The Ten Thousand (39 page)

No matter. She
drew Jason closer to her. His flesh was hot to the touch, and sweat was
streaming down his face, but he was shivering convulsively.

I do not know why
it is so, she thought, but I esteem this man, this Macht, this barbarian. It
may even be that I love him. Rictus knew that. It may be he saw it before I
did.

They had gathered
in an open space between the fires of the centons, and there had piled up the
carcass of a broken wagon and set it on fire. Around this blaze there now
gathered several thousand men. The evening was setting in, and the firelight
grew brighter as the light fell. The Macht had come to debate on their
predicament, to thrash out things in Assembly, as their race had been wont to
do since the end of the Kings, far back in the mythical past. Most of the
Kerusia were present, wrapped in their scarlet cloaks like the rest of the men,
but wearing the Curse of God beneath as a kind of badge. Their numbers were
fewer. Jason was wounded and Grast had died at Irunshahr, close by him in the
line. Mynon had been kicked by a horse and now wore his broken arm in a sling,
but his black eyes were bright as ever. Old Mochran, the last of the elder
leaders, stood a little apart from the rest, wrapped in his cloak, his peppery
beard sunk on his chest. He had saved the day, wheeling the right-hand morai
inwards on his own initiative, trusting that the Juthan desertion was not a
ruse. Had it not been for him, the army would most likely have been destroyed
at Irunshahr. The knowledge made a little space around him at the bonfire. He
stared into the flames, perhaps remembering the pyres on which they had burned
the bodies of two thousand comrades. They had been three days at it, and the
reek had soiled the air for pasangs around.

The men stood in
silent crowds, ready to listen. They were tired and disheartened as they had
not been after Kunaksa. They realised now that the thing was almost done.
Fourteen thousand of them had taken ship with Phiron the year before. Of those,
almost half were gone. They had marched more than three thousand pasangs, and
had beaten every army brought against them, but now they felt that their luck was
running out. They had had enough. Now all of them wanted to get home by the
quickest route, to get over the mountains and march to the shores of the sea.
They did not care if they were paupers when they got there; all that they
valued now were the lives they lived.

Haukos has left
us, Rictus realised, as he stood with the other generals amid the currents of
talk. Hope has gone. We are no longer unbeatable.

And he bowed his
head. Gasca, you are well out of this.

“We should have
stayed at Irunshahr,” big Gominos was saying, as truculent as he was ugly. He
reminded Rictus a little of Orsos, but Orsos had been a fine leader of men as
well as a rapacious boor. “We could have taken our ease there, had slaves,
refitted and rested—”

“We cleared that
city out of every bean and husk it had,” Mynon said. “If we’d stayed there, we’d
be starving in a week.”

“Starving with a
roof over our heads,” Gominos retorted.

“The Great King
has more than one army,” Mochran growled. “We stop moving and we die, simple as
that. At least here in the mountains we’re less easy to find.”

“So we’re running
headlong now after beating his best? Is that it?”

Rictus’s voice,
though quiet, cut through the rising quarrel. “Mynon, how do we stand?”

A bird with a
broken wing, Mynon set his head on one side. Jason had done the same on
occasion; it warranted a kind of detachment. “One week, at full ration. But
that’s for the men alone. Fodder for the draught animals is not to be had, not
up here. They’ll start dying soon, and then we’ll be pulling the wagons
ourselves.”

“We’ve done that
before. We’ll hitch the mules to the wagons, and eat the oxen.” Rictus paused. “There
are fewer of us now, anyway. Fewer mouths.”

Silence fell. The
bonfire crackled and rushed, a soft roar in the blue gathering dark. Around the
light of the flames the crowds of men drew closer, as if they could hear what
was being said better in the light. Rictus saw Whistler there, and old Demotes
from the Dogsheads. How many of them were left now, he wondered. Those nights
in the Marshalling Yards of Machran seemed like a different world, and the boy
he had been back then was someone else. Rictus raised his hand and touched two
things which hung at his throat: Zori’s coral pendant and the tooth of a wolf,
clicking together under his fingers. Small things, to hold such a cache of
memories.

Aristos stepped
forward to warm his hands at the flames. “We’re fewer now, it’s been said. I
would go farther. I would say we are not an army any more. We have not been
since Kunaksa. Phiron knew how to lead us, and he did it well. When he died,
Jason took his place, and he was an obvious choice. He was a good man. But he
did not have the skills of Phiron. That is why at Irunshahr, so many of us
died.”

Rictus stepped
forward, eyes blazing. “Is that why? Search your heart, Aristos. Is that really
why?”

“Let me speak,
Rictus.” Aristos held up a hand, as regretful and reasonable as one could wish.
Out of the assembled men, voices cried: “Let him speak!” The chorus grew. “Let
him have a say. Fair’s fair, strawhead.”

Rictus stepped
back. He was unarmed, as were they all, but one did not need weapons in the
Assembly to fight one’s battles. Words were better and he was not good with
them, never had been. Jason was the man for that.

“I have seen a map
of the Empire. Brothers, we are in the Korash Mountains. They are not so high
as the Magron, but they are further north, and much colder. This valley we have
been marching in, it runs all the way through them to the open lands of Askanon
and Gansakr beyond. The mountains are some two hundred pasangs from east to
west. Once we are through them the way is open to the sea, good marching
country with cities on every side. And not the fortress cities of the Middle
Empire, but smaller, many of them unwalled. Brothers, once we are beyond the
mountains, it is a two week march to the sea. Two weeks.”

A ragged shout
went up at this, and men turned to their neighbours, grinning and striking one
another on the bicep. They had not dreamed it could be so close, the end of the
illimitable Empire. Aristos looked at Rictus, and their eyes met. He knew
exactly what he was doing. He raised a hand to still the hubbub.

“Brothers, hear me
out. For months now, we have been marching at the pace of the Kufr, held back
first by their troops, our so-called allies, and then by the whole impedimenta
of warfare as they fight it. These wagons we haul along in our midst—when we
fought as centons in the Harukush, which of us had a wagon to carry his baggage
for him? Perhaps it made sense in the heat of the lowlands, but we are marching
back into our own kind of country now, back to where the seasons are things we
know. A cart for the centos, mules for the field-forge—what else did we need?
We have been trained by the Kufr to walk at their pace. Brothers, we must
strike out again at our own. We must leave all this behind and become again the
men we once were. We must strike out at that pace. If we do, I promise you, we
shall look once again on the shores of the sea within a month. What say you?”

“I say he talks
too fucking much,” Mochran said to Rictus out of the corner of his mouth. But
it was no matter. The men were cheering Aristos to the echo. He was offering
them hope, a way ahead, something to batten onto, and their cheers were an
outpouring of relief.

“I will not serve
under him,” Rictus said.

“You must, lad. I
believe he’s about to call an election. With Jason out of the way, he’ll swing
the vote in the Kerusia. If you want to make the thing go otherwise, you’d best
get up on your hind legs and do a little talking yourself.”

“You’ll vote for
me?”

“So will Phinero
and Mynon, I’m sure. Talk, Rictus. These men at the front of the crowd have
been planted here; I see scores from Aristos’s own mora. Start flapping your
fucking mouth, or this son of a bitch is going to be leading us.”

“I might not be
any better,”

“Horse’s shit.
From what I hear, you’re one of the best men in the fucking army.”

That brought
Rictus up short. He had not expected it; he even felt a kind of resentment. I
didn’t set out to do this, he thought. All I wanted—

All I wanted was
to die facing an enemy. To have a good death.

And here he was,
when so many better than him were burnt to ashes. He bent his head a second,
remembering them, the dead whom he had loved. Of its own volition, his hand
came up and touched the talismans which hung at his neck.

“Rictus—” Mochran
said.

“He’s going to
take the fleetest and leave the rest. He’s out for himself.” And he’s the
reason Gasca died, Rictus added to himself. It might not be true, but it felt
right to think it.

He stepped back
into the light of the blazing wagon-carcass, a big man with a shock of
straw-coloured hair and eyes that caught the light like some reflection of
Phobos’s moon.

“I am Rictus. The
map which Aristos here is talking of belongs to Jason of Ferai, who commands
this army. He came into possession of it after the death of Phiron. Phiron
commanded us once, as you may remember. He took us to victory at Kunaksa. When
he was murdered, Jason brought us through it. He led us all the way across the
Middle Empire, to a place where home does not seem so far away. He brought us
here together, and behind us we left only our dead.

“Aristos is right
about the distance to the sea, but he is wrong about the time it will take to
get there. We have wounded in the wagons who cannot be left behind. If we must
travel faster than a wagon, then we must abandon our wounded. We are Macht.
This is not something we do, or have ever done. I will not do it. Phiron would
not have done it. If the army must have a leader while Jason heals, then I
shall be that man. And I say that this decision will not be taken by the
Kerusia alone, but by the whole army. Let us vote, here and now, every one of
us who can lift a stone. Here in these mountains, decide, and let us be done
with it.”

Mochran took off
his cloak and spread it on the ground. “I stand here for Rictus,” he cried.
There was a moment’s pause, and then Gominos did the same, spreading out the
fabric of his cloak and tossing a single stone upon it as he straightened. “This,
here, is for Aristos.”

The crowds of men
about the bonfire stood silent for a moment. Beyond the light of the flames
they could hear the more ardent souls running through the camp, shouting out
the news. Mochran bent, and with careful intent, placed a stone on the faded
scarlet fabric of his cloak. “Brothers,” he said, “Let us vote on it.”

Rictus and Aristos
stood with their arms folded, as tradition dictated, while about them the
gathered crowds of men pushed closer. The stones tossed onto one cloak and then
the other began to clink against each other, and then to pile up. All through
the scattered camp the news was spread, and more and more men began to
congregate round the dying fire of the burnt wagon, some bringing more timber
to keep it alight, some eddying in and out of the firelight, some standing fast
once they had cast their stone to watch over the fast-buried scarlet of the two
cloaks. it took until the middle part of the night for the last stone to click
down atop the cloaks. Those who were too injured to walk to the piles were
carried there. Last of all, there came walking through the assembled crowds of
men a tall, veiled shape. Tiryn strode through the firelight in a black robe,
only her eyes showing above the veil, and set down a single stone atop Rictus’s
pile.

“And who are you
to be voting here?” Aristos demanded.

“I set this here
for Jason,” she said calmly. Aristos seemed about to say more, but Gominos and
Hephr drew him back. “Enough, Aristos; look at her.”

The Macht stood as
if thunderstruck by the sight of Tiryn standing all in veiled black before the
bonfire, the hem of her robe flapping in the wind. “
Antimone
,” someone
murmured, and the name went through the assembled men swifter than rumour.
Those nearest to her backed away a little. Some made the warding sign against
bad luck, joining thumb and forefinger before spitting through it.

“Let’s count these
things before the sun catches us at it,” Mochran said, weary and old-looking. “Gominos,
you count for Rictus and I’ll count for Aristos. You know the drill.”

The click and
clatter of the stones through the hands of the two men. Once the pebbles were
counted they were tossed into the darkness beyond the firelight. Every time a
hundred was reached, both Gominos and Mochran kept that stone and set it aside.
It was cold, standing outside the light of the fire, but the Macht wrapped
themselves in their scarlet cloaks and remained there, quiet, watching, many
following the count with their lips moving.

At last the two
cloaks were empty again. Mochran and Gominos lifted them from the ground and
raised them up to show there were no more stones upon them, then donned them,
shivering. Mynon stepped forward. “Well?”

“Three thousand,
six hundred and seventeen,” Gominos said, frowning.

Mochran grinned. “Four
thousand, two hundred and sixty-three. Brothers, we have a new warleader,
Rictus of Isca.”

The Macht seemed
little interested. It was the middle of the night, and the fires were burning
low. The morai began to disperse to their bivouacs. Aristos smiled at Rictus, a
bitterness twisting his mouth. “Who’d have thought a strawhead would prove so
popular?” Rictus looked at him, but said nothing. He felt nothing but weary,
and the realisation of what had just happened was sinking in.