Diamond Warriors

Chapter 6

It took more than a week for Lord Tanu's emissaries to ride across Mesh and arrange with Lord Tomavar a time and place for the gathering of the warriors: On the 21st of Soldru we were to converge on a great open meadow to the west of Hardu along the Arashar River. This field, where the Lake Country gave way to the Gorgeland at the very heart of the realm, was almost exactly equidistant from Mount Eluru, Godhra and Lord Tomavar's stronghold in Pushku. Other claimants to the throne — Lord Ramanu, Lord Bahrain and Lord Kharashan — would have to make longer journeys. As they had no hope of becoming king, however, few worried that they might take insult in not being given equal consideration. It had proved hard enough to persuade Lord Tomavar to attend the gathering. In the end, however, his innate character drove him straight toward this historic confrontation. Perhaps he suspected that Lord Tanu and I would join forces against him, and he wanted to forestall such a combination. More likely he simply assumed that he could go among Mesh's warriors and win them to his banner with his bravura, a few quick smiles and a great show of strength. As the spring deepened toward summer, warriors who had pledged to Lord Avijan continued riding up to his castle. By the ides of Soldru, almost all of these had arrived. Of course, there would always be a few who would miss the call to gather. As had happened with Sar Jonavar a year before, they might be away on hunting trips or meditation retreats deep in the mountains. These two or three dozen men, though, would not significantly diminish our forces, which Lord Avijan counted at more than twenty-three hundred. In combination with Lord Tanu's army, I thought, we would slightly outnumber the six thousand warriors said to be pledged to Lord Tomavar.

At dawn on the 18th we finally marched out of the castle and down to the pass. I led forth with Joshu Kadar flying my banner beside me. A hundred and fifty knights on horses came next, followed by more than two thousand warriors stepping along at a good pace. At the rising of the sun, their full diamond armor glittered with a fiery brilliance. My companions had leave to ride where they would, and most of them remained within the vanguard near me, though from time to time, Atara would drop back behind the marching columns to check on the wagons of the baggage train and to look for enemies in that direction. Or perhaps, I thought, she just wanted to gain a few moments of solitude riding behind the whole of our army. Although we had no reason to fear attack, a lifetime of discipline drove me'to keep everyone moving in good order. My army, almost ten times the size of the greatest force that I had ever led, needed no extraordinary urging to negotiate the excellent roads leading down to Hardu. My father had always said that half the skill of commanding an army was just to keep men moving from one point to another and then seeing them lined up in good array for battle — but only half, and much the lesser half at that.

Our first day's march took us down the North Road a good part of the way to Hardu. On the second day we passed through this little city of waterwheels, mills and breweries, and we crossed over the Victory Bridge spanning the fast-flowing Arashar River. There we turned onto a smaller road paralleling it. It led north and west, behind the tree-covered slopes of Mount Vayu, and through some rolling green pastures toward the Gorgeland farther to the north. In the trough between two low hills, we came across acres of grass ablaze with blue and red starflowers. I knew of no other place on earth where these glorious things grew. A few miles farther on, however, where the road led away from the river, the flowers gave way to fields of long-bladed sweetgrass and the many sheep and cattle that grazed upon it.

At the end of the day, in a stretch of country where the hills flattened out a bit, we came upon the place of the gathering. This was a broad meadow perhaps a mile across. Acres of tents dotted the grass. Its center, though, had been kept clear, with many banners of truce flapping in the wind almost like great swans' wings. According to our agreement with Lord Tanu's emissaries, everyone was to encamp around a central square. Already Lord Tomavar's army, marching from Lashku in the west, had settled in to the west of the square, while Lord Tanu's four thousand men made camp to the south. Fanning out above the square's northern perimeter I made out the standards of Lord Ramanu, Lord Bahram and Lord Kharashan. They commanded four hundred, two hundred and a hundred and fifty men respectively. Other warriors and knights — those who had not given their pledges to any lord 1 set up there as well. Most of them had arrived without tents of their own, and so I had a hard time counting their numbers. If Lord Avijan was right, though, more than two thousand of these free warriors, as they called themselves, would assert their right to stand or not for any lord wishing to be king.

We made our way down to the expanse of meadow east of the square, scarcely four hundred yards from the roaring Arashar River. There we set up our camp, with neat lanes at regular intervals running down the lines of our tents. I had inherited my father's campaign pavilion: a great, billowing expanse of black silk embroidered with the silver swan and stars of our ancestors. My companions would sleep within tents next to mine, as would Lord Avijan, Lord Harsha and my other counselors. I did not like being so close to the river. Although we would not have to haul water so far as Lord Tanu's or Lord Tomavar's men, everything I knew about strategy warned me against taking a position with a river or lake at my back. If the worst befell and a battle did break out, we would have little room to maneuver against what might prove a much greater force.

'But I will not let it come to that,' I promised Maram that evening as we gathered around one of our campfires to eat some roasted lamb. 'And neither Lord Tanu or Lord Tomavar will break the truce.'

'No, of course they won't,' Maram said between bites of bloody meat. 'If it becomes obvious that the warriors want you as king, Lord Tomavar will march off beyond the bounds of the truce — and then turn and attack you farther down the river.'

For a while, after dinner, I stood at the edge of our encampment staring out across the square. Lord Tomavar stood with his knights in his encampment, staring back at me. Although the distance was too great to make out the features of his face with any clarity, I could see the black tower of the Tomavars emblazoned on his white surcoat. I sensed his black eyes seeking out my own and warning me not to oppose him. As we had also agreed, we spent the night in our own encampment, with the warriors ordered to remain near their campfires, and so it was with Lord Tomavar and Lord Tanu and their men. Although most of us had friends or kin in the other encampments we had foes, too, and it wouldn't do to let a little casual mingling lead to arguments that might very well end in swords drawn and warriors lying dead in pools of blood.

Despite Maram's gloom, which he assuaged with cups of both beer and brandy, the night passed peacefully, and the next day dawned with clear blue skies and abundant sunshine. Lord Tomavar sent his emissaries across the square to the various encampments to call for an immediate conclave. But Lord Tanu would not be moved from his original plan: tomorrow would be the 21st of Soldru, and we must allow time for the last of the free warriors to arrive. The conclave, he said, must not begin before then.

Already, though, as Liljana pointed out, a sort of informal conclave had gotten underway. The news of the gathering had gone out to every corner of Mesh, and beyond. According to a long tradition, women and boys from Hardu arrived bearing food and drink for the warriors of our armies, and blacksmiths came up from Godhra to shoe horses and repair weapons or armor. Others, from Mir or the Diamond River clear across the realm, merely wished to be present at the choosing of a new king. They joined the throngs who set up little tents or made cookfires on the outskirts, around the warriors' encampments. By late morning, it seemed a city of Meshians had sprung up overnight from the pasture's thick grass.

A handful of outlanders also attended the gathering. On a trip down to the river, I saw five merchants from Delu and a dozen evacuees, from Galda and faraway Surrapam, who sought refuge in our land. From the Elyssu came a herbalist searching for rare botanicals, and this adventurous man inevitably found his way to consult with Master Juwain. A traveling troupe from Alonia, Nedu and points farther west decided to seek its fortune in entertaining the waiting warriors. They misjudged, however, the mood prevailing among those who had journeyed to this place: tense, wary and deadly serious. Few, it seemed, wanted to watch a juggler toss colored balls into the air or an acrobat walk across a tightrope — at least not yet.

Late in the afternoon, five warriors of the Manslayer Society arrived asking for the great imakla granddaughter of Sajagax. They rode their steppe ponies from Lord Tanu's encampment down the rows of tents into ours. Their leader, a stout, ebullient woman named Karimah, I knew from two campaigns across the Wendrush. She could be quick with a drawn knife or a bow and arrow — and even quicker to smile and bandy words, with friend or foe. When Atara came forth to greet them, Karimah laughed out with great gladness and urged her horse forward so that she could kiss Atara's hands and face. She leaned her head down close to Atara's and spoke words that I could not hear. Then Atara went to saddle Fire. After leading this beautiful mare up to where I stood with Karimah and the others, she told me, 'We must hold a conclave of our own. We shall try to be back by dinner.'

Without any further explanation, she rode off with her sister Manslayers. A burning disquiet worked at my throat as I watched them make their way through the many people ringing our encampment. Then they crested the hill to the north above the river, and disappeared.

And so Atara did not witness the miraculous event that stirred warriors in every encampment to break off their sword practice and rush to the edges of the square. From out of the south, along the crowded central lane running through Lord Tanu's array of tents, a single rider appeared and made his way into the square. His close-cropped white hair gleamed in the sun almost as brightly as a steel helm. The lines of his sun-browned face — at once savage and beautiful and burning with a strange grace — had been set like cracks running through stone. His large, powerful body flowed with the movements of his nearly spent horse. He wore no armor, but only trousers and a torn, tainted shirt. A red arrow stuck out of his back. Whether this color came from the dyes that the Red Knights use to stain their arrows or from the man's own blood was hard to tell. He seemed to give this deadly shaft of wood no thought, however, but only rode on toward our encampment with a rare ease and unquenchable will. His contempt lor pain and what could only be a mortal wound amazed the tough Meshian warriors who looked upon him. Sar Vikan, straining to see at the edge of the square, suddenly cried out, 'Look! It is Kane! Sar Kane has returned!'

'Sar Kane!' someone else shouted. And then half a hundred voices picked up the cry: 'Sar Kane has returned! Bring a litter for Sar Kane!'

But my old friend would not be carried so long as he had the strength to command his own motions. And strength he still possessed, in an overflowing abundance that stunned those who watched him ride up to me. He sat tall and straight in his saddle, as if some vastly greater hand had sculpted him from a burning rock. Dressed in rags, dirty, bleeding, the air hissing out of the hole torn into his lung, Kane managed to look more regal than either Lord Tanu or Lorl Tomavar — or, I imagined, myself. 'So, Valashu,' Kane said as he stopped his horse before me. 'I did not come back too late.'

He dismounted, and I rushed forward to embrace him as best I could without disturbing the broken arrow embedded in him. His large, hard hands, however, thumped against my back without restraint. At last he stood away from me. His bright, black eyes drank in the delight in my eyes. And with a savage smile, he growled out, 'Ha — but it is good to be back! Let us go somewhere we can talk.'

Just then Master Juwain, followed by Liljana, Maram, Estrella and Daj, pushed through the throngs of knights surrounding us. Master Juwain hurried up to Kane and looked at him gravely. 'First, I should draw that arrow.'

'No — the arrow remains where it has been for four hundred miles, and will still be there when you need to go to work on me. But right now, I've tidings that must be told.'

I led the way toward my pavilion then, and Sar Vikan, Lord Avijan, Sar Shivalad and others cleared a path for us. Although Kane walked with all the smooth power of a tiger, I could almost feel the agony of the arrow grinding against his ribs and searing his lungs. My companions and I went inside my huge tent, where Alphanderry joined us in a splash of glittering lights. Daj pulled the flaps closed behind us. We sat on one of the carpets there, in a circle, as if gathering around a fire on one of our campaigns. From one of the braziers heaped with hot coals, Master Juwain removed an iron pot full of hot water and prepared Kane a cup of tea that would help keep the blood inside Kane, or so he said.

'I've bad tidings from Galda,' Kane told us without further ado. 'The revolt has failed. Gallagerry the Defiant defies no one anymore: the Dragon Guard captured him, and the Red Priests crucified him. His followers are being hunted down. And Morjin …'

Here he paused to take a sip of tea as he grimaced in pain. Then he continued, 'I was not able to determine if it was Morjin who led the Dragon Guard and the Karabukers into Galda, or only one of his droghuls. I think it was he. All of Galda reeks with his stench. The Galdans are gathering their armies again — exactly why, no one would say. But everywhere I heard soldiers speak of marching forth on a great crusade.'

He took another sip of tea, and stared into the dark liquid of his cup. And he muttered, 'So, my crusade failed, eh? Everyone except myself captured or killed.'

'Everyone?' Maram said, looking at him. 'Do you mean your knights of the Black Brotherhood?'

In answer, Kane just stared at him in a dark, dreadful silence — and that was answer enough.

'Then you had to flee,' Maram prompted him, 'so that you could tell us this news?'

Kane shook his fearsome head. 'With my men held captive and Morjin still on the loose, I would not have fled. But there is something that I learned that overruled these considerations.'

Here he looked straight at me, and added, 'There is something that has been sent to destroy you, Valashu. A dark thing, so damned dark — you cannot know.'

At this, I stared into the corner of the tent, where I could feel an emptiness pulling at me. Then Alphanderry, sitting across from Kane, recounted our battle with the Ahrim in the woods near Lord Harsha's farm and our speculations as to its nature. He said, 'It followed us all the way from the Skadarak, and so we thought it must be some part of the Skadarak.'

'No,' Kane said, 'the Ahrimana is something worse — much worse.'

He moved to take another sip of tea, then looked up at the tent's roof as if his eyes could pierce the black silk to gaze at the heavens.

'So, it came through the Skadarak,' he told us. 'From far, far away it came. The Dark One, Angra Mainyu, sent it from Damoom. It is all his malice and spite, the very shadow of his soul. In a way, his herald.'

'His herald!' Maram cried out. 'But it was so powerful! It nearly killed Val!'

At this, Kane looked at me as he shook his head. 'This you must know about the Ahrimana: it has no power, of its own. But the power you give it, which it seeks out as a leech does blood, that power can burn you like hellfire and utterly destroy you.'

Upon speaking these words, Kane's immense strength finally seemed to fail him. Air bubbled out of his back in a sprinkling of bright red blood as if he could no longer will his veins to keep his life's essence within him. His eyes closed, for a moment, and he seemed ready to topple over.

'That is enough for today,' Master Juwain said, going over to Kane. He positioned his small body against Kane's side to prop him up. 'I don't know how you learned of what you have told

us, or how you could ride four hundred miles with an arrow in your lung. But I've got to draw it, now or even you might be destroyed.'

Kane slowly nodded his head at this. Then I called for a litter, and Kane had to consent to being carried from my pavilion into Master Juwain's smaller and starkly furnished tent. There, with Liljana's help and that of two other healers. Master Juwain went to work with his gleaming steel instruments to draw the barbed arrow from deep within Kane's flesh. This difficult surgery nearly killed the unkillable Kane. Finally, though, with a great spray of blood, Master Juwain pulled free the arrow. He used his green gelstei to stop the ferocious hemorrhaging and heal the terrible wound torn into Kane. Finally, he helped Kane drink a tea that would make him sleep.

'I shall stay with him the rest of today and tonight,' Master Juwain told me. He looked over toward his own bed, where Kane rested with his eyes closed. 'Liijana will stay, too. But there is no need for you to remain here — you must have many things to do.'

I did indeed have matters to attend to, though none so important as seeing Kane restored to himself. I waited by his side all the rest of the afternoon, through dinner and late into the evening. And then as the night deepened and the stars came out, Atara finally returned with news of her own. She stepped into Master Juwain's tent, and came over to kiss Kane's forehead. She smiled sadly as if she had looked upon his still form a thousand times. Then she said to me, 'May I speak with you alone?'

I nodded my head at this. We went outside and walked along the rows of campfires, where warriors gathered drinking beer and telling of deeds at the Culhadosh Commons, and other battles. Joshu Kadar and a few knights kept a vigil outside my pavilion. No one seemed bothered that I should hold council inside alone with Atara. I closed the flaps behind us, and went around this large space lighting the many candles in their stands. They cast little, flickering lights on the long council table and the tent's walls and ceiling. Atara and I sat facing each other on a red carpet at the center of the tent.

'We are as alone as we can be,' I said, gazing at the blindfold that bound her face. 'What is troubling you?'

Atara cocked her head as if listening for eavesdroppers along the walls. 'It might be better if we took a walk in the hills.'

I laughed softly at this, and told her, 'Joshu Kadar and Shivalad, to say nothing of Lord Avijan, would never allow that. Now that the gathering has begun, they look for assassins everywhere. They don't even like me to walk around our own encampment alone.'

Atara smiled grimly at this, then her deep, dulcet voice grew even lower. 'It is beginning, Val. At last, this terrible, terrible future that I have seen for too long is upon us.'

I moved even closer to her, and covered her hot, long hand with mine. Outside the tent came the sound of crickets chirping and men chanting out the ancient epics. Inside, it was nearly so quiet that I could hear the drumbeat of Atara's heart — and my

own.

'Kane,' I whispered to her, 'said that in Galda, people spoke of a great crusade. I didn't think Morjin could be ready to order forth his armies so soon.'

She drew out her scryer's crystal, and she pressed this sphere of white gelstei against her forehead. 'I don't know that he is. But he makes ready something. Out on the Wendrush. Karimah told me that the Zayak have crossed the Blood River, the Janjii, too. It can only be that they have gone to join with the Marituk. From the south, there have come reports that the Tukulak are making common cause with the Danyak and Usark.'

'Kane always said,' I murmured, squeezing her hand, 'that Morjin would try to unite the Sarni before falling against the Nine Kingdoms.'

Atara smiled sadly as she cupped her clear crystal in her free hand. 'He will never unite all the Sarni — not so long as my grandfather can pull a bow. Sajagax has called for the tribes to join with the Kurmak in alliance against Morjin.'

'Is this the news that Karimah brought you?'

'Yes, in part.'

'Sajagax,' I said, remembering, 'is a great man. But most of the tribes favor Morjin, do they not?'

'Yes, most,' she told me, nodding her head. 'But not the Niuriu, nor the central Urtuk. Nor the Adirii, most of the clans, and probably not the Danladi. And then there are the Manslayers.'

At the mention of these most willful of warriors, drawn from every Sarni tribe, I gazed at Atara ai®i waited for her to say more.

'My sisters,' she told me, 'will not keep allegiance with their tribes — this has been decided. The Manslayers are to be a tribe of our own. But what my sisters could not decide when they met at the council rock a year and a half ago was whether to go to war against Morjin. Only a chiefess, my sisters say, can lead them against such an enemy.'

I listened to her deep breathing for a few moments. Then I said, 'But the Manslayers have no chief ess.'

'No, they do not — not yet. But there is to be another gathering, in the Niuriu's lands, where the Diamond River joins with the Poru. We are to choose a chiefess.'

I bowed my head to her. 'You, then?'

'That is Karimah's hope. And Sonjah's, and Aieela's — and others.'

I looked over at the long table where my father had once sat at council with his most trusted lords. And I said, 'For you to be Chiefess of the Manslayers — that would be a great thing.'

'That is what Karimah tells me,' Atara said with a sad smile. 'If the Marituk, with the Zayak and Janjii, attack my grandfather, we could ride to his aid.'

I looked around for a pitcher of water so that I might ease the aching in my throat. And I said to her, 'Then you have already decided, haven't you?'

She slowly nodded her head. 'I cannot allow the Kurmak to be trampled under. We cannot, Val.'

'I cannot let you go,' I said, wrapping my hand around her hand even more tightly. 'I need you here, beside me.'

She brought my hand up to her lips, whose softness seemed to burn against my fingers. Then she told me, 'I shall stay with you until you become king.'

'Will I become king, then?'

'Only you know that. Isn't that what you want?'

'Does it matter what I want?' I asked her. I gazed into her gelstei as if I could see within its sparkling clarity not only the shape of future events but the calamities of the past. 'Once, I wanted nothing more than to climb mountains and play the flute in the company of my family. And to marry you.'

'And now?'

I blinked against the burning in my eyes, and turned away from her crystal because I could not bear what I saw there. And I said, 'After Morjin murdered my mother and grandmother, and my brothers, everything seemed to burn away. Everywhere I looked, at myself most of all, I could see only fire. I was this fire, Atara. You know, you must know. I thought only of murdering Morjin, in revenge. As I now think only of destroying him. Everything that he is — even his memory in the hearts and minds of those he has deluded. I can almost hear the wind calling me to do this, and the birds and the wolves and every child that Morjin's Red Priests have ever nailed to a cross or put to the sword. Sometimes, it seems the very world upon which we sit cries out for me to put my sword into him.'

She positioned her head fully facing me, then she said, 'Do you remember the lines from the Laws?'

She drew in a breath, and then recited from the twenty-fourth book of the Saganom Elu:

You are what your deep, driving desire is:

As your desire is, so is your will;

As your will is, so is your deed;

As your deed is, so is your destiny.

I smiled at this, as Kane might smile at a whirlwind sweeping down upon him. And I asked her, 'Have you seen my destiny then?'

'I have seen your desire,' she said to me, taking hold of my hand again. 'I have felt it, Val — I can't tell you how deeply I've felt it, this beautiful, beautiful thing that burns me up like the sweetest of fires. It is not to do this terrible deed that you dream of. Not just. A marriage you would make with me, you have said. A child we would make together, I have said. But I will not see him born into this world.'

I stared down by my side where I had set my sword. 'But what other world is there?'

'Only the one that you dream of even more than you do Morjin's death.'

'Oh, that world,' I said, smiling. 'That impossible world.'

She smiled back as if she could really see me. 'What was it that your father used to say?: "How is it possible that the impossible is not only possible but inevitable?"'

'He was a wise man,' I told her. 'He would have wanted me to believe it is inevitable that I will marry you. That this is not just my own desire, but the will of the world.' 'That is a beautiful, beautiful thought,' she told me.

'But it will never be, will it? Not unless we defeat Morjin. And that will never be if I keep you from aiding Sajagax.'

She held up her clear gelstei before me. 'Very little of the future is set in stone, but I can tell that you cannot prevail against Morjin alone, without the help of the Sarni tribes.'

I considered this as I drew out the handkerchief that I always kept close to me. I unfoldedg and I gazed at its center, at the single long, coiled, golden hair, no different from any of Atara's other hairs. And I whispered to her, 'One chance for victory, you said, as slender as this hair. And one chance only that I will marry you.'

'One chance,' she said, squeezing her crystal. 'And I must make it be. And so must you.'

I felt a stream of fear burn down my throat as if I had swallowed molten silver. And I asked her, 'Will I ever see you again?'

She smiled in her mysterious way, and said, 'The better question might be: will I ever see you again? As the king you must be?'

'Tomorrow will be the test of that,' I told her.

'No,' she said with a wave of her hand, 'I do not mean King of Mesh, but King of the World. And not this world, as Morjin wishes to rule, but a true king, of starfire and diamond, such as has never been before on Ea.'

I considered this, too, then said, 'I am not sure I know what you mean.'

'I am not sure that I do either,' she said. 'But I once told you that I can never be the woman I have hoped to be until you become the man you were born to be. The one I have always dreamed of.'

Because her words cut at me, I pressed my fist against my chest. 'But I am who I am, Atara. And I am just a man.'

'And that one I have always loved, with all my heart, with all my soul,' she told me. 'The man who is just a man — and an angel, too.'

At this, I looked off at the walls of the tent, hoping that no one was listening in on our words. 'You shouldn't speak that way of anyone, not even me.'

'No, I shouldn't, should I?' she said. 'But I can't help myself, and never have been able to. Most people take too little upon themselves; a few take too much. They look in the mirror and behold a giant, immortal and invincible. I was always afraid of being one of these. I wanted to make everything perfect. Or, at least, to see things come out as they should. And that is why, when I look at my fate, and yours, I want to laugh or cry, and sometimes I don't know which.'

'But why, then?' said, not fully understanding her.

And she grasped hold of my hand and said, 'Because that is the strange, strange thing about our lives, Val. It might really be upon us to save the world.'

She started laughing then, and so did I: deep, belly laughs that shook the whole of my body and brought tears to my eyes. I drew Atara closer, and kissed her lips, her forehead and the white band of cloth covering the empty spaces where her eyes used to be. And I whispered to her ear: 'I will miss you so badly — as the night

does the sun.'

'And I will miss you,' she told me. 'Until I see you again in the darkest of places, where it seems there is no sun — only Valashu, the Morning Star.'

She kissed me then, long and deeply, and I didn't think she would have cared if anyone had heard the murmurs of delight and fear within our throats or had seen us sitting with our arms wrapped around each other for what seemed like hours. At last, though, we broke apart. Atara said that she had to go feed her horse and prepare for a long journey. And I must prepare to meet say fate — or make it — when the sun rose on the morrow.