* * * *
The Blood Eagles rushed up the narrow winding stair leading to the Slumber, tripping and jostling each other in their haste, only to find they were not the first to reach the plateau. Jeers, war-chants, and the drone of bull-horns greeted the first of their warriors as they loped through the decaying archway, and Amkur Beg split the sky with his curses.
“Damn them!” he snarled, shaking his skinny fist at the mob of High Bloods assembled in the grass-grown central court of the temple. “I should have known these bastards would do their best to embarrass me. We should have been here first! It is an insult, a deliberate thrust aimed at my prestige and honour.” Nothing could calm him, and he stalked into the court with a face like murder, his deep-set eyes glittering with malice and sunken cheeks mottled with angry blood. His warriors followed him, each gripping the hilts of the hooked knives tucked into the belts. The knives were still hidden in their goatskin sheaths, indicating the High Bloods came in peace, but that could change at a second’s notice.
All of Bail’s instincts screamed at him to run or at least make himself inconspicuous, but he had no option. Now was the time, if ever there was one, when he needed to play the king. Gesturing at his shield-bearers to hold their burden steady, he stood up carefully on the shield, planting his feet on the rim, and did his best to look proud and indefatigable. He held the Heartstones in his right hand, so all might see them, and clasped the hem of his scarlet cloak with the other.
“You are every inch the king now,” Sorrow called out behind him, “no longer the Crooked Man, but a prince among men.”
These words filled Bail with confidence, and his blood tingled as if he had taken a draught of strong wine. Be imperious, he told himself, and don’t take any nonsense from a pack of stinking savages.
Several of those waiting in the court moved forward to greet Amkur. They were the chiefs of their respective clans, and had the same look of affable villainy etched into their leathery faces. Their bodyguards followed them at a cautious but respectable distance, wiry hard-eyed men and women, arms and throats decorated with crude tattoos of leaping salmon, snow leopards, and other mountain creatures.
“Amkur!” cried one of the chiefs, his face splitting into a toothy grin. “Too much time has passed since we last set eyes on each other. Your raven reached my Eyrie last night, ordering me and mine to the Slumber. It is a mark of my respect for you I did not roast and eat the bird, message and all.”
“Desman, it is good to see you,” Amkur replied without a trace of enthusiasm. “I would offer you my hand, but fear you might bite it off. I am not so old that I have forgotten the blood feuds between my people and yours. They remain to be settled.”
“Sixteen, at the last count,” Desman cried merrily. He clapped a hand on the shoulder of the man standing next to him, another wiry hatchet-faced specimen. “But today is not a day of blood. Rather, it is one of celebration, for Amkur has found our king and the Heartstones both! Tell me, Fariad, your opinion of that great white-faced loon standing on the shield?”
The one named Fariad squinted at Bail, rubbed his long snout with a grimy forefinger, and spat out of the corner of his mouth.
“He has blue eyes, skin like chalk, and hair the colour of straw,” the chief croaked. “Why does Amkur dishonour his blood by trying to set a foreign dummy over us as king?”
“I have dishonoured you?” Amkur grated, his knuckles whitening on the gripe of his knife. The warriors guarding Desman and Fariad started forward, but their masters waved them back.
“Peace, old eagle,” said Desman. “I know our lore as well as anyone. The one who draws the Heartstones from the earth shall be made King of a reunited Ghor. It is written. It may be our ancestors did not predict the arrival of a sandy-haired oaf from the lands beyond the Northern seas, but that is unimportant.”
“Leave off, man,” snarled another of the chiefs, a woman this time, no less lean and hard-boiled than the others, her grey hair scraped back into a single braid hanging down to her waist. “Amkur has found some foreign devil to set up over us, a mere puppet he can bounce up and down on his strings. He seeks to lord it over us, but knows he cannot do so by beating us in battle.”
Amkur glared at her with a murderous expression, a vein throbbing in the side of his neck. “Hold your tongue, you cross-grained old bitch.” He snarled and pointed at Bail. “See what he carries? The Heartstones! I tell you, the blue-eyed one and his sorcerer found them in the high mountains.”
“Aye, the sorcerer,” said Desman, pulling at the greasy whiskers sprouting from his chin. “I see him, lurking behind the skirts of your patchwork king. Why, he is a mere boy! Amkur Beg, I expected better. You are losing the sure touch for deceit.”
“Let the elders study the Heartstones in the Ring and judge if they are true or not,” suggested Amkur. The other chiefs exchanged glances, and Desman shrugged.
“Very well,” he replied. “Let your false rocks be brought for judging into the Ring, along with the fool and the child.”
Bail did not hear a word of this conversation, and would not have understood even if he had. What he did understand was he was surrounded by a mob of leaping, whooping over-excited barbarians, their weather-beaten brown skins inked with a bewildering variety of tattoos, white teeth flashing in the sun. Every one of them, from warriors in their prime to decrepit greybeards and yelping half-naked children, was armed with a knife and javelin, and every one eyed those from different clans with deep suspicion. He recognised the look and could almost taste the rising tension in the air.
“One word spoken out of turn, one gesture out of place,” he said, turning to look down at Sorrow, “and these animals will fall to butchering each other. I hope you have something ready to get us out of here, should the knives come out.”
Sorrow said nothing. His eyes were slightly dilated, and he swayed slightly, as he had done when the children at the Moon-Walker’s camp had beaten him.
“Sorrow, wake up!” Bail shouted in alarm. “This is no time to practice meditation. Sorrow!”
He kept shouting, even as Amkur beckoned and the shield-bearers carried him away, toward the largest series of steps in the middle of the vast court. A female High Blood warrior scooped up Sorrow. He offered no resistance but rested on her shoulders like a boneless puppet as she carried him after the others.
The Ring was a circle of ancient grass-covered stones. The chiefs and their bodyguards ascended the wide series of cracked and worn steps leading up to them, Amkur and Desman in front. Bail was obliged to forget his kingly dignity for the moment and cling to the rim of his shield, terrified he might fall off as he was carried upwards at an angle.
When they were all gathered, the High Bloods formed into a ring of their own inside the stones. Bail was carried into the space in the middle. Amkur gestured at his shield-bearers, and at a grunt from Sadaf, they carefully set him down.
“Now,” said Amkur. “Let mine words be tested for truth. Lord King, please to place the Heartstones at mine feet.”
He spoke to Bail in his heavily-accented High Temerian. Frowning, Bail stepped off the shield and reluctantly laid down the Heartstones. A wondering sigh rippled through the crowd, mingled with a great many disbelieving jeers and snorts.
“What’s the matter, Amkur?” he demanded in an anxious voice. “Am I to be made king, or not? Don’t let these bastards harm me or Sorrow.”
Amkur held up a hand in reassurance. “Do not fret, mine King. A few mere formalities have to be observed.”
Desman stepped forward. “Let the elders have a look at this stone, then,” he said, folding his arms. “Let us have the truth.”
The ranks of warriors behind him shuffled aside, and then came three of the oldest women Bail had ever seen in his life. Toothless and blind, limping along on naked twisted feet, with but a few wisps of white hair clinging to their withered skulls, they champed their gums and made weird keening noises as they limped towards the Heartstones. Their bent fragile
bodies were wrapped in several layers of gowns and furs despite the heat of the day, and they gave off a dreadful sickly-sweet stench, as if their flesh was already rotting.
“Gods above,” muttered Bail, holding a hand to his face. The High Bloods ignored him, all their attention fixed on the ancient dams as they gathered about the stones. They extended their yellow hands to touch them, sniffing the air and running tongues like ancient strips of leather around their dust-dry shrivelled lips. The fingers of one found a tablet and began to trace the strange half-faded symbols and hieroglyphs.
The assembled clans watched in respectful silence as, with a crackle of ancient joints, the elders slowly dropped to their knees to study the Heartstones further. Sweat prickled on Bail’s skin. He couldn’t escape from here, and these terrible old women held his life in their hands. In his head he heard the rattling of dice. The Gods were about to gamble on his life again.
They were interrupted before the dice could roll. A disturbance towards the rear of the crowd drew everyone’s attention. Voices murmured and heads turned as someone pushed through their ranks. Amkur Beg and his fellow chiefs looked up in annoyance.
“What’s this?” snapped Desman, glancing suspiciously at Amkur.
“Let me through!” cried a man’s voice. “Stand aside, you ruffians. I have news!”
15.
The speaker was fortunate not to get a knife in the gut for his insults, but he shouldered and shoved his way through. He was a clansman in late middle age, typically tall and rangy, with a greasy black wisp of beard and the crude image of a bear tattooed in green ink on the side of his skinny neck.
“Eliya,” cried Fariad, chief of the Roaring Bear clan. “You are supposed to be watching the hills to the south. Why have you abandoned your post?
“A little more gratitude, my chief,” panted the scout, wiping sweat from his brow. “Have I not run seven miles to be here, sparing not my ageing joints? There is a mighty host approaching, carving through the forests to the south like a vast termite, swallowing up the trees and leaving behind a trail of desolation.”
There was consternation, shouts of horror and anger. All eyes now turned to Eliya, with the exception of the blind elders. The three vile old women continued to crouch by the Heartstones, crooning and fondling, oblivious to the interruption.
Now that he had an audience, Eliya warmed to his theme. “Aye, a great army of invasion is coming!” he cried, spreading his arms wide. “Horse-soldiers and on foot, as many warriors as there are stars in the sky! The Temerians, wearying of our presence, have come at last to wipe our people from the face of this earth!”
Fariad cuffed him smartly across the mouth. “Speak honestly, fool,” he growled. “You were ever a villain, a rogue, and a bad spirit, but I know you can count. How large is this host? Who leads them?”
Suddenly cowed, Eliya dropped his eyes and wiped a spot of blood away from his mouth with his thumb. “I counted more than ten thousand, lord chief,” he answered in a sulky voice. “I know not who leads them, for they march behind the banner of a black circle on white, which I have not seen before. But they are Temerian soldiers, no doubt of that.”
Now it was Amkur Beg’s turn to speak, holding up his skinny arms in a vain effort to quell the rising storm of anger. “The lowlanders have left us in peace these many years,” he cried. “Not since my youth has an army of theirs dared to venture into these mountains. I propose we send warriors from every clan to judge their strength and then send envoys to treat with them.”
“Unless you have sent envoys to them already,” said Desman, in his slyest, most insinuating manner. Amkur’s hand tightened on the gripe of his knife.
“You accuse me of colluding with outlanders?” he shouted and drew his knife a fraction. At the glimmer of steel, Desman reached for his own knife, and the warriors in The Ring followed suit. The rival clans eyed each other with hatred, and insults began to fly back and forth.
“I know you of old, and you were ever fixed on your own profit,” hissed Desman. “What, an army arrives in our land, just as you seek to distract us with your false king and false lumps of rock? Tell us, old eagle, what deals have you struck with the outlanders? How much did it take to buy you?”
Bail knew they were one drawn blade away from a bloodbath. He looked desperately for Sorrow and glimpsed him towards the rear of the crowd, perched on the shoulders of a shaven-headed female warrior. The boy’s head dangled limply, and he still appeared to be in the grip of a trance.
There was no help from Sorrow then, but Bail knew what he had to do. A true King of Ghor would not allow his subjects to massacre each other while an invading army rampaged over their lands. Taking a deep breath, he allowed the actor in him to take command.
“Stop, halt, desist!” he cried, striding forward to snatch up the Heartstones. The elders whined horribly as the stones were whisked away from them, but Bail ignored their desperate groping fingers and held the Heartstones high above his head. “I am your King! Hear me! Obey me!”
Amkur and Desman ceased glaring at each other with murderous intent and looked at him in astonishment. “You can speak our tongue?” Amkur cried, amazed.
Bail goggled at him. Had he just spoken their language? He touched his throat and risked a glance at Sorrow. The boy sat up on the woman’s shoulders now. His eyes had lost their glazed expression, and he looked directly at Bail.
So he was a sorcerer, after all. The knowledge gave Bail new heart, and he dredged up some reserves of courage. “Silence, Amkur Beg, and do not question me!” he said in his sternest, most regal-sounding tones. “Yes, I can speak your tongue. Whoever heard of a king who could not speak the tongue of his own people? Now, put all thoughts of killing and blood-feud from your minds and hark unto me. You must stand together against these invaders or else they will swallow you up a piece at a time. Do you understand?”
A tense silence followed, and Bail felt his heart skip an irregular beat even as the muscles in his arms shuddered with the effort of holding up the heavy tablets.
Desman broke the tension by taking his hand away from his knife. “You are full of tricks, Amkur,” he said with a wry grin. “To try to set up a foreign devil over us was high insolence, but to teach him our language as well… I commend your effort, if not your design.”
“Charlatan or not, he speaks the truth,” said Fariad. “We must turn our blades against the outlanders. All else can be resolved after they are dealt with.”
Bail puffed out his cheeks and lowered the Heartstones. “You accept him as King, then?” demanded Amkur, his jaw tightening as his words were met with renewed shouts and catcalls.
Fariad shook his head. “If all are agreed, the foreigner and the stone will remain here in The Slumber, under guard, until the battle is over. Once all is done, we shall return and test them properly.”
That was about the best Amkur could hope for, and he was wise enough to know it. “Done,” he said.
All now depended on Desman. As chief of one of the three largest and most important clans, his assent was vital. If he refused, there was still the potential for bloodshed, since many of the lesser clans owed debts of loyalty to him.
He grinned, prolonging the tension for a moment longer, and Bail swore inwardly as he recognised how much the man enjoyed it. “Done!” he said at last. “For the time being, let us whet our blades on the throats of outlanders rather than each other.”
With a flourish, Desman drew his long hooked knife and held it up to the sky. His shrill, ululating war-cry was taken up by the warriors inside The Ring, and a forest of knives flashed into being.
The cry found an echo in the multitude gathered outside and rolled across the mountains like a storm.
The High Bloods were going to war.
* * * *
Hoshea was well to the rear of the column when news arrived of the attack. Flogging their horses to the limit, four breathless gallopers flew down the line to report the terrible news.
“A
mbush, sir!” the first to reach him gasped out, forgetting to salute in his excitement. “Bowmen and slingers in the forest, just past the ford. The workmen are pulling back, but taking heavy casualties.”
Hoshea swore. “What about our scouts?” he demanded. “How did the enemy slip past them? Has someone blundered?”
The galloper's perspiring face went even redder. “I…I don't know, sir. Someone told me they had all been slain, but no one seems to know. It’s chaos up there, sir.”
“Oh, dismissed!” Hoshea waved him away and turned to Commander Samshi. “I relied on you to scout out the ground ahead of us,” he rasped, jabbing a gloved finger against Samshi's breastplate. “And I will hold you responsible if we get badly cut up.”
Samshi's jaw tightened at the rebuke delivered in front of his brother officers. “Let me deal with the High Bloods, lord. I will drive them off.”
“No, you will do better and wipe them out. I want at least a hundred barbarian heads on a shield at my feet by this evening, Commander. Bring me their heads and save yours.”
Samshi's face drained of blood, and his fist trembled slightly as he banged it against his breastplate. “After me!” he roared, standing up in his stirrups.
He set off at a gallop, slashing his horse’s flanks with his spurs. The troop of heavy lancers at his back set off in his wake, each remembering to salute The Protector as they thundered past. Over their bright mail they wore white tunics painted with the black circle. Their round shields bore the same image. Hoshea’s own symbol. The symbol of slavery, same as the one burned into his shoulder, though he preferred to think of it now as a symbol of service.
The Path of Sorrow Page 27