair as this girl. Her skin was pale, and her long hair as shining and dark as the jet in the rota's armour.

  She walked past me, her head straight as if to ignore me, but I saw her eyes dart my way in curiosity. Such a proud face. Such blue eyes!

  Subarin came to find me, noticing the girl with an appreciative smile as he passed her.

  'Your wizard and the shaman are set for a long night of talking. I think the shaman wishes to test your lord's prowess in the ways of magic before he allows his guard down. The ataman has said he will provide food tonight for your company, but after that, you and your men must withdraw from the stanitsa for the night.'

  'Why?' I asked.

  'It is a ritual time, preparing rites to announce the coming wi
nter. No stranger may reside within the town ditch during such a sacred period.'

  'Where are we supposed to stay?' I wondered, glancing at the sky which, already cold, was sharpening with the real bite of chill darkness.

  Subarin pointed. At the far end of the stanitsa, outside the gateway and beyond the ditch, men of the village were raising a large yurt on the heath-land. That was to be our accommodation.

  'For all of us?' I asked.

  Subarin nodded. 'Even myself and my comrades. Only your lord and his clerk are excepted, as a special case. Come, we must bring our horses out too.'

  We set to it. Above, the night drew down, and the stars came out in the inky firmament. The glittering northern constellations of the gelding, the maiden, the kolter and the targette.

  They fed us well, before a great fire, and entertained us with tunes upon the mandore, pibau and horse-head fiddle. Subarin brought the rotamaster Pyotr Gmelin to meet me. He had taken off his armour now, and wore wolf furs as grey as his beard. He poured fierce samogon into silver mazers for the three of us. Subarin had been commending my virtues as a warrior-knight to the noble rotamaster, and Pyotr Gmelin wanted to decide upon my merits for himself. He asked me, through Subarin's translations, various technical questions about swordsmanship, the use of horse companies in war, the couching of a spear, the functions of a shield, and thus like, and seemed suitably content by the answers I gave him.

  'He contends,' Subarin said, 'that the true measure of an Empire knight is to see one in combat.'

  'I trust that is not something that will be necessary,' I replied.

  Then Pyotr Gmelin spoke further of the ill times that settled upon the land. In the opinion of all northern men, the dark was rising in the far wastelands. Kurgan, Kul, Norse and others of their feral kind, massing in their ghastly enclaves in numbers not seen for many lifetimes, preparing for a war upon the South. Next year, the year after perhaps, and there would be blood on the snows. Pyotr Gmelin mentioned a name - ''Archaeon'' - and said that rumours had spoken of this being as the great leader, or Most High Zar, of the Chaos tribes. It is a name the south must learn, and soon, I am sure. It is a name Kislev and the Empire must watch for and guard against with all force of heart and arm and spirit.

  I asked of Pyotr Gmelin about the island in the lake, of its purpose and means. It was, I discovered, the stanitsa's temple. They called it by its old name, a word not from the Gospodar tongue, but from the more ancient tribes. This word was ''cromlech'', and it denoted an islet built not by nature but by the hand of man. In the distant past, ''before eight fathers'' Pyotr Gmelin put it, which was a Kislevite saying that meant eight generations, but was used for any great passage of time, the cromlech at Kzarla had been built in the lake, perhaps by the Scythians, perhaps by the tribes that rode before the Scythians, perhaps even by the man-horses that came before all things in the dawn time. The folk of Kzarla had inherited the site, maintained it for as long as anyone could remember, and based all their seasonal magic upon it. Of this, he was not specific. He mentioned rites for fair weather, good crops, good fishing, rituals against ice, and against blizzard. But these, Pyotr Gmelin said, were matters for the shaman.

  And for Sire Jochrund too, I now supposed.

  They let us take koumiss and bread back to the yurt outside the fence, and bundles of arguls, that is dried animal dung, to feed a good fire. I posted watches outside through the night, against the chance the Kul should return.

  After midnight, as the constellation of the ourga was dipping towards the mountain peaks, Schroder came to wake me. The first snows had come.

  In the first light of day, the land and sky were white entire, and just the long shape of the lake showed black against the snow. The fall had ceased, having laid no more than a hand's depth, but it was still and bitter cold. Today, I knew, we must leave, tomorrow at the latest, or be forced to remain in Kzarla over the winter. For the sake of the men, I would not let the wizard gainsay me now. I pulled on my cloak and rode up into the stanitsa. Sire Jochrund, so Sigert told me when I found him, was out on the islet with the shaman, and could not be disturbed. I told the clerk my message, and stressed it was not for negotiation. Then I sat by the fire in the longhouse and waited. After a time, Sire Jochrund called for me, and I went out into the snow. The sun was now fuller and watery gold, the colour of the wizard's eyes, and the world gleamed so brightly as to pain my eyes.

  Sire Jochrund stood by the landward end of the causeway, and I went to him. All about, the people of Kzarla were decorating the shore and the causeway with rushlights and braziers, and also traceries of chiming tin bells suspended from fishing poles. There was some ritual afoot.

  Sire Jochrund took me calmly by the arm and, calling me ''Jozef'' once again, assured me that all was well. Yes, he was aware that first snow had reached us. Yes, he knew we must make haste to go. He was all but done. Tomorrow we would ride, with no further delays. This was his promise. Tonight, the shaman was performing some winter ritual that Sire Jochrund most decidedly wished to witness. That would be the last part of the mission. Indeed, he was now in great haste to return to the bounds of the Empire.

  He called Sigert up, and told him to begin packing the wagon, mentioning the items that must be left out for this last night. Sigert sniffed and nodded, rubbing his watering nose on his sleeve.

  Reassured, at last, I returned to my horse, and rode back through the stanitsa to inform the company. As I passed through the streets thereof, I saw a curious thing.

  It was the girl, the beautiful girl from the causeway. She had been dressed in a long blue shift of silk that seemed too slight for such a bitter day. Silver combs had been placed in her black tresses, and kohl applied around her eyes. About her shoulders, she was garlanded with strings of small white flowers, like moon drops or pfennig-worts. I wondered where such flowers had grown in the sparse cold hills.

  Long ribbons of golden satin had been tied around her wrists, and by these lengths, she was being led through the town from ibza to ibza by the womenfolk of the village. The girl, I realised, was to play some role in the ritual to come, and this was part of her ceremonial preparation.

  The womenfolk, old matrons mostly, were wrapped in skins and dark hooded tunics, their feet bound up in fur. They chattered and chided as they led the girl. Her feet were bare. I saw them beneath the hem of her shift as she walked unflinching through the crisp, snowy mud.

  At each hut, she was greeted by the homeowner, who fed her a hunk of bread or a dry biscuit or a spoonful of meal, and also a bowl of mare's milk or koumiss. Her face was expressionless, as if she was dreaming, no smile and yet no frown. I found I was transfixed, in part by her beauty, and in part by her strangeness. As they led her on across my path, clucking to her and ringing little hand bells, she looked up at my face, and a tiny quizzical furrow made a little wrinkle between her eyebrows. There was a look - and then she had moved on. I rode to the yurt. Markovo was grilling a breakfast of fish and root pottage for the company over the fire. As we ate, we saw the Kzarla rota, in full gear, ride out from the gates, with Pyotr Gmelin at the head. They made off towards the west. The Kul warband, Baibek told us, had been sighted at dawn, in renewed force.

  Night came. The rota had not returned. I stood in the doorway of the yurt, gazing out across the flatness of white that the full moons were illuminating like the finest bleached parchment. In nearby Kzarla, great fires had been banked up along the shores of the lake, burning away, it seemed to me, a whole winter's supply of arguls. Braziers and rush-lights glowed along the distant causeway, and out onto the islet, half seen to me beyond the stanitsa's fence. We could hear singing, and the beat of drums, also the clash of cymbals. The ritual had begun.

  In the yurt, the company were all of readiness. Everything was packed, and they had donned their wargear, intending to sleep in it so that we could depart without delay at first light. By the firelight, they sat and waited, some drowsing, some occupied at dice or jacks. I had moved amongst them, making
sure all was well, before withdrawing to the tent door.

  The distant singing had turned to chanting. A sense of disquiet filled me. It seemed as if the world was skewing out of joint, like a sundial that has been turned so its gnomon reads not true the hour. There was magic upon the night air.

  A screech-owl called, and made me start. Then, from the edges of my eye, I made of a motion out in the snowfield beyond where the company horses were tethered.

  It was a dog-fox, its coat already white for winter, and it came padding in across the snow's blanket, tongue twitching, sniffing for scent so that steam showed at its snout.

  I watched it as it scurried on towards the stanitsa, snuffling the ground as it went. Then, in a moment, it lay down flat upon its belly, and set its chin upon the ground, and there lay, looking towards the village and its fires, as if waiting. As if drawn to something as old and feral as itself.

  Subarin came out to bring me a thimble cup of samogon. I swigged it against the cold, and then said: 'Do you see?'

  He did not, for the fox had gone, but I told him of it and he shook his head. He could not explain it but he look toward the village as if resisting the impulse to go there.

  'What is it?' I asked of him.

  He was about to answer when we heard the sobbing. It was quite distinct, despite the uproar from the stanitsa, for it was closer at hand. Subarin and I exchanged glances, and then took off at once towards the gate.

  Four or five of the womenfolk were crouched in the snow outside the ditch-fence, making a great show of sorrow. We came to them, and little sense could we make.

  'They lament,' Subarin said, translating for me the best as he could understand their broken whimpers. 'They lament for tonight it must be really done and she will be gone from them.'

  He looked at me. 'What might that mean?'

  'Get the horses,' I said. 'Rouse the company and get the horses.'

  He looked upon my visage for a moment, and then nodded, as if what he had seen there convinced him. He ran back across the snow towards the yurt.