A new scent brushed his nose and he breathed again, testing for it. He crooked a smile. Thet-mun. The kid’s stink was unique. ‘I hear you,’ he murmured, waving to his left. ‘Who is it? Myint? Thet? Loor-San?’
A good distance away a figure straightened from the brush. Thet-mun. ‘How could you have heard me?’ the skinny youth complained. ‘You always hear me.’
Crouching, Kenjak waved him close. ‘What news? How are the lads?’
The youth adjusted his undersized leather cap and his ancient discoloured hauberk. His hair hung wet and his lean weasel-like face was a livid flushed crimson from some sort of illness that he could not shake. ‘Hungry. Unhappy.’
‘What does Myint say?’
‘She doesn’t like the idea of taking the Thaumaturg. Says it won’t play out.’
Kenjak slammed his shortsword into its sheath. ‘We don’t want the damned Thaumaturg! That’s not the plan! What in the name of the Night Spirits did you tell her?’
The lad – perhaps only a year or two junior to Kenjak – flinched, then pouted, shrugging. ‘Nothing different from what you told me …’
‘Never mind. Listen. Forget the Thaumaturg bastard—’
‘Easy for you to say,’ Thet-mun grumbled. ‘We ain’t never taken one of them down afore.’
Kenjak cuffed him across his tiny leather cap. ‘We aren’t going to. Okay? Now listen. The bitch – is she still headed into the Fangs?’
Straightening his cap, the lad nodded sulkily. ‘Yeah. Plain as day. Them yakshaka leave a trail like an elephant.’
‘By the Abyss. Maybe she really is working for the Demon-Queen.’
‘If that’s the case, me ’n’ the lads, we think we should head—’
‘I don’t care what you and the lads think. Tell Myint and Loor I’m taking them to Chanar Keep.’
The lad gaped, then giggled, covering his uneven rotting teeth as if self-conscious because of them. ‘Naw – no way they’d go in there!’
Kenjak knew their deathly fear of Chanar Keep – and the reason behind it. He used that very dread to build his own reputation among them. All they knew was that he and his right-hand man, Loor, could enter the ruins as they pleased, never mind how. He gave the lad an exaggerated wink. ‘I told this Thaumaturg I’d introduce him to Khun-Sen.’
The lad’s eyes widened in amazement. ‘No way! Great gods …’ He hunched suddenly, pressing down on his cap. ‘But then … no way I’m going in there!’
Kenjak raised a placating hand. ‘Fine. Don’t. Loor and I will. Tell him to go ahead and clean the place up. It has to look halfway decent.’
‘Well – so long as we’re nowhere near there come nightfall …’
‘Yes. That’s the plan. Then we collect the bitch and the yakshaka.’
Thet-mun wiped his grimed sleeve across his nose and dropped his gaze. ‘Yeah … about that …’
Kenjak quelled an urge to smack the lad across his head again. ‘We’ll fucking net him, okay? Tie him up and carry him! All right?’
‘I dunno, Jak. Sounds kinda risky. Maybe we should just lead this Thaumaturg to them and let ’em fight it out? Then we step in smooth as honey aft’wards … hey?’ and he peered up from under his brows, warily.
‘Because there’s too many of them, okay? Need to level the odds. Because he might blow our prize into little pretty pieces! All sorts of possibilities, all right? Yes?’
The lad was digging at his blackened fingernails. ‘Well … if you say so.’
‘Yes!’ Kenjak straightened. ‘Go on then.’
‘Well – actually – I kinda want that anteater …’
Kenjak hung his head. Ancient Demon-King forgive them! He waved him off. ‘Fine. Go get him.’
Grinning, Thet-mun drew a long curved knife from his belt. ‘Thank my old ma and da! Meat tonight!’ He ducked into the brush, disappearing.
Kenjak stood still, listening once again, but heard nothing. The lad really is damned quiet. Too bad he stinks so gods-awful. He headed back to the column.
Before entering the camp pickets he stashed the shortsword where he could retrieve it tomorrow morning. When he returned to camp the soldiers grabbed his arms and marched him to their commander. Overseer Tun ignored the fact that he returned of his own cognizance and took hold of his neck and drove him to his knees where the Thaumaturg rested in the shade of the wide leaves of a plantain tree, all to impress him with his diligence and ruthlessness.
‘Well, Jak,’ the young officer demanded, ‘you have found the trail?’
‘Yes, Magister. They are still headed east. She must be returning to the Demon-Queen!’
The youth fanned his gleaming sweaty face, frowning. ‘I did not ask for your opinion.’
Tun cuffed him across the back of his head and tears started from his eyes – the overseer had metal studs on his thick gloves. ‘Yes, Magister.’
‘How far ahead?’
‘A good three days at least, lord. They are moving faster than us. Yakshaka never rest, do they?’
A scowl of distaste from the Thaumaturg brought another strike to Kenjak’s head. Stars flashed in his vision. His swimming gaze found a wide concourse of ants winding their way up and down the trunk of the tall plantain. While he watched, a gang of the black insects struggled with the cumbersome load of a captured nectar wasp; they were dragging it down to the nest somewhere among the roots. Kenjak took great satisfaction from that sign offered up by the jungle itself: unimportant, unremarked beings overcoming and winning a far larger prize.
Gritting his teeth against the pain, he began, ‘M’lord, if I may …’
Still fanning himself, the Thaumaturg youth – some snotty privileged spoiled noble’s son! – signed that he might continue. ‘Seven Peaks Pass, Magister. Chanar Keep. It will cut days from the journey.’
The young man’s gaze returned from wherever he had gone in his contemplation then slid to him. His long straight black hair fell forward and he pushed it back, adjusting the jade comb that held it secured at the nape of his neck. A surge of rage coursed through Kenjak at the sight of his preening. Pampered rich boy! No servant now to comb that so carefully kept mane. Soon enough I’ll have that piece of jewellery and I will use it to yank the knots from my hair!
‘So you insist,’ the Thaumaturg sighed, as if tired of the matter. ‘If this is so – why hasn’t the girl taken it?’
‘These locals fear Khun-Sen. He used to raid them.’
The Thaumaturg youth raised one quizzical brow. ‘Used to?’
Kenjak hung his head, feeling his cheeks flushing in his panic. Damn the Old King! What a stupid mistake!
‘Don’t pretend you’re no raider, Jak,’ the youth drily noted.
Kenjak stilled, his gaze on the layers of rotting leaves and branches across the jungle floor. An immense relief eased his shoulders and he went limp in the hands of the guards. He thinks I lied to protect myself. Thank the goddess.
‘We will take the trail to Seven Peaks Pass. You will lead us, Jak. I would pay my respects to old Khun-Sen.’
Kenjak bowed even lower, his arms held wide to either side. ‘As you command, Magister.’ You’ll pay your respects to him all right, you damned snotty puke. But not as you imagine!
CHAPTER IV
The magnificent city of Jakal Viharn lies westward of those lands known as Fist, or Korel, and inland. It lieth under the equinoctial line, and it hath more abundance of gold than any other region of the world. I have been assured as such by accounts from earlier travellers who have witnessed such wonders and have seen with their own eyes the great city. For its richness, and the excellence of its seat, this great city far exceedeth any of the world.
Allar Ralle
The Discovery of the Empire of Jacuruku
THE ADWAMI CAVALRY now made steady progress across the great flat plain that was the Ghetan Plateau. This was Jatal’s fifth raid and as before he was very impressed by the land’s immensity and fertility. Broad fields stretched one after the ot
her, each cut by a maze of irrigation canals, ditches and spillways. Interspersed between these stood copses of timber, trimmed orchards, and ruled-straight windbreaks. It all seemed to go on for ever, as if continuously unrolling before them. And when the heat of the baking sun left him swimming in his robes and the constant roll of his mount eased him into a sort of undulating daydream of passing leagues, each indistinguishable from the many before, sometimes he fancied he’d never come to see the end of it all.
Of any armed resistance, there had been little so far. This was of no surprise to the Adwami. Generations of raiding had taught them the miserliness of the Thaumaturgs. It seemed they would rather endure the nuisance losses of raids than suffer the painful outlay of maintaining any adequate garrison. A strategy that would serve them ill – now that the Adwami were set upon a sudden near invasion. And yet again it struck Jatal as odd that this Warleader, a foreigner to their lands, could have foreseen this weakness; unless perhaps he had met or interrogated escapees or fugitives from these regions and such information had suggested the idea in the first place. Indeed, why stop there among the sea of possibilities? The man talked and carried himself as one quite educated and cultured. Perhaps he was familiar with that ancient Seven Cities traveller Ular Takeq, and his Customs of Ancient Jakal-Uku. Or the castaway mariner Whelhen and his account of ten years among the villagers of the jungles in his Narrative of a Shipwreck and Captivity within a Mythical Land. These sources alone could perhaps have served to germinate a strategy.
Perhaps he should be more forceful in his efforts to sit down with the man to get to know him better. So far, however, the Warleader had been quite forceful in his habit of retiring early to his tent. Where, it was rumoured, he inhaled the fumes of various burning substances, thereby smoking himself into stupefaction every night.
Jatal adjusted his headscarf against the glaring sun and eased himself up in his saddle for a moment, stretching his sore thighs. He peered up and down the column as they advanced at a quick walking pace. Speaking of stupefaction – he was drifting into his own reverie. What had he been considering? Oh yes, resistance. It wouldn’t remain so thin. For a time they would manage to stay ahead of word of their advance, but eventually the enemy would be ready for them. Probably at Isana Pura.
Until then, encounters would remain merely a matter of entering the small farming hamlets and depots, disarming the bewildered guards, and sorting through the plunder, including captives, who were sent back in gangs under minimum escort.
What in truth concerned Jatal was the state of the knife-thin accord between the Adwami tribes themselves. Only two blood-feud killings so far – a tribute to the new restraint requested by the Warleader, and the anticipation of the size of the future rewards to accrue from such cooperation. This line of musing brought Jatal to the subject of Princess Andanii and her Vehajarwi. So far, the public face of mutual tolerance between their two tribes, the two largest and most intractable traditional enemies, served to anchor this unaccustomed peace. And what of the princess in all her most seductively alluring flesh? What was he to make of her?
Jatal cleared his throat against the kicked-up dust of the road. From the folds of his robes over his armour he drew out his travel copy of Shivanara’s Songs of the Perfumed Lands and opened it with his thumb.
Sing me, my Prince, the Wonders of True Devotion!
As the caress of the cooling Western wind they are,
As Natural as the unfolding of the Azal blossom,
And as enduring.
Jatal shut the tiny booklet and squeezed it in his fist. He rubbed his eyes, dry and gritty from scanning the endless horizons day after day. Yes, what was he to make of her? The heat of lingering sidelong glances from above her veil as she rode by with her guard of lancers. Their brief exchanges at chance encounters, during which she was in turns mocking or mildly provoking. All a pose? And what of his behaviour? Resolutely formal and courtly: the very model of the traditional Adwami aristocrat.
That, too, no more than a pose?
And how much of a provocation was that, given her proposal? And all the oh-so-much-more it implied?
Yet how could he be certain? Was he a coward not to have attempted to sneak into her private tents already? Yet think of the absurd image of himself caught by Vehajarwi guards and paraded about as some honourless prurient seducer. Such humiliation could not be endured. Indeed, there was a summation of the male quandary: so much suppressed by the terror of being humiliated …
‘My lord Hafinaj …’ A gravelly voice spoke from nearby and Jatal glanced down, blinking, to see the Warleader’s lieutenant, Scarza, walking along in lazy loping strides next to his mount. He eased back Ash’s pace and edged aside of the column.
‘Yes, Lieutenant?’
The giant’s tangled dark brows climbed his lined forehead. ‘Lieutenant? Nay. Just Scarza I am and Scarza I remain. I hold to none of these absurd pomposities of rank – my prince.’
Jatal crooked a smile at the man’s slanting irreverence and reined Ash in. ‘Speaking only for yourself, of course.’
‘Of course.’
‘What news then? Any further sightings of our damned Agon friends?’
A hand the size of a shovel rose to rub wide unshaven jowls. ‘None at all. Keeping as low as the scorpions, them.’
‘How appropriate too.’
‘I thought so.’
Jatal regarded the man for a time. Of Thelomen blood? Or the ones named Toblakai? ‘And where are you from, Scarza?’
‘From my mother, m’lord. Bless her bounteous bosom. In the meantime, sir, the Warleader requests your presence in an insignificant fleabite of a village east of here, if you would. There is something there he believes may be of interest to you, as a scholar and such.’
‘I see. Thank you, Scarza-who-eschews-all-rank.’
The man flashed his formidable canines. ‘Eschews? Too fancy a word by far for this lowly Scarza. I’ll show you the way, m’lord.’
Village was far too generous a description for the wretched cluster of rundown shabby huts. They passed Thaumaturg chattels who merely paused in their field labours, heads bowed and shoulders stooped, before returning to their tasks. The Warleader awaited them amid his honour-guard of twenty Adwami knights selected from the various tribes. Bowing, the bodyguards eased their mounts aside to make room for Jatal. The Warleader sat leaning forward on the horn of his saddle. He directed Jatal’s attention to the simple mechanism of a muscle-powered grain mill. Only, this being Thaumaturg land, the mechanism was not so simple. Instead of a mule or an ox providing the muscle powering the arm that turned the stone to grind the seed, it was the massive legs, broad back, and trunk-like arms of a man, who, had he lived in any other land, would no doubt be a champion wrestler or fighter.
The Warleader gestured to the figure as it continued its endless round fettered to the wooden arm of the mill, strangely unconcerned despite the troop of foreign cavalry crowded around. ‘The work of the Thaumaturgs,’ the Warleader said. ‘Know you of their … creations?’
The unease coiling in Jatal’s stomach tightened. He had in fact grown up hearing the stories brought back by the generations of his forebears’ raids into these lands. Tales of humans bred or distorted by the Thaumaturgs to serve certain … needs. Most of his brethren, he knew, laughed at such accounts, dismissing them as mere bedtime stories meant to scare children. Jatal, however, had read written narratives penned by travellers from disparate regions and times, all of which mentioned such research – and universally condemned the practice and its products.
The sight of the broad back of the unfortunate as he continued his eternal labouring circle raised a fluttering unease within Jatal. Vague recollections of some of the descriptions he’d read returned as half-glimpsed horrors – many too dreadful to believe. Meanwhile, the human dray animal paced on, his head hanging, his long hair filthy and crawling with vermin – just like any neglected mule or ox. Jatal swallowed his disquiet, murmuring, ‘I have read firs
t-hand accounts …’
The Warlord grunted his satisfaction and waved Scarza forward. ‘Bring him to us.’
The half-Thelomen or Trell sized the man up – fully as massive as he – and his hand went to his shortsword.
‘Unnecessary, good Scarza, I assure you. You’ll find the fellow fully as gentle as any cow or sheep.’
The giant cocked a sceptical eye to the Warleader then shrugged his compliance. He stepped on to the beaten circular track to stand in the way of the fellow as he came around on yet another pass. The wooden arm swung around and struck him in the stomach, bouncing, then paused as the chattel stopped his pacing. The constant background grumbling of the mortar stones stilled.
‘You’ll come with me now,’ Scarza said gently. ‘No one intends you any harm.’
The man didn’t answer. Nor did he even raise his head. He was filthy, unwashed, his simple rag loinwrap rotting off him. Scarza looked to the Warleader for guidance.
‘Untie him.’
Scarza unwrapped the leather straps that secured the man’s hands to the wooden arm. It occurred to Jatal that those straps and that arm, no more than a tree branch, were in no way adequate to imprison such a brute. The lieutenant led him by those straps to the Warleader.
‘Lift his head,’ the Warleader said.
Even the half-breed betrayed a hesitation born of unease, yet he obeyed, using his hand to push the man’s chin up.
Jatal winced and the bodyguards cursed their surprise and disgust. The poor fellow’s eyes were no more than empty pits where the ends of tendons and muscles writhed.
‘Open his mouth,’ the Warleader ordered in a strange sort of calm detachment, as if he were examining some curious insect or piece of artwork and not a man at all. Scarza’s great expanse of chest lifted as he took a steadying breath, but he did comply. He squeezed the man’s cheeks, forcing his jaws apart.
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