Mother of Daemons Page 8
Valdyr looked down at himself, seeing only his normal frame. ‘It’s only been a few days.’
‘A body can’t go without water for long,’ Luhti replied sternly.
‘But there’s nothing here!’
‘Does fruit grow on the trunk of a tree?’
He went to reply, then said, ‘I suppose not.’
‘The branches,’ she said sternly.
He blinked and twisted and his eyes flew open. He was still lying on the stair where he’d fallen asleep.
Gricoama at the edge, staring out at the distant canopy of leaves and branches and the starry void beyond. He turned his head when Valdyr roused.
‘The branches,’ he breathed. ‘We must take the next branch.’
He carefully got to his feet, feeling a little recovered but still perilously weak. He laid a hand on Gricoama’s shoulder and they ascended slowly and carefully, each stair threatening to trip him, but within a few turns they were suddenly at the base of a branching path that twisted out into the darkness. The main stair still climbed upwards and he eyed it, wondering how far it would take to get wherever they were going, but this diversion was necessary, so they turned and took the unlit branch.
At first it was like walking on a stone bridge, or crossing a fallen log over a river, but then they were groping through mist until, abruptly, they were on a stony path. He stopped, clutched at Gricoama and turned. The way back was clearly visible, a hole in air that led to the stars. He stared at it fearfully, wondering whether, if he took another step, it might vanish, but moments passed and it didn’t waver.
The path, now some kind of goat track, led down into a cutting. After building a small cairn marker, he warily took that path, wondering if all of this was part of the same dream, but the ground felt solid, the stones could be picked up and the vegetation was of a scrawny, desiccated type. A smoky smell of dung-fires and spiced gravy hung in the air, vaguely familiar, making Valdyr’s stomach churn, and he realised how desperately hungry he was. Drawn inexorably by the rich aromas, he descended a long narrow cleft between two ridges to a flat piece of dry red dirt in front of a tiny mud-brick hut, a cylinder with a straw roof and a chimney, from which smoke rose, hanging thick and meaty in the air.
A goat and a cow roamed listlessly, both of them so skinny their ribs showed. Gricoama growled hungrily and both looked up. The goat bleated and backed up to the edge of the tether, while the cow lowed a warning.
‘Don’t come any closer!’ a boyish voice called out in Keshi. ‘I have a bow!’
Dear Kore, Valdyr thought, astounded, I’m in Ahmedhassa.
3
The Copperleaf Walls
A Just War
The concept of a ‘just war’ has troubled ethical philosophers since the first scholars of Lantris tried to interpret the will of their wayward, amoral gods. War by its nature is grisly, brings out the worst in most men and leaves generations of damage. It is argued that some people are so evil that if war is required to stop them, then that war is just. But one philosopher’s tyrant is another scholar’s strong and virtuous ruler.
ADONNA MYST, KEEPER, PALLAS 749
Norostein, Noros
Febreux 936
Drums boomed out, a rolling, hastening beat that filled the air until it throbbed. The richly turbaned caliph who entered the royal pavilion had to shout to make himself heard. ‘Great Sultan, it is time.’
The warning was unnecessary: Xoredh Mubarak knew the hour. He was examining himself in a mirror that was propped amid a massive pile of captured coin, silk, jewellery and trinkets. Perfect, he decided: a true vision of majesty, fitting for a moment he’d been preparing for all his life, though it had been thrust on him sooner than he’d dreamed.
Who knew my father and elder brother would die in battle, within seconds of each other? Attam had made a habit of risking himself, but Rashid knew better. Soldiers fought, commanders directed and rulers simply observed, for they were too valuable to be risked.
The two great obstacles to my ascent removed and I didn’t even have to do it myself.
As the drums subsided, Xoredh turned to the caliph. ‘Do you believe in divine favour, Japheel?’
‘I believe it shines upon you, Great Sultan,’ the man replied, like a good courtier should.
I suppose I’ll never hear another honest word, only praise and flattery, Xoredh mused. But it didn’t trouble him: he liked flattery, and anyway, if he needed truth, he had the eyes of the daemon Abraxas, whose spawn was wrapped around his heart. That didn’t overly trouble him either: only one thing mildly concerned him just now.
‘Japheel,’ he asked coolly, ‘what of that matter I referred to last night?’
The caliph dropped to his knees. ‘Forgive me, Great Sultan, but your cousin Prince Waqar is unable to be found.’
‘Unable to be found’. Xoredh smiled at the expression, but not with pleasure. He’d been fasting and praying – or at least pretending to – when his cousin had returned from his hunt for his sister Jehana. Xoredh had despatched men to apprehend Waqar, but their quarry had vanished.
Did someone tip him off that his welcome would not be amiable? Though surely he could work that out himself? And where’s Jehana? Do either of them now have this mysterious power, the dwyma?
‘Find him, Japheel,’ he growled, as the daemon snarled in displeasure.
The caliph flinched as if he’d heard some hint of that malevolent presence and planted his forehead on the carpeted ground. ‘He shall be found, Great Sultan, I swear it.’
‘You swear?’ Xoredh enquired. Why do so many men do that?
Japheel immediately coloured. ‘Er . . . ah . . . if he is to be found . . . if he’s near here . . . if—’
‘So you don’t really swear at all?’
‘But he . . . I—’ The caliph buried his head again, now shaking, for Xoredh had a reputation. ‘I will find him or die trying, Great Sultan!’
It’s his own doing.
‘I accept your sacrifice. Now, shall we get on with my coronation?’
He left the man grovelling and strode from the pavilion to the open ground outside. They were a mile from the walls of Norostein, for fear the Rondians might interfere in this holy moment. The date and time had been kept deliberately obscure and only the most senior of his nobles, commanders and clergy were permitted to attend. Those men – only males were allowed, of course – fell to their knees and touched their foreheads to the muddy ground in supplication as he appeared. Incense burned in censers swung by clergy, who softly hummed.
The ceremony was simple, for the Amteh was an austere religion at heart. As custom decreed, he came unarmed and unarmoured to kneel before the most senior of the Godspeakers, Ali Beyrami, an avid Shihadi. Beyrami recited from the Kalistham while anointing his hair with oil, before commencing the crowning.
‘Are you Xoredh, offspring of the body and blood of Rashid Mubarak, Sultan of Kesh?’
‘Ai.’
‘Are you a devout son of Ahm, dedicated to his mission on Urte?’
‘Ai.’
‘What is a sultan?’
‘The first servant of the people.’
‘Do you pledge your life to that earthly role, confident in the heavenly reward of Ahm should you remain true?’
‘I do.’
‘Who is your Enemy?’
‘Shaitan, and his spawn on Urte, cursed be their existence.’
‘Do you pledge their destruction?’
‘I do.’
Though a daemon is lodged against my heart and I serve a Rondian monster. The Last Days are upon us, Beyrami, but you are too blind to see it. Only the daemonic shall inherit the world.
‘Then I crown you, Xoredh Mubarak, first of that name, second of the line of Mubarak, as Sultan of Kesh and paramount ruler of all Ahmedhassa. Take this crown, Great Sultan, and wear it to victory over Evil.’
Xoredh knelt a moment longer, savouring the moment.
Master, are you watching? I am now ruler of h
alf the world.
Beyrami led Xoredh to his throne, where his father Rashid had sat, and he accepted the worship and oaths of his emirs, caliphs and senapatis. Finally he could really begin to rule.
He rose to his feet, took up the sacred royal scimitar and extended his right arm towards the walls of Norostein. ‘There are our enemies. Tomorrow will be a day of celebration and rejoicing, so that the men may give thanks for my ascension to the throne. But the day after, let the assault recommence. The holy Shihad must be fulfilled.’
*
‘Well, this’s all very matey, innit?’ Serjant Bowe remarked, dangling his feet over the Copperleaf walls and peering into the Lowertown tier, some fifty feet below. ‘Look’t all them Noories, just kinda noorying about, like.’
‘Ain’t right, seein’ ’em in Yuros,’ Harmon yawned, one foot on the wall, his forearm resting on his thigh. ‘I reckon they should rukk off home, an’ let us do the same. Apparently it’s all kickin’ off in Tockers right now.’
Vidran, the third of Pilus Lukaz’s serjants, scratched his nose, a sure sign of mischief-making. ‘Hey, Bowe, how come, of all the cohort what went over on the Third Crusade, you’re the only one what din’ come back with a wife?’
‘Yeah, you one o’ them race-hater pricks what won’t marry a Noorie?’ enquired Harmon slyly – his wife was a hard-faced Khotri woman who wore knives in her sash and had duelling scars.
‘Nah, nuffink like that,’ the ferret-faced Bowe said defensively. ‘Jus’ din’ meet one I fancied.’
‘Couldn’t meet one he could catch in a foot-race, more like,’ Vidran chuckled. ‘He ain’t run a woman down back ’ome either, fun’ly enough.’
‘I’m savin’ meself for the lady o’ me dreams,’ Bowe declared, hand on heart.
‘Who’s that, then?’ Harmon sniffed. ‘Lyra Vereinen? She’s single again. Better be in quick.’
‘Nay, I ’eard she only fancies priests,’ Vidran chuckled.
‘Leave the empress out of it,’ Lukaz put in tersely, and the men fell silent again.
Seth Korion, listening nearby, smiled to himself. The banter of his cohort was one of life’s few pleasures right now. He’d joined them on the wall to watch the city below, to try to read what was about to unfold. The herald from Sultan-elect Xoredh Mubarak had requested a two-week truce, due to the loss of both Sultan Rashid and his first heir, his elder son Attam. Seth had been only too happy to grant the request, although he suspected the enemy needed it just as badly as they did. But the two weeks were almost up.
He’d had to settle refugees three families per house in Copperleaf and find them food, while buttressing the Copperleaf walls and blocking the aqueducts that fed Lowertown. After that he’d had to bed down new routines and get alongside the Imperial legionaries to remind them that loyalty to the empress was no longer their first rule. He’d also established an emergency ruling council and dealt with communications from Lord Sulpeter and from Pallas. It hadn’t been dull, and sleep had been rare and precious, despite the lull in the fighting.
Interestingly, the contacts with Pallas had been contradictory: he had a congratulatory message from the empress urging him to fight on, while Sulpeter was still demanding that he present himself before a courts-martial. He’d kept the former and burned the latter.
Ramon Sensini had wanted to violate the truce and raid the Shihad – of course – but Seth had convinced him not to. The time they spent fortifying would repay them many times over, compared to the minimal gains of raiding and precipitating reprisals. And the men badly needed the respite, even if it was granting the enemy the same.
Abruptly, Vidran stiffened and peered below. They all followed his gaze and Seth saw a robed and head-scarfed woman scuttle to the well halfway down the alley below, a lock of blonde hair visible on her shoulder. ‘Hey, lass,’ Vidran called, ‘come on up. We have magi here: we can ’elp ye climb.’
The woman paused, looking over her shoulder, and they saw that she was pregnant. ‘You lot Northerners?’ she called. ‘You talk funny.’
‘Says the rukkin’ Southern yokel,’ Bowe snorted.
‘We’re from Pallas, lass: Tockburn-on-Water,’ Harmon called. ‘Come on up.’
The girl laughed as a tall Keshi came round the corner and caught her around the waist from behind. He stroked her belly as she twisted her head and kissed him.
‘See, I’ve got me a mage-born too, right ’ere,’ the woman called back, patting her stomach and resting against the Easterner’s chest. ‘An’ a palace in Noorieland waitin’. So thanks, lads, but I’m all right, jus’ where I am.’ She gave a cheeky wave and left, hand in hand with her man.
‘Aw, that’s jus’ wrong,’ Bowe complained.
‘Yeah, Ahmedhassans comin’ over ’ere, takin’ our women,’ drawled Harmon, fondling the wedding bracelet his Khotri wife had given him. ‘What sorta fella does that?’
‘Boot’s on t’other foot, Bowe,’ Vidran remarked. ‘Jus’ the way it is.’ Vidran’s wife was a small, plump Dhassan woman whose cooking was renowned.
Seth took pride in the fact that none of his veterans had abandoned their wives after the Crusade. Not all the marriages had turned out well, but he’d protected those women, even sending some home on traders’ windships.
It’s a big, ugly-lovely place, this mongrel world. so why do we fight all the time?
Scarcity was one reason. There’s plenty for all, but most of it’s hoarded by the few. There’s only enough food in this city for us or them, and we’ve likely got about half each. The race-hate Vidran had spoken of was another reason. His veterans might be tolerant, but most Yurosi had never left their homelands and feared anything foreign – different skin colour, different features, languages, customs, religions. For every person prepared to live and let live, there were many more ready to lash out at the unknown.
Either way, Rashid’s mourning will soon be over and we’ll begin killing each other again.
A bird’s cry carried on the breeze and he saw four of the giant Keshi eagles swooping towards Lowertown from the north. He admired the graceful descent, wishing he had a few such creatures himself to contest the skies in the days to come. Or even just to fly. They’d come in from due east, the coastal road up from Silacia. He hoped it was just a Keshi patrol, but worried that it presaged the end of this uneasy truce.
Norostein was a fortress-city, built beneath the alps in three semi-circular tiers. Below him was Lowertown, a mile-wide arc of packed housing and a lake fed by aqueducts, currently frozen solid, which he’d been forced to abandon after a month-long siege. The Shihad was now housed there and a haze of smoke rose from the countless cooking fires as the Eastern soldiers finally enjoyed proper shelter from the elements. How many had died in the cold, Seth couldn’t guess, but they estimated three or four hundred thousand men were down there.
But what’s their morale like now? They’ve lost Rashid, the genius who got them here. What’s Xoredh like? Is he a general or a courtier-prince? Do his men revere him as they did his father? What’s his mettle?
He turned his attention to the tier his own forces held. Unlike the homely sprawl of Lowertown, Copperleaf was narrow and maze-like, noted for its craftsmen and artisan traders, especially the metal-workers who’d given the place its name. The Copperleaf walls were higher than the outer walls, but only a third as long, and they were tightly packed with refugees from Lowertown and the rest of the kingdom. Two-thirds of the city were now sleeping cheek by jowl on the floors of warehouses and churches and living on rationed supplies. Sickness was sweeping in, although his healer-magi were labouring hard to prevent it spreading. The people were trapped and frightened and they were beginning to suspect what Seth already knew: that food supplies would last only a few more weeks.
During this truce, mass protests had been held outside the gates of Ringwald, the inner tier where Governor Rhys Myron still clung on, hoarding supplies and refusing to help the defence in any way – worse, he’d openly supported attempts
to have Seth arrested, as well as undermining the defence by trying to blackmail Ramon. Not that the governor supported the Shihad: he just wanted the defence to fail so he could abandon his post and leave with his gold-laden windship fleet.
The moment the Shihad breach Copperleaf, Myron will be off.
Trying to storm Ringwald while defending Copperleaf was an impossibility, and declaring war on his own governor would be an act of high treason, so Seth had been forced to walk a fine line, allowing civilian protests beneath the walls of Ringwald, but unable to openly support them. The fact that his own family in Bricia was vulnerable if the empire moved against him was also making him anxious.
Just then there was a thunderous roll of drums from somewhere beyond the city walls. They all pricked up their ears, a few of the men making religious signs.
Pilus Lukaz looked at Seth enquiringly. ‘What’s that mean, sir?’
‘It means this truce is just about done,’ Seth guessed. ‘I heard something similar when they crowned the new calipha in Khotri.’ He turned to his aides. ‘We’re at war again – spread the word.’
He turned away, thinking, This makes what Ramon’s trying to do all the more vital.
*
Ramon laughed – he could well imagine Vania doing just that – but reiterated his order. Then he put the relay-stave aside and waved his people in. He’d assembled almost half his battle-magi for this task, a dozen experienced men and women, each carrying leather satchels as long as their bodies. Their mission: to get inside Ringwald unseen.