The Warrior King: Book Three of the Seer King Trilogy

by Chris Bunch

The woman stepped forward and knocked her hood back.

  She was very young, no more than seventeen or eighteen, perhaps five and three-quarters feet tall, and simply beautiful. She had an intelligent face that reminded me a bit of a cat’s, and I somehow noted that her eyes were jewel-green.

  “No one will kill you,” she said. Perhaps the Tovieti had no leaders, but I noted the four men instantly sheathed their weaponry.

  “Do you remember me, Damastes á Cimabue?”

  She was familiar, but no name, no circumstance came.

  “I am Cymea Amboina,” she said.

  I’m afraid my control slipped. She came from deadly sorcerous blood, the daughter of the wizard Landgrave Amboina, who’d led the second rising in Polycittara and been killed by Sinait’s magic; the sister of Jalon Amboina, an even more powerful magician a soldier’s arrows had slain when I was trying to arrest him for being a leader of that conspiracy.

  “My father died because of you,” she said. “And you killed my brother. But we are in another time now. That is of the past.”

  I remembered Amiel, dying with a Tovieti arrow between her ribs, dying carrying my child. She read my face.

  “In turn, we … or rather some men who thought they were Tovieti, although I won’t disclaim them to an outsider … killed someone you loved. Does that makes things even?”

  “Does blood ever equalize anything?” I said, almost snarling.

  She inclined her head, understanding.

  “No,” she said. “But the question now is whether we can combine against the most dangerous man who ever lived.”

  I forced my Cimabuan temper down and considered her words. But there was only one decision.

  “No,” I said. “For I can’t have anyone serving me who serves another master, and I certainly cannot have anyone in my command who cannot be trusted.

  “If Tenedos can’t be brought down without you gods-damned, and I mean that quite literally, Tovieti … perhaps this world deserves him!”

  She stared at me, then nodded jerkily.

  “You’re a fool, Damastes á Cimabue. But a noble fool.”

  She walked to where the man writhed, pulled Perak’s knife from his hand, and cast it into a corner. Then she touched the wound twice, and the blood ceased to runnel, and the man stopped moaning. She, like the rest of her family, was a sorcerer.

  “Do not pursue us,” she said. “Or men will die. Your watchman can be found in the next room. We drugged the wine he had with his evening meal. Let him sleep until tomorrow, and he will wake unharmed.”

  She jerked her head, and the men obediently went to the door. “A fool,” she said, and this time her voice softened. “I hope you haven’t doomed all Numantia.”

  She went out, and the door closed.

  I should have cried the alarm, gone after them with my sword, but I didn’t.

  Cymea Amboina had escaped the dungeons of Polycittara during the rising and vanished. No wonder no one had been able to find her, not in the heart of the Tovieti. And now she was … was I didn’t know what, since Jakuns had said the Tovieti still had no leaders.

  But when she ordered, they obeyed.

  I did not know what to think, other than a certainty I’d made the right decision in refusing them.

  • • •

  A week later, Kutulu’s agents reported:

  Laish Tenedos and his million were on the march through Nowra toward us.

  TWELVE

  THE DRIVEN WEDGE

  It took half a time for Tenedos’s army to reach Paestum, crossing Nowra, Chalt, and then Tagil, marching toward us as if we were a lodestone, although I found it wryly amusing that Tenedos diverted the march to avoid Cambiaso.

  He was tracked first by Kutulu’s spies, then Sinait’s magic, and seemed to have no spells cast, attempting to deceive us as to his goal. He wanted us to know he was coming, and his reputation to bring terror as he closed.

  Half a time before his arrival, the Peace Guardians arrived with Trerice at their head. Their force was divided into three wings, as the Imperial Army had been. The right wing was commanded by Drumceat, the center by their best general, Taitu, the left by Indore. Of course, they used the Maisirian ranks of rast, which I gritted my teeth and used in the service of temporary amity.

  There was a scatter of civilian dignitaries with them, not as many as there should have been, but I supposed few wished to face the wrath of their former emperor. I was surprised to see Barthou, but wily Scopas must have convinced him one of the Councilors had to be with the army, or they’d lose heart.

  As agreed, the Guardians formed a blocking line from Paestum north-northwest, linking with my soldiers holding a line running from Paestum due south. The village was just behind the center of our lines, since it would be foolish to give the enemy the cover of the town to fight from.

  The Guardians were outraged by being handed shovels, being ordered to dig trenches. They weren’t used to physical work, most having joined up to avoid their rightful callings as stone carriers and ditchdiggers.

  I was slightly impressed with Trerice, who was far out of his depth commanding a force of such size but drove himself hard, in the saddle from dawn to dark, then held conferences with his aides until well after midnight. If his men had been adequately trained, he might have been accused of chivvying them into a frenzy, but these were Peace Guardians, not soldiers, and needed all the commanding they could take.

  They tried to intimidate my men, boasting, bullying, calling the handful of taverns theirs. But just because my men weren’t fully trained as warriors didn’t mean some didn’t know how to use a broken wine bottle as well as the best. I had my commanders name their finest goons for provosts, and set them to keeping the peace, turning a blind eye to the Guardian who got his ear thickened or arm broken in the process.

  There were three burglaries and two rapes. The burglars I had brought to trial and, once guilt was proven, stripped of their uniforms and flogged through the camp.

  The rapists were also court-martialed, but I gave them a harder doom than the whip. I had their regiments assembled around my high platform, plus a thousand witnesses from my rebels. The platform was strengthened and modified for another purpose.

  I’d said I appointed an official bastard, but this first time I wanted to show I, too, could be merciless. The two condemned Guardians were a study in contrasts, one tall, lean; the second squat, beetling as if he was related to the near-men of the Gyantse jungled mountains.

  “Look at them,” I shouted, my voice once more amplified by magic. “These are men who swore to protect the women of Numantia, first as Guardians, now as soldiers.

  “Instead, they broke their oath.

  “Now, they’ll pay the price. And I’ll not punish real soldiers by making you listen to their last yammerings when there’s more important business at hand.”

  I nodded to their guards. Ropes were dropped from new overhead beams, tightened around their necks. The tall one gibbered in terror, the other man seemed barely to know what was happening.

  “Swing them off,” I ordered, and soldiers put boots into their backs and kicked them off the platform.

  They dropped a few feet, the ropes came taut, and the sound of their necks snapping was very loud. My stomach lurched, but I paid it no mind.

  “Take heed,” I shouted, my voice harsh. “Anyone who harms a man, a woman, a child like these swine … justice will be real, will be quick, will be deadly.

  “I want every man to tell his fellow what happened here today and remember it well. That’s all. Officers, take charge of your formations and dismiss them.”

  Trerice was outraged, saying I’d implied his Peace Guardians were no better than criminals. I told him I said no such thing, and if he, or his men, had trouble looking at themselves in a mirror, perhaps they’d better get to a priest to be cleansed, although I didn’t think there were more than a dozen with the army, and none at all with the Guardians.

  “Soldier harder,” I s
aid, trying to keep malicious glee from my voice, “and your men won’t have the time to hear imaginary incriminations.”

  Trerice gave me a black look, stalked out without saluting.

  The next night Kutulu said there were rumblings in the Guardians’ camps that their jedaz would make a far better leader of the armies, and “somebody should do something about that traitorous bastard from Cimabue, or else, when King Bairan comes back, we’ll all pay for following him.”

  He said I’d have to start being more careful about my person. I grumbled, but knew he was right.

  I’d considered making Lasleigh Baron Pilfern and his fifty men into a semblance of my Red Lancers. Certainly they were smartly turned out, and checking with Domina Thanet, I found Lasleigh and his men were doing well enough for Thanet to keep them together as a company.

  But I needed cavalry more than bodyguards and so asked Kutulu for a handful of unobtrusive skulkers and swore if I became aware of their presence I’d send them back to window peeping.

  Tenedos marched closer, and our training grew harder and harder.

  One night, about halfway through the second watch, I’d just finished reassuring Barthou, who was getting very nervous, that he didn’t need to return to Nicias to confer with Scopas, and, a bit amused, decided I’d give myself a treat, go to my quarters, and not think about this gods-damned army that was my life for at least six hours.

  I’d barely kicked my boots off, poured a glass of a berry juice, made a bit tart with lemon and chilled by ice from the distant mountains, when someone tapped at my door.

  I swore if it was anything short of the return of Umar I’d have the tapper flayed alive and his skin used for a map case, went to the door, and growled.

  “A man insists on seeing you,” the timid voice of the sentry came. “Tell him … never mind.”

  An officer who brags that his door is always open can’t whine if his boast is believed.

  However, remembering my callers of not long ago, I unsheathed Yonge’s dagger and held it in my left hand as I opened the door.

  Standing there was a monster of a man. I’m tall, half a head above six feet, but my eyes were at his chin. He was not only behemoth in height, but bulk as well, and his face could have given a raft of orphans nightmares. It had been hard and threatening from his youth, and was now twisted with two scars, one across his forehead that met another that twisted his lip and cheek into a terrible snarl of a grin. He was missing almost all of his right arm and wore hard-worn leather. A well-used sword hung from a baldric, and a knife was sheathed in one of his knee boots.

  “Son of a bitch!” I swore.

  “Good eve, sir,” he said. “Can’t salute like I’m s’posed to.”

  I had Svalbard in my arms, and almost broke into tears. I’d seen him last at Cambiaso, as we made that final desperate charge on foot through monsters to try to kill King Bairan. He’d killed a Maisirian who was about to finish me, then someone chopped away his arm, and he’d gone down, gouting blood. He’d served with me since the beginning with the seer king, always there, always quiet, always deadly.

  He was stiff, uncomfortable, clearly not used to emotion, and I let him go. He turned his head aside and rubbed a sleeve across his face, no doubt to clear away some dust, which gave me the chance to do the same.

  “I was somewhere else,” he said. “A long ways away, doin’ somethin’ else, when I heard you were back. Thought you might need me.”

  “Hells, yes! Come in!”

  I half-dragged him into my room, called for the guard.

  “Chase down to the kitchens,” I ordered, “and fetch brandy.”

  “Rather have a good honest beer,” Svalbard said. “Unless that tipple’s for you and you’ve changed.”

  “Not like that I haven’t,” I said. “Beer. Several tankards.”

  “But I’m supposed to be guarding you, sir,” the sentry said, “and — ”

  “Do you think, with this juggernaut, I’m likely to come to harm? Get gone!”

  I closed the door.

  “You haven’t changed much,” he said. “Hair’s gettin’ gray, and thinnin’ some. But you don’t have too much of a paunch.” I grinned.

  “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to talk to your commanding general like that?”

  “Tried,” he said. “But I never paid much attention to words that don’t matter.”

  “How’d you get away at Cambiaso?” I asked, pointing him to a chair. He sat, uncomfortably.

  “Nobody gave a shit about somebody bleeding to death, without nothin’ to loot on their body,” he said. “I got somebody to tie off my arm, got to the river, found a witch, healed up.”

  “Then?”

  “Since there wasn’t any army left, other’n those mother-futtering Guardians, I found work with a sword. Doing this and that, here and there.”

  I didn’t think I’d get any more of an explanation, and maybe I shouldn’t want one.

  “I need a bodyguard,” I said, as abrupt as he.

  “So I heard, coming through the camp. Happy to do the job, ‘specially if it might involve dealing with Guardians.”

  “It might,” I said. “But before you say you’ll do the job, I owe you a story. Of what happened to Karjan.”

  He grunted, ill at ease, but I told him how I’d been be-spelled by the Maisirian azaz, and Bairan had insisted I kill my most faithful servant as a test of that spell. I couldn’t look at him as I told the story but paced back and forth. The beer came halfway through the tale, but when I’d finished, his first tankard remained untouched.

  He thought about things.

  “Seems to me,” he said, “we ought to hunt Bairan down and see how he likes having all his bones broken, one at a time and the jagged edges ground together for about a week.”

  I nodded, not capable of talking. Karjan’s murder still tore at me.

  “You told me the tale,” he questioned, “to see if I’d change what I said?”

  “I did.”

  “Don’t see what that’s got to do with anything today,” Svalbard said. “Besides, I sort of guessed something like that’d happened, when you wouldn’t talk about Karjan ever after you came back.” He shrugged. “There’s sufficient evil in the world to pull us all down, time to time.”

  He picked up the tankard, extended it in a toast.

  “I’ll only have the one,” he said. “Then time to be getting about my duties, finding a place to sleep and all.”

  “There won’t be any problem with that,” I said. “Or not much, anyway. Remember, you were a legate? I’m promoting you to captain, making you my official aide, which means you’ll have a servant of your own.”

  “For what?” the big man growled. “To take care of what I’m wearing, which is all I own? But I’ll not refuse the promotion, not bein’ stupid like Karjan was. I’ve noted the higher the rank, the better the strumpet.” He drained the tankard, saluted, and went out.

  Illogically, considering Svalbard, big and tough as he was, was still only one man, I was no longer worried about my safety.

  • • •

  I floated like an eagle, high above the rolling, dry land. Below was a road that wound west, and it swarmed with an army on the march, like ants, destroying everything in its path. In front of the columns were small farms, some with wheat ready to cut, some with vegetables watered from wells or tiny canals. Stone fences marked fields, some with cattle grazing, and each had its own house surrounded by a few trees carefully tended in this near-desert land, with outbuildings and gardens.

  Then came the outriders, the scouts, afoot and on horseback. Behind them, the lead battalions under banners, the banners of the old Imperial Army, and behind them the wagons and shambles of the supply train and the camp followers.

  In this army’s wake was … nothing. Bare, burnt ground, crops snatched or trampled into the dust, houses burnt or torn apart for firewood, the scattered corpses of butchered animals and not infrequently their owners, the water de
spoiled, the trees cut down.

  A wasteland, such as all armies, all wars bring.

  I’d spent most of my life in this sort of desolation, not infrequently being its cause, but I’d never been lifted to this height, so I could see all its frightfulness.

  But that wasn’t why I’d insisted Sinait cast a Seeing Spell, in spite of her warnings. I wanted to see, to feel Tenedos’s army, to size up my enemy, as a fistfighter goes to bouts sizing up a prospective opponent.

  The cavalry screen didn’t impress me — putting a man on horseback doesn’t make him a real soldier, and these men looked more interested in galloping here and there and waving banners than looking for ambushes or roads that’d prove impassable.

  The forward infantry units coming behind the cavalry moved well, however, their elements holding together, going smoothly up- and downhill, holding a steady march.

  Farther back in the column, formations were more ragged, and they moved like inchworms, the men in front moving faster downhill, slower uphill, so the rear of the units were either milling about in the dust or running to keep up.

  Not that my own army was perfect — but we would have the advantage, unless things went awry, of fighting from prepared positions when Tenedos arrived.

  One thing I did admire — Tenedos had time and the magical resources to completely outfit his army. They wore black trousers and red caps or busbys, their jackets in various colors and combinations to mark the regiments.

  I was still too far above the army to really “feel” what it was like and willed myself to move closer.

  I heard Sinait murmur a warning.

  At that instant, something struck “me” and sent “me” tumbling, as a falcon smashes a pigeon spinning toward the distant ground. I flailed like such a bird, seeing the sky above “me,” but saw nothing that could have struck me, but I was falling, and I sensed that unseen force coming in once more, and then there was a clatter as the mercury-filled bowl clanged to the floor, and I was back in my headquarters at the inn.

  I didn’t feel any fear, but my hands were shaking as if I had the ague, my breath rasped hard as if I’d been running, and something was pressing down from the sky outside.