“This man is obviously crazed,” Komawara said.
“He does not appear to be crazed, Lord Komawara. He also believes everything he just told us. It is often the nature of faiths other than the True Path to affect men deeply, to draw them away from Botahara. Few will find the Way among so many false paths; the Way is difficult and offers no gold nor easy answers.”
“Barbarians,” Komawara said with some finality. “What will we do with these?” He gestured to the other tribesmen, who were showing signs of life.
Shuyun spoke to the tribesman again, and he answered earnestly and at great length. Shuyun listened and nodded, making no attempt to translate until the man was finished.
“This man says that the army of the Khan is camped not far from here, but he says that if we make him free he will not attempt to join the Khan but instead he will return to his tribe and give his word to do no harm to the men of Wa or any member of my faith. He says also that if we give him his life, he will be Tha-telor—in our debt or service. We may demand service or payment for his life. He offers us his gold. I believe he is telling the truth in this.”
“Truth!” Komawara spat out. “They are entirely without honor, Brother. It is generous of him to offer us his gold when he is bound and helpless and the coins are already in my hand.”
“It is the opinion of my Order, Lord Komawara, that the tribes have a code, though it is not as yours or mine, but it is a code nonetheless and they are as bound by it as you are by your own.”
“My code does not let me easily take an unarmed man’s life, but I do not doubt that this is what we should do, for our safety and the safety of Seh. I know you cannot be party to this, Brother, yet I am sure it is the wisest course.”
“These men are all kin, Sire. If we take one with us, the others will not endanger his life. I believe we should take this man. There is no doubt that we need a guide.”
“Brother Shuyun! These others will run to their Khan. This one has said that the Khan wants a pendant such as yours. If there is even a small force nearby, any number of men could be dispatched to track us. Once they know we are here, I have not enough skill to keep us from being found. Excuse me for saying so, but I cannot believe this is a wise course.”
“These men are not in favor with the Khan, Lord Komawara. To go to this leader with nothing in hand but a story would be a dangerous undertaking. It is also true that they, too, would be Tha-telor. I believe that this binds them totally. If there is an army nearby, we must be sure of it and we must know its extent. I believe a guide would save us much valued time.”
“Can you ask him how large this army is?”
Shuyun spoke again to the man who nodded eagerly. He knew they debated his future and was anxious to please them.
“He says the army is too large to count, but he has seen it with his own eyes and it is more than half a day’s ride to encircle their encampment.”
“He is a liar!—a crazed liar. There are not enough barbarians in a hundred deserts to make an army of half that number.”
Shuyun questioned the man again.
“Though what he says is fantastic beyond belief, Lord Komawara, he tells the truth. He and his tribesmen observed the army at their encampment only five days ago.”
“Botahara save us, Brother, I pray this is not so.”
* * *
“Kalam,” Komawara said, using what he believed to be the tribesman’s name. In fact it was more of a title, though a title was perhaps too official: Kalam meant “sand fox.” Most of the hunting tribes would have someone among them who bore this name, for it was traditionally given to a young hunter who ranged far and showed great cunning in his hunt. This was the one who guided the two men from the Empire of Wa, a young hunter who was Tha-telor, though neither Waian was aware of what that meant.
The tribesman reined in his horse and Komawara pointed at what appeared to be haze in the south. The barbarian nodded vigorously and then catching Shuyun’s attention began to speak rapidly in his own tongue.
“He says that is the dust of the Khan’s army. They travel now toward Seh, Lord Komawara.” Shuyun could see the look of anxiety on the northern lord’s face.
“Who would begin a campaign just as the winter is upon us? The rains will start. There will be snow and some weeks at least of bitter cold. Nothing he says makes sense to me.”
“Perhaps not, lord, if we assume he is wrong about the size of the army. If it is as the Kalam says, then an army of great size attacking a land that is poorly defended and unaware of the threat may expect a quick victory. Seh offers the fruits of a bountiful harvest. The winter rains will come, as you say, and the inner provinces will not send an army until late spring by which time the Khan will have had time to create defenses, if indeed it is his intention to take Seh and hold it.”
Shaking his head, Komawara scanned the southern horizon again. “It could also be a dust storm, Brother, nothing more.” He pointed to the western horizon where a faint haze was apparent. “There is also dust there. Is that an army?—and if so why do they travel away from Seh?” He scanned the entire horizon then, but found no more dust storms to support his argument. “How far to the encampment?”
Shuyun spoke again to Kalam.
“We will be there before sunset, Lord Komawara.”
Shaking his head again, the young lord of Seh gestured for the tribesman to lead on.
Much had changed in the day since the barbarian ambush. With great reluctance, Komawara had agreed to take Kalam as their guide and had released the others. They had replaced their lame pack animal with one of the barbarian’s own mounts and set off for the encampment of, what Komawara believed, was a mythical army.
They bound Kalam by night and stood watch turn about, but there was no sign of his kinsmen falling on them in the dark. They made good time now; with Kalam guiding, they took no false turns nor met with any dead ends. All in all, the tribesman was proving to be an excellent guide and he had even worn away a little of Komawara’s suspicion that morning by killing a viper and providing the lord with meat for a meal.
Shuyun looked over at the young lord, riding silently, lost in a whirlwind of thought and concern. He carried a sword now and no longer bothered to keep up his tonsure and neither he nor Shuyun spoke of this. If they were captured by a leader who was about to make war on the Empire, it would not matter that they were healers…especially if it was true that the Khan desired a Botahist pendant for his own.
This thought made Shuyun worry about the safety of Brother Hitara, though there was something about this wandering monk that made Shuyun wonder if his concern would be better focused elsewhere.
Perhaps two hours before sunset Kalam brought them to the base of a cliff. “The way changes, Lord Komawara,” Shuyun said as he dismounted. “From here we must leave our horses and proceed on foot.” He stared up at the cliffs that rose above them, and Komawara’s gaze followed.
“We climb again?”
“Yes.”
Komawara rolled his eyes as he left his saddle.
They followed Kalam as he found his way upward among the shattered ledges and broken boulders of the cliff face. It was strenuous but not steep or difficult. Shuyun could see relief on Komawara’s face—glad that he did not have to repeat their ascent of the face in Denji Gorge, for this, by comparison, was only a scramble.
Finally, Kalam motioned for them to stop and proceeded to a vantage where he hid, searching with his eyes for what Shuyun could not tell. Then, he motioned them forward and signed that they should be silent. Coming up to the rocks that hid the tribesman, the monk looked out and there, below them, stood a sentry in the shadow of the cliff—a sentry dressed entirely in a soft light gray from his boots to his turbaned head.
As out of place as a garden in the desert, Shuyun thought, for the man was richly dressed. The detail of his clothing was clear at a distance and they could easily see the gold worked into the hilt of his sword and onto the horn he wore slung about his shoulder
. He leaned on a long spear and surveyed the view before him with some concentration.
“This is not a man asleep at his post,” Komawara whispered.
The tribesman nodded and held a hand to his lips. He led them up again through a narrow cleft, doubly careful to kick no rock free. Twice more, they came to vantages where they could see the guard, but he gave no indication that he was aware of their passing.
Farther on, they skirted a second sentry dressed identically to the first and again were struck by the man’s appearance. Shuyun found himself looking at their dust-covered guide and then at the guard again. These sentries do not seem to be of the desert, he thought.
They began to make their way down. A rim appeared before them and it was here Kalam finally stopped. Shuyun thought he heard chanting echoing up through the rock—low, eerie, haunting—but it may have simply been the wind.
Lying flat on his belly, the tribesman eased himself up to the edge and looked over. He signaled his companions forward and they did as the hunter did, sliding forward on their stomachs.
They peered over the edge of the rift and found a grotto into which a shaft of failing sunlight fell. Torches set into the rock mixed their red light with the rays from the setting sun and illuminated a sight that neither Shuyun nor Komawara expected.
“Ama-Haji,” Shuyun whispered and Kalam nodded his eyes wide with wonder.
“Look, Shuyun-sum,” Komawara said softly, and pointed to a part of the cliff face slightly hidden by an overhang of stone. Here, set into a bank of reddish clay, lay an enormous skeleton—large-jawed head, a snaking spine longer than ten men, the bones of small legs.
“A dragon,” Shuyun intoned. “It is the skeleton of an actual dragon! Botahara be praised. A true wonder! The beast of antiquity…” And he sounded for the first time like the youth he was; entirely swept away by what he witnessed. And from Komawara he heard a sound like a weak laugh and the lord rubbed his eyes.
Men in long gray robes were preparing a pyre before the skeleton, a pyre of stunted, twisted wood and they chanted the low chant Shuyun had thought he heard.
“Kalam?” Shuyun whispered.
The tribesman spoke only one word.
“What does he say, Brother?”
“Ritual sacrifice. The goat you can see.”
Kalam moved away from the edge, pushing past Shuyun, and he made a warding sign. Gesturing to the setting sun, he turned and made his way back as they had come; his companions from the great Empire followed him as silently as they could.
They sat in the darkness talking. Komawara could hear the sounds of the barbarian language from where he lay trying to rest. He wondered what had suddenly made the tribesman so talkative. But he did not wonder long, the memory of the dragon skeleton, the dragon that was etched onto the gold coins he had seen, returned to him over and over. It was as though the Five Princes had ridden down out of the clouds, lightning flashing from the hooves of their gray mounts. Impossible! Myth no grown man believed. A dragon! And he had seen it with his own eyes!
* * *
Morning saw a continuation of the eerie veil of high, thin cloud. The wind shrilled on unabated. The day was cooler. Only Komawara had dismounted, as though he needed to get closer to the ground to be sure his eyes were not deceiving him.
They had ridden to the center of an abandoned encampment—an encampment so enormous that the young lord’s mind would not seem to accept it.
“No…no. This cannot be. This cannot…” He looked around him like a man returned to his fief to find it razed to the ground—sick to his heart yet the mind still refusing to accept what he saw.
“Lord Komawara…Sire? We must return to Seh as quickly as possible. We dare not linger here. Lord Komawara?”
* * *
“How do you know he’ll return?” It was the first time Komawara had spoken since they had left the barbarian encampment the previous day.
“He is Tha-telor.” Shuyun said. “And he is frightened of the Khan.”
“Frightened of he who squeezes rocks into gold?—he who is as strong as twenty men?”
“The Kalam is in awe of the Khan, there is no doubt. But the Khan is cruel. The Kalam has heard stories.”
“Cruel? He is a barbarian chieftain. I hardly think he can shock another of his kind.”
“Perhaps, but a simple hunter from the steppe is another matter.”
“A simple hunter who tried to remove your head, excuse me for reminding you.”
“I pushed a man from the mouth of a cavern into the waters of Denji Gorge because he was the soldier of an enemy of my liege-lord. I do not think you would call me a barbarian. I pray that man will reach perfection in his next life, but his karma is his own, as is mine.” Shuyun paused and scanned the horizon. “Our barbarian guide did not act so differently, Lord Komawara; we are not, after all, his traditional allies. The Khan frightens him, perhaps only because he upsets the accustomed order of their tribal life.”
“Huh.”
They fell silent again, riding on as quickly as they dared without exhausting the ponies. A rider on the horizon brought them up short, but it was soon apparent that it was Kalam returning to them. Behind him the dust cloud from the Khan’s army rose into the sky and swept away on the north wind.
“They can be seen from the next rise.” Shuyun translated as the tribesman began to talk, spouting words in his excitement as though he could not catch his breath. “Few outriders can be seen, they must not fear discovery. This is not the whole army, he says, and they have turned to the east, now.”
Again Komawara returned to the state of shock he had experienced in the encampment. “We must see for ourselves,” he said finally.
They did not hurry to the rise but kept their pace, perhaps even slowed it. There was no rush. Only their eyes lacked the evidence, but Shuyun and Komawara knew in their hearts what they would see.
Even so, the sight stunned them and they were silent for some time. Moving across the sand in the center of an enormous dust cloud was a mass of humanity.
“Fifty thousand?” the lord said finally.
“Not quite that,” Shuyun said, his voice taking on that strange quality that Komawara had noticed before, “perhaps forty thousand.”
“Forty thousand armed men,” Komawara said slowly, “and look how many are on horse! There has never been a barbarian army this large. Not in the days of my grandfather, not in the time of the Mori—never…. This dust cloud must blow all the way to Seh and the people will think it is merely a storm in the desert.”
Shuyun spoke to Kalam and listened carefully to their reply. “It seems you may have been right, Lord Komawara. These are warriors of the high steppe who have their lands to the east near to the sea. Kalam believes they return to their tribes to winter. If this is true, the campaign will not begin until the spring.”
Komawara hardly seemed to hear this. “In Seh we might raise forty thousand if we also count old men and boys. The plague stripped us of our people, of our fighters.”
Shuyun spoke quietly to Kalam, nodding thoughtfully to the tribesman’s response. “The Kalam says the scattered tribes have sent their sons from the breadth of the steppe and the desert. No one knew that there were so many. No one knew how many clans there were. This is but half the number he saw at the encampment, and from seeing that place I believe he is not wrong.”
“How do they feed them? You cannot grow food in the sand.”
Shuyun spoke to Kalam and the answer seemed to shake him. “He says that they drain everything but enough to survive from the tribes, and also much food and many weapons come from pirates whom the Khan pays in gold.”
“Gold he squeezes from rocks….”
“It is a mystery. We must return to Seh, Lord Komawara. We have seen all that we need to see.”
“You are right, Brother. And you were right in another matter.” The lord nodded to the barbarian tribesman. “We should release him now. He has given us true service.”
�
��I’m afraid, my lord, that it is not as simple as that.”
Thirty-seven
THE DAY WAS chill, the light from the sun filtering through high cloud that covered the sky like a layer of sheer silk. Despite the temperature, Shonto sat on a small covered porch overlooking the gardens of the Governor’s Palace. He progressed slowly through his daily correspondence, most of it official, routine, and of no great importance. A letter from Lord Taiki, however, required a second reading.
After describing how his son adapted to the loss of his hand, and praise for Shonto’s steward Kamu, who had visited the child several times, the Lord went on to matters of greater interest:
There is one thing that has come to my attention that seems most unusual, especially since our recent discussion. Coins such as those the barbarian raiders carried, have come to light in Seh. Only two days ago one of my nephews sold his prize stallion for a great deal of gold. The coinage was not Imperial nor was it stamped with a family symbol but was as you described: square, simply formed, with a round hole in the center. The purchaser was the youngest son of Lord Kintari, Lord Kintari Jabo. Lord Kintari’s son is not known for his skills beyond the wine house, and it is surprising that he would have gold in such quantity to purchase one of the finest animals in Seh, if not all of Wa—for he paid dearly to become its master.
This would be interesting enough as it stands, but more occurred: Lord Kintari Jabo’s older brothers came to my nephew saying that a mistake had been made and they asked most humbly if the horse could be returned and the gold refunded. My nephew, being a man of strict principle, felt that the transaction was fair and in all ways honorable and politely declined. This did not please the brothers who then explained that the gold was of importance to their father as an heirloom and that their brother had been in error to use it in this matter. Would my nephew consider exchanging the coins for Imperial currency?—of course, the Kintari would think it only correct to pay him a generous portion of the purchase price for his inconvenience and his consideration in this matter. This then was done, except for a few coins that my nephew had already used which could not then be found.
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