Authors: Paul Kearney
“Ten days.”
Arkamenes strode away from the window, fairly crackling with energy. He tossed
aside his exquisite goblet to clatter on a table. “Ten days! I shall be there
before you, General. I shall be standing on the docks of Tanis, watching the
northern horizon for the arrival of my fleet.” His mouth widened in a huge
grin, and it seemed that behind his lips there were far too many teeth.
“We will march
across the Gadinai Desert in winter, so it will be no hardship, and when spring
comes and the snows in the Magron Passes have melted, why then, there we will
be, in the Land of the Rivers, the richest farmland in the world. My brother
will meet us there, I know it. He will not march halfway across the Empire to
bring us to battle, but will wait for us to come to him.” His face blackened. “I
will impale him for the killer of kin that he is.” The thought cheered
Arkamenes instantly.
“We will dine
together tonight, you and I, Phiron. You like our food? Have you ever seen a
Kefre dance? I shall have a robe made up for you, something more fitting than
that scarlet rag you insist on donning. I should be thinking of liveries for
your men. I see them in gold, I think. My crest in black upon breast and back.
What think you?”
Phiron thrust out
his jaw. “I think not, my lord.”
Arkamenes went
very still. Phiron caught the gleam of the female’s eyes watching him with
sudden attentiveness, the first genuine interest she had shown since entering the
room. “What?”
“My lord, scarlet
is our badge. We wear it all our lives, so long as we hold spear in hand and
set it out for hire. The colour is of our blood, our calling. No matter the
employer, we wear it to our deaths, and are wrapped in it upon our pyre.”
Arkamenes smiled
again, a false note. “Fascinating. And though I pay your wages, though you will
be afloat in my ships, eating my food and drinking my wine, still I have no say
in this?”
“No, lord,” Phiron
said doggedly.
Arkamenes covered
the room in four strides. He set one long hand on Phiron’s shoulder, and
fingered the red-dyed wool of the cloak upon it. He looked incredulous, amused.
“It will, no
doubt,” he said, “take some time for us to become accustomed to one another’s
ways.”
Only when the
doors were shut behind him did Phiron wipe the sweat from his brow. He could
feel it pooling cold at the base of his spine, and the wine he had drunk sat
with a disagreeable heft in his empty stomach. The two Juthan stood impassive
on either side of the antechamber, yellow eyes unreadable. Phiron had killed a
wolf with those eyes above its muzzle. He glared at the nearest Juthan as
though the creature had insulted him.
“
Kufr,
” he
said with cold contempt. And he spat at the thing’s feet. Then he strode away,
intent on seeking the company of his own kind.
Behind him the
Juthan bent, and with the hem of his robe, wiped the spittle from the patterned
tiles of the chamber floor.
“Was it your
intent to bait him?” Tiryn asked. Gently, she righted the cup Arkamenes had
cast aside, and with one long finger traced a sigil in the spilled dregs of the
wine.
“It was my intent
to make him think me a fool,” Arkamenes replied with a shrug of his narrow
shoulders.
“There is then
some advantage to be gained by making yourself out to be a vainglorious
feather-head?” Tiryn asked.
Arkamenes laughed.
The beat of sound was enough to make the nearest wall-sconce flicker. “I’m no
fool; you know that better than anyone. But I want to see what this Macht
mercenary will do, if I saddle him with burdens. He hates us— did you see that?”
“I saw it.
Hatred—and yet a kind of lust, too.”
“Your eyes,
perhaps. Even the animals of the Macht can be bewitched by them.” Arkamenes
bowed. It was impossible to tell if he were mocking her or not.
Tiryn unhooked one
side of her veil. Underneath was a pale-skinned face, something like Arkamenes,
but in a lower key. It was softer, paler, and the mouth was both wide and full.
One might have said it was more human, though the resemblance was one of form,
as a portrait echoes the sitter.
“Not lust of the
flesh. This man is hungry. He desires power as a drunkard craves wine. He is
dangerous.”
“I should hope he
is,” Arkamenes said tartly, “or else my money has been wasted. He is a hound,
Tiryn, like those coursers they breed along the Oskus. Turn your back on them,
and they’ll hamstring you. Beat them well, and they will die in your service.”
“And will his ten
thousand be happy to die in ours?” Tiryn responded.
There was a
stately series of raps on the door, as though someone were knocking a cane
against the heavy wood.
“Yes, yes,”
Arkamenes said, rubbing his forehead. “Amasis, you heard everything, did you
not?”
An immensely tall,
gaunt, golden-skinned creature stood undulating slightly in the doorway. Its eyes
were mere blue glints deep in a crevice of bone. The nose was a pair of black
slits. It held an ivory-coloured staff in one naked arm and the other was
tucked in the breast of a seven-times wound bolt of blindingly white linen.
Scarlet slippers completed the picture. The creature smiled, showing white
teeth inset with tiny jewels.
“Every word, my
Prince. What a presumptuous beast it was.” Amasis strode over to the brazier
and warmed his free hand over the red coals. “Breath of God, but I will be glad
to leave this end of the world. Some warmth in the air; a blast of true
sunlight! How can they live without it?”
Tiryn poured the
old Kefre some wine, and he raised the cup to her.
“To learn Kefren
speaks well of this thing’s intellect and ambition,” Amasis said. “He could
have settled with Asurian, but chose to learn the tongue of the highest caste.
I like this in him. It shows that he concerns himself with details, and argues
for a more subtle mind than we have perhaps given these creatures credit for.
Perhaps there is more to them than the bloody savagery which paints our
legends.”
“We’ll see,”
Arkamenes said. “I intend to run him with a long leash until we enter Jutha, to
see his paces. These red-cloaked warriors of his shall be the spearhead of the
army. I shall hone them as a man does a knife; at every opportunity it shall be
they who bleed, not our own forces. At the end, if any are left, then they
should be a more manageable number.”
“A curiosity,”
Amasis said, amused. “When the battles are done, we should perhaps erect cages
for the survivors in the grounds of the palace, and charge admission.”
Arkamenes held up
a hand. “Let us not tempt God’s wrath. I do not intend to end this adventure
with a Macht army intact in the heartlands of the Empire, but I shall not
squander them either. These fearsome, bloody men of bronze, they are half my
treasury on the march. I intend that they shall see good service. My investment
will be repaid in their blood.”
THE LAND BEYOND THE SEA
The storm had
blown itself out at last, and now from horizon to horizon the sea was a tawny,
white-toothed and ragged plain upon which the ships tossed and pitched under a
hand-me-down of sail. For perhaps twenty pasangs, the scattered fleet plunged
in tattered skeins and clots of heavy-laden wood and flapping cordage. In the
holds of the overworked vessels thousands of men sat shoulder to shoulder
whilst the fetid bilge splashed around them, and from the bellies of the big
freighters the mules could be heard shrieking in angry panic and kicking at the
confining timber of their stalls.
“We came through
better than I thought we would,” Myrtaios said with a degree of satisfaction
that Pasion found quite inhuman. He bent over the ship’s rail, only to find
himself manhandled by the captain. “No—the
leeward
rail, for Phobos’s
sake. Why can you soldiers never learn to puke away from the wind?”
Pasion gave a
watery belch, his face almost the same colour as the water below. “Because we’re
past caring. Had it been up to me, I think I’d have wished us all drowned two
days ago.”
“Aye, well, you
damned near had your wish. As nasty a blow as I’ve seen, this side of Gygonis.”
“What of the
fleet? What do you see?” Pasion wiped his mouth and straightened. He had left
off his cuirass, and his red chiton was smeared with all manner of filth.
Below-decks the stink was well-nigh insupportable, but the men down there were
also beyond caring.
“I’ve lookouts up
counting, but that’s no easy job in this swell. There won’t be a full
accounting made until you’re numbering them off on the wharves of Tanis itself.
Be prepared though, my friend; some ships will have been lost—you mark my
words. You don’t come through a four-days’ blow such as we just had without
some poor souls finding it their last.” The captain shook his head mournfully
and ran his fingers through the matted grey nest of his beard.
“I’ll bear that in
mind. So how long now until we’re out of these damn contraptions and back with
our feet on the earth again?”
The captain
tramped to the windward side of the deck, beckoning Pasion after him. The
cursebearer picked a path through a tangle of snapped rigging and made way for
the working party that was intent on reinforcing the cracked timber of one of
the great steering-oars. Seawater washed up and down the deck-planking to the
depth of a man’s hand. From the black noisome depths of the open mainhatch more
of the crew were hauling up great skins of water by tackles to the mainyard,
helped by those of the mercenaries who were not incapacitated by sea-sickness.
The skins were tilted overboard, and when emptied were flung down the hatch
again to be refilled. The process seemed unending.
“There,” Myrtaios
said, pointing with one thick forefinger. “You see that line on the horizon to
the west?”
“That’s land, is
it?”
“That’s Gygonis,
the south-eastern shore of it, and if you were at the masthead you’d see the
snow on the Andrumenos Mountains. I thank Antimone’s pity the wind didn’t back
round sooner, or we’d all be floating on bits of firewood by now, pounded up
and down that bastard black-rocked coast. No, rough though it was, it was as
good as I could hope for at this time of year. You set sail in winter, you’re
thumbing your nose at Phobos, and he’ll stir up the seas against you. Why, if
it were not for the fee, I’d have laughed in your face when you hired me.”
“So,” Pasion said
patiently, “assuming Phobos has turned his face away, how much farther is there
to go?”
Myrtaios grinned,
a stale exhalation of garlic. He picked at what teeth he had with one thumbnail’.
“Why, we’re past Gygonis, so that’s the worst of it over, and we’ve a good wind
now, fair on the quarter. If it’s more than four hundred pasangs to the coast
of Artaka, well then I’ll kiss my steersman’s arse. And we can rattle that off
in three days, barring storms, shipwreck, and this old bitch under us taking on
any more water.”
“Thank you,
captain,” Pasion said. “I am obliged to you, and your crew.”
Myrtaios laughed. “You
keep your thanks, sell-spear, and make sure my fee stays in the hold where it
belongs. Now that’s ballast I’d be happy to carry more often.” He raised his
hands as though he were cupping a woman’s breasts. “All those lovely little
round bags a’ clinking together, like the gold was talking to you through the
leather. You live long enough to need a return trip, and I’m your man!” He
stumped off along the deck, laughing with his head back. Pasion belched, put
his palm across his mouth, and lurched towards the windward rail.
During the day the
wind dropped an octave, and what rags of cloud remained about the sky went with
it, off into the west. The fleet bowled along in an almost stately fashion, and
as the ships began to behave more like sensible means of transport and less
like contrivances of torture, so the men below began to make their way up on
deck. Rictus and Gasca climbed up the hatch-ladders and staggered forward to
the bows. Here, the salt spray was refreshing as rain, and there was a warmth
in the sun which seemed a new and strange thing. They almost fancied they could
smell some new scent in the air, as though the senses changed along with the
world’s geography.
“We’re running
south,” Rictus said. “See the sun setting on our right? The Harukush are behind
our heads, and before us—”
“Aye—what’s that
out before us, I wonder?” Gasca said. He had a light in his eye which had not
been there since they had left Machran, and Rictus was glad to see it.
“The Sea,” Rictus
told him. “This is the Tanean we’re floating upon. In the legends, it is said that
it was created by Antimone’s salt tears, as she wept to be exiled from heaven.
And then the smith-god Gaenion, in pity, reared up the land of Artaka on its
far shores and filled it full of spices and fragrances and flowers to comfort
her.”
“That’s where we’re
going, it seems,” Gasca said. He grinned crookedly. “This land of spices and
flowers you speak of—if it’s so damn nice then why did God let the Kufr have it
and stick us with the black mountains of the Kush?”
“I think God has
other plans for the Macht,” Rictus said.
“I think God has
it in for us,” Gasca told him. “He gave us the shithole of the world to fight
over, by all accounts, and the best bits He saved up for the damned Kufr.
Perhaps our legends have it all wrong and we’re the pimple on this world’s
arse, stuck out in the snow-covered rocks, whilst the rest of the crowd have it
easy with all the flowers and the spices and such. Ever think of that,
philosopher?”
Rictus smiled, but
said nothing. He leaned on the wooden bulwark at the bow and watched the
bowsprit as it reared up and down, like a willing horse at the canter. He
watched the waves come rolling in to be smashed aside by the ship’s stem, and
savoured the sight, the smell, the clean salt water on his skin. There was a
presentiment upon him, a knowledge that he must remember this time on the wide
waters of the world. A gift of the goddess perhaps. Always, her gifts were
double-edged. This one gave him a keen delight in the living movement of the
ship, and the massive turning of the waters below it. He knew now to make a
memory of this, for when it was gone, he would not see it again.