The White-Luck Warrior (32 page)

Nonmen, the first the young King had ever seen, policed the column's flanks, riding black horses and wearing elaborate gowns of chainmail. Erratics, the Mandate Schoolman called them, Nonmen who had gone mad for immortality. Sorweel found the appearance of them disconcerting—their faces especially. Since time immemorial, his people had battled the Sranc. And so, for him, the Sranc were the rule and the Nonmen the perversions. He could not look at them without seeing the heads of Sranc stitched onto the bodies of statuesque Men.

Scarcely a hundred of them accompanied the host. Far more numerous were what Eskeles called Ursranc, a species bred for obedience. "Like dogs to wolves," the Schoolman said. They seemed somewhat taller and broader than their wild cousins, but aside from their freedom, they were really only distinguished by the uniformity of their armour: hauberks of black iron scale. The Scions could only guess at their numbers, since they not only crawled throughout the column whipping and beating their more wolfish kin, but also patrolled the surrounding plains in loose companies of a hundred or so—the way
Men
would.

No matter what their numbers, they were but a pittance compared with their unruly relatives. At first Sorweel could scarce credit his eyes, gazing at the great square formations through the Schoolman's lens of air. Sranc chained to Sranc chained to Sranc. On and on. Snapping. Soundlessly howling. Shambling through screens of dust. Eskeles counted one hundred heads a side, which meant that each square contained some
ten thousand
of the creatures. Arguing glimpses through the endless veils of dust, he and Captain Harnilas decided that no less than ten squares composed the column. Which meant that Sorweel witnessed something his people knew only from legend: a horde whipped and shackled into the form of a great army.

A Yoke Legion, Eskeles had said, speaking with a survivor's dread. The Erratics and Ursranc, he explained, would drive their wretched captives until the scent of the Ordeal sang on the clear wind, then simply strike the chains that threaded their shackles. Hunger would do the rest. Hunger and diabolical lust...

The Consult was
real
. If the unmasking of the skin-spy in the Umbilicus had not entirely convinced Sorweel, this most certainly did. The Aspect-Emperor warred against a
real
enemy. And unless the Scions could find some way to warn Kayûtas, the Army of the Middle-North was doomed.

They had spent a crazed fortnight trying to catch the Army—without dying. They had struck eastward, slowly bending their course to the north, riding day and night in the hope of skirting, then outdistancing, the Consult host. Within three days they found the great track the Army of the Middle-North had beaten into the dusty waste. But the urgency that spurred their flight was easily matched by the dread host. Day after day, no matter how hard they pushed their ponies, the smear of dun haze that marked the Ten-Yoke Legion on the horizon stubbornly refused to fall behind them.

After the first week, the miraculous endurance of their Jiünati ponies began to fail, and Harnilas had no choice but to leave more and more of their company hobbling on foot behind them. The rule he used was simple: those he deemed strong riders went on, while those he deemed weak were left behind, regardless of whose pony failed. Obotegwa was among the first to be so abandoned: Sorweel need only blink to see the old Satyothi smiling in philosophic resignation, trudging through the dust of their trotting departure. Charampa and other Scions who were not bred to horses were quick to follow. Eskeles was the sole exception—even though the others began calling him "Pony-killer." Every other day, it seemed, his paunch broke another pony's strength and so doomed another Scion to trudge alone on foot. He felt the shame keenly, so much so that he began refusing his rations. "I carry my pack on my waist," he would say with a forced laugh.

The remaining Scions began watching him in exasperation—and, in some cases, outright hatred. The fifth pony he lamed, Harnilas chose a tempestuous Girgashi youth named Baribul to yield his mount. "What?" the young man cried to the Mandate Schoolman. "You cannot walk across the sky?"

"There are
Quya
on the horizon!" the sorcerer exclaimed. "We are all dead if I draw their eye!"

"Yield your shag!" Harnilas bellowed at the youth. "I will not ask again!"

Baribul wheeled about to face the commander. "There will be
war
for this!" he roared. "My father will sound the High Shi—"

Harnilas hefted his lance, skewered the young man's throat with a blurred throw.

The Kidruhil veteran spurred his pony in a tight circle about the dying youth. "I care not for your fathers!" he called to the others, resolution like acid in his eyes. "I care not for your laws or your customs! And apart from my mission, I care not for
you
! Only
one
of us needs to reach the Holy General!
One of us!
and the Great Ordeal will be saved—as will your fathers and their fool customs!"

The huffing Schoolman clambered onto Baribul's pony, his face dark with the rage that weak men use to overmatch their shame. The remaining Scions had already turned their backs to him, resumed their northward drift. Baribul was dead, and they were too tired to care. He had been insufferably arrogant, anyway.

Sorweel lingered behind, staring at the body in the dust. For the first time, he understood the mortal stakes of their endeavour—the mission his insight had delivered. The Scions could very well be doomed, and unless he set aside his cowardice and pride, he would die not only without brothers but without friends as well.

The Company rode in haphazard echelon across the plain, each pony hauling skirts of spectral dust. Zsoronga rode alone, relieved of his Brace by the steady loss of their mounts. He hung his head, his blinks so sticky as to become heartbeats of sleep. His mouth hung open. They had ridden past exhaustion, into mania and melancholy, into the long stupor of mile stacked upon endless mile.

"I'm next," the Successor-Prince said with offhand disgust as Sorweel approached. "The fat man eyes my Mebbee even now. Eh, Mebbee?" He raked affectionate fingers through his pony's plumed mane. "Imagine. The Satakhan of High Holy Zeüm, stumping alone through the dust..."

"I'm sure we'll fi—"

"But this is good," Zsoronga interrupted, raising a hand in a loose
but-yes
gesture. "Whenever my courtiers air their grievances, I can say, 'Yes, I remember the time I was forced to hobble alone through Sranc-infested wastes...'" He laughed as if seeing their faces blanch in his soul's eye. "Who could whine to such a Satakhan? Who would dare?"

He had turned to Sorweel as he said this, but he spoke in the inward manner of those who think their listeners cannot understand.

"I'm not one of the Believer-Kings!" Sorweel blurted.

Zsoronga blinked as though waking.

"You speak Sheyic now?"

"I'm
not
a Believer-King," Sorweel pressed. "I know you think I am."

The Successor-Prince snorted and turned away.

"Think? No, Horse-King.
I know.
"

"How? How could you know?"

Exhaustion has a way of parting the veils between men, not so much because the effort of censoring their words exceeds them, but because weariness is the foe of volatility. Oft times insults that would pierce the wakeful simply thud against the sleepless and fatigued.

Zsoronga grinned in what could only be called malice. "The Aspect-Emperor. He
sees
the hearts of Men, Horse-King. He saw yours quite clearly, I think."

"
No.
I... I don't know what happened at the-the..." He had assumed his tongue would fail him, that his Sheyic would be so rudimentary that it would only humiliate him, but the words were there, cemented by all those dreary watches he had spent cursing Eskeles. "I don't know what happened at the council!"

Zsoronga looked away, sneering as though at a younger sister. "
I
thought it plain," he said. "
Two
spies were revealed.
Two
false faces..."

Sorweel glared. Frustration welled through him and with it an overwhelming urge to simply close his eyes and slump from his saddle. His thoughts sagged, reeled into nonsensical convolutions. The ground looked cushion soft. He would sleep such a sleep! And his pony, Stubborn—Eskeles could have him. He was strong. Zsoronga could keep Mebbee, and so lose the moral high-ground to his whining courtiers...

The young King was quick in blinking away this foolishness.

"Zsoronga. Look at me... Please. I am the enemy of your enemy!
He murdered my father!
"

The Successor-Prince pawed his face as though trying to wipe away the exhaustion.

"Then why—?"

"To sow...
thrauma...
discord between us! To sow discord in my own heart! Or... or..."

A look of flat disgust. "Or?"

"Maybe he was... mistaken."

"What?" Zsoronga crowed, laughing. "Because he found your soul too subtle? A
barbarian
? Spare me your lies, shit-herder!"

"No...
No!
Because..."

"Because... Because..." Zsoronga mocked.

For some reason this barb found its way through the numbness, stung enough to bring tears to his eyes. "You would think me mad if I told you," the young King of Sakarpus said, his voice cracking.

Zsoronga gazed at him for a long, expressionless moment—a look of judgment and decision.

"I've seen you in battle," he finally said, speaking with the semblance of cruelty that men sometimes use to make room for a friend's momentary weakness. He smiled as best his heart could manage. "I already think you mad!"

A single teasing accusation, and the rift of suspicion between them was miraculously healed. Often men need only speak around things to come together and so remember what it means to speak through.

Too weary to feel gratified or relieved, Sorweel began telling the Successor-Prince everything that had transpired since the death of his father and the fall of his hallowed city. He told him of the stork who had alighted on the walls the instant before the Great Ordeal attacked his city. He told him how he had wept in the Aspect-Emperor's arms. He confessed everything, no matter how shameful, how weak, knowing that for all the aloofness of Zsoronga's gaze, the man no longer judged him with a simple rule.

And then he told him about the slave, Porsparian...

"He... he... made a face,
her face
, in the earth. And—I swear to you, Zsoronga!—he gathered... mud...
spit
, from her lips. He rubbed it across my chee—"

"
Before
the council?" Zsoronga asked, astonished eyes shining from a dubious scowl. "Before the Anasûrimbor named you one of the faithful?"

"Yes! Yes! And ever since... Even
Kayûtas
congratulates me on my... my turning."

"Conversion," Zsoronga corrected, his head slung low in concentration. "Your conversion..."

So far the young King of Sakarpus had spoken through the weariness that hooks lead weights to each and every thought, making the effort of talking akin to that of lifting what would rather sink. Suddenly speaking felt more like trying to submerge air-filled bladders—holding down things that should be drowned.

"Tell me what you think!" Sorweel cried.

"This is bad
rushru
... The Mother of Birth... For us, she is the
slave
Goddess. Beneath our petitioni—"

"It
does
shame me!" Sorweel blurted. "I am one of the warlings! Born of blood both ancient and noble! Trothed to Gilgaöl since my fifth summer!
She
shames me!"

"But not beneath our
respect
," Zsoronga continued with an air of superstitious concern. Dust had chalked his kinked hair, so that he resembled Obotegwa, older and wiser than his years. "She is among the eldest... the most powerful."

"So what are you saying?"

The Successor-Prince absently stroked his pony's neck rather than answer. Even when hesitating, Zsoronga possessed a directness, a paradoxical
absence
of hesitation. He was one of those rare men who always moved in accordance with themselves, as though his soul had been cut and stitched from a single cloth—so unlike the patched motley that was Sorweel's soul. Even when the Successor-Prince doubted, his confidence was absolute.

"I think," Zsoronga said, "and by that I mean
think
... that you are what they call
narindari
in the Three Seas..." His body seemed to sway about the stationary point of his gaze. "Chosen by the Gods to kill."

"Kill?" Sorweel cried. "Kill?"

"Yes," the Successor-Prince replied, his green eyes drawn down by the frightful weight of his ruminations. When he looked up, he gazed with a certain blankness, as if loathe to dishonour his friend with any outward sign of pity. "To avenge your father."

Sorweel already knew this, but in the manner of men who have caged their fears. He knew this as profoundly as he knew anything, and yet somehow he had managed to convince himself it wasn't true.

He had been chosen to kill the Aspect-Emperor.

"So what am I to do?" he cried, more honest to his panic than he intended. "What does She expect of me?"

Zsoronga snorted with the humour of the perpetually overmatched. "What does the
Mother
expect? The Gods are children and we are their toys. Look at you sausages! They cherish us one day, break us the next." He held out his arms as if to mime Mankind's age-old exasperation. "We Zeümi pray to our
ancestors
for a reason."

Sorweel blinked against mutinous eyes. "Then what do
you
think I should do?"

"Stand in front of me as much as possible!" the handsome Successor-Prince chortled. A better part of Zsoronga's strength, Sorweel had learned, lay in his ability to drag good humour out of any circumstance. It was a trait he would try to emulate.