The old man lifted his shoulders in an indifferent shrug. ‘I knew some noble would be foisted upon me. Better you than some others.’
Again, Jatal gathered the distinct impression of being handed an insult wrapped in a compliment. Still dissatisfied, he pressed on: ‘You have an estimate, then, of the number of yakshaka soldiers we may expect to meet?’
The man’s thin cracked lips pursed. The lines bracketing his mouth deepened like fissures in granite. ‘No more than fifty, certainly.’
Jatal was quite startled. ‘Fifty? That is as good as an army. How can we overcome fifty yakshaka?’
The Warleader waved a gnarled, age-spotted hand, the nails yellowed and jagged like talons. ‘They will not emerge to meet us in battle. Their duty is to protect the Thaumaturgs. And we are not here to kill them. Rather, we will be there to stop them from interfering in the sacking and pillaging of the city. Besides, they are formidable, but not indestructible.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Now, if you will excuse me. At my age it is important to take the time to rest and recuperate …’
Jatal bowed as his tea arrived steaming on a silver platter. ‘Of course. Later, then.’
The Warleader bowed shallowly and departed.
Gone to his tent, no doubt, where, Jatal heard reported by servants, he applied himself assiduously to the goal of stupefying himself with mind-numbing smoke. Well, so far it didn’t seem to have interfered with his performance. Perhaps he dosed himself in order to tolerate the fractious Adwami. In any case, it was none of his business.
Their forces began marshalling just before dusk. Princess Andanii arrived surrounded by a personal bodyguard of twenty Vehajarwi knights. She wore heavy leathers and a silk-wrapped conical iron helmet, a curved sword at her side, her bow on her back. Jatal bowed to her. ‘Princess. We leave at once. Before we go, however, I must ask again whether you think it is prudent that both of us accompany this force.’
Her glance was sharp at first, but softened as she nodded her understanding. She leaned close in her saddle, her voice low. ‘This cohort drawn from all the families was a masterstroke, my prince. Do you not see they must accept both of us as commanders? We will have need of a force that we alone control. One free of family obligations. Will we not?’
Jatal was quite flustered and adjusted his seating on Ash’s back to cover his reaction. He brushed at the long hanging sides of his mail coat, his robes and sword. By the Demon-King Kell-Vor! He hadn’t thought of that! He’d merely proposed this ad-hoc force to
quell
internecine bickering and to shuffle everything along. But now that she had mentioned it; yes, such a body could be extremely useful should they declare themselves …
And if Andanii wishes to believe it was all part of a deliberate long-term plan on my part, well, so much the better for my standing in her eyes
.
He cleared his throat and twisted a hand in Ash’s reins. ‘Well, the Warleader is of the opinion that we will probably see no action, in any case.’
Andanii frowned her scepticism. ‘Why should that be?’
‘He claims the yakshakas’ first duty is to guard the Thaumaturgs. So long as we do not threaten them they should stay out of the fight.’
‘And where does a foreigner come by such intimate knowledge of our neighbours?’
Jatal gazed at the young woman in stunned admiration.
Shades of my ancestors!
Again, such a question hadn’t even occurred!
What an impressive leader this one will be. Beautiful, cunning … and that night … Gods, the memory of her reaching down to grasp my manhood even as I …
She leaned to him, her dark eyes concerned. ‘You are all right?’
Jatal nodded, taking a shaky breath. He rubbed the sleeve of his light cotton robe across his slick face. ‘Yes. I am fine. I was just thinking … that is a very good question, my princess. Perhaps I should strive to learn more of this man. Where he is from. Why he knows so much.’
A curt nod. ‘Yes. Do so. For the time will come when we will no longer need him.’
Jatal now eyed the woman sidelong in suspicion. Did she plan on not honouring their agreement with the mercenary? Perhaps she was merely considering all the possible alternatives.
So … beautiful, cunning, passionate … and ruthless
.
Their force of picked Adwami mounted men-at-arms formed column as the first element. The Warleader’s mercenary troops would follow. While the troops ordered themselves, the Warleader rode up on his dappled pale stallion. He saluted Jatal and Andanii. ‘As commanders, you shall lead. I will ride with my troops. We make for the central administrative compound.’ For an instant it seemed a mocking half-smile cracked the man’s severe features. He turned his mount aside and trotted back along the column.
Jatal was more than irritated; the Warleader possessed the best intelligence regarding the city, its environs and defences. That they should lead was, well … was worse than ridiculous. It was inviting
disaster
. He waved over Gorot, his master-at-arms. The squat veteran urged his horse closer. ‘Send out your swiftest riders. Scout the damned city.’ Gorot saluted and fell back. Jatal watched him go, thinking himself wise not to have gone to the lancer knights, where, usually, such an ‘honour’ would be bestowed. Better now to find an actual scout who could ride rather than some young minor noble’s scion out to make a name for him or her self.
It was halfway into the night when they reached the valley floor to knee their mounts up on to a wide cobbled road that would take them to the city. Visibility remained excellent as the moon was high and waxing, while the great arc of the Scimitar very nearly over-powered it. Again Jatal admired the Thaumaturgs’ engineering works: not only the road, but the canals and reservoirs they passed – all interlocking elements of a complex system of irrigation.
A stream of mounted scouts came and went reporting on the way ahead. No roadblocks, no fielded army. Hamlets and farmers’ cottages all remained dark and quiet as the column clattered past. The glow of the city swelled ahead, though it was not as bright as Jatal imagined it ought to have been, given that Isana Pura was the southern capital.
Further scouts reported no barricades or columns massed in the streets to challenge them. Many of the surrounding bodyguard lancers grinned at the news but Jatal was not encouraged. What did they imagine was going on? That these mages had surrendered already? Fled? No. These reports only troubled him. If the magi and their soldiers and yakshaka guardians were not in the streets – then where were they?
Across the front of the column he caught Andanii’s eye and in her pale moonlit features, framed by her tall helmet, her lips held as a hardened slash, he thought he read similar misgivings. Regardless, onward they swept, passing field after farmed field, the alien sprawl of Isana Pura, population perhaps a million souls, spreading out before them.
After a series of outlying collections of farmers’ huts, wayside travellers’ compounds, and what appeared to be merchants’ staging areas, they rode on to the city proper. Here, the streets narrowed to a point where only three could ride abreast. The houses and shops lined the ways as solid walls of sun-dried brick relieved only by small barred windows and shut doors. Each street lay before them eerily empty and the jangle and clatter of their advance echoed loudly until Jatal believed that the entire city must be wincing with the racket of it. Yet no door cracked open and no gawping residents came pouring
forth
to crowd the way – which itself would have been an effective enough deterrent to stop their advance.
He expected imminent ambush or counter-attack and couldn’t suppress a flinch at each intersection. He and his flanking guards, and Princess Andanii ahead with her guards, all rode now with reins in one hand and naked blade in the other. Each turn brought them to a street nearly identical to the one before. It was a grim and unadorned urban conglomeration that Jatal knew from travellers’ accounts to be typical of Thaumaturg architecture and planning. Yet it remained a city of ghosts – for where was everyone? From what he knew of these mages’ firm hand of rule, he suspected the inhabitants were all cringing in root cellars and back larders: helpless and unarmed, forbidden weapons by their imperious masters.
By now he was utterly without a sense of which way to turn either to advance or to retreat. He could see no further than the looming two-storey walls surrounding him in this puzzle-box of a city. Yet hovering over these brick walls floated the pointed bell-like towers of what he imagined must be the Thaumaturgs’ quarters. In their twistings and turnings at every intersection, Andanii and her bodyguards appeared to be attempting to reach it. At one meeting of five crooked narrow ways they came roaring to a halt, drawing reins, the hooves of their mounts loud on the cobbles as they stamped and reared.
‘Where are our damned scouts!’ Andanii called to him.
‘I do not know!’ This apparent disappearance of their forward riders troubled him greatly, but he wasn’t about to say that aloud. He worked to settle Ash – who champed and twisted his neck as he had been trained for fighting – and noted to the rear of their column that the Warleader and his troops no longer followed. Damn the man! Had they lost him? Or had this been his intent all along?
He’d been desperately trying to dredge up a traveller’s brief description of the city that he’d read some time ago and it came to him then and he gestured with his bared sword. ‘Keep inward. I’m fairly sure—’
‘Very good!’ Andanii sawed her mount’s head about and kicked its sides to send it leaping onward. Jatal followed, hoping to all the foreign gods that he had the right of it.
They charged through a series of long, relatively straight roads each no wider than two arm-spans. Jatal had spent every night of his life in his family gathering of tents where the wind brushed freely, and wide uninterrupted vistas spread on all sides. If these cramped ways and grim squat dwellings were typical of city life then he knew he wanted none of it. Also, his stomach clenched and churned,
anticipating
at any moment ambush or raking arrow-fire. The curious bell-shaped domed towers of the Thaumaturgs, however, reared steadily ever closer.
A turn brought Andanii into a near collision with a mounted Adwami scout – a youth of the Manahir. The column crowded to a stamping, clattering, sudden halt.
‘What news?’ the princess demanded of the young unblooded boy as each struggled to settle their mounts.
‘The streets are deserted, my lady,’ he answered, stammering, quite flustered to be directly addressing so prominent a noble.
‘I can see that,’ she snapped. ‘Where are your fellows? Were you attacked?’
‘No, m’lady. I believe they have, ah, lost their way.’
‘Lost their way …’ she echoed in disbelief. ‘
Lost
!’
The youth winced, ducking his head. He waved to the surroundings. ‘These strange twisting ways … I have never seen the like.’
Andanii rubbed and patted her mount’s neck to soothe it. ‘Well … true enough,’ she allowed.
Separated by the guards, Jatal reared high in his saddle to point to the blunt towers. ‘Know you the way?’
The scout jerked a nod. ‘Aye, noble born. A large walled compound. But its doors are shut.’
‘Take us immediately, damn you!’ Andanii snapped and the young man gaped, not knowing what to say. In Jatal’s opinion he made the right choice by merely hauling his mount around and stamping off without delay. The column followed.
After more twistings and turnings – the horses trampling abandoned baskets of goods and wares along the way – the alley ended abruptly at an even narrower path that ran along an unadorned wall of dark stone blocks. The wall of the compound. Andanii followed at the heels of the scout, sheering to the right, slowing in her headlong dash. The extraordinary narrowness of the channel forced them to ride single file. Jatal’s boots nearly scraped the walls to either side as he went.
The constricted path continued ruler-straight along the border of the Thaumaturgs’ quarters, but the scout halted at a set of slim stone stairs that led up to a portal in the wall. The opening was just large enough for a person to duck within. A door of plain wooden planks barred it. Andanii dismounted and threw herself against it.
‘Locked – or barred!’ she announced.
The door did not look too strong to Jatal. He dismounted and shook it: ironmongery rattled thinly. He raised a booted foot and
slammed
the aged planks. The door swung inward with a snap of metal. One of Andanii’s bodyguards laughed his scorn at this, but Jatal did not share the man’s confidence. Rather, this apparent lack of preparedness or concern for any direct assault only added to his unease. Something was wrong here. Profoundly wrong. He felt it in the acid filling his stomach, his sand-dry mouth, and a cruel iron band that was tightening about his skull.
Yet he dared speak none of this out loud. He knew that among these Vehajarwi, and the larger circle of Adwami nobles, his reputation was that of scholar and philosopher, not a warrior such as his brothers. And so he knew how any disquiet voiced by him would be received. Better, then, not to give this one guard any chance for further scorn.
And there was always Andanii, as well.
Spurred by the heat of her standing now so close, her quick panting breath in his ears, her face flushed and sweaty with anticipation, he stepped through first. The way led down into an inner open court, also quite narrow, rather like an encircling flagged path that allowed access to the many enclosed buildings. This too was deserted. The air here was much hotter and drier than the narrow shaded alleyways still cool with the night air. The sun’s heat now penetrating to the surrounding walls of dressed blue-black stone. From his readings, Jatal knew the rock to be of volcanic origin, even to the point of containing tiny shards of black glass. The guards crowded protectively about him and Andanii.