The Diamond Warriors

by David Zindell

  ‘So.’

  I pressed my hand against the newly-made scar cutting my forehead as I contemplated what seemed to be an impossible situation. I felt myself trapped, even as King Sandarkan was. But my warriors and I faced an enemy who would never offer us terms.

  ‘There must be a way out,’ I said to Kane. ‘There must be.’

  And with that, I returned to the canopy and sat back down with King Talanu and King Sandarkan. I said, ‘As always, we Valari dispute with ourselves while our real enemy endeavors to destroy us.’

  Then I related the news that Hadrik had brought.

  ‘Unless we act immediately,’ I said, ‘the Galdan and Karabuk armies will invade Delu, and Delu will fall.’

  King Sandarkan, glad for any distraction from his present woes, stabbed his bony finger into the air as he said, ‘If what that rogue knight told is true, Delu will fall no matter how we act. But that is not our business.’

  ‘Not our business!’ I cried out.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘the Valari must look to the good of the Valari.’

  ‘But Morjin would destroy the Valari!’

  King Sandarkan cast his resentful gaze upon me. ‘The Red Dragon would certainly destroy you – and Mesh. But that is not really Waas’s business either, is it?’

  My throat choked up with such anger that I shouted at him: ‘How can you be so blind? Perhaps Morjin will fall against Mesh first. And then after he slaughters my countrymen, he will turn toward you. And Ishka and Taron, Anjo and Athar, Lagash and Kaash. The whole world, King Sandarkan!’

  ‘That has always been your claim,’ he said to me. ‘Beneath the spur of such terror, you sought to elevate yourself as the Maitreya to gain lordship over the Valari. And when that failed, you put forth an outlander slave as the Shining One.’

  Now he stabbed his finger at Bemossed, waiting with the Seven behind us.

  ‘I have put forth no one,’ I told him. ‘Bemossed is who he is, and his calling does not depend on what we do or do not do.’

  ‘What shall we do then, King Valamesh?’ he said to me. ‘The Red Dragon has sent envoys to each of the Nine Kingdoms. Gifts of diamonds and gold they have brought. They have brought, too, Morjin’s assurance that his dispute is with Mesh and Valashu Elahad alone. He gives a pledge of friendship to any kingdom who supports him in war against Mesh – or at least pledges in return not to intervene in that war.’

  I could not believe the words that I was hearing. I fairly shouted at King Sandarkan: ‘But Morjin is the Lord of Lies! Don’t tell me you believe him!’

  King Sandarkan looked to his left, at the lines of the Kaashan army still standing in the warm sun, and then to his right, at my warriors. He said, ‘At such times as these, one must believe what one must believe. In any case, the Valari, even in alliance, do not have the power to stand against Morjin. Therefore each Valari king must come to terms with Morjin and arrange a peace.’

  ‘A peace?’ I cried out. ‘For a month or a year, until Morjin decides to turn on you and nail all your countrymen to crosses?’

  ‘What do you propose then … King Valamesh?’

  ‘To fight! Now, that we have been given such a rare chance! We know the Galdan fleet’s plans, but they do not know that we know.’ I pointed east, past the Rajabash at the pointed white peaks gleaming in the distance. ‘We have three armies gathered here. Just over those mountains lies Delu. We can march across them and take our enemy by surprise.’

  King Sandarkan laughed at this. ‘That is a desperate chance, a fool’s chance. What if we are discovered? And even if we are not, King Mansul’s armies will still outnumber us five to one.’

  ‘We can still win!’ I called to him. I turned to my uncle and said, ‘King Talanu – if Mesh were to march for Delu tomorrow, will Kaash join us?’

  My uncle looked at me for a long time, and the deep creases cutting his forehead and face made him seem a thousand years old. Then he told me, ‘King Sandarkan is right: what you propose is a desperate chance.’

  He sighed as he grasped the hilt of the sword that he had set down by his chair. ‘But it is our only chance. If we can defeat Morjin’s eastern armies, then perhaps the other Valari kingdoms will join us in facing Morjin’s main force as they come at us from the west.’

  This, too, was my hope. For a long time I had known that I must win a great victory to have any chance of uniting the Valari.

  ‘You dare too much,’ King Sandarkan said to King Talanu. ‘Even as your nephew does’

  ‘I do dare,’ King Talanu told him. ‘In truth, I like the thought of Kaash marching to Delu’s rescue. And having the Delians be in our debt.’

  ‘But you can’t defeat Morjin’s eastern armies! You will die with the Elahad on the march – or at the end of your road, in a desperate battle.’

  ‘I will die soon in any case,’ King Talanu said, shrugging his great shoulders. ‘And it is good for a warrior to die in battle.’

  ‘An old warrior can say that with good courage. But what of your men? Are you willing to see your young men cut down?’

  ‘Better that than mounted on crosses when Morjin burns and ravages through the Nine Kingdoms.’

  I caught King Sandarkan’s gaze and said to him, ‘At the Culhadosh Commons, Morjin’s forces badly outnumbered us, and we still prevailed.’

  ‘At great cost. But it was a great victory, even so.’

  King Sandarkan looked at me more deeply. I felt doubt working at his insides and the slow burn of an awe that he seemed to fight down.

  ‘In Delu,’ I said to him, ‘we can win an even greater victory. We can, King Sandarkan. With Waas’s army joining those of Kaash and Mesh, we might just have enough strength.’

  I felt this as a blazing certainty deep within my blood. I sensed it all hot and fiery within King Sandarkan, too. Did my most urgent passion communicate itself to him through my eyes and the pounding of my heart? Or more tangibly, through the valarda? Or did King Sandarkan, along with many Valari, hold his own gift sleeping inside him?

  And then I felt King Sandarkan turn away from himself and his innate greatness as his face tightened with calculation. ‘You ask for Waas’s aid. What is Mesh willing to give in order to have it?’

  ‘What can I give you other than hope for the future? And a chance for life?’

  He smiled thinly at this. ‘Perhaps I should have asked you this: what is King Valamesh willing to give up in the way of demands here today?’

  He might as well have slapped my face, so keenly did I feel the blood burning my cheeks. I immediately hated myself for shouting at him: ‘Mesh could demand of Waas levies to march to Delu! Instead of asking for an alliance!’

  ‘Could Mesh demand this of Waas?’ King Sandarkan said, his own face growing hot. ‘If we cannot come to terms here, then battle there must be. And you will certainly prevail here, King Valamesh. But tell me: are you willing to spend your men’s lives for such a victory?’

  I looked behind me at Lord Harsha, whose bright single eye stared at King Sandarkan; Lord Avijan and Lord Sharad regarded him, too. I looked out toward the gleaming lines of my men still standing in the sun. I knew that I could not hide very much from Waas’s crafty king.

  ‘No, I am not willing,’ I told him. ‘I will never again be the cause of any Valari killing another Valari.’

  I took a deep breath, and held it for a count of ten as Master Juwain had taught me. Then I said to King Sandarkan, ‘If you are to march with us, it cannot be because of what I have demanded – or not demanded. It can only be because you know it is the right thing to do.’

  The glimmer in King Sandarkan’s dark eyes told me that he did know it was right. All that was good and noble within him urged him in this direction. But still he hesitated.

  ‘King Sandarkan,’ I murmured to him.

  With my deepest sense, I reached out to feel inside his heart for that unbearable tension where fear and fearlessness, weakness and will, hung poised in a delicate balance. I had only, I knew, to
touch him lightly in order to push him one way or the other.

  ‘King Valamesh!’ he suddenly shouted at me.

  When I wielded the valarda to open others’ hearts and brighten their spirits, my gift became a sacred sword named Alkaladur. But what should I call this terrible force when desperation drove me to seize hold of a man’s heart and choke his very soul?

  No, I told myself, I must not make men into ghuls!

  But it was too late. Like a whisper setting off an avalanche, I felt my will to move King Sandarkan to a right action loose a cascade of raging emotions within him. His own will to push back at me suddenly hardened and grew as unmovable as a mountain.

  ‘King Valamesh,’ he asked me, ‘do you then offer me a free choice of marching with you to Delu, or not?’

  I gritted my teeth against the pain I felt stabbing through my throat. Then I told him, ‘Yes, a choice – I do.’

  ‘Then freely,’ he snarled at me, ‘I tell you this: I will not put my men at such peril. What king who loved his warriors would?’

  With a look at King Talanu and then again at me, he said, ‘Now, unless you do have additional terms to demand of me, I should like to lead my men off this field and begin the march back to our home.

  ‘No, I have no terms to demand,’ I told him. ‘Go back to Waas.’

  King Sandarkan made no farewell either to King Talanu or myself. He stood up with a jolting abruptness. With his captains, he rode back toward his army still standing in its square formation at the center of the field.

  And then my uncle said to me: ‘Some men, even Valari kings, are ignoble.’

  I took in the gleam of King Sandarkan’s emblem, with its two silver swords. What would it be like, I wondered, truly to see my enemy as myself?

  Then I said, ‘No, King Sandarkan is noble enough, even if he doesn’t know it. But how should I expect him to call up his nobility when I can’t even find my own?’

  In the face of the great defeat that I had just suffered, I knew that this question would torment me on the long road to Delu, and beyond.

  14

  After the Waashians had left the field to begin their march back to Waas, my army and that of King Talanu remained encamped by the Rajabash River. For four days, I rested my exhausted men while Lord Harsha worked with King Talanu’s quartermasters to ensure that we would have enough stores for our journey into Delu. Along the river for three miles, the warm summer air filled with the smells of beef being smoked over oak fires and new battle biscuits roasting. Lord Harsha grumbled that he could not calculate how many provisions our two armies would need because he did not know how far or for how long we must march.

  ‘We will march as far as we must,’ I told him one evening as the men gathered around their campfires and listened to Alphanderry sing. ‘We will march until Morjin is defeated, and if our provisions run out, we will have to find more along the way.’

  The feeding of our armies was only one of my concerns; as the day approached when we must set out upon the road, the question arose as to who should lead them.

  ‘You are the eldest,’ I said to King Talanu in my tent later that evening. ‘You have fought in a score of battles and have led your warriors in almost as many’

  ‘I am the eldest,’ my uncle said. ‘But I think I am too old.’

  In truth, my uncle was much the most ancient of the Valari kings. My mother’s father, King Yuravay, had sired him nearly seventy-five years before.

  ‘There is still good wisdom here,’ he told me, tapping a gnarled finger against his head. ‘But my brain does not work as well as it once did. And therefore I am not so clever or quick.’

  He looked around at Lord Sharad and Lord Tanu and my other captains, and at Prince Viromar and Lord Yarwan and his captains, too. Then he said to me: ‘What you propose to accomplish will require both quickness and cleverness, and more, daring and brilliance. These are qualities that you possess, King Valamesh. And have put to good use defeating the Red Dragon’s forces again and again.’

  I bowed my head to acknowledge his honoring of me.

  ‘And therefore,’ he continued, ‘it is you who should lead our armies. And those of the other Valari kingdoms, if ever you can unite them. Once you almost did.’

  None present disputed his assertion that I should be warlord of the combined armies of Kaash and Mesh. To seal the new covenant between us, King Talanu called for brandy to be poured into everyone’s cup. Everyone toasted my new status then – except for Maram, who loudly reaffirmed that he would touch no spirits until Morjin stood defeated.

  ‘And that great day’ Maram called out as if trying to convince himself more than the grim warriors around him, ‘will surely come now that King Valamesh leads the Valari!’

  But I, of course, now led only a fraction of the Valari. And although on the morrow I would ride at the head of two armies into Delu, I still did not know where I must lead them.

  After King Talanu had returned to his encampment and my captains went off to their beds, I requested that my friends hold council with the Seven to help decide this matter. We took our places at my long table, where Liljana served us tea instead of brandy. I sat sipping from a small blue cup as I looked from Master Juwain to Kane and then at Abrasax.

  ‘I told King Sandarkan,’ I said to everyone, ‘that we know the plans of the Galdan fleet, but that is not quite true. Hadrik rode from Galda to inform us that the Galdans will soon sail, but he did not know when. And he did not know where our enemies’ armies will land.’

  I wished that Hadrik had agreed to sit at our council. But this strange knight seemed loath to bear the company of other human beings. I might have tried to command his presence here, but I was not his king, and he called no man master, not even Kane. He roamed our encampment like a lone wolf, and I did not know what role he would play on our march to Delu – that is, if he consented to ride with us at all.

  ‘The where and the when’ I said to Abrasax, and to everyone. ‘If we knew that, we would gain a great advantage over our enemies.’

  ‘As to the where’ Maram said, swirling his tea in his cup, ‘we might make a good guess. Surely our enemy will make use of the beaches along the White Coast.’

  He, born of Delu, spoke of that stretch of white sand beaches that began about a hundred miles southwest of Delarid and ran for seventy miles back toward the Morning Mountains and Delu’s border with Kaash.

  ‘Even if they do,’ Kane said, ‘we don’t know which beach to concentrate on.’

  ‘But we can send out scouts’ Maram said. ‘Val can lead the armies as close as he can, and when the scouts make report, we can fall upon our enemy in a lightning stroke.’

  I smiled sadly at this because I knew that I would not be likely to bring up our armies very close to our enemy’s landing point – not if we had to cover seventy miles of beaches. The lightning stroke that Maram envisioned would degenerate into a slow thrust that our enemy would see coming from miles away.

  I turned to Master Matai, sitting next to Abrasax, and I said, ‘Can the Master Diviner help us?’

  Master Matai’s golden skin gleamed in the soft light given off by the stands of candles around the tent. So did his soft brown eyes as he regarded me. ‘You ask a good question, King Valamesh: can I help you? Can I, really?’

  ‘So,’ Kane said to him, ‘you must keep a kristei, or make use of the Master Galastei’s stone. What futures have you seen in your crystal sphere, eh?’

  ‘I am a diviner, it is true,’ Master Matai said with a grave formality. ‘But I am no scryer. And even if I were and could tell you exactly which beach the men you call your enemy will embark upon, should I then point it out to you so that you can fall upon them with your swords?’

  ‘They are the enemy!’ Kane snarled out.

  ‘They are men,’ Master Matai said, ‘who are compelled to fight beneath the Red Dragon’s standard. And many of them are from Galda, which I once called home.’

  While I remained quiet out of respe
ct for the immense tragedy that had befallen the once-proud kingdom of Galda, Kane wasted not even a glimmer of a tear on useless sentiment. He said to Master Matai: ‘Compelled, ha! Your own Brotherhood teaches that all men and women may choose between the light and the dark. In the end, our wills are free!’

  ‘Our wills are free,’ Abrasax said, intervening on Master Matai’s behalf. ‘And we do have to choose between the dark and the light. But that choice is difficult at times of twilight, when all the world seems as gray as an ice-fog.’

  Then he went on to reaffirm the Brotherhood’s ancient stand against war.

  ‘Master Matai,’ he told us, ‘should not have asked if we can help Valashu Elahad. But rather, may we? Are we permitted to?’

  ‘You’ve helped before,’ Kane said.

  ‘We helped him to find the Maitreya,’ Abrasax said, nodding at Bemossed, who sat at the end of the table between Estrella and Liljana. ‘We helped him to recover from his wounds, to his body and soul.’

  ‘And so helped him to become king. And now that he is king, you shilly-shally in helping him to fulfill his purpose as a king.’

  ‘And what is that purpose?’ Master Storr broke in. ‘To bring on a war that will burn up the world?’

  ‘No,’ Kane said. ‘To fight a war that is not of our making, that we cannot avoid. And then, in victory, to end war once and for all.’

  I sat quietly feeling the drumbeats of my heart. Kane spoke of my deepest dream almost as if he had made it his own.

  ‘To kill then, in order to end killing?’ Master Storr asked.

  ‘Is it better to avoid killing and so bring on annihilation?’

  ‘But do you not see how your way is impossible?’

  ‘Do you not see that men must fight, when they must fight? It is what we were born for!’

  Master Storr shook his head at this. ‘We were born to know the peace of the One. And to honor the Law of the One. And that law says that men must not kill other men.’

  ‘No – it says that the Elijin must not kill!’

  ‘Thus, from your own mouth, you damn yourself.’

  Kane’s eyes caught up the red glow of the candles as he growled out, ‘So – then I am damned!’