The Ten Thousand (44 page)

Mynon, Jason, and
Mochran joined Rictus at his fire. All of them had left off their armour and
reclined in the sand with just their filthy chitons on their backs.

“I never liked the
sea, until now,” Mynon said, poking at the fire with a wave-worn stick. “I
believe I could sit up all night just to stare at it.” Unconsciously, he
clenched and unclenched the fist of his once-broken arm as he lay there.

“Sinon is up the
coast a ways from here, at the end of the Imperial Road,” Mochran said gruffly.
He rubbed at his eyes; they had been troubling him ever since the mountains.

“Two days’ march,”
Jason told him, “across the Haneikos River.”

“At Sinon, we will
use the gold to hire ships to take us home, and then whatever is left, we will
share out among the men,” Rictus said. “Agreed?” They all nodded.

“You think Aristos
will be waiting for us there?” Mynon asked. “He’s not got the coin to hire
ships. His men may well be stranded.”

“He can be sitting
in hell for all I care,” Jason snorted. “What is he to us, now? He can’t loot
Sinon as he has been these Kufr villages. May he rot there.”

“He deserted the
colour,” Rictus said in a low voice. “The penalty for that is death.”

The others stared
at him. “You won’t keep to that now, not now?” Mynon asked.

“When he left he
took food out of our mouths when we needed it most. He could have warned us of
the Qaf had he chose, and perhaps saved hundreds of lives. He betrayed us. He
must die for it.”

The cold, even
tone of these words silenced them all. The fire cracked and spat, blue
salt-flames hissing out of the driftwood.

“Let it go,
Rictus,” Jason said at last. “We’ve come too far to end it by killing our own.”

“One man, Jason—it
is just one man. When it is done it will be over for me, and not before.”
Rictus rose and walked away from the firelight, down to the breaking waves of
the sea.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE VEIL

They came upon
Sinon in the late afternoon, after tramping through the shallows of the
Haneikos River as it foamed and flashed in its broad bed. On the southern bank
of the river the Imperial Road ended and on the far side a dirt track took its
place, rutted by the wagons of those who carried on the trade between Sinon and
the Empire. As the army set its feet on the bare earth of that road, so they
left the Asurian Empire at last, and were back in the lands of the Macht.
Before them the walls of Sinon reared up mustard-pale in the sunlight, and out
from them the great encircling arms of the harbour projected, cradling within
them the docks and wharves at which were moored the masts of half a thousand
ships, their spars like a forest of spears against the shining water. Built on
a hill, the fortress-port reminded them of the cities of the Middle Empire,
each perched on its ancient tell.

Before the city
walls the army grounded spears and set out its camp for the last time, whilst a
steady stream of curious folk trickled out of the city to look at them, and the
more enterprising of the traders clustered on the fringes of the camp, setting
up makeshift stalls, hawking food, drink, clothing, and the services of women.
Here, the Macht looked once more on their own people, not soldiers, but
ordinary folk, and women. They had nothing to barter with save the weapons in
their hands, and Rictus had to quickly ban the traders from the camp, lest
their goods be taken from them by force. After living off the land for so long,
the remnants of the Ten Thousand found old habits hard to break. They would
have scattered into the city at once, were it not for the gold in the beds of
the mule-carts.

This, the generals
who were left to the army counted out coin by coin that night, in the midst of
the assembled men. It was put to them that some should be held back to hire
ships for their return to the Harukush, but this suggestion was howled down.
They wanted it all in their hands, now, to do with as they pleased.

So there would be
no ships. They would not sail back to the Harukush en masse. The army was no
more. They had come back to their own people and were now disbanding, the
centons breaking up, some disintegrating entirely, others being formed anew by
friendships of the road. They wanted no more to do with generals, or a Kerusia.
They wanted the old ways of their mercenary life, where battle was a struggle
of a few hundreds here and there, and was fought among their own kind,
according to rules they knew and understood. They wanted no more orders from on
high. They respected the generals, especially Rictus and Jason. They wished
them well, and would be glad to have them lead a centon if they had a mind to,
but they would have no more truck with big marching armies, with great
campaigns. All this became clear as the men crowded round in their thousands
for assembly. Their last assembly.

“They want to go
back to their little dunghills and crow upon them,” Jason said, standing to one
side of the cloaks whereon the gold had been piled. Centurions were now calling
the men forward one by one and putting coin in their hands, the men grinning
like fools.

Rictus was
thinking of the stones that had been piled up on cloaks such as these in the
mountains. They had voted for him then in their thousands. Now the process was
in reverse. As soon as a man took coin from the cloaks he was free to go, and
most that had been paid were already on their way into the city, their pitiful
belongings bundled up in their cloaks, the gold like an ember in their hands.

“It’s over,” he
said.

“Did you expect
something different?”

“I don’t know.
Yes, I suppose I did. Something more than this.”

“They’re the scum
of this earth,” Jason said with great affection. “They’re at their best when
times are hard, but give them something to spend, and they’ll squander it with
all the wisdom of half-witted children. Most of these will be destitute in a
month, and ready to try their hand at soldiering again, you mark my words. It’s
a tale as old as man himself.”

Rictus clinked the
coins in his palm. They were heavy, stamped on one side with the face of the
Great King, and on the other the Kufr god Bel was killing the Great Bull.

“One of those will
buy a farm and the tools to farm it, if you have a mind,” Jason said lightly.

“That’s what you’ll
do now?”

“That’s what I’ll
do. In my free hours I shall learn how the Kufr speak. I shall perhaps sit down
in the evenings and try to write out some of my memories. And I shall try and
make children.”

“What will they be
like, I wonder, those children?” Rictus mused.

“Let us hope they
take after their mother in stature, at least,” Jason grinned. “I must say
goodbye now, Rictus. Tiryn waits for me outside the camp. She’s found us a mule
from somewhere, and the poor beast is like to fold under the load it’s
carrying.”

“Drink with me,
just once,” Rictus said quickly. “Come into the city with me, for an hour, no
more. Please, Jason.”

Jason looked at
him, lips pursed. There, just there, was the boy still in him, the earnest look
in the eyes, the fear of abandonment.

“All right, then.
One drink, to seal our farewells. That’s if our comrades have left the city
with any to spare.”

Sinon was a
running hive of humanity, the streets clogged with paid-off mercenaries and
those who were trying to relieve them of their pay. The men were running riot
through the city, their gold allowing them to satisfy every appetite they had
nurtured in the long months of marching and fighting. A scarlet night, lamps
lit at every window and doorway, wine running in the gutters, mobs of Macht
howling out greetings to one another. They shouted tearful protestations of
friendship, bade lugubrious farewell to old comrades, and indulged in not a few
brawls as long-held grievances were finally aired. Brightly painted whores
helped their drunken clients through the crowds. Men robbed each other at
knifepoint, or rifled through the bundles of the incapacitated. They gorged
themselves on wine, on the food of the eating houses, on the charms of the
prostitutes. They were making up for the hardships, the wounds, the friends
buried under cold stone in the mountains or burned on pyres in the heat of the
lowlands. They were, as one of them cried, guzzling at Antimone’s tits while
they could.

“And who’s to
blame them?” Jason asked. He and Rictus stood at a streetside wine-shop and
lifted the deep bowls the owner had filled. “No cheap shit,” Jason had told
him. “We are Macht generals, leaders of an army. Bring out your best and
nothing less.”

They clinked the
earthenware bowls together. Jason was about to volunteer a toast when Rictus
said, “To a new life.”

Jason smiled. “To
a new life.” They drank deep, savouring the taste, the warmth of the good wine
as it touched their throats. They emptied the bowls and called for more. The
drink brimmed red as blood in the flickering lamplight, whilst up and down the
street beside them the pantomime of the night went on. Rictus cocked his head
to one side, listening. “It sounds almost like the city is being sacked.”

“Na,” Jason said
equably. “She’s not being raped; she’s just getting it a little rough, is all.
The good city fathers are pissing in their beds, I’ll bet, but they’ll be glad
enough of the gold once their teeth have stopped chattering. The men will spend
a city’s ransom in the streets tonight. If they want to break some crockery
along the way, well, they’ll have paid for it, fleeced like sheep by every
hard-hearted whore and sharp trader in the place. It’s the easiest thing in the
world, to part a drunken soldier from his money.”

“Perhaps we should
do something.”

“Like what—make a
speech? There’s nothing we could do would make them see sense. It’s their
money. Let them have a night where they don’t have to count it, or collect
every crumb that falls.”

“There is that,”
Rictus said. The wine was sliding into place behind his eyes; he felt he could
speak more easily, make more sense than he had before.

“What will you do
now, Rictus? Will you keep to the colour, or have you hefted a spear long
enough already?”

Rictus shrugged. “There’s
nothing for me in the Harukush. My city is gone, my family all dead. You are
the closest thing to a brother I have in the world, and you’re about to
disappear too. I suppose I’ll carry a spear. It’s all I know.”

“Then take my
advice. Stay here for now. If you remain in Sinon you’ll be able to have the
pick of a centon in a matter of days. Right now, there are more mercenaries in
this city than in half the Harukush put together, and the best of them at that.”

Rictus smiled. “Well,
it’s something to think on.”

They clinked their
bowls again, as if they had made a bargain. Used to short commons and plain
water, Rictus was quickly becoming drunk. “You know—” he said, leaning closer
to Jason.

“Here he is,
brothers. The strawhead general. Well, Rictus, how does the night find you?”

It was Aristos,
standing hands on hips in the Curse of God. Gominos bulked large beside him,
and a group of their men straddled the street to their rear.

“Speak up boy—or
are you too drunk?”

Rictus
straightened up from the streetside bar. In one moment, all the wine in him
burned away, seared to nothing by a white-cold rush through his limbs. His fist
fastened on the knife at his belt. Neither he nor Jason were wearing their
cuirasses. Rictus had left his with Whistler, and Tiryn had Jason’s strapped to
her mule.

“Ah, hell,” Jason
said. “Aristos, the fighting is done with. Have a drink and pluck that
spear-shaft from up your arse.”

Aristos stepped
forward. His face was flushed, his eyes bright; he, too, had been drinking. “I
heard tell young Rictus here was going to see me dead,” he said. “Did I hear
wrong, or was he just yapping?”

Rictus stepped
forward but Jason held him back, moved in front of him. “What’s on your mind,
Aristos?”

“I want my money,
Jason. We all do. I brought over a thousand men out of the mountains and they
haven’t so much as smelled the gold that’s due to them. Pay us, and we’ll leave
you be. We’ll call it settled, no hard feelings.”

“Pay you for what?”
Rictus hissed. “For desertion, for stealing our food, for running away? Come
here and I’ll pay you myself, in coin you’ll understand.”

“Shut up,” Jason
snapped. “Aristos, the money is all gone—we shared it out already. If you want
gold, you can talk to any drunk soldier in the city, for they’re the ones who
have it now. They’re paid off, Aristos. The thing is over.”

Aristos seemed
taken aback. He hesitated a second, the men behind him murmuring. Then he
smiled, and drew his sword. “I’ll have yours, then.”

“Come take mine,”
Rictus snarled, drawing his knife. “Come and try, you piece of shit.” He shoved
Jason aside and lunged forward. Aristos did the same. They came together like
two stags clashing antlers, each searching for the other’s sword-arm with his
free hand. The iron of their weapons snicked together and they slashed and
side-stepped, then stepped in again, breast to breast. A flurry of blows,
clicked aside or dodged. Blood sprang out like a badge along Rictus’s
collarbone, a long slice. He dashed aside another blow with his knife, the
metal screeching. He stabbed, and the point careered harmlessly off Aristos’s
armour.

“Enough!” Jason
bellowed. He elbowed into the fight, thumping Rictus aside, and kicking Aristos
in the chest. Both younger men went down on their backs, breathing like
sprinters. Jason stood between them. “Enough of this,” he said. “Gominos—take
your friend here and—”

Up sprang Rictus
and Aristos again, their faces flooded with fury, all reasoning gone. They
charged each other once more. Jason got between them. For a second he had them
at arm’s length one on each side of him, and then they had come together again.
Jason was knocked sideways. He fell heavily to the beaten earth of the street,
and lay there with the lees of the wine running about his legs. He opened his
mouth to speak, and then coughed. His feet scrabbled uselessly along the
ground. He pulled his hand away from his side and saw the dark shine there. It
was spewing out of him. “You’ve killed me,” he said, wide eyed and incredulous,
and fell back.