Empire - 03 - Mistress Of The Empire

by Raymond E. Feist

  Saric's habit of speaking in questions did have the effect of drawing the mind away from insoluble problems. Forced to respond despite her worry, Mara conceded the wisdom of the disguise.

  'Gods preserve us, we may need an extra sword before all is said and done.' Saric expertly applied himself to the buckles of Mara's breastplate, while, with false appearance of normality, the company's water boy made his rounds with his bucket and dipper, as he would through a natural pause for rest.

  * * *

  Lujan slid off the cho-ja, his body leaving streaks in the dust that caked its carapace. He staggered slightly from stiff muscles, and was caught and steadied by the fast reactions of the sentry standing guard outside the command tent. 'Where is Force Leader Irrilandi?' the Acoma Force Commander croaked through his parched throat. 'I bring orders from Lady Mara.'

  The Patrol Leader on day duty arrived breathless, having seen the cho-ja race in. After one glance at his exhausted commanding officer, he assisted Lujan to take a seat on a cushion in the shade. 'Irrilandi is out with the scout patrol. There has been movement reported among Lord Jiro's troops. He went to see for himself,' he summed up.

  'Send our swiftest runner to fetch him back,' Lujan commanded. Servants rousted from the command tent by the day sentry arrived with cool water and towels. Lujan accepted a drink, then waved them off to undertake the task of seeing the cho-ja who had carried him made comfortable. His voice stronger since the dust was washed from his throat, he added, 'Whatever the creature requires, see that its needs are promptly met.'

  The servants bowed and backed off, to crowd around the tired cho-ja. Lujan knuckled the aching muscles of his thighs, speaking fast, and like a swirl in a deep current the surrounding encampment heaved into motion in response.

  While runners dashed off to convene a meeting of officers, and begin the process of a main muster, Lujan summoned the highest-ranking warrior at hand and directed at him a rapid-fire string of questions.

  The officer's answers were direct, and as he used his sword to trace out the deployment of the enemy troops, Lujan also perceived the emerging pattern that had concerned Irrilandi.

  'Jiro's troops have gathered to march,' he summed up.

  'You see that, too,' the officer's worried eyes followed his Force Commander's hands, which had tightened fiercely on his sword hilt. 'Though the gods alone know why the Anasati Lord would issue such a command. His war host can't attack our holdings or our force without invoking the wrath of the Black Robes.'

  Lujan looked up abruptly. 'I have news. Jiro has started his bid to take the throne in Kentosani. Though cursed if I can figure how word traveled so swiftly from his position in the north to the Anasati Force Commander in the field.'

  The scout rubbed sweat from his face. 'That I can answer. He has birds.'

  Lujan raised his eyebrows. 'What?'

  'Birds,' the scout insisted, imported from Midkemia. They are trained to fly to a homing point, with a message scroll fastened to their leg. They are called pigeons. Our archers shot two of them down, but others got past.'

  'The messages were in cipher?' Lujan asked, then answered himself. 'None of Arakasi's decoding patterns translated?'

  The scout leader gave a nod indicating that the Anasati codes were still unbroken.

  Lujan forced his aching body to obey his will, and stand, and walk. 'Accompany me,' he ordered the scout leader; to the duty officer he added, 'When Irrilandi arrives, have him meet me in the command tent over the sand table.'

  The dimness inside the pavilion offered no relief; the rain had ended, and the sun beating down on its hide roof heated the air to steaming closeness. Lujan unstrapped his helm. He splashed the dregs of his water cup over his already sweat-drenched hair. Then, rubbing salty droplets from his eyelashes, he leaned on the rim of the sand table. 'These are accurate?' he asked in reference to the rows of colored silk flags and troop markers.

  'Updated this morning,' the scout replied.

  Silence fell. From outside, the commotion of warriors rushing to muster filtered through the tent walls and hangings; as fine a commander as any in the Empire, Lujan kept his ears tuned to their activities while his eyes roved the sand table in swift assessment.

  'There,' he announced presently, his dusty hands reaching and rearranging whole companies of markers at a sweep. 'The Plain of Nashika. That is where we will take him.'

  The scout gasped in fear and turned pale. 'We attack Lord Jiro? Force Commander, what of the Black Robes?'

  Lujan never paused as he manipulated markers. 'The Black Robes shall do as they will. But by our Lady's order, we attack. If we hesitate, or fail her, every man in this army will be masterless, grey warriors cursed by the gods.'

  The tent flap slapped back, admitting a swirl of dust and the long-striding figure of Force Leader Irrilandi. Lean and toughened as cured bark, the older man jerked off his gauntlets and positioned himself at the sand table opposite his superior officer. He wasted no word of greeting, but swept a glance that missed nothing across the changed deployment of markers. 'We will attack, then,' he surmised, his typically bitten-off speech animated by a lilt of pleasure. 'Good. At first light, I presume?'

  Lujan looked up, a hardness to him that his mistress had seen only once, and that in the moment before he had entered the challenge circle in Chakaha. 'Not at first light,' Lujan corrected. 'Today, immediately after nightfall.'

  Irrilandi grinned voraciously. 'Darkness will offer no cover. You won't deceive any Black Robes.'

  'No,' Lujan agreed. 'But we might have the satisfaction of spilling as much Anasati blood as we can before dawn comes. Let the Great Ones find out what's happened after they stir from their sleep and view the result of our night's activities.'

  Irrilandi studied the sand table. 'Plain of Nashika? A good choice.'

  'Tactics?' Lujan queried back tersely, 'I would have your opinion before we meet with our officers and commit to engagement.'

  Now Irrilandi gave back a chuckle. 'Fight a wide, sprawling battle, one with many small forces and multiple vectors of attack. We have enough numbers, and gods know, we can field dozens upon dozens of messengers to ferry orders and information back and forth. No single arrow point of attack this time, with feints and false deployment; a swarm of arrow points striking at scores of places along the line!'

  Lujan paused in puzzled assessment, then caught his Force Leader's drift. He threw back his head and laughed in admiration. 'You crafty old son of a harulth! That's the best advice I've heard in all my years of service. Create as much confusion as possible, so maybe we can steal time and inflict as much damage as possible!'

  'If we're going to force the Assembly to incinerate us, let us take enough of the enemy into the halls of Turakamu to cause a great song of honor.' Irrilandi looked up with a deadpan expression that could make Keyoke at his most unresponsive seem animated. 'Let's hope it works. Gods pity us, it's a flimsy enough countermeasure to stack against the aroused might of the magicians.'

  The afternoon passed in flurried activity, mostly overseen by Force Leader Irrilandi as Lujan stole his last chance to catch up on sleep. Although the orders that were given amounted to a virtual death sentence, no man among Mara's thousands shirked his part. To die was Tsurani, and to meet the Red God in battle, the finest accolade of the warrior. If the Acoma name continued, and rose in prestige and power, the better were a man's chances of earning higher station on the next turn of the Wheel of Life.

  It was ironic, Lujan thought as he rose and ate a hasty meal at sundown, that the very traditions and beliefs that lent these warriors incentive were the ones that Mara would change, should Justin survive to be the Nations' next Light of Heaven. Some of the officers knew of this twist of fate; if anything, they worked the harder. If a warrior had one recurrent nightmare, it was to waken one day and find himself still alive and taken captive by an enemy. Officers were traditionally killed, but an unusually cruel victor might keep them alive to toil as slaves with no possibility of reprieve
. If Mara would discontinue the glory of bloody death in battle, she would equally eradicate the degradation of slavery that ground a man down regardless of his talents or his merit.

  Sunset washed the sky gold and copper, then deepened into starlit night. Mara's warriors assumed their final formation at the edge of the Plain of Nashika under cover of darkness. The command to engage the enemy, when the moment came, was silent.

  No horns sounded, drums beat no tattoos, and warriors did not shout their mistress's name or any other Acoma battle cry. The start of the greatest conflict of succession to be fought in Tsuranuanni began without the fanfares that traditionally accompanied a war.

  The only warning that the massed army of the Anasati had was the thunderous pounding of thousands of feet as the Acoma forces charged. For once the Anasati were not served by Chumaka's superior intelligence; he had made the obvious conclusion: the Acoma war host must be positioning themselves for a dawn attack.

  Then the night resounded with the crash of swords, and the cries of the fatally wounded. The fighting was vicious and without quarter. Within the first hour, the ground became churned to muck, watered red by the blood of the fallen. Lujan and Irrilandi took turns overseeing the action on a raised hillock, moving counters across the sand table under a pool of lantern light as messengers came and went with reports. Orders were dispatched and formations advanced, or retreated and drew the enemy into pockets. Ground was won and lost, and won back again at crippling cost in lives. The dusty floor beneath the table became littered with counters as Force Leader and Force Commander cast away colored pins to account for losses, which were ruinous, as though every man fought with berserk energy, the better to court the known death by the sword, rather than risk perishing in magic-born flames.

  Each of Mara's two senior commanders rode out in turns on the cho-ja worker to bolster the morale of the troops, or to draw sword and lend an arm in the fighting to stiffen a line where needed.

  The moon rose, bathing the struggle in copper-gold light. The fighting broke up into knots, where the lines were thin, with men shouting the names of Mara or Jiro to make their loyalties known. Armor colors became one in the dark, and friend was near impossible to distinguish from foe. Swords grew dark with blood, and a warrior had to rely upon his training to keep his stroke true; the eye could not track the speed of swordplay with every blade dulled by gore.

  Dawn came, dulled by a pall of fog and dust. The wide plain was littered with bodies, trampled by the contention of the living. Swords cracked under the stress of thrust and parry, and dead men's blades saw fresh action.

  Lujan stood braced against the sand table, knuckling grit from his eyes. 'They have lost more than we, but I'd guess that our dead number scarcely three hundred fewer than the Anasati.' Aware of a stinging wrist, but not remembering the swordcut that had parted the skin, Lujan focused with an effort on the sand table. If the troops were pared down by losses, the fighting patterns had, if anything, grown more complex through the last hours.

  To Irrilandi he concluded, if the cho-ja is willing to undertake another errand, have it bear you to our western line. Pull off half a company and use it to relieve the pressure on companies under Strike Leader Kanaziro.' He pointed to the center of the line, where the bloodiest fighting had taken place.

  Irrilandi snapped off a salute and departed to speak with the cho-ja; after a few words, the creature scuttled away with the Force Leader on its back.

  Lujan leaned tiredly against the sand table. He wondered where Mara was: whether she had reached the cho-ja tunnels in safety, or if not, whether the Black Robes would overtake her without his knowing. Justin could have inherited the Acoma mantle already, with none of the Acoma senior staff aware of a change in succession. The end might already have come, while on the Plain of Nashika men fought and died in futility.

  Such thinking was poisonous, the product of stress and fatigue; Lujan forced himself to attend to the markers on the chart table, and to listen to yet another scout reporting in with word of still another change in the lines. Jiro's army had lost ground this time. Five minutes later, the hillock in question would be lost again, as it had been in turns through a seemingly endless night. Lujan realised by the shadow that pooled under his hand that the sun was now fully risen and climbing higher in the sky.

  He felt a breeze against his neck, and almost as afterthought, realised that the buzzing noise in his ears was no natural effect of exertion on too little sleep. Turning, he saw three men in black robes materialise a few feet away.

  The youngest stepped briskly forward, his thin, high-cheekboned face solemn. 'Force Commander,' he announced, 'I seek your mistress.'

  Lujan sank into a bow, awe mixed with fear on his face. Clearing his throat of dust, he spoke the simple truth. 'My mistress is absent.'

  The magician advanced. His feet were clad in slippers, Lujan noticed, laced in front, and soled in soft hide unsuited for outdoor wear. That stray fact caused him an inward shudder. This magician expected complete and immediate obedience, without any need to exert himself beyond walking a few steps.

  Aware of his frantic heartbeat and his face dripping nervous sweat, Lujan forced himself to reason. These are powerful men, but only men, he reminded himself. He licked dry lips, recalling a judgment he had been forced to carry out as a grey warrior: he had needed to put a man to death for a crime against the camp company. His own sword arm had performed the execution, and he remembered clearly how difficult it had been to strike down the condemned. Lujan could only hope that even a Great One might hesitate before taking a life.

  The Acoma Force Commander held still, though his muscles betrayed him and trembled; the urge to rise up and face threat or to give in to weakness and flee was torment.

  The magician tapped one pointed, curled-back slipper toe. 'Not here?' he said in acerbic reference to Mara. 'At the moment of her triumph?'

  Lujan held his chin to the earth and awkwardly offered a shrug. Knowing that each second stolen here might gain his mistress an infinitesimal improvement in her chance to survive, he spoke slowly. 'The victory is not yet won, Great One.' He paused, coughing slightly. The raspy sound lent credence to his need to stop and clear his throat once more. 'And it is not my place to question my mistress, Great One. She alone would know what matters demand her presence elsewhere, and so she gave over command of this battle into my poor hands.'

  'Curse this rhetoric, Akani,' snapped another voice. Lujan was aware of a second set of feet before his face, this pair wearing Midkemian-style boots studded with wooden nails. The redheaded magician, he identified, who was tallest of the three delegates, and obviously the one most inclined to inflamed thinking. 'We waste time, I say. We know that Mara is bound north toward Kentosani in her litter, and a fool can see from this hilltop that a war is in progress, between Acoma and Anasati forces. We have been defied! Immediate punishment must follow.'

  The Black Robe addressed as Akani replied in more modulated tones. 'Now, Tapek, calm down. We must not draw hasty conclusions. These forces are fighting, all too true, but since none of us saw the battle start, we do not know which side was the aggressor.'

  'That point is moot!' Tapek said through clenched teeth. 'They fight, and our edict forbade armed conflict between the Acoma and the Anasati!'

  After a short silence, through which glares were exchanged between the magicians, Akani once again addressed Lujan. 'Tell me what passed here.'

  Lujan raised his head from the dirt just enough to squint through the dust that drifted in curtains upon the air. 'The battle is close, Great One. The enemy holds a stronger position perhaps, but the Acoma have superior numbers. At times I think we shall prevail, while at other times I despair and compose prayers for the Red God.'

  'This warrior treats us like fools,' Tapek objected to Akani. 'He speaks in circles like a merchant trying to sell shoddy goods.' One studded boot lifted and prodded Lujan in the shoulder. 'How did this battle begin, warrior? That's what we asked to determine.'

>   'For that, you must inquire of my mistress,' Lujan insisted, casting himself prone with his forehead pressed to the earth. Although he skirted open defiance of the most powerful men in the Empire, he interpreted Tapek's question in the broadest way possible; Mara had never discussed the ancient roots of the rivalry between House Acoma and House Anasati after all; that sort of history was more in Saric's province. Keeping up his posture of loyal servant Lujan prayed no magician would reformulate the question to ask who ordered the first attack.

  Risking a peek upward, Lujan studied the Black Robes with the same eye he would apply to any new recruit: he dared to assess them as men, and determined that while Akani was intelligent, and certainly no fool, he was not predisposed to wish Mara or the Acoma forces harm. The redhead Tapek would take extreme action at little thought; he was the dangerous one. The third in the party seemed a bystander, watching the exchange as a factor might, who had little ambition and no stake in the outcome. He did not seem distressed.

  Tapek nudged again with his boot. 'Force Commander?'

  Aware he would be instantly dead if he replied directly to Tapek's query, Lujan tossed caution to the winds. He acted as if strain had upset his wits and disrupted his train of thought. In a tone of awed reverence, he said, 'Great One?'

  Tapek's fair skin flushed. On the point of an explosion of temper, he was checked by a touch from Akani, who smoothly intervened. 'Force Commander Lujan, withdraw the Acoma forces and end this battle.'

  Lujan's eyes widened. 'Great One?' he repeated, as if the order astonished him.

  Tapek shook off Akani's restraint and bellowed, 'You heard me! Order the Acoma forces to retreat, and end this battle!'

  Lujan threw himself prone on the earth in a show of abject prostration. He prolonged his obeisance until just shy of the ridiculous, then said unctuously, 'Your will, Great One. Of course I will order a retreat.' He paused, allowed his brow to furrow, then added, 'Would you permit me to arrange the retreat in a manner that will minimise harm to my warriors? If the object is to spare further bloodshed . . .'