by James Lowder
The king understood a little of what the khahan said, but waited for Koja to repeat the question before answering. "Why do you think I invited you here?" the bald Khazari asked in Yamun's stead.
"So you could meet your adversary," Azoun replied. "To decide how much of a threat I am."
Yamun nodded when Koja relayed the answer. The warlord regarded the king for a moment, his eyes narrowed. "You know I outnumber you by three-, maybe four-to-one," he said through Koja.
Azoun simply nodded for an answer, and Yamun paused again. "The prisoners I have taken in Thesk warned me of your coming," the khahan growled. "They said you gathered a great army to crush me. What my scouts have seen of your troops makes me think that they are not great enough to even slow me down."
"We shall be able to tell that only if we fight," Azoun said, then turned to Koja. "Emphasize 'if' in that reply."
After taking a sip of his tea, the bald man nodded politely, then relayed the king's message. Chanar laughed again, but Yamun glowered at the khan, which silenced him almost instantly. "Then surrender to me now, Azoun of Cor-meer," Yamun answered, lounging back in his seat and tugging at the end of his stringy mustache. "That is the only thing that will stop me from destroying you in battle."
Koja had just begun to relay the khahan's words when Batu Min Ho leaned forward and spoke. The babble of voices confused Azoun a little. He caught only part of what the bald Khazari was reporting. Still, the king understood the Shou general's question without translation.
Stretching two empty hands before him, Azoun faced Batu Min Ho. "Yes, Batu Khan," he said in rough, halting Tuigan. "I seek peace."
Azoun's reply had a striking and immediate effect on the others in the khahan's yurt. Chanar leaped to his feet, his mouth hanging open in shock. Surprise registered on Batu's face, too, but the emotion did not show as readily on the Shou general. Glancing from the king to Yamun Khahan, then back to Azoun again, the Khazari historian seemed to be waiting for their reactions to determine his own.
For his part, Yamun slouched forward again. A slight smile battled with his scar for control of his lip. "You speak the language of my people," he said slowly.
"I speak only a little Tuigan," Azoun corrected, using the one Tuigan phrase he was certain he knew correctly, then switched back to Common. "Koja, I do need your help. I understand only some of what they're saying."
The Khazari sipped his tea and nodded. "What do you want to tell the khahan?"
"Repeat what I told you, then tell them that I hope we can avoid bloodshed."
As Koja relayed the message, Chanar sat down and said something to the khahan. Yamun's slight smile broadened into a leer as he picked up the leather bag Chanar had placed at his mud-caked feet. Unstoppering the bag, Yamun shouted out a command.
Two servants immediately entered the yurt, bowing to the khahan as they did so. Yamun mumbled another order, and the two young men scurried to the back of the felt tent and clattered through a chest. They returned with a bejeweled, golden goblet and a round ball of red silk.
Koja blanched noticeably, and Chanar pointed at the Khazari and laughed. The khahan handed the goblet to Batu, who upended the golden vessel, emptying some sludgy globs from its bottom. He then wiped it out with a bit of the heavy carpet that lay on the floor. Taking the leather bag from Yamun, a servant filled the goblet with a milky liquid.
The other servant unwrapped the stained silk and held the object the red cloth had covered out to Yamun. It was a human skull, the top of which had been cut away. A silver cup now filled the empty bones. The khahan held the grisly drinking vessel so that its empty eye sockets faced Azoun, and a servant filled it, too, with liquid from the leather bag.
Chanar Khan said something to Koja, and the bald man nodded. "Chanar Ong Kho wishes me to inform Your Highness that the skull once belonged to Abatai, an enemy of the khahan." The Khazari frowned and added, "Do not forget what I told you about your envoy, Your Highness. Failure to drink means certain death."
With mild surprise, the Cormyrian king noticed that Yamun and his generals were watching him closely. They are expecting to frighten me with the skull, Azoun realized, then noted that Koja was obviously unnerved by the grim trophy. Thanking the gods that the area was magic-dead, for it negated the possibility of the skull-cup being ensorceled, the king reached for it.
Before he leaned back and gnawed pensively on his lower lip, Yamun gave the skull-cup to the king. Batu called out a toast in Tuigan, or at least that was what Azoun assumed he cried, then gulped down the thick, sour-tasting drink. A servant refilled the bejeweled goblet Batu held, and it was passed to Chanar Khan. The smiling Tuigan general paused before lifting the golden goblet and motioned for Azoun to drink from the skull.
"To Yamun Khahan," the king said, "Illustrious Emperor of the Tuigan." Though the milky white liquid in the skull-cup smelled disgustingly like curdled milk, Azoun gagged down two swallows and handed the skull to Koja.
A sour look on his face, the historian leaned close to Azoun. "The drink is called kumiss. It's made from fermented mare's milk." He shuddered and licked his lips. "Some men love it. I have yet to acquire even a tolerance for the nasty stuff."
Only after both Azoun and Koja had drunk did Chanar lift his goblet to salute Yamun. Through all of this, the khahan watched Azoun closely. Finally Yamun himself gulped down what was left of the kumiss in the skull-cup, then returned it to the servant. The two young men put Abatai's skull back in its wrappings of silk, returned it and the golden goblet to the chest, and hurried away.
Yamun asked Koja what the king had used as a toast. When the bald man told him, the khahan frowned. "I am emperor of all peoples, Azoun of Cor-meer," he rumbled. "I will prove that to you tomorrow when I empty out your skull and make it like Abatai's."
Hesitantly Koja relayed the statement. Azoun paused for a moment, then stood. "Tell your master that my troops will not surrender. Let your army meet us tomorrow, then. We will be waiting."
"Perhaps I should kill you now," Yamun replied. As Koja voiced the threat, Chanar reached for his curved sword.
Azoun wished in that instant for Vangerdahast to be well and at his side. He had only accepted the khahan's invitation because he believed the royal wizard could extricate him from a situation such as this one. He let that hope pass quickly, however, and steeled himself for his fate. "If you kill me here it is proof that you fear my armies."
Chanar and Batu both stood and drew their swords as soon as the historian had finished the reply. Scuttling backward like a crab, Koja hurried away from the circle of men. Yamun shouted, and ten of his black-armored guards entered the tent. The khahan remained seated; his face did not reveal any anger. He issued another order, and both of his generals spun around to look at him, surprise on their faces.
Immediately Batu Min Ho sheathed his sword and bowed to Yamun. The Shou glanced at Azoun as he made his way from the yurt, but said nothing more. Chanar Khan, however, rattled off a string of questions. The Tuigan general's face was red, and he gestured menacingly with his sword at Azoun.
With a grunt, Yamun finally raised himself from his throne and shouted at Chanar. The general bowed deeply, then backed out of the yurt. His face held an odd mixture of anger and contrition.
Koja stood, walked to the khahan's side, and asked him a question, too softly for Azoun to hear. Yamun leaned close to the Khazari and replied. The historian nodded, then faced Azoun. "The audience is over, Your Highness," he announced formally. "You may gather your men and leave. I will escort you away from our camp."
Azoun bowed stiffly to the khahan. Yamun nodded in reply, then said something to Koja. The bald historian smiled and whispered his answer to the warlord. Azoun waited politely, then followed the Khazari from the yurt. In turn, the king was followed by the ten black-garbed Tuigan soldiers. Within a few minutes, Thom, Vangerdahast, and the Cormyrian guards joined him, and they were quickly on their way out of the Tuigan camp.
The royal wizard was still uncons
cious, slung unceremoniously over his horse. Thom talked at length about the Tuigan shamans and the unusual rites they'd performed over Vangerdahast.
"The Tuigan stumbled across this magic-dead area a day or two ago," the bard said from horseback. "The wizards from Thay all left as soon as they'd learned the khahan intended to stay here until he met with you."
Koja, who rode on the opposite side of Azoun from Thom, nodded his agreement to the bard's statement, then noted, "Yamun does not trust sorcery, so he wasn't sorry that the Red Wizards went home." When he saw he had both Thom's and Azoun's attention, he added, "Magic has little place in Tuigan culture."
Azoun found it surprising that Koja would reveal that information to him, since he could certainly turn it to his army's advantage. Still, the Tuigan's confidence in the power of mundane swords and arrows was grounded in months of victory. The king knew that his wizards alone couldn't win the war for him.
By the time Azoun and his escort reached the spot where they'd first met Koja, the sun was low in the cloud-filled sky to the west.
"I am happy to have met you, Your Highness," Koja said, bowing in his saddle. "It is sad that we will not meet again in this world."
Azoun heard the sincerity in the Khazari's words and wondered how the obviously peaceful man found life with the Tuigan bearable. A bit sadly, the king returned the compliment, then turned to go. Before he got his horse pointed toward his camp, however, Azoun remembered a question that had been plaguing him since he'd left the khahan's yurt.
Wheeling his horse to face the historian, the king called out, "A moment, Koja. I have one last question for you. What did the khahan tell you after he'd dismissed the generals?"
The bald man maneuvered his horse and trotted it up to the king. "As I warned you, offering any insult to the khahan is death," the historian said simply. "I asked Yamun why he did not kill you for your insult."
"And his answer?"
"The khahan told me that what you said could not be an insult unless it proved to be true," Koja replied. He shrugged. "I don't understand the difference, but tomorrow the khahan intends to show he is no coward, that he does not fear your army."
With Koja's words echoing in his mind, Azoun reined in his horse and faced it back toward the west. Again, the king set a brisk pace along the Golden Way. All the way back to camp he wondered if the patchwork army that awaited his return could ever be a match for the horsewarriors.
Like most of the Army of the Alliance, Razor John waited anxiously for King Azoun to return from the Tuigan camp. With overworked, cramped fingers, he crafted arrows for the upcoming battle. That work couldn't keep his mind occupied, so he listened to the other weaponsmiths exchange rumors about the Tuigan camp.
"Well, I heard they sacrifice someone to their dark god every day at highsun," an arrowsmith said authoritatively. He looked up from the arrowhead he was fashioning and turned to the decrepit bowyer sitting next to him. "I heard that from the mouth of the Cormyrian captain who was in the Tuigan camp."
"Could be why they killed the three other envoys Azoun sent," the bowyer ventured casually without taking his eyes off the yew longbow he was finishing. The craftsman's hands shook, but from what John could see, the bow was expertly fashioned.
"I thought only two envoys went," John corrected. He took a finished arrowhead from a pile to his right and fastened it to a shaft.
The arrowsmith snorted. "Shows how much you know, fletcher. I bet you haven't even heard about the babies the barbarians had spitted on pikes."
Though he thought that particular rumor to be false, since from all reports the Tuigan didn't fight with pikes, Razor John decided to keep silent. He'd learned soon after joining the army that it was practically impossible to argue with a gossipmonger. Fact was something such men falsely cited so often that they couldn't recognize its true form even in the most simplistic of debates.
Shaking his head, the aged bowyer took out a long, heavy string of hemp and fitted it to the nocks at either end of the yew stave. "Them damned horsemen done far worse than killing infants when they overran Tammar." He tested the bow's pull and pretended to sight along an imaginary arrow. "I can't wait to get at those monsters."
The arrowsmith grunted his agreement, then continued to list the atrocities of which he'd heard the Tuigan accused. Many of the various grisly crimes were based upon the reports of "reliable men who'd been there when it happened." The most outrageous claims were mitigated by the fact that they came only second- or third-hand to the arrowsmith.
Tiring of his co-workers babble, John let his mind wander. Unsurprisingly, the first thing that pushed into his thoughts was Kiri. The fletcher had grown increasingly fond of the daughter of Borlander the Trollslayer as the days passed. Had the timing been better, he would even have considered asking her to marry him, but the chances of one of them dying on the crusade were too great to set any such plans before the end of the fighting.
Snatches of other conversations, the ones taking place between the various clutches of workmen preparing for the battle, intruded on John's contemplation of his future with Kiri. Fletchers, bowyers, and arrowsmiths surrounded Razor John almost completely, but the armorers and sword-smiths weren't so far away that he couldn't hear the ring of their hammers or smell the sharp smoke from their fires. He listened to the steady, clanging beat of hammers on hot metal and tried to let the familiar sound drown out all others. It was a warm late afternoon, even for the high summer month of Flamerule, and John was soon nodding off.
A rap on the shoulder brought the fletcher's mind back to his immediate surroundings. The arrowsmith and the bowyer were coughing hoarse, braying laughs, and a few of the other workmen had glanced at John.
"Did I wake you?" someone asked sweetly. John turned to find Kiri Trollslayer standing over him. Her hands planted firmly on her hips, the pretty soldier from Cormyr cocked her head and set her brown eyes on the fletcher's face.
Fumbling with a half-fletched arrow, John got to his feet. "N-No, Kiri. Just daydreaming." He glanced up at the darkening evening sky and amended that. "Well, twilight-dreaming, anyway. Aren't you supposed to be on sentry duty?"
With a laugh, Kiri hooked her arm in John's and took the arrow from his hand. "I have some interesting news," she said as she dropped the unfinished arrow to the ground. "The king is on his way back. He should be in camp by the time the stars are out."
She told John the news in a voice loud enough for the workmen around them to hear, but many had turned to watch Kiri anyway-there simply weren't as many female soldiers in camp as men. The area was soon abuzz with excited chatter.
"He had to fight his way out of the Tuigan camp, too," Kiri concluded, addressing the comment to anyone who was listening. She paused and crossed her arms over her sleeveless tunic, as if daring someone to contradict her.
"Aye?" the aged bowyer said. "Good thing the king has Master Vangerdahast along. The wizard probably cast a few fireballs, or maybe even a lightning bolt or two, to help them along." A chorus of agreement met that comment, and others suggested spells the royal magician had probably thrown during the fight.
"Where did you hear this, Kiri?" John asked sharply, turning her toward him with both hands.
Frowning, she pulled out of the fletcher's grasp. "A rider from the king's escort just returned," she snapped, annoyance clear in her voice. "He told one of the other soldiers on sentry duty."
With a groan, John put a hand to his forehead. "Just like the sentry I talked to after Mal's execution, right?"
Kiri scowled, and a look of genuine hurt filled her eyes. She knew the incident to which John referred quite well. He had talked to her about it a dozen times since it had occurred.
Azoun had ordered the entire army to witness Mal's execution on the day they left Telflamm. As John had stood with his fellow soldiers, watching the murderer dangle from a scaffold, a dalesman assigned to control the crowd had struck up a conversation. The dalesman had then proceeded to tell a wildly exaggerated version
of the fight in the Broken Lance. The tale ended with something John still found absolutely astounding.
"And I heard from a friend," the dalesman had concluded, "that the Cormyrian had an accomplice, some cutthroat named Razor John. They say his sword's so sharp-like a razor, you know-that he cuts off heads with a single stroke."
Dumbfounded, the fletcher had simply nodded, then bid the dalesman good-day. On many occasions John had told Kiri the tale and never failed to mention how little he thought of gossips. Those frequent comments all came flooding back to Kiri as she stood before her friend.
"I'm only telling you what I heard," she said, a slight quaver in her voice.
With a frown at his own callousness, John rested his hands gently on Kiri's shoulders and apologized. The news of Azoun's battle with the Tuigan was spreading like wildfire, from bowyer to armorer, blacksmith to fletcher, but John and Kiri let their conversation drift on to other topics. Still, it wasn't long before a soldier in chain mail, the star and shattered crown insignia of Archendale emblazoned on his white surcoat, dashed into the work area.
"The king is coming!" he shouted. "Down the Golden Way." He turned and dashed off to another section of the camp, sweat beading on his forehead in the warm air.
Workmen dropped their tools and immediately made their way to the broad road that intersected the camp. Thousands of soldiers and refugees already lined the trade road for well over a mile to the east. John and Kiri were content to stay far back from the press, even though they knew they had no chance of spotting the king from where they stood.
As he waited, John caught snatches of stories about the king's escape from the Tuigan camp as they circulated through the crowd. The speculation he'd heard from his co-workers about the spells Vangerdahast had cast in defense of the king was now stated as fact. More than once the fletcher felt tempted to offer a correction to an obvious falsehood, but restrained himself.