The generalship of the Army of Righteous Chastisement fell to the next in line to join the Thaumaturg ruling Circle of Nine, Golan Amaway. The Grand Masters of the Mysteries judged the position – correctly – all too demanding in its duties and thus too much of a distraction from the continued pursuit of their one and only obsession: penetrating the secrets of life, and of death.
As the lowest ranked of the Adepts, and thus not sworn into their highest mysteries, Golan had been sanguine in the assignment. He bowed to the assembled Nine Masters, accepted the proffered Rod of Execution, and exited to make ready.
After all, he told himself in solace, it was not as if the Nine Masters would remain behind in idle meditation. They would follow the march at a convenient distance. For as soon as the forces penetrated Ardata’s territory – what the ignorant peasants invoked in superstitious dread as the spirit realm of Himatan – no doubt all would be needed to keep at bay the worst of her attacks.
His bodyguard of ten yakshaka fell unnoticed into step about him.
He
tapped the heavy rod of blackwood chased in silver in one palm, already considering plans of how best to ensure that their untrustworthy foreign allies, these Isturé, might be manipulated into bearing the brunt of every engagement.
Now, after months of exhausting preparation, they marched east for the mountain highlands, the Gangrek Mounts, that divided the as yet untamed borderlands of Thaumaturg territory from the deep jungle of Ardata’s haunts. A land quite thinly populated where, their own peasants believed, continued existence could only be assured by pacts and deals with elder spirits, demons and monsters of the world’s youth.
A version not too far from the truth should their Isturé traitors’ intelligence be accurate. In any case, they should know soon enough.
Golan travelled in a large covered litter born by four yakshaka. Normally he would travel to war by elephant. However, painful experience gathered through the many – unsuccessful – punitive campaigns against Ardata had demonstrated the limited effectiveness of their war-elephant columns. The dense jungle impeded their progress, they became mired in the deep swamps and they sickened in droves from the raging clouds of insects and thick miasmas. Those few that remained were driven mad by the terrors of the night. And so this army was carried forward by human feet and bent human backs alone.
It was also his habit to travel far closer to the front lines than his predecessors judged prudent. Yet he felt himself to be at no risk. Not only did he enjoy the protection of his bolstered bodyguard of twenty yakshaka soldiers, he also stood at the centre of an encircling crowd of his staff of regular army officers, messengers and ordinary soldiers. Not to mention yet a further army of clerks and scribes travelling with their own logistical support of reams upon reams of records listing everything carried and worn by the army entire. He would not even be surprised if there lay within the clerks’ long train of paperwork a sheet reading
General of the Army: one
.
His second in command, U-Pre, edged close to the open side of the rocking litter, bowed for permission to speak. ‘Yes?’ Golan said, and waved a switch to brush away the plaguing flies.
‘The leader of the foreign mercenaries wishes to speak, Master.’
‘Very well, U-Pre.’
The man bowed again and jogged off.
Golan rocked with the motion of the raised platform. A light rain, no more than a mist, masked the distant green line that was
the
highlands where they appeared now and again through gaps in the surrounding forest canopy. The swaying helped Golan maintain a meditative calm despite the horrors that, as earlier campaigns reported, awaited beyond that ragged mountain range.
Heavy armoured boots thumping into the dirt of the track next to his litter announced the presence of this Skinner, commander of the Isturé. ‘You wish to speak?’ Golan asked without turning to look.
‘Yes.’
‘The slow progress of our advance still troubles you, yes?’
The long silence following that observation told Golan that he was correct in his prediction. After marching for a time the foreign mercenary, once an aristocrat within Ardata’s demesnes, and, it was rumoured, so much more than that, cleared his throat to speak again.
Golan slid his gaze sideways to the man: tall helm under an arm, long coat of armour glittering darkly like a curtain of night, wide brutal face so unlike the properly symmetrical rounded features of those of Jacuruku. And, unusually, a long mass of pale hair the colour of sun-dried grass. Was this the feature that had caught the eye of Ardata herself?
‘Yes,’ the man admitted, ‘the slow pace remains an irritation. Allow my command to travel ahead to scout the way and to evaluate the character of the resistance.’
Golan edged his gaze away. ‘No, Isturé. We shall all stay together. Present a strong united front, yes? Like any good artisan I wish to keep all my tools with me so that I may respond appropriately to whatever situation may arise. As a skilled craftsman yourself, you understand this, yes?’
The foreigner’s answering smile was thin. ‘Of course, Master Thaumaturg. How could I possibly argue with such sound reasoning?’ And he bowed to take his leave. ‘If I may?’
Golan waved his switch to indicate his permission. The man tramped heavily off. From the edge of his vision Golan watched him go. As
if I would allow you to travel alone in the land you once ruled! Perhaps to meet clandestinely with representatives of Ardata. Who knows what trickery may be hatched against us! No. I shall keep you close, traitor or failed usurper that you are
.
He noted the emaciated reed-thin figure of Principal Scribe Thorn hurrying up to the litter. The shoulder bag at his side bulged with paper sheets, his inkpot swung on its leather strap round his neck, and Golan sat back with a suppressed groan. He waved the switch across his face, eyes shut. As he heard the man’s sandals slapping
the
churned dirt next to his litter he said, loudly, ‘Yes? What is it, Principal Scribe Thorn?’
‘Amazing, Master!’ the man squawked in his hoarse buzzard voice. ‘Your powers astound us mere mortals. How could you have ever known it was I?’
The carrion stench, perhaps? No, that is not fair. The man is merely doing his job. With the meticulousness of an ant building a mountain out of sand – one grain at a time
.
Eyes still closed, Golan sighed, ‘You have something to report?’
‘Ah! Yes, Master. The manifest of our honoured yakshaka, sir. A routine recount has recently been completed and it would seem, contrary to all expectations, that we are short one.’
Golan’s eyes snapped open. He turned in his seat to peer down at the scrawny man.
Long curved neck just like a buzzard as well
. ‘You are saying that we are missing a yakshaka?’
The man jerked his sweaty shaven head, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing.
‘You have rechecked the count?’
Now the man flinched, offended. ‘Of course, Master! It is my duty to be absolutely certain before bringing such an incongruence before you.’
‘Perhaps one has been mislaid … like a broom or an umbrella?’
Thorn’s gaze fell and he fiddled with the leaf-green carved jade inkpot hanging from his neck, his badge of office. ‘My master is demonstrating his sense of humour?’ he murmured.
Golan arched a brow.
Was that sly mockery?
Well, the man would hardly have achieved his vaunted office without some measure of guile. Golan made a show of sniffing a great wad of catarrh then spat over the side of the litter. All the minor officers nearby mouthed sounds of admiration for such prodigious capacity.
‘Good health, Master,’ Thorn added, admiringly.
‘My thanks. And no, Principal Scribe. Merely exploring all options. I applaud your thoroughness. Send Cohort Leader Pon-lor to me.’
The man jerked a bow. ‘I will order a messenger at once.’ He hiked up his robes and ran off bandy-legged through the churned-up mud and trampled grasses.
Golan fell back into his padded seat. Through slit eyes he watched the dense forest pass on either side. Screens of infantrymen walked in a broad arc among the tree trunks while the main column, consisting almost entirely of file upon file of impressed labourers burdened beneath the materiel and supplies of war, kept to the trampled path. A few carts followed far behind, drawn by oxen or water buffalo.
These
carried the field hospital and various smiths and armourers. All rumbling and tramping east.
And what awaits us there? What will we find? Will we be able to scavenge enough food to support our numbers should we run short of supplies? Will we even be able to find Ardata’s centre of power, this fabled city in the depths of the jungle, Jakal Viharn?
The Isturé, of course, were sure that they could find the way – after every prior Thaumaturg expedition had found only failure and madness, none even to return from that green abyss.
Cohort Leader Pon-lor arrived next at the litter and bowed, smoothing his robes. From beneath heavy lids Golan’s thin gaze appraised him. Apprentice Thaumaturg of the Seventh Rank. A promising junior officer. ‘Cohort Leader,’ Golan began, brushing his switch before his face, ‘One of our yakshaka has had the poor grace to go missing. No doubt it has sunk into a bog. However, I am charging you with ascertaining its fate. We cannot have them blundering about knocking down peasants’ huts, can we?’
The lad raised a hand to push back his long straight black hair, but stopped himself, clasping his hands behind his back. ‘No, Master.’
Golan had hoped for at least a flicker of a smile at such an image, but the young man was too conscious of rank. He waved the switch to send the officer on his way. ‘Very good, Cohort Leader. Take twenty men.’
Pon-lor bowed again and hurried off.
Now, if only I could dispatch these foreign Isturé in such a manner!
*
That night in the encampment of the Thaumaturg army, Skinner’s High Mage, Mara, prepared for her evening meditations. She arranged the parchment, inkpot and stylus on a low enamelled table then sat cross-legged before it. She tied a black silk scarf across her eyes, set her hands on her knees and worked to calm her mind. The noises of the surrounding camp distracted her at first but she was no stranger to such sounds and so slowly, in stages, she managed to relegate all to the background. After achieving the necessary inner calm, she began to sketch.
A knock sounded at the front pole of her tent.
She let out a thin hissed breath, stylus poised, then set down the copper instrument. After one calming breath she pulled down the scarf to study the incomplete sketch before her. Simple flat lines hinting at a bare landscape, and amid this desolation a tall robust spar or boulder.
Obelisk. All that is past. Yet here it stands before me
.
Disquieting. She did not like her past.
The knock sounded again. She carefully replaced the cap on her iron inkpot and rose to cross the tent. She thrust aside the hanging to surprise a Thaumaturg army officer who jerked, startled, then bowed – but not before his gaze slid down the wide curves of her silk shirt and sashed trousers. Mara was of pure Quon Dal Honese descent, and as black as all from that land could be: she knew the men here found this exoticism … fascinating. And she also knew all men everywhere were dogs. ‘What is it?’ she demanded, deliberately pitching her voice as seductively low as possible.
The officer worked to clear his throat. ‘We have captured a man who claims to be a monk—’
‘What of it?’
The officer paused, offered a thin smile. ‘He also claims to have a message for you.’
‘Couldn’t it wait until the morning? I ought not to be disturbed while communing with demon spirits.’
The man’s alarmed gaze flicked past her to the darkness of the tent and he hastily bowed again.
That’s better
.
Head still lowered, the officer said, ‘He claims the message comes from his, ah … god.’
So. I see
. ‘Very well. You may bring him to me.’
‘Yes, Isturé.’
Mara turned away and let the tent flap fall closed. She dressed in her robes then waited, gathering her powers to her until she could feel the very edges of her D’riss Warren sizzling about her.
Another knock and an old man was thrust into the tent. He stood blinking in the relative dark. Even from this distance she could smell the filth of his tattered robes. ‘You have a message for me?’ she demanded.
An unnerving grin climbed the man’s cracked lips. ‘Indeed, Isturé. My master grows impatient. Pacts were made. Agreements were reached between your master and mine. You have your mission. When can we expect fulfilment?’
‘Soon.’
‘
Soon?
’ the man echoed scornfully. ‘We tire of this “soon”. We demand action. Events unfold. The need grows ever more dire.’
‘I will press for action.’
The man tilted his head in slight concord, his eyes glittering bright and black across the tent. ‘Let us hope so … for your sake. My
master
does not take betrayal lightly. When you find your courage I will be nearby, with instructions.’
Mara answered the slight bow in kind. The man thrust aside the heavy cloth and exited. Tentatively, Mara reached out with her senses and flinched from the lingering moil of Warren-poisoning that was the unmistakable sign of the Shattered God.