Shanakan (The Fourth Age of Shanakan Book 1) (40 page)

It was freedom.

Serhan sat in his chambers and tried to concentrate on what the other two were saying. It all seemed trivial to him, but Christo Milan of Stone Island and Ardin Wasric of Skycliff were both trying to convince him of the merits of their respective arguments. They had come to White Rock supposedly for advice, but now seemed reluctant to accept it. Both of them were new to power, and Serhan believed that they had not given it as much thought as it warranted.

He saw it as a balance sheet to be manipulated. If you did one thing it must be balanced with another. Compassion must be balanced by strength, taking by giving, and the way you lived your own life by the way your people lived. Christo and Ardin still dwelled in a place where a ruler simply ruled.

“My Lords,” he interrupted them. “There is a more important matter that we need to discuss.”

Ardin raised an eyebrow.

“More important?”

How quickly they forget who is who, and where real power lies.

“Samara.”

“What is Samara to do with us, Lord Serhan?” Christo asked. “It is hundreds of miles from the borders of our domains.”

“Samara is vital to our people’s well-being, my Lords. Everything comes from there. If it descends into chaos the other cities will follow and we will have no more swords, no more cups, and no more fine wine. Our clothes will be made of the crude cloth that our own people make. There will be no tapestries, no carpets for our floors, no nails to repair or build our houses. Do you see?”

“Your point is well made,” Christo admitted, “even if you do so by appealing to our self interest.”

“But what can we do? “ Ardin asked. “The city is huge. We have a few hundred men, perhaps a thousand between us.”

“Great force is not necessary. I have been keeping watch on the situation, and it has degenerated into a conflict between the King and a number of groups who oppose his rule on the reasonable grounds that he has been nothing but a butcher. Bloody conflict is a daily reality. The city is tearing itself apart.”

“The question stands, my lord,” Christo said. “What can we do?”

“We can give them something else to think about. I propose that we send a small force, big enough to look after itself, but its main purpose will be to distract them from killing each other long enough to make them settle.”

“Why not simply impose your will on them, my Lord?” Ardin asked.

It was a fair question, and it had occurred to him that this was an option, but he hated the idea. If he did such a thing he would be no better than the Faer Karan, a tyrant. He was content to stay in White Rock and look after the people here. They had known him for years, and he had credit with them for improving their lives. He was seen as benevolent, and there was no rival claim to his position. If he seized control of Samara he would be resented, no matter what his motives might be, and no matter how the people benefited.

Most of all, he did not trust himself. He knew that frustration could make him angry, that he was inclined to use too much power to make a point, and sometimes to strike before he had thought the situation through. This had been an advantage when he was living on the knife edge of lies and secrecy that had been necessary under Gerique, and for a lot of that time he had been different, his instincts more charitable. He recognised the change in himself. There was a bitterness within, and a deep anger that stepped forwards without warning.

“I do not want to rule the world, my lords,” he said.

“We are fortunate that it is so,” Christo agreed, “but we have our own lands to defend and patrol. There are domains bordering our own that are controlled by men who do not see things your way. They seek to expand their territory in the absence of any power to prevent them. If we commit our guardsmen to you, our own people will suffer.”

“For the duration of your commitment I will guarantee your borders, personally. In time those ambitious and warlike men will be educated or replaced, but Samara is the priority.”

“You make a good case, my Lord,” Ardin said. “Your willingness to defend us, however short lived in reality, will be remembered by others. However, I will have to return to Skycliff and confer with my advisers.”

“I understand, but do not take too long. The situation in Samara is nearing a crisis.”

“We will be prompt, my lord.”

He left it at that. He would send Darius and two hundred of his own men at once, with orders not to get involved beyond talking. It would perhaps give the inhabitants of Samara some pause.

*              *              *              *

Darius walked to the mouth of the valley alone, leaving his junior officers to organise the men. It was a small, dry valley, easily big enough to conceal them and their black door arrival from any curious eyes. From where he paused he could see buildings, farms perhaps, scattered about the countryside in small groups. Too small to be villages, they were dressed attractively with trees, and the buildings were white against the lush green of the landscape. They were like small clouds, their bright edges softened by orchards, fixed on a green sky. There was no hint in what lay around him that the city was close, but he knew that it was less than ten miles away across the rolling hills to the south.

He looked back and saw that the last of the six wagons was coming through the black door. He had not been surprised when Serhan had opened it, though others had been. They did not expect magic from a young man who smiled and made small talk with the men, who drank wine with them. Magic was Faer Karan business.

They would get used to it.

In time he would get used to being colonel, and the new meaning that went with it. He could not be more different from Stil, and would continue to do just as he had done before. He was pleased, though. He thought it had a nice ring to it.

He walked back to his men. The door had closed, and he was alone in a grassy valley with two hundred men and their supplies and armaments.

He gathered them before him. They looked eager, excited, and nervous. This was a new world for them, too

“Our arrival had been careful,” he said to them. “But we are not here on a secret mission. Our Lord wants people to be aware of us, to know that we are here, and to wonder who we are, so we will be wary, we will do everything in good order, and we will be as noisy as a village market. Our camp fires will blaze like burning houses, and our patrols will raise dust clouds like summer storms. We are not here to fight, but if forced to do so we will engage with discipline and bring honour to the name of White Rock. We are promised more troops, so our numbers and our threat will grow until we may be attacked out of fear, but our positions will be well made, and we will not fail.” He saluted his men, drawing his sword and pointing to the sky. “For White Rock, for justice, for Serhan!” He cried. The song that the blade made as it slipped from its sheath was answered by a louder song. Two hundred blades sang back, and a forest of steel glittered before him and the guard answered.

“For White Rock, for justice, for Serhan!”

True to his commands they rode from the valley swiftly, and without any attempt at concealment. Outriders quickly gained the high ground on either side of the column and they advanced without pause the eight miles to their camp site, just two miles from the city, and in full view of it. As they rode, Darius watched the farms on either side. From time to time he saw figures among the trees and houses. Sometimes they stood and watched, and sometimes they ran inside. On one occasion he saw a horse leaving a small group of buildings at a gallop, heading directly for Samara. It was all good. Now they would be noticed, and in the city commanders would hear of them and wonder who they were.

He picked a camp site that was not overlooked by anything within the distance of two good bowshots, and where they could be seen from afar. This also meant that they could see clearly any body of men that approached them when it was still a mile distant.

The men laid aside their swords in shifts and threw up a shallow earth rampart around the camp, which was about an acre in size. They carried on enlarging the wall while others unloaded tents and other equipment. By mid afternoon the place was a tented village. Fires burned in front of tents, and the smell of cooking food drifted over the walls. Men stood at guard around the perimeter and others relaxed within the safety of the fortified circle.

Towards evening a group of men rode out from the city. It was difficult to make them out, but they circled in front of the camp, keeping well out of bowshot, and stayed for a quarter of an hour before retiring back into the city. Darius studied them as best he could. They appeared to be well armed, and wore a good deal of plate and mail armour. They rode in good order, so he was inclined to believe that they were the King’s men.

The other lot would not be so well equipped.

As Serhan had explained it to him there were two chief factions fighting in the city. The King, Simon Tarnell, led one faction. He claimed to be the hereditary king of Samara, and traced his line all the way back to the house of Tarnell that had ruled here at the time of the coming of the Faer Karan. The kings-in-waiting of Tarnell’s line had estranged their people, however, by attacking anyone who had dealings with the Faer Karan or their guardsmen. Recently this policy had been abandoned, it seemed, but trust was slow to grow between the King and the people.

When the rumours spread that the Faer Karan had fallen, Tarnell moved to claim the throne of Samara, moving men into the citadel, which was perhaps the only defensible position in the city. But in gaining control of the citadel he had lost control of the city itself. For a place so large the king had very few men, and once the citadel was garrisoned there were precious few left to patrol the streets, and there was no way of controlling people, no courts, no laws, and most of the time nobody to enforce them had they existed.

The people, in their turn, did not want to be ruled by their secondary oppressor. They had disliked the Faer Karan, but could not resist. Tarnell had punished them for doing what they had to do to survive, for living the only way they could. With the Faer Karan gone they switched their resentment onto a figure that they could resist with some success. Many of the city’s people had bows, knives, even swords. Tarnell had lost twenty men before he had tightened up his lines, enlarged his patrols, and begun to exercise caution.

He still lost men, but it became rarer: an odd bowshot out of an alleyway, stones thrown down from a rooftop – it was always hard to catch the attacker. He reacted in the only way he knew. The king’s men broke down doors, threatened people, beat answers to their questions from men whether they knew anything or not. The gentle approach was abandoned

It got worse. The gangs who had formed to attack the king began to lay claim to territories within the city, from a single street of houses to half a city division. They started fighting each other, forming alliances, breaking them. It was a time when ruthless men prospered, if only briefly.

One more ruthless, and perhaps more able than the others, had emerged. He was Hagar Del. Before the eruption of chaos he had been a farrier, and when business was poor had crewed on various fishing boats. By the time the force from White Rock arrived he had consolidated his grip on more than half of Gulltown. He had many followers, but none who were trained in warfare. He was a big man, tall and muscular, bearded, and wore his hair long. He fought with a hammer and a sword, which reminded Darius of the bandit general Bragga.

The first night in the camp Darius was woken by a light touch on his shoulder. He was alert at once.

“What is it?”

“A group is approaching the wall, Colonel.”

“How many?”

“Less than twenty, but more than five. It is hard to tell in the dark.”

He buckled on his sword and made his way carefully to the part of the wall that the man had indicated. It was very dark out there, but the camp fires behind him burned brightly. He knew that it gave whoever was out there an advantage, and made him a target. He stayed low. Whispered greetings came from the other men crouched there.

“Hello in the camp.” It was a voice out of the darkness, so they wanted to talk. That was good.

“I’m listening,” he called back.

“Who are you and why are you here?”

“Who wants to know?” he called back. He thought that he already knew.

There was a brief silence. They were talking amongst themselves.

“We are citizen soldiers of the Gulltown Protectorate,” the answer came at last. So these were Del’s men. They sounded nervous. Not that two hundred guardsmen would make a difference if thrown in on the King’s side, but out in the open these citizen soldiers were no match for the real thing.

“I am Colonel Darius Grand of White Rock,” he called back. “We are here by the will of the Lord Serhan, master of White Rock and conqueror of the Faer Karan. We wish only to talk.”

There was another pause, longer this time. There was clearly some discussion taking place, so it was apparent that Del himself was not among the men. After perhaps two minutes the voice called out again.

“I will come into your camp alone. You will not shoot?”

“I guarantee your safety while you are here. You may leave at any time, or stay as long as you like.”

Another pause. Eventually a figure walked out of the dark into the light of the fires. He was a short, thin man, and as he approached, Darius could see that he was unhealthily thin. His clothes hung off him and his face was gaunt. The man walked steadily towards the wall, only his eyes betraying the concern that he must feel. His only weapon appeared to be a bow slung over one shoulder. Not an impressive fellow, but brave enough.