Donarec and the Warlord Page 5

“And I’ll say no to them,” Donarec said, hand falling to his own blade. He heard Jaag drawing his own dog-leg shaped sword and fighting ring, while Tudai fitted an arrow to the string of her bow. “We’re leaving for Kedaj. Your father and his enemies are welcome to each other.”

  “He has ordered your death.” Jokko sighed and raised his blade into a combat stance. “There is no more to say. Kill them all!”

  With a shout the Irzemya of House Vaien rushed in, sword our, Two of them dropped before they took more than two steps, arrows striking one in the eye and the other in the throat. Bellowing a Gusannagari warcry, Jaag raised his blade, catching a slash from one sword in the spikes of the fighting ring and wrenching it aside, then chopping down savagely with the other, blood gushing up as it chopped into the base of his neck. Amazingly the man did not die, pulling back with a howl of pain and stumbling back.

  Donrac glided across the ground, his own blade whisking out the scabbard and striking out like a serpent’s tongue. He turned sideways, presenting a narrow target, batting aside a cut from an Irzemya and returning with a quick strike that opened the man’s throat. He stepped in as the man fell, reaching out with his left hand and plucking a dagger from the man’s belt, then turned and striking again, slashing another Irzemya across the face.

  More men closed in, more wary this time as they saw their comrades fall or flee But Jokko held back, watching Donarec fight. His eyes narrowed as he studied the Eburrean’s fighting style, the way the sword seemed to flow like water, not so much striking the target as appearing where it needed to be. It was a familiar style, described to him by one of the older warriors who followed the Warlord onto a battlefield against desert raiders, where he and his guard were cut off from the rest of the army and only a handful came back alive…

  The Warlord… Hoof beats echoed up the street, and a squad of hosemen appeared, coming up the street, one of them blowing a horn the other shouting above the noise for all sides to drop their arms.

  “Murderers!” Jokko pointed at Donarec and his companions. “Assassins! They attacked us!”

  “Hold! Put up your blades!” The horsemen reined in, lowering the lances in their hands. All wore the colors of the city. Men sworn to the Warlord. “What happened here?” asked the officer in command, who drew his sword as he spoke.

  Before Donarec could get a word in, Jokko pointed at him. “Assassins, captain! Hired to murder our lord, who invited them into his house as guests! Arrest this man, Donarec of Eburrea…”

  “Donarec?” The officer repeated the name. A name he appeared to know. “Are you called Donarec?” he asked, shifting about in his saddle.

  Donarec nodded. “I am. And everything this man says is a lie. We are…”

  “Silence!” The officer pointed his sword. “Arrest this man!”

  A long time ago...

  The Great Captains stood around the corpses, heads bowed and voices silent. A moment of respect for the dead comrades...and a reckoning of the cost.

  Serezaam finally spoke, pulling the men back to the here and now. “What happened?” he asked.

  It was Orazaak who answered. “Scouts, they were sent two days ahead to mark the path towards the Thahaara River, and to find that ford those merchants told us about. Some of the locals took them for an easy mark and laid an ambush...took them by complete surprise. We found their bodies, stripped down to their skin, throats cut to the bone.”

  “The runes can’t heal that,” Kazovar added.

  “Did you track the scum?” Serezaam asked, anger in his voice. “They must feel our wrath, send a message…”

  “Already done,” Orazaak answered.

  “They came from my Great Company,” one of the Captains said. His name was Shinza. “We tracked the killers back to their home village. The savages were wearing the armor they stole from my men. I made sure they paid a hard price...we killed every living creature in that place, burned it to the ground and piled their heads on the ashes.”

  “Now every tribe around the ford has picked up and fled for the forests,” said Orazaak. “Our crossing will not be impeded.”

  “I never thought it would be. But there is a bigger problem.” Serezaam knelt down, looking at one of the dead men. Young, his runes still retaining a slight glow, his olive skin stained with blood and dust. As the savages bred dogs and horses to serve them, so the Masters bred men. Nam’shaq to administer and rule, and Osa’shaq to fight. Birthed from a woman chosen only for her ability to produce healthy offspring, raised in communal nurseries, taught from birth to withstand pain and hardship, and then at the age of six inducted into a brutal training process than killed four out of every five. Those who made it to their final induction, fully runemarked with all the abilities that entailed, were the finest fighters in all the Universe. Living weapons, swords with legs, ready to visit death and destruction at the Master’s command…

  But not invulnerable. Death came for them in the end, as it did for all men, and death on the battlefield was still the most likely end. And while the runes could heal most injuries, a throat cut all the way to the backbone was as fatal as it would be to an ordinary man.

  Their loss was a tragedy...and a problem. They could not be replaced.

  Serezaam looked to the Great Captains. “How many have we lost, beyond these?”

  A moment’s silence as the Great Captains conferred with another. “Since we left the Great Encampment...two hundred and seven hav died,” said Kazovar.

  “Two hundred and seven,” Serezaam repeated. “There were only five thousand of us at the start, and by the time the march ends even more will be gone. This is not mere speculation, it is a plain fact. We do not have the resources of the Masters, and there are no reinforcements coming from the Empyrean. Every man who dies will not be replaced, and the burdens placed on those who remain will be that much greater.”

  Another pause s the Great Captains considered the possibilities. “What is to be done?” Orazaak asked finally.

  Serezaam pointed to the south. The camp of the Servants who were no longer servants sat atop a low hill, rows of tents laid out in straight orderly rows, surrounded by a ramp of heaped earth on which were placed wooden stakes. Every night the same camp, dug out of the earth, the stakes carried in the wagons along with the rest of the supplies.

  Sprawling around the camp was another, far more disorderly jumble of tents, lean-tos, shelters scraped out of the earth and everything else imaginable that might be used to protect a body from the elements. That small band of refugee cooks and wagon drivers now grown into a migrating horde that trailed after the Osa’shaq. Men and women and growing swarms of children, doing any and every task the men-who-were-no-longer-Servants could not. Blacksmiths, leatherworkers, butchers, cooks...the list was endless, and that didn't take into account the wives and children. Every army had its camp followers, but Serezaam and his men had something else, a nation on the march, following in their wake, picking over the bodies of their slain enemies and picking the countryside clean as well.

  Mayazuul...the word meant ‘followers’ in the Servants Speech that the Osa’shaq and Nam’shaq used. It was not a term of endearment, applied to those savages who served the Masters and their servants, upjumped animals given a momentary reprieve from otherwise deserved servitude, doing the tasks that even the lowest of the Gur’shaq considered beneath them. But the men and women in that ragged camp had taken it as their own, a name to unite under. They came from all lands, for the wars of the Masters spread chaos across this world, and the continent they were marching across groaned with the remnants of broken tribes and shattered kingdoms.

  Those who followed the Osa’shaq swore to obey them in all things in return for leadership and protection. Not all among the Servants thought this a good thing, and there many who had argued that they should only take those who were of any real use and leave the rest behind. But there were others who found the savages and their ways to be of interest and would walk among them, and even engage in familiar te
rms with them...though the last was halted at Serezaam’s command. Familiarity bred contempt, and the fearful awe the Mayazuul had of their masters was a useful tool.

  The few Nam’shaq who had left with Serezaam from the Great Encampment labored mightily to impose some sort of order among the seething masses. The slit trenches south of the camp and well away from the river did much to reduce outbreaks of disease, work parties swept the place clean of rubbish every day, while foraging parties swept the countryside for anything the growing numbers of craftsmen might need. Iron most of all...despite their best efforts more than a few of the Osa’shaq now sported swords of common steel instead of the black metal weapons...lost in battle, during river crossings or to other mishaps.

  Serezaam stared at the camp, plucking his bottom lip. “We must make do with the materials at hand,” he declared. “Go through the camp and find young men among the Mayazuul who can be trained. They shall take the place of our fallen brothers.”

  The Great Captains all spoke in protest. “Impossible!” Orazaak declared. “They will never match us in skill!”

  “They do not have to be our equals,” said Serezaam in response, “only better than any enemy we are likely to face.”

  “They will never keep up with Osa’shaq,” said Shinza. “Place even one in our ranks and he will weaken the entire unit.”

  “Then form them into their own separate companies,” said Serezaam. “They will only have to keep up with each other.”

  “They won’t be runemarked,” said Kazovar, and the others nodded at that. “The Masters kept the secrets of the runes to themselves. No matter how well they are trained, the absence of the runes will always hold them back.”

  Serezaam smiled. “When we left the encampment, I made sure to take every alchemical text left behind on this world, including some used by the Masters themselves. I am trained in the Most Noble Craft, as is young Arragaz. We may be able to learn for ourselves the secret of the runes, and in time create new Osa’shaq. And until that day comes, keep this in mind; they may be inferior to us, but they will be better than any savage we are likely to face in battle, any among them who fall can be replaced...and there will be more of them than there are of us. Find men we can use, and train them for the battles that are coming. We will need them.”

  Now

  The guards did not take Donarec and his companions back to the city jail. Instead they were brought to the hulking fortress in the center of Beremi, the home of the ruling Warlord. Its hulking, cyclopean walls were of rammed earth faced with massive stone slabs brought from distant mountains to the east, fitted together so perfectly they appeared to be a seamless wall. Polished to a high sheen so that in the morning light they reflected the Sun’s rays, giving it a glowing appearance. Armed men crawled atop its battlements, four huge towers rose up from each of the corners on which archers kept an eye on the city below, with giant catapults placed at the very top. It was a statement of power as much as defensive structure, declaring to the city below and the world beyond that its Master ruled unquestioned.

  The Fortress of Beremi was older than the city which shared its name, founded (so it was claimed) on the sacred burial grounds of the old Shiraan rulers of the land. Some historians had it that the tombs were dug up, the bones of their occupants ground into powder and used in the mortar that held the block together and their skulls buried in the foundation, so that their spirits would be subjugated in the World Beyond as their descendants were in the World That Is.

  Once inside, the guards did not take them to the dungeons below, but upwards instead. However grim the outside may have been, inside the fortress was a place of quiet beauty, the walls decorated with scenes of the hunt, of daily life, of men and women at their leisure. As if the master of the place sought a sense of balance between the purpose of war and the pleasures of life, a reminder that all was not fighting and killing.

  They were separated on one of the upper floors. And placed into separate rooms. Not prison cells by any means, each held a bed, a table with a platter of bread, cheese and fruit, a small carafe of watered wine. Their weapons were taken, with promises of their return should the Warlord choose to spare their lives.

  The doors were closed and locked. Donaec stood in his room, and walked towards a long window placed at the far end. The shutters were open, letting in the warm summer breeze. He picked up a piece of cheese from the table, sniffed it, then shrugged and took a bite. No pain, no frothing at the mouth...not poisoned. Whatever fate the Warlord of Beremi had in mind, it didn't involve him meeting it on an empty stomach. The walls of the room were painted a light blue, with a frieze running along the upper third depicting bands of men on horseback chasing after beasts of the grasslands. Scenes of the hunt...the door opened and an Ashirzaai servant came in bearing a pitcher of water and a towel. Both were placed on the table and the servant left, silently as he came. Donarec saw a guard on the other side in the hallway, watching the servant leave, then glanced at Donarec before the door closed, the lock clicking shut.

  Donarec picked up the towel, dipped it in the water and washed the dust and sweat from his face. As he did, the sounds of the city came in through the window, which looked out onto a broad plaza that spread out from the western edge of the fortress for quite some ways. Stone flagstones were set in geometric p[atters that were obscured by a mass of tents, stalls and wagons...the main market square for the city, he later learned. In the center was a massive fountain, with a pair of rearing stone horses in the center surrounded in turn by a pool of clear water.

  He leaned against the windowsill, idly eating from the platter and watching the events happening below. Beremi was a young city, as such things were reckoned - very old men still alive today might just remember a time when this territory was nothing but grassland - but in the years since its founding it had grown by leaps and bounds, with tens of thousands living within its walls and even more in the surrounding territory claimed by the Warlord. It grew wealthy from its control over the caravan routes that crossed through its territory, from the skilled craftsmen laboring the city and surrounding towns, and from the unrivaled fertility of its farms, for the lands once roamed by the wold horsemen proved fruitful when broken by the plough.

  Yet he sensed the same problem here as he did in Avaiea, a question of power. The Lord of Avaiea died suddenly without naming a successor, and the city tore itself apart for years as one faction contended against another. Oddly enough, the people of Avaiea claimed that their Lord Shinza was hundreds of years old, near immortal, sustained by the favor of Sehrem. So when he suddenly died, it was seen as more than just a calamity of politics, but a mark of divine disfavor. The same claims were made for the Warlord of Beremi, and Donarec wondered how things would work out when he passed, as all men must.

  Surely the fellow had taken a lesson from the experiences of Ganascala, his neighbor to the north, and arranged for someone to assume the mantle of leadership, and likely his name as well...a name he didn’t quite remember at the moment, though he’d heard it often enough. For it was patently ridiculous that a man might live for hundreds of years, heavenly favor or not. More likely the name and title was passed down from one to another, with the notion that he was an immortal ruler a polite fiction meant to keep the rabble in the streets quiescent…

  Donarec pulled away from his thoughts. Something was happening in the square below. A procession of men on foot made their way through the square, one of them holding aloft a banner marked with the colors of House Yozara. They were armed, though unarmored (Donarec later learned that the Warlord forbade the wearing of armor within the walls unless on approved business, in the hopes it would curtail brawling. It did not.) One of their number beat a drum while the others chanted a song praising the glory of their house and its leaders.

  The crowds parted as they approached, partly out of respect, but also out of fear, for approaching the other way was another procession, marching behind a banner with the colors of House Iolo. Both groups halted, f
or the path of one led right into the other, and to give way was to signal a lessening of status. So both sides halted.

  “Clear the way!” The Yozara bannerman declared, his voice carrying all the way to Donarec’s window.

  In response, one of the Iolo’s stepped forward, and raised up the index and middle finger of his left hand in an outward V-sign, and spat on the ground between them. A gasp rose up from the Yozara’s, for this was a most deadly insult.

  “Do you spit the Demon’s Horns at us?” The Yozara bannerman demanded, face red with anger.

  “I do spit, sir,” the Iolo replied.

  “That is no answer! Do you spit the Demons Horns at us, Iolo?”

  “I merely spit, Yozara, to clear foulness from my mouth! But if you see an insult in it, sir, then maybe it’s one you deserve!”

  “Do you seek a quarrel?” the Yozara bannerman demanded, as his fellows reached for their weapons, while the Iolo’s did the same.”

  “Quarrel?” the Iolo hothead responde. “There will be no quarrel, only a swift slaughter! As it always is, when lesser men confront their betters!”

  The Yozara’s growled at this. The bannerman though appeared to be one with a better grip on his temper. “We are late for the temple,” he told his men. “Leave these fools behind, their words are nothing more than the rantings of beggars, and unworthy of us.” He turned, stepped forward to walk around the Iolo’s.

  But the other men weren’t going to let this pass so easily. With a laugh the hothead on the other wise lunged forward and shoved the Yozara bannerman. The man fell, and the banner clattered to the ground, where it was fouled by the dirt and grime covering the flagstones. A cry went up from the Yozara sworn men, one of whom went for the banner and hauled it back up, while the Iolo’s laughed at the sight.

  The bannerman hot back to his feet, and drew his sword. “Only blood answers for that!” he bellowed, slashing at the offender on the other side. After that the plaza was filled with shouts and screams as both sides went at each other, while the surrounding crowd scattered.