Warrior of the Altaii Page 17

  “The Most High,” said Bohemund. He sounded shocked.

  “I could see danger for our people,” Moidra said, “an attempt to destroy us, but I could not get a clear sight of where the danger lay, or how to counter it.”

  Bohemund nodded. “That remained to the slow ways of men to find out. At least, about the Lantans and Morassa. About the Most High,” he said slowly, “come.”

  He led the way to a map table. Elspeth started to follow, but Mayra and Moidra gave her such startled looks that she crept to a corner and waited.

  “What of the Eikonan?” I asked.

  Bohemund laughed, and for the first time I realized how Harald’s disappearance had cut new lines in his face. “The Lantans, it seems, made an offer to the Eikonan.”

  “Obviously not accepted.”

  “Not only not accepted, but the Lantans had to ransom their emissaries back. They were clumsy, Wulfgar, clumsy as men with no knowledge of the Plain’s tribes could be clumsy. They offered a bribe to the Eikonan to attack us when they did. Not an offer to hire swords, but a bribe.”

  It was clumsy. An attempt to hire the Eikonan as mercenaries would probably have succeeded. Even a simple statement that at a certain time we’d be occupied elsewhere might have brought them harrying us in the rear. A bribe, though, made it a thing of honor, and that was something a Lantan didn’t understand.

  “And that one came to tell us they refused?”

  “Yes. His name is N’Runa. He says the Circle of Elders debated the offer for ten days. Not whether to accept it, but whether it was insult enough for them to go to war beside us. They decided it wasn’t. I could wish they were pickier about their honor.” He swept the covering off of the map table.

  Along the western edge ran the Sifr Senaka, the Backbone of the World. To the north was the beginning of the snow country, where the land was clear only a few tendays of the year and the tusk-beasts roamed. To the south were the sea and the holdings of the Telmarkers. And along the eastern side lay the cities of the edge of the Plain, Cerdu and Devia, Asyat and Lanta.

  “The reason for what happens is commonplace, or I thought it was until you mentioned the Most High. Now,” said the king, “I’m no longer so certain. However. It seems that the Twin Thrones dream of power, more power than can be had by a city, however large. They want an empire. To the north of Lanta lies Devia, a trading center of some size itself. In recent years the city has had a long spell of bad luck. Drought among the dirtmen to the east of them has pushed food prices up. Three of the biggest merchant houses have failed, and the others have tried more and more to push caravans to the far mountains, the Sifr Senaka, and that has increased their losses to the tribes of the Plain.

  “South of Lanta is Cerdu, much the same sort of city as Devia. Their trade has been going well, but the Malik, their king, has been discovered using money marked as spent for the army on slaves and imported delicacies. Additionally, a scandal has resulted from the discovery that priests at some of the city’s temples haven’t been making the prayers they’ve been paid to make.

  “The result is that both cities are ripe for plucking, if the right conditions can be arranged.”

  “And Lanta means to make an empire beginning with those two cities?” I asked.

  “They do. According to those of our people who’ve traded in those places recently, the Twin Thrones already have agents there, fanning the flames. They’ve even provided arms to some of the dissidents. All they need is to show up with an army at Cerdu and that city will fall. Little more than that is needed for Devia, especially if they destroy the Plain tribe that’s done the most damage to their caravans on the way. Also, destroying us lets them march troops to the cities without fear of our taking them in the flank. And, of course, it would damage their claims to empire if caravans from one city of the Empire to another were being raided by the Altaii.”

  “And so they move to destroy us,” I said. “But how? Mayra speaks as if they’ve little more to do than open their hands to grasp us. According to her we have only the smallest chance of survival. Well, we won’t die so easily, so how will they do this thing?”

  “Their movements were clouded, Wulfgar, so once again it was warriors on horseback who found what we needed.”

  “Let your men scout in a fog where the very shape of the earth changes beneath their feet from moment to moment,” said Moidra. “Then let us hear how they’ve bested us.”

  Bohemund still had a slight smile, but it faded with his next words. “Have you seen a Morassa anywhere on the Plain? Have any of your lances?”

  “None, but they avoid us anyway.”

  “This time they don’t avoid. In the north and the south they gather like locusts. To the north, two hundred thousand. To the south, twice that and more.”

  I almost choked on the numbers. “So many? The Morassa couldn’t gather that many lances if they raked out every dung heap on the Plain.”

  “No doubt,” Bohemund said dryly. “However, half of the northern force is Lantan, and fully one in three of the southern.”

  “They must have stripped their outlying garrisons and tributary towns.” I studied the map closely. “What of Lanta? What of her garrison?”

  “They are several thousand. They are sure that Lanta’s gates and walls are invincible. That Lanta cannot be taken.”

  “And how many lances will we have?”

  “If all I think can get here do, then sixty thousand. That’s why I believe that what you say about taking Lanta is fated. At any rate, if you can get us into the city, we’ll take it. Then let them try and retake it. Their armies can wander around until they starve.”

  “The Outer Wall. It won’t work. We could take the city. In fact, that’s the least of our worries. But we’ve no one who knows how to withstand a siege. It wasn’t Lanta’s walls alone that defeated Basrath. It took men who knew how to fight that kind of war, men we don’t have. Let us be bottled up in the city by those two armies combined, without enough food, without the knowledge, and they’ll take it back again, and kill us in the process.”

  “Then what do you suggest?” Bohemund asked calmly, as if I hadn’t crushed the plan he’d begun counting on.

  “Each force will begin to sweep inward. If we try to fight either early, we must fight at a heavy disadvantage. If we wait to gather more lances, we must move ahead of them”—my finger traced the line on the map to Lanta—“and they’ll finally confront us here, still heavily outnumbered and caught between the two armies and the walls of the city.”

  “So far,” he said wryly, “you’ve told me what I already know. How do you propose to counter it?”

  “Before, when I thought it was just a case of the Lantans behind their walls and the Morassa raiding, I thought to split our forces, part to ride against the Morassa, part to take Lanta.”

  “Now, of course, you’ve abandoned that idea.”

  “No, I still need to violate the most basic precept of war in my plan. I say we divide our forces in the face of a superior enemy. Half of our forces will stay here to harass the southern army. The other half will ride north. Most will harry the northern army while ten thousand take Lanta.”

  “Ten thousand!”

  “Then those who take Lanta will join with those who harass in the north, and if the proper place can be found, they’ll be destroyed. After that all the lances join to deal with the southern army.”

  “Wulfgar, I’m sure there are a few details you’re leaving out, but for one, why split the forces so? Why send so many against the northern army? I’ll not even mention taking Lanta with ten thousand lances.”

  “Half must stay here to make certain the enemy in the south can’t move north to interfere with what happens there. The number who go north must be large enough to do what has to be done there. Because it’s cold, and the fanghorns will be starting to hibernate, they’ll be enough to destroy the northern force, if the baraca is with us.”

  “You talk like you’re telling rune-bones. Y
ou’ll have to give more details before I’ll let the King’s Council sit on this place.”

  I leaned forward over the table and began to explain, tracing out the movements of the armies involved. After a time Bohemund began to smile. Then he started nodding. Finally he slapped at the table.

  “It’ll work. The fanghorns chew my bones if it isn’t insane from one end to the other, but I say it’ll work. Moidra, will you cast the rune-bones on it?”

  “I think we’d better do more than that, if Mayra will go along. We’d better sit the star.”

  Mayra nodded. “Yes, and I’ll want the men who’ll command the lances there, the ten thousands.”

  “They won’t like it,” Bohemund said, “but if you need them, they’ll be there. Dunstan, Otogai, Shen Ta, Karlan, Bran and Wulfgar. Since it’s Wulfgar’s hand that must open the gates of Lanta, he’ll command the lances who go north.” It was an honor, and not one I thought I’d get, yet I knew from the first I’d never thought that anyone else might command. Lanta was mine. My destiny lay there.

  “We need a third,” Moidra said. “Not Dvere.”

  “Not Dvere,” Mayra agreed. “She’s definitely not strong enough for what might be waiting for us. Of course, not many are. Selka, I think. She might do.”

  “As well as any. Will you prepare the star? It’ll be stronger with you.”

  Mayra smiled. “All right. I’ll leave you to bring the men.” She motioned to Elspeth. “Come, child.”

  Together they left, and as they did I remembered what I’d wanted to ask. “Moidra, you said earlier you couldn’t expect to see what Mayra saw. And just now you said the star would be stronger if she prepared it. Why?”

  She looked a little disconcerted. “Well, there’s really no reason to hide it. We usually just don’t talk about such things. Mayra is the most powerful Sister of Wisdom among the Altaii. I can’t think of many who can match her, certainly not on this side of the Sifr Senaka. Sayene, of course. She’s the reason we need Mayra here. Perhaps two others. Ya’shen, of Liau.”

  “And the third?” I asked, a hollow feeling in my middle. “Is the third’s name Betine?”

  “Why, yes. From Caselle. How did—Are they the ones we face?”

  “They are. Is it bad?”

  She shivered. “It could hardly be worse. I’m nearly as strong as they are, but Selka is the next strongest here or likely to get here before everything’s over, and she’s not even close. I’ll tell you, warrior, we Sisters of Wisdom face graver odds in this than you do, for all your enemy’s numbers.”

  XXII

  THE NEXUS

  The other men who’d been named were all among those gathered outside the tent when we left. It was a sizable crowd, for the word had spread, as it always does at such times, that I had escaped from Lanta and arrived at the encampment. The rumors also said I’d brought the means of victory with me, though whether that meant more lances or something else none could say. Some even said I’d brought knowledge of a spell that would ensure victory. There was no explanation of what kind of spell it would be to be handled by a man, or why I would be the one to bring it instead of Mayra, but then there never are explanations for rumors.

  I knew some of these men and knew of all of them. Dunstan had been with my father at the Heights of Tybal. Otogai and Karlan had raided to the gates of Efheim, in Telmark. All were known men, but they accepted me as one of their number.

  “What is it they want with us, Wulfgar?” Otogai asked.

  “To find out if my plan for taking Lanta will work.”

  He started to laugh, but cut it off when I didn’t even smile. “By the Nine Hells, man, I believe you’re serious.”

  The acolytes already had the domed spirit-tent up when we got there and were busily sorting through chests under Mayra’s eye for the things that would be needed. Moidra stopped us well away.

  “You must leave all the iron and steel here. Not so much as an iron brooch-pin may be taken inside, or none of us may leave alive.”

  There was some grumbling when it became clear that even nails in boots counted, but we added our boots to the pile of weapons and armor. All of it was outside a circle drawn around the spirit-tent to show the safe distance for iron. Then it was time.

  The three Sisters of Wisdom led us inside. A plain five-pointed star had been cut into the ground and outlined with some reddish substance that glistened. The Sisters took positions at points of the figure. Mayra motioned Bohemund and the other five to sit in pairs, one pair behind each Sister. Me she directed to the center of the star.

  “It’s your plan, Wulfgar, so you must be the nexus. There’s danger to it, more for you than for any other, because you’ve already been the focus of powerful forces not long past. Hold fast and remember that our strength supports you.”

  I stood in the place she marked. I wanted to say something, but my mouth was suddenly too dry. And then they began.

  Mayra faced me from the lower point, to form the base, she said. Moidra was to my left, to protect my heart; Selka was on the right. Each dropped her robes and stood sky-clad. They produced candles, long and white to the point of paining the eyes, and lighting them they stepped onto the points. They knelt, each placing her candle carefully a spaced distance in front of her. I noticed that although they burned with a brighter flame than I’d ever seen before, the candles grew no shorter. For some reason that was reassuring.

  Mayra raised her hands above her head. “Rok As’han!”

  “Rok As’han!” the others repeated.

  “Tsouban!”

  “Tsouban!”

  “Tsha Raas!”

  “Tsha Raas!”

  Everything outside the star faded and disappeared in darkness. The other men weren’t even shapes or shadows. Inside the star there was no more light than before, but everything seemed sharper, clearer.

  “Gla’shadan!”

  “Gla’shadan!”

  “Beelzelye!”

  “Beelzelye!”

  “Zahl Pa! Comen!”

  “Zahl Pa! Comen!”

  The voices came faster, no louder but with more intensity. The candle flames were blinding points of light, as if the sun sat in each, but they gave no more illumination than they had before. At the corner of my eyes, images danced, unclear, half seen, skittering away when I tried to look. The chants merged.

  “Alduvai! Vukran! Jahen Gol!”

  “Alduvai! Vukran! Jahen Gol!”

  “Alduvai! Vukran! Jahen Gol!”

  The images just beyond my sight shimmered and rushed to merge before me. Two visions danced in the air, first one, then the other, overlapping, brightening then fading. In one the Towers of Kaal, reaching to the sky beyond the Palace of the Twin Thrones, were engulfed in flames, and a rain of smoke rose from the Outer Wall. In the other Altaii warriors trapped in Low Town fought from hovel to hovel, and endless sheets of arrows from the walls cut them down every time they moved into the open.

  “I see,” I said, and my voice reverberated in the air like a bronze bell.

  “Yes.”

  I wasn’t sure who had replied. Mayra, I thought. The question of who faded before a pain that grew behind my eyes. It was as if a rope around my forehead was being tightened, tighter and tighter and tighter. I tried to say something, to tell Mayra, but there were burning coals in my mouth. The world flickered, and I stood in the middle of a star carved into the stone floor of a tower room.

  I’d been there before, and I recognized the three sky-clad women who surrounded me. Sayene. Ya’shen. Betine.

  “Qarn! Isu! Galaal!”

  Their mouths moved, but the words didn’t match.

  “Qarn! Isu! Galaal!”

  They flickered, like a candle in the wind.

  “Qarn! Isu! Galaal!”

  The tower room disappeared. Once more I was back in the spirit-tent. There was tightness in the air, and a smell of fear. The ground beneath my feet was like a cloud.

  “Anivam! Tsukar Mal! Das!”


  The ground was ground again, but the fires were back in my throat, and though I couldn’t see them, I felt the flames rising around me.

  “Anivam! Tsukar Mal! Das!”

  The cold was gone, but a giant hand pierced my side and squeezed my heart in its grip. I groaned.

  “Vas El! Kutai Machi! Beltar!”

  The hand was gone, but something clawed at my sword arm.

  “Vas El! Kutai Machi! Beltar!”

  The clawing faded to a tingle. Something began to pull at me, at the inside of me, at whatever it was inside me that was me. I could feel it slipping, being drawn away.

  Hold fast, Mayra had said. Hold fast. I reached out, though neither hands nor arms moved. In some manner I reached out to hold fast to that which was me. As I grasped and held I shouted the wordless cry that I’d shout in battle, and as I shouted the Sisters of Wisdom chanted.

  “Vas El! Kutai Machi! Beltar!”

  Suddenly the spirit-tent was just a tent again. Light crept in at the tent flap, and the candles lit everyone. Mayra was covered with sweat. Moidra panted as if she’d run a great way. Selka fell forward on the ground and wept. For the first time I realized how young she was, no older than Elspeth.

  The men sitting behind the Sisters of Wisdom looked stunned.

  “What was it?” Bohemund asked. “What happened?”

  “They were waiting,” Mayra replied. “Sayene, Betine and Ya’shen knew we’d try this, or something like it, for proof of our plans, and they were waiting. Once they discovered Wulfgar’s presence they concentrated on him.”

  I rubbed my right arm to relieve the tingling. “At one point I thought I actually was back in Lanta, in the tower room where they had their spell-star.”

  “For an instant, you were. There aren’t many with the power to manage it, but they tried to take you bodily away. What’s the matter with your arm? Why do you rub it?”

  “It’s nothing, Mayra. A little tingle.”

  “Nothing?” She grabbed my arm and twisted it around as if trying to see how far it could bend. “Maybe it’s nothing. I’ll do something about it, just the same.”