Zhusai added the last of the fuel to the fire. The night was not cold, but the little blaze was comforting. Who are you, Talisman? she wondered. Talisman was Nadir—of that there was no doubt. And he was past the age of manhood. Why then did he carry no Nadir name? Why Talisman? Then there was his speech. The Nadir tongue was guttural, with many sounds created from the back of the throat, which usually made for clumsiness when they spoke the softer language of the round-eyed southerners. Not so with Talisman, whose speech was fluent and well modulated. Zhusai had spent many months among the Nadir as her grandfather traveled widely, examining sites of historical interest. They were a brutal people, as harsh and unyielding as the steppes on which they lived. Women were treated with casual cruelty. Zhusai sat back and considered the events of the day.
When Talisman had stripped himself and dived into the water, Zhusai had been both outraged and wonderfully stirred. Never had she seen a man naked. His skin was pale gold, his body wolf-lean. His back, buttocks, and thighs were crisscrossed with white scars: the marks of a whip. While the Nadir were cruel to women, they rarely whipped their children, certainly not with enough force to leave the marks that Talisman bore.
There was no question about it: Talisman was an enigma.
“He will be one of the Uniter’s generals,” her grandfather had told her. “He is a thinker yet also a man of action. Such men are rare. The Nadir will have their day of glory with men such as he.”
His zeal had confused Zhusai. “They are not our people, Grandfather. Why should we care?”
“Their origins are the same, little one. But that is not the whole reason. The Chiatze are a rich, proud nation. We pride ourselves on our individuality and our culture. These round-eyes are the true savages, and their evil soars far beyond our comprehension. How long before they turn their eyes to the Chiatze, bringing their wars, their diseases, their foulness to our homeland? A united Nadir nation would be a wall against their invasion.”
“They have never been united. They hate one another,” she said.
“The one who is coming, the man with violet eyes—has the power to draw them together, to bind up the wounds of centuries.”
“Forgive my slow-wittedness, Grandfather, but I do not understand,” she said. “If he is already coming—if it is written in the stars—why do you have to spend so much time studying, traveling, and meeting with shamans? Will he not rise to power regardless of your efforts?”
He smiled and took her small hands into his own. “Perhaps he will, Voni. Perhaps. A palm reader can tell you much about your life, past and present. But when he looks into the future, he will say, ‘This hand shows what should be, and this hand shows what could be.’ He will never say, ‘This hand shows what will be.’ I have some small talent as an astrologer. I know the man with violet eyes is out there somewhere. But I also know what dangers await him. It is not enough that he has the courage, the power, the charisma. Great will be the forces ranged against him. He exists, Zhusai, one special man among the multitude. He should rise to rule. He could change the world. But will he? Or will the enemy find him first, or a disease strike him down? I cannot sit and wait. My studies tell me that somehow I will prove to be the catalyst in the coming drama, the breath of wind that births the storm.”
And so they had continued their travels and their studies, seeking always the man with the violet eyes.
Then had come the day when the vile little shaman Nosta Khan had arrived at their home in Gulgothir. Zhusai had disliked him from the first; there was about him an almost palpable sense of evil and malice. He and her grandfather had been closeted together for several hours, and only when he had gone did Chorin-Tsu reveal the full horror of what was to be. So great was the shock that all Chiatze training fled from her, and she spoke bluntly.
“You wish me to marry a savage, Grandfather? To live in filth and squalor among a people who value women less than they value their goats? How could you do this?”
Chorin-Tsu had ignored the breach of manners, though Zhusai could see that he was stung and disappointed by her outburst. “The savage, as you call him, is a special man. Nosta Khan has walked the mist. I have studied the charts and cast the runes. There is no doubt; you are vital to this quest. Without you the days of the Uniter will pass us by.”
“This is your dream, not mine! How could you do this to me?”
“Please control yourself, Granddaughter. This unseemly display is extremely disheartening. The situation is not of my making. Let me also say this, Zhusai: I have cast your charts many times, and always they have shown you are destined to marry a great man. You know this to be true. Well, that man is the Uniter. I know this without any shade of doubt.”
Under the moon and stars Zhusai gazed down at Talisman. “Why could it not have been you?” she whispered.
His dark eyes opened. “Did you speak?”
She shivered. “No. I am sorry to have disturbed you.”
He rolled to his elbow and saw that the fire was still burning. Then he lay down and slept once more.
When she awoke, she found that Talisman’s blanket, as well as her own, was laid across her. Sitting up, she saw the Nadir sitting cross-legged on the rocks some distance away, his back to her. Pushing the blankets aside, she rose. The sun was clearing the peaks, and already the temperature was rising. Zhusai stretched, then made her way to where Talisman sat. His eyes were closed, his arms folded to his chest, palms flat and thumbs interlinked. Zhusai’s grandfather often adopted that position when meditating, usually when he was trying to solve a problem. Silently Zhusai sat opposite the warrior.
Where are you now, Talisman? she wondered. Where does your restless spirit fly?
* * *
He was a small boy who had never seen a city. His young life had been spent on the steppes, running and playing among the tents of his father’s people. At the age of five he had learned to tend the goats, to make cheese from their milk, to stretch and scrape the skins of the slaughtered animals. At seven he could ride a small pony and shoot a bow. But at twelve he was taken from his father by men in bright armor who journeyed far beyond the steppes, all the way to a stone city by the sea.
It had been the first real shock of Talisman’s life. His father, the strongest and bravest of Nadir chieftains, had sat by in silence as the round-eyed men in armor came. This man who had fought in a hundred battles had said not a word, had not even looked his son in the eye. Only Nosta Khan had approached him, laying his scrawny hand on Talisman’s shoulder. “You must go with them, Okai. The safety of the tribe depends on it.”
“Why? We are Wolfshead, stronger than all.”
“Because your father orders it.”
They had lifted Okai to the back of a tall horse, and the long journey had begun. Not all Nadir children were fully taught the tongue of the roundeye, but Talisman had a good ear for language and Nosta Khan had spent many months teaching him the subtleties. Thus it was that he could understand the shining soldiers. They made jokes about the children they were gathering, referring to them as dung puppies. Other than that, they were not unkind to their prisoners. Twenty-four days they traveled, until at last they came to a place of nightmare that the Nadir children gazed upon with awe and terror. Everything was stone, covering the earth, rearing up to challenge the sky, huge walls and high houses, narrow lanes, and a mass of humanity continually writhing like a giant snake through its marketplaces, streets, alleys, and avenues.
Seventeen Nadir youngsters, all the sons of chieftains, were brought to the city of Bodacas in that late summer. Talisman-Okai remembered the ride through the city streets, children pointing at the Nadir, then baying and screeching and making gestures with their fingers. Adults, too, stood and watched, their faces grim. The cavalcade came to a stop at a walled structure on the outskirts of the city, where the double gates of bronze and iron were dragged open. For Okai it was like riding into the mouth of a great dark beast, and fear rose like bile in his throat.
Beyond the gate
s was a flat, paved training area, and Okai watched as young men and older boys practiced with sword and shield, spear and bow. They were dressed identically in crimson tunics, dark breeches, and knee-length boots of shining brown leather. All exercise ceased as the Nadir youngsters rode in with their escort.
A young man with blond hair stepped forward, his training sword still in his hand. “I see we are to be given proper targets for our arrows,” he said to his comrades, who laughed loudly.
The Nadir were ordered to dismount, then led into a six-story building and up a seemingly interminable winding stair to the fifth level. There was a long, claustrophobic corridor leading to a large room in which, behind a desk of polished oak, sat a thickset warrior with a forked beard. His eyes were bright blue, his mouth wide and full-lipped. A scar ran from the right side of his nose, curving down to his jawbone. His forearms, too, showed the scars of close combat. He stood as they entered.
“Get in two lines,” he ordered them, his voice deep and cold. The youngsters shuffled into place. Okai, being one of the smallest, was in the front line. “You are here as janizaries. You do not understand what that means, but I will tell you. The king—may he live forever—has conceived a brilliant plan to halt Nadir raids both now and in the future. You are here as hostages so that your fathers will behave. More than that, however, you will learn during your years with us how to be civilized, what constitutes good manners and correct behavior. You will learn to read, to debate, to think. You will study poetry and literature, mathematics and cartography. You will also be taught the arts of war, the nature of strategy, logistics, and command. In short you are to become cadets and then officers in the great Gothir army.” Glancing up, he addressed the two officers who had led the boys into the room. “You may go now and bathe the dust of travel from your bodies. I have a few more words to say to these … cadets.”
As the officers departed and the door clicked shut, the warrior moved to stand directly before the boys, towering over Okai. “What you have just heard, you dung-eating monkeys, is the official welcome to Bodacas Academy. My name is Gargan, the Lord of Larness, and most of the scars I carry come from battles with your miserable race. I have been killing Nadir scum for most of my life. You cannot be taught, for you are not human; it would be like trying to teach dogs to play the flute. This foolishness springs from the addled mind of a senile old man, but when he dies, this stupidity will die with him. Until that blessed day work hard, for the lash awaits the tardy and the stupid. Now get downstairs, where a cadet awaits you. He will take you to the quartermaster, who will supply you with tunics and boots.”
Talisman was jerked back to the present as he heard Zhusai move behind him. He opened his eyes and smiled. “We must move with care today. This area is, your grandfather tells me, controlled by a Notas group called Chop-backs. I wish to avoid them if I can.”
“Do you know why they are called Chop-backs?” she asked him.
“I doubt that it is connected with the study of philanthropy,” he said, moving past her to the ponies.
“The study of philanthropy?” echoed Zhusai. “What kind of a Nadir are you?”
“I am the dog who played the flute,” he told her as he tightened the cinch of his saddle and vaulted to the pony’s back.
They rode through most of the morning, halting at noon in a gully to rest the horses and eat a meal of cold meat and cheese. No riders had been seen, but Talisman had spotted fresh tracks, and once they had come across horse droppings that were still moist. “Three warriors,” said Talisman. “They are ahead of us.”
“That is most disconcerting. Is it not possible that they are merely travelers?”
“Possible but not likely. They are not carrying supplies, and they are making no effort to disguise their tracks. We will avoid them if we can.”
“I have two throwing knives, one in each boot, lord,” she said, bowing her head. “I am skilled with them. Though, of course,” she added hurriedly, “I have no doubt that a warrior such as yourself can easily kill three Notas.”
Talisman absorbed the information. “I shall think on what you have said, but I hope there will be no need for bloodshed. I will try to talk my way through them. I have no wish to kill any Nadir.”
Zhusai bowed again. “I am sure, lord, you will devise a suitable plan.”
Talisman pulled the cork from the water canteen and took a sip, swishing the warm liquid around his mouth. According to Chorin-Tsu’s map, the closest water was half a day to the east; that was where he intended to camp, though it occurred to him that the Notas were probably thinking along similar lines. He passed the canteen to Zhusai and waited while she drank. Then he took the canteen to the hobbled ponies and, wetting a cloth, cleaned the dust and sand from their nostrils. Returning to Zhusai, he squatted down before her. “I accept your offer,” he said. “But let us be clear: you will use your knife only upon my explicit command. You are right-handed?” She nodded. “Then your target will be the farthest man to your left. If we meet the Notas, you must draw your knife surreptitiously. Listen for the command. It will be when I say your name.”
“I understand, lord.”
“There is one other matter we must settle. Chiatze politeness is legendary and well suited to a world of silk-covered seats, vast libraries, and a ten-thousand-year-old civilization. Not so here. Put from your mind thoughts of guardian and ward. We have just established our battle plan and are now two warriors traveling together in a hostile land. From now on it would please me to have you speak less formally.”
“You do not wish me to call you ‘lord’?”
Talisman looked into her eyes and felt his mouth go dry. “Save that honorific for your husband, Zhusai. You may call me Talisman.”
“As you command, so be it … Talisman.”
The afternoon sun beat down on the steppes, and the ponies plodded on, heads down, toward the distant mountains. Although the land looked flat and empty, Talisman knew that there were many hidden gullies and depressions and that the three Notas could be in any one of a hundred different hiding places. Narrowing his eyes, Talisman scanned the shimmering heat-scorched landscape. There was nothing to be seen. Loosening his saber, he rode on.
Gorkai was a killer and a thief, usually—but not exclusively—in that order. The sun beat down on him, but not a bead of sweat shone on his flat, ugly face. The two men with him both wore wide-brimmed straw hats, protecting their heads and necks from the merciless heat, but Gorkai gave no thought to the heat as he waited for yet another victim. Once he had aspired to be more than a thief. He had longed to possess his own goat herd and a string of fine ponies sired from the hardy stallions of the north passes. Gorkai had dreamed of the day when he could afford a second wife, even though he had not yet won his first. And further, on those evenings when his imagination took flight, he saw himself invited to sit among the Elders. All his dreams were like remembered smoke now, merely an acrid aftertaste on the memory.
Now he was Notas—no tribe.
As he sat in the blazing sunshine, staring out over the steppes, he had no dreams. Back at the camp the nose-slit whore who waited for him would expect some pretty bauble before bestowing her favors on him.
“You think they turned off the trail?” asked Baski, crouching alongside him. The horses were hobbled in the gully below, and the two men were partly hidden behind the overlapping branches of several sihjis bushes. Gorkai glanced at the stocky warrior beside him.
“No. They are riding slowly, conserving the strength of their ponies.”
“We attack when he comes into view?”
“You think he will be easy to take?” countered Gorkai.
Baski cleared his throat and spit, then he shrugged. “He is one man. We are three.”
“Three? You would be wise not to consider Djung in your estimate.”
“Djung has killed before,” said Baski. “I have seen it.”
Gorkai shook his head. “He is a killer, yes. But we are facing a fighter.”
“We have not seen him yet. How do you know this, Gorkai?”
The older man sat back on his haunches. “A man does not have to know birds to see that the hawk is a hunter, the pigeon his prey. You understand? The sharpness of the talons, the wicked curve of the beak, the power and speed of the wings. So it is with men. This one is careful and wary, avoiding areas of ambush, which shows he is skilled in the ways of the raid. Also, he knows he is in hostile territory, yet he rides anyway. This tells us he has courage and confidence. There is no hurry, Baski. First we observe, then we kill.”
“I bow to your wisdom, Gorkai.”
A sound came from behind, and Gorkai twisted around to see Djung scrambling up the slope. “Slowly,” hissed Gorkai. “You are making dust!”
Djung’s fat face adopted a sulky expression. “It cannot be seen from any distance,” he said. “You worry like an old woman.”
Gorkai turned away from the younger man. There was no need for further conversation. Djung had a gift for stupidity, an almost mystic ability to withstand any form of logic.
There was still no sign of the riders, and Gorkai allowed his mind to relax. Once he had been considered a coming man, a voice for the future. Those days were far behind now, trodden into the dust of his past. When he was first banished, he had believed himself unlucky, but now, with the nearly useless gift of hindsight, he knew this was not so. He had been impatient and had sought to rise too far, too fast. The arrogance of youth. Too clever to recognize its own stupidity.
The Legend of the Deathwalker Page 10