Riding on the flank to avoid the dust, Cnaiür glanced at Proyas and his entourage of caste-nobles and servants. Despite the lustre of their armour and dress, they looked grim. They had negotiated the Southron Gates through the Unaras, and at long last they rode across
heathen
land, across Gedea. But their mood was neither jubilant nor assured. Two days ago, Proyas had sent several advance parties of horsemen to search for Saubon, the Galeoth Prince. This morning, outriders belonging to Lord Ingiaban had found one of those parties dead.
Gedea, at least in the shadow of the Unaras, was a broken land, a jumble of gravel slopes and stunted promontories. Save for clutches of hardy cedars, the green of spring was growing tawny beneath the summer sun. The sky was a plate of turquoise, featureless, sere—so different from the cloudy depths of Nansur skies.
Vultures and jackdaws screeched into the air at their approach.
With a curse, Proyas reined to a halt. “So what does this mean?” he asked Cnaiür. “That Skauras has somehow positioned himself
behind
Saubon and the others? Have the Fanim encircled them?”
Cnaiür raised a hand against the sun. “Perhaps …”
The bodies had been stripped where they’d fallen: some sixty or seventy dead men, bloating in the hot sun, scattered like things dropped in flight. Without warning, Cnaiür spurred ahead, forcing the Prince and his entourage to gallop after him.
“Sodhoras was my cousin,” Proyas snapped, reining to a violent halt beside him. “My father will be furious!”
“
Another
cousin,” Lord Ingiaban said darkly. He referred to Calmemunis and the Vulgar Holy War.
Cnaiür sniffed the air, contemplated the smell of rot. He’d almost forgotten what it was like: the scribbling flies, the swelling bellies, the eyes like painted cloth. He’d almost forgotten how holy.
War … The very earth seemed to tingle.
Proyas dismounted and knelt over one of the dead. He waved away flies with his gauntlets. Turning to Cnaiür, he asked, “How about you? Do you still believe him?” He looked away, as though embarrassed by the honesty of his tone.
Him … Kellhus.
“He …” Cnaiür paused, spat when he should have shrugged. “He sees things.”
Proyas snorted. “Your manner does little to reassure me.” He stood, casting his shadow across the dead Conriyan, slapping the dust from the ornamental skirt he wore over his mail leggings. “This is always the way of it, I suppose.”
“What do you mean, my Prince?” Xinemus asked.
“We think things will be more glorious than they are, that they’ll unfold according to our hopes, our expectations …” He unstopped his waterskin, took too long a drink. “The Nansur actually have a word for it,” he continued. “We ‘idealize.’”
Statements such as this, Cnaiür had decided, partially explained the awe and adoration Proyas roused in his men, including those who were names in their own right, such as Gaidekki and Ingiaban. The admixture of honesty and insight …
Kellhus did much the same. Didn’t he?
“So what do you think?” Proyas was asking. “What happened here?” He’d clambered back onto his horse.
“Hard to tell,” Cnaiür replied, glancing once again over the dead.
“Pfah,” Lord Gaidekki snorted. “Sodhoras was no fool. He was overwhelmed by numbers.”
Cnaiür disagreed, but rather than dispute the man, he jerked his horse about and spurred toward the ridge. The soil was sandy, the turf shallow-rooted; his mount—a sleek, Conriyan black—stumbled several times before reaching the crest. Here he paused, leaning against his saddle’s cantle to relieve a vagrant pain in his back. Before him, the far side sloped gradually down, lending the entire ridge the appearance of a titanic shoulder blade. To the immediate north, the bald heights of the Unaras Spur gathered in the haze.
Cnaiür followed the crest a short distance, studying the scuffed ground and counting the dead. Seventeen more, stripped like the others, their arms askew, their mouths teeming with flies. The sound of Proyas arguing with his Palatines wafted up from below.
Proyas was no fool, but his fervour made him impatient. Despite hours of listening to Cnaiür describe the resources and methods of the Kianene, he as yet possessed no clear understanding of their foe. His countrymen, on the other hand, possessed no understanding whatsoever. And when men who knew little argued with men who knew nothing, tempers were certain to be thrown out of joint.
Since the earliest days of the march, Cnaiür had harboured severe doubts regarding the Holy War and its churlish nobles. So far, nearly every measure he’d suggested in council had been either summarily rejected or openly scoffed at—the yapping fools!
In so many ways, the Holy War was the antithesis of a Scylvendi horde. The People brooked few if any followers. No pampering slaves, no priests or augurs, and certainly no women, which could always be had when one ranged enemy country. They carried little baggage over what a warrior and his mount could bear, even on the longest campaigns. If they exhausted their
amicut
and could secure no forage, they either let blood from their mounts or went hungry. Their horses, though small, unbecoming, and relatively slow, were bred to the land, not to the stable. The horse he now rode—a gift from Proyas—not only required grain over and above fodder, but enough to feed three men!
Madness.
The only thing Cnaiür had
not
protested was the very thing the dog-eyed idiots ceaselessly clucked and fretted over: the breakup of the Holy War into separate contingents. What was it with these Inrithi? Did brothers bed their sisters? Did they beat their children about the head? The larger the host, the slower the march. The slower the march, the more supplies the host consumed. It was that simple! The problem wasn’t that the Holy War had divided. It simply had no choice: Gedea, by all accounts, was a lean country, scarcely cultivated and sparsely populated. The problem was that it had done so without
planning,
without advance intelligence of what to expect, without agreed-upon routes or secure communications.
But how to make them understand? And understand they must: the Holy War’s survival depended on it.
Everything
depended on it …
Cnaiür spat across the dust, listened to them bicker, watched them gesticulate.
Murdering Anasûrimbor Moënghus was all that mattered. It was the weight that drew all lines plumb.
Any indignity … Anything!
“Lord Ingiaban,” Cnaiür called down, startling them into silence. “Ride back to the main column and return with at least a hundred of your men. The Fanim are fond of surprising those who come to dispense with the dead.”
When none of the milling nobles moved, Cnaiür cursed and urged his horse back down the slope. Proyas scowled as he approached, but said nothing.
He tests me.
“I care not if you think me impertinent,” Cnaiür said. “I speak only of what must be done.”
“I’ll go,” Xinemus offered, already drawing his horse around.
“No,” Cnaiür said. “Lord Ingiaban goes.”
Ingiaban grunted, ran fingers over the blue sparrows embroidered across his surcoat—the sign of his House. He glared at Cnaiür. “Of all the dogs who’ve dared piss on my leg,” he said, “you’re the first to aim higher than my knee.” Several guffaws broke from the others, and the Count-Palatine of Kethantei grinned bitterly. “But before I change my leggings, Scylvendi, please tell me why you choose to piss on
me
.”
Cnaiür wasn’t amused. “Because your household is the closest. Because the life of your Prince is at stake.”
The lantern-jawed Palatine paled.
“Do as he bids!” Xinemus cried.
“Watch yourself, Marshal,” Ingiaban snarled. “Playing benjuka with our Prince doesn’t make you my better.”
“Which means, Zin,” Lord Gaidekki quipped, “that you must piss no higher than his waist.”
Another burst of laughter. Ingiaban ruefully shook his head. He paused before riding off, dipping his square-bearded chin to Scylvendi, but whether in conciliation or warning the Scylvendi couldn’t tell.
An uncomfortable pause followed. The shadow of a vulture flickered across the group, and Proyas glanced skyward. “So, Cnaiür,” he said, blinking away the sun, “what happened here? Were they overwhelmed by numbers?”
Cnaiür scowled. “They were outwitted, not outnumbered.”
“How do you mean?” Proyas asked.
“Your cousin was a fool. He was accustomed to riding with his men in file, as horsemen must when using a road. They wound into this depression and began climbing the slope, some three or four abreast. The Kianene waited for them above, holding their horses to the ground.”
“They were ambushed …” Proyas raised a hand to better peer along the ridge line. “Do you think the heathen simply happened on them?”
Cnaiür shrugged. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. Since Sodhoras thought himself an outrider, he obviously saw no need to deploy scouts of his own. The Fanim are more canny. They could have tracked him for some time without his knowledge, judged that sooner or later he would come here …” He brought his horse about and pointed to the group of bloating dead who littered the centre of the ridge line. They looked oddly peaceful, like eunuchs snoozing in the sun after bathing. “But this is moot. The Fanim attacked when the first men crested the ridge, Sodhoras among them—”
“How in hell,” Lord Gaidekki blurted, “could you know wheth—”
“Because the horsemen below broke ranks to rush to their lord’s defence, only to find the Fanim arrayed along the entire ridge line. Though it looks harmless, that slope is treacherous. Sand and gravel. Many were slain by arrows at close range as their horses floundered. Those few who gained the summit caused the Fanim quite some grief—I saw far more blood than bodies up there—but were eventually overwhelmed. The rest, some twenty or so more sober but hopelessly courageous men, realized the futility of saving their lord, and pulled back—there—perhaps intending to draw the Fanim down and exact some revenge.”
Cnaiür glanced at Gaidekki, daring the brash Palatine to contradict him. But the man studied the disposition of the dead, like the others.
“The Kianene,” Cnaiür continued, “remained on the crest … They taunted the survivors, I think, by desecrating Sodhoras’s corpse—someone was disembowelled. Then they tried to reduce your kinfolk with archery. Those Inrithi who fought them on the crest must have unnerved them, because they were taking no chances. Their arrows must have possessed little effect, even at that short range. At some point they began shooting their horses—something the Kianene are typically loath to do. This is something to remember … Once Sodhoras’s men were unhorsed, the Kianene simply rode them down.”
War. The hairs rose on the nape of his neck …
“They stripped the bodies,” he added, “then rode off to the southwest.”
Cnaiür wiped his palms across his thighs. The fools believed him—that much was plain from their stunned silence. Before this place had been a rebuke and a dread omen, but now … Mystery made things titanic. Knowledge made small.
“Sweet Sejenus!” Gaidekki suddenly exclaimed. “He reads the dead like scripture!”
Proyas frowned at the man. “No blasphemy … Please, Lord Palatine.” He scratched his trim beard, his gaze wandering yet again over the dead. He seemed to be nodding. He fixed Cnaiür with a canny look.
“How many?”
“Fanim?” The Scylvendi shrugged. “Sixty, maybe seventy, lightly armoured horsemen. No more.”
“And Saubon? Does this mean he’s encircled?”
Cnaiür matched his gaze. “When one wars on foot against horse, one is always encircled.”
“So the bastard may still live,” Proyas said, his breathlessness betrayed by a faint quaver in his voice. The Holy War could survive the loss of one nation, but three? Saubon had gambled more than his own life on this rash gambit—far more—which was why Proyas, over Conphas’s protestations, had ordered his people to march. Perhaps four nations could prevail where three could not.
“For all we know,” Xinemus said, “the Galeoth bastard may be
right
. He could be fanning across Gedea as we speak, chasing Skauras’s skirmishers to the sea.”
“No,” Cnaiür said. “His peril is great … Skauras
has
assembled in Gedea. He awaits you with all his might.”
“And how could you know that?” Gaidekki cried.
“Because the Fanim who killed your kinsman took a great risk.”
Proyas nodded, his eyes at once narrow and apprehensive. “They attacked a larger and more heavily armed force … Which means they were following orders—
strict
orders—to prevent any communication between isolated contingents.”
Cnaiür lowered his head in deference—not to the man, but to the truth. At long last, Nersei Proyas was beginning to understand. Skauras had been watching, studying the Holy War since long before it had left Momemn’s walls. He knew its weaknesses … Knowledge. It all came down to knowledge.