Authors: Paul Kearney
The firewood was
ended, and so the men chewed strips of raw mule and oxen. The hearts and livers
of the animals were saved for those of the sick and wounded who remained alive,
and Rictus authorised an issue of wine, the last of the barrels still
remaining. There was enough to give every man a large mouthful, and then the
barrels were broken up and the staves loaded onto the wagons to burn later in
the day. The army built cairns over its dead, and marched on. Rictus thought
that it had been easier to march into battle at Kunaksa.
Four more days
passed, and then a shouting at the forefront of the column brought Rictus
running up at a shambling lope, a ragged figure bound about with torn strips of
cloth and blanketing, his feet wrapped in the scarlet remains of a dead man’s
cloak. Frostbite glowed in white patches upon the backs of his hands and on his
face, but that was no matter. Every man in the army was now so afflicted, and
many kept shuffling with the column though their flesh had rotted black upon
their limbs.
Young Phinero
joined Rictus, still fit and hale. The pair passed Mynon, head down and
trudging, and Mochran, snow-blind, being led along by one of his centurions.
Gasping, they made
their way to where Whistler and the last of Phiron’s Hounds stood on a higher
slope overlooking the meanderings of the valley floor. There had been an
avalanche here at some time in the past, and all around boulders lay like a god’s
abandoned playthings, some as big as a good-sized house, split into leaning
pieces by the violence of their fall. The wind was bitter here, winnowing the
air and raising scuds of snow from the surfaces of the stone. Rictus fought for
air. Hunger had stolen his stamina and now a half-pasang run left him panting
like an old man. Even the Curse of God felt heavy on his back.
“What do you make
of this, Rictus?” Whistler asked. He held up an iron aichme, snapped off the
spear-shaft. Beside him, his men were rifling through the snow and exclaiming
as they came upon other relics. One slipped and cursed as his feet skidded
along the smooth convex face of a shield.
“This is new,”
Phinero said, tugging his cloak from around his face. “Look, Rictus, a
sauroter. They make them like this in Machran. I see the maker’s mark. Ferrious
of Afteni.”
“Keep looking,”
Rictus said. “Fan out. Whistler, run down and halt the column.”
Their feet
stumbled over a hoard of weapons and other equipment buried under the snow.
Some of the aichmes had blood frozen upon them. They worked their way upslope,
until they came upon a rocky knoll set upon the mountainside, too rounded to be
a thing of nature. Rictus began to pull away at the stones which surfaced it,
wincing as they sliced into his cold hands.
And there, as he
tugged away a rock the size of his head, a face staring out.
“Phobos! Phinero,
look here!”
They tugged away
more stones, and the men cried out as they discovered other bodies piled up
beneath them.
“A burial cairn,”
Rictus said heavily.
“I know this
face—I know this face!” one of the Hounds shouted. “This is Creanus of Gleyr,
Gominos’s mora.”
Rictus and Phinero
looked at one another. “There’s been a fight here,” Phinero said.
“But who were they
fighting?”
“They got the best
of it, or they wouldn’t have stayed around to cover their dead.” The bodies
were stripped of all clothing, blue and naked save where the deep gashes and
bruises of their wounds discoloured the skin. Their mound was taller than Rictus.
“He lost a lot of
men,” Rictus said. “This was no skirmish. There’s two hundred dead in here, or
more.”
Phinero was
staring up at the snow-wrapped heights of the mountains, the wind blowing white
banners from their summits. Not so much as a bird stirred in that savage sky. “What
in hell did this?”
Rictus began
replacing the stones upon the cairn. “When we meet up with Aristos,” he
grunted, “I’ll be sure to ask him.”
* *
*
That night the
scattered bivouacs of the Macht drew together, and for the first time since
entering the high mountains they camped like an army, with sentries set out
every fifty paces and the baggage in the middle of the encampment. The big
centoi were left on the wagons, for there was nothing to cook in them, nor
anything to heat them with. The men lay close together in the darkness, chewing
raw mule meat and speculating about the fate of Aristos and Gominos. Around
them, the wind roared down the valleys of the Korash, picking up until it
sounded like the howl of beasts lost somewhere out in the storm. On its white
wings the snow began to come down harder, until a blizzard blanked out the
world and the sentries were brought in lest they be lost within it. The snow
raged and thrashed in the grip of the wind, fat, soft flakes that built up into
drifts and began to bury the shivering men. When morning came there was no
light, no dark, no east or west, only the empty shriek of the wind and the
mounting snows, a world swallowed up by the fury of the endless mountains.
THIS ANCIENT IDEA
When the sun was
high, Vorus could stand up and see a single square of blue sky set in the
vaulted brickwork of the roof. His cell was small, barely a spear-length to a
side, but it soared up in blackened brick curves to come to this point. For a
few, magical moments every day, the sun came down through this masoned hole
like a ladder of light being lowered for him. He struggled to his feet every
time, the shackles cutting into his wrists and ankles, his toes sliding in the
sodden straw upon the floor. For that brief mote of time he looked up into the
face of mighty Araian each day, and felt as light as the dust dancing in the
sunbeam. Then the moment passed and he was in darkness again, awash in his own
filth, the iron manacles cutting slivers from his flesh, the rats scuttling in
the gloom around him. It seemed as though it had been a long time, this
subterranean existence, but it had not been much more than seven days. Or
eight—or ten. He was no longer sure. Perhaps it had been ten years. He was a
patient man though, and his mind was clear. Since he had been here the only
distractions he faced were the arrival of a bowl through the slot in the door
every day and the coming of the sun. He had mused upon his condition with
equanimity, knowing that things would come around to him again. He had only to
wait, and fill in the blank hours with his thoughts.
After Irunshahr he
had ridden south amid the mobs of his fleeing troops, not trying to halt them
or bring any organisation out of that chaos. It was no longer his job. He had
been four days travelling, subsisting on the scraps in his saddle-bag,
following the Imperial Road south and east but remaining clear of it, watching
the Empire slowly regain control of the army the Macht had broken. He had stayed
one night with an elderly farmer, alone in his turf-walled house with his dog
and his plot of corn. The old man had spoken of the end of the world, the fall
of the Empire, and Mot coming back to haunt the face of Kuf to set the Great
Bull free to trample all the works of the Kefren. Word of the Juthan mutiny had
spread fast; now there were rumours of uprisings all over the Middle Empire,
the slave-race turning on their ancient masters at last. The Bull let loose.
Word travelled
fast along the Imperial Road. At Edom, Vorus had been arrested on the orders of
Tessarnes, the Kefre to whom he had turned over the army. He had been thrown in
here to contemplate a square foot of sky. After they had manacled him, he had
lain down and had perhaps the longest and deepest sleep of his life. It had
been a long rime since last his mind had truly been at rest.
The lock turned in
the door, a sound he had not heard since his arrival. He rose to his feet,
naked, his beard matted, lice crawling in his hair, and awaited the new
distraction.
Bent almost
double, two Honai of the Imperial bodyguard entered the cell one after the
other. So bright and bejewelled was their armour that it seemed a little of the
sun had returned with them, even down to the golden sheen of their faces under
the tall helms. They had naked swords in their hands, and took up station in
the corners of the cell without a word.
A third Kefre
entered, this one swathed in folds of midnight silk, komis pulled close about
his face. Vorus knew the eyes, though. He bowed at once.
“Your majesty, you
honour me.”
The Great King
straightened, and did the same thing Vorus had done upon entering the cell for
the first time: he looked up at the square of sky high above. He met Vorus’s
eyes, his own almost black in the gloom. Nodding, he said, “Leave us,” to the
guards.
They hesitated,
then dumbly did as they were told.
“And pull the door
to after you.”
The Great King and
his general, alone together, stood in the stinking straw while the rats rustled
heedless around their feet.
“I could not do
otherwise, my friend,” Ashurnan said. His voice was thick and raw.
“I know. You are a
king, after all.”
“You let Proxis
go. You knew what he was about.”
“I had an idea,
yes.”
“Why, Vorus—
why?”
The Macht sank to
his haunches in the straw. “Forgive me,” he said. “I am getting old, I think.”
He smiled at the veiled figure which towered over him, as baleful and
threatening as could be imagined, except for the real grief in the eyes.
“I wanted to let
him choose for himself. I had not the right to compel him.”
“You were his
superior, his friend. You had every right.”
“My lord, I owed
Proxis a life. Now I have repaid that debt.”
“He has shattered
the Empire.”
With great
gentleness, Vorus said, “He has freed his people.”
“He has bought his
people a generation of war. The moment I heard, I set the army on the road.
Jutha will be subjugated once more. The Empire will be reunited. It will
endure.”
“It will endure,
yes; but perhaps in a different form. My lord, here at the end of my life, I
have come to understand that an entire race cannot be enslaved forever.”
“Is it only your
friend’s fate which has brought this thought to your mind, or has the pursuit
of your own people changed you? The Vorus my father knew would not say things
like this.”
“I was younger
then. I had not seen quite so much death. And yes, seeing my own people again
has changed me. If Proxis had not deserted at Irunshahr, I would have destroyed
the Ten Thousand, and now I am glad that I did not, glad that Proxis took his
people home, glad that my people escaped.”
“I thought you
were loyal. I thought you were my friend.”
“I am your friend,
Great King. But you and the Empire are not the same.”
“They are; they
must be. My race, my blood conjured up this ancient idea out of nothing. They ordered
the world, quelled all wars, made it safe for the farmer to till his land. They
brought peace to millions. What have your Macht done to make them so mighty?”
“They believe in
freedom,” Vorus said. “And that will never be taken out of them, not by you or
any other king who ever wears a crown.”
“Freedom! Was that
what they were teaching the people of Ab-Mirza? They are barbarians. They have
brought war throughout the Empire, and just when you had it in your power to
crush them, you failed.”
“Yes, I did. And
yes, they are barbarians. But they are my people, when all is said and done. I
shall die one of them.”
There was a pause.
Then Ashurnan asked, “Your black armour, where is it? You were not wearing it
when you were taken.”
“I buried it.”
“So no Kufr would
ever find it.”
“So no Kufr would
ever find it.”
The Great King’s
eyes flashed. “A traitor, at the end.”
“No lord. A loyal
servant, come to the end of his usefulness.”
“They want me to
burn you alive, here on the battlements of Edom like a common criminal.”
Vorus’s face
stiffened slightly. “So be it.”
Ashurnan watched
him for a long moment. “I do not think my father would do such a thing, not to
his friend.”
“Your father would
have done whatever he thought necessary, and he would have regretted the necessity
later, in private. But he would have done it.”
Ashurnan reached
under his robe and produced a long-bladed knife. He tossed it onto the floor
before Vorus with a dull clang. “I am not my father,” he said simply.
Vorus stared at
the knife. Tears welled up in his eyes. He looked at Ashurnan and smiled. “Thank
you, my lord,” he whispered.
The Great King
bowed deep before his servant, then snapped, “Guards!”
The door scraped
open again behind him.
“Goodbye, Vorus.”
The Macht general
bowed wordlessly and Ashurnan left the cell, the door grating shut behind him,
the key turning in the lock.
Vorus picked up
the knife, tested the edge. He looked up one last time at the square of blue
sky high above his head.
“Proxis,” he said,
“I wish you well.”
Then he thrust the
keen point of the weapon deep, deep into his heart.
GRAPES AND APPLES
Tiryn raised her
head, listening. The wind had dropped a little, she thought. After three days
of hearing it shriek in the same monotonous note, she was sure of it. Something
else, though— something different over the wind.
Jason grasped her
hand. She saw his eyes glitter, awake at once. “You hear that?” he asked.
A man screamed,
quite close by, and there was a great animal bellow.
“Phobos!” Jason
exclaimed. “Help me up.”
“No—stay down. You’re
not fit to go outside.”
“Shut up, woman,
and help me.”
Shouting all
around them now, men casting orders into the storm, metal clashing. Tiryn
unloosed the end-flap of the canopy and at once it flew up and flapped madly,
scattering snow, beating against the frame. Freezing, snow-thick air struck her
face, a physical blow. The blizzard was still upon them, snowflakes hard as
gravel, the drifts halfway up the wheels of the wagon. She dropped down into
them. Before her men were charging, black against the snow, disappearing and
reappearing as the blizzard blasted about them. A line of white mounds close
by; those were the mules.