Sovereign

CHAPTER 19

The voices of one thousand Chetts in mourning rose into the air. Standing perfectly still by their mounts, their head back, their mouths open, they cried the song of the dead in perfect unison. The ululating wail seemed to come from the very soil of the Oceans of Grass itself. Above them no bird flew, around them no animal moved.

On the ground surrounding the one thousand mourners were the bones of thousands of Chetts, the remains of Eynon's clan. The strong summer sun and scavengers had made the bones white as ivory; they could be seen shimmering in the grass from leagues away. When Eynon first saw the field he knew in his heart what it was, although nothing in his experience could have prepared him. His whole body had become as heavy as iron, and yet he had still rode on, still made himself lead the survivors of his clan to this field of death.

When the song of the dead was finished the Chetts mounted and gathered around Eynon. It seemed to him that in that moment all of them, even the six hundred who belonged to Lynan's lancers and Red Hands, would follow him to the end of the earth to avenge what had been done here.

So be it, he thought. Lynan gave me his boon to carry my revenge as far as I wanted, and I want to take it to its home.

'We gather no bones,' he told them. 'There will be no funeral pyre. This field we call Solstice Way will forever more be the graveyard of our dead. No cattle will ever feed here, no other clan will ever call this its territory. From now until the end of the Oceans of Grass, this is where the Horse Clan will come every summer to offer the song of the dead so the ghosts of our families and friends can rest knowing they have not been forgotten, and that their deaths did not go unavenged.'

There was no cheering, no taking up of his cry. Eynon turned his mount west, and slowly so as not to disturb any of the remains, the whole column made its way through the field of death.

If Dekelon had not been with him the whole time the Saranah had been on the Oceans of Grass, he would not have recognised Amemun. The Amanite had lost so much weight he was now as trim as any of his desert warriors; he had shorn his beard back to nothing more than a stubble, and the sabre he had taken from a dead Chett was now his closest friend—Dekelon was sure he talked to it at night.

The biggest change was in battle. Amemun was always among the first to charge the enemy, the one to kill the largest numbers, the one to show the least mercy.

Revenge was a wonderful thing, Dekelon thought. It had been the wind that over a century before blew his people off their rightful territory on the plains into the southern deserts, and now blew them right back again. It was the wind that drove so much of Saranah politics and society and, as far as he could determine from the stories told by Amemun about the courts in Pila and Kendra, politics and society all over the continent. And it was the wind that blew new life into Amemun's old husk, giving him the strength and endurance of a man much younger and combining it with the hate that comes from losing not only someone you love, but someone around whom you had centred your life.

And Dekelon knew that revenge could also get in the way.

'I don't see why we can't continue,' Amemun was arguing. 'We can spare another hundred to take this booty back to your people. That will still give us—'

'Too few warriors,' Saranah said over him. 'Every battle whittles away at our numbers. The last two attacks on Chett clans have resulted in scattering them further west and north, not eliminating them. Word is spreading of our presence, and sooner rather than later the clans in this part of the Oceans of Grass will combine and come after us.'

'One more,' Amemun pleaded. 'One more attack. Your scouts have found spore. We can catch the clan tonight, and by this time tomorrow we will all be on our way south.'

Dekelon sighed heavily. He too wished to continue the slaughter and plunder—this had been a dream of his all his life—but he was leader of this war band, responsible for those under him and responsible for the booty they had gathered. In the season they had raged east and west across this part of the Oceans of Grass they had overrun six clans, and in the first four battles had slain every soul. But he felt in his bones that time was running out, and they were now not far from that part of the border where they had first crossed over. That was a sign, he was sure, that it was time to go back.

Still, he thought, one more night. One more battle. If I return now I might not see another season, might never fight another battle.

He looked around him, at the expectant faces of his warriors. He could see it was what they wanted as well.

'Very well. One more. And then we go home.'

He assigned eighty warriors, most of them wounded, to escort the booty from the last attack back to the southern desert, then gave orders to the scouts, who quickly ran north in the direction the spore of the new clan had first been found. The rest of the war band gathered their weapons, fell into line, and followed the scouts at a far more leisurely trot.

It was a clear night with no moon. Eynon lay on his back and looked up at the sea of stars, but instead of the beauty he once saw it now only reminded him of the field of bones he had left behind.

As many bones as there are stars, he thought.

A silhouette stood above him. He knew, without seeing the face, that it was Makon. For an instant he wondered if he had come to kill him, if that had been Lynan's plan all along, but something deep inside him told him that neither man would do a thing like that. Makon was too proud, and Lynan too confident.

'Can I talk to you?' Makon asked, sounding very young.

'Of course, my friend,' Eynon said, stressing the last word. Even as he said it he realised it was true. He felt a little less alone.

'It's about Wennem.'

'The woman we found at the Strangers' Sooq?'

Makon sat down heavily. 'Yes. I can't stop thinking about her.'

Eynon remembered the first time they saw her. Leaving the column outside the sooq, he and Makon had ridden through the town asking for any information the locals might have had on the border raids. Most they talked to looked skeptically at them, not believing the Saranah would ever dare such a thing, especially now that the Chetts were united. It was not until they had nearly reached the end of the main street that an older man intercepted them.

'You are asking about the Saranah?' he said. Eynon nodded. 'I have a woman in my care. You should see her.'

Eynon and Makon dismounted and followed the man to his home. Inside he sat them down, gave them wine. 'My name is Kayakun,' he told them.

'I have heard of you,' Makon said, suddenly excited. 'Truth, my brother speaks of you with much praise.'

'Your brother?'

'Gudon of the White Wolf Clan.'

'Ah, I should have recognised you.' He looked at Eynon. 'And I know you, Chief of the Horse Clan.'

Eynon grunted. 'You are one of Korigan's spies?'

Kayakun smiled, spread his hands. 'If that's what you wish to call me, although I never spied on you.'

Eynon lowered his gaze. It was true, he knew. He had learned over the last year that Korigan's spies had all operated on the fringe or completely outside the Oceans of Grass, protecting the interests of every clan. Truly, Korigan had seemed to act as a queen for all the Chetts. 'You said something about a woman in your care?'

Kayakun nodded. 'She came into the sooq about thirty days ago. She was on a sorry-looking mare, and so exhausted she was near death. She managed to mumble some words about a war band, but no one believed her. Those who found her brought her to me.'

'They always bring you strangers?' Eynon asked.

'I am known for my interest in the world outside the sooq. Rare among the merchants that live here.'

'Then they are not true Chetts,' Eynon spat.

'Because they are concerned only with their own affairs? How long ago did that describe every clan on the plains?'

Eynon waved his hand. It was not an argument he had time for now. 'The woman?' he urged.

'She is here, but she may not be able to tell you much. She was unconscious when I received her. Despite all that I could do, she did not wake for several days, and when she finally did she could not—or would not—talk. She sits in the room I have given her, staring out the west window. She holds her hands in her lap so they do not shake.'

Eynon and Makon exchanged glances. 'Take me to her,' Eynon said.

Kayakun led the way to a small, clean room with a low cot and a rough-made chair. Sitting on the chair was a woman who on first impression seemed to be very old: bent over herself, shoulders tucked in, limbs thin and joints as angular as rocks. As they got closer Eynon saw she was in fact quite young, with smooth skin and clear eyes that stared across the plains, searching.

He held his breath. He knew her. She was of his clan. Jenrosa Alucar had been right. His breath finally shuddered out of him. He did not realise how much he had hoped against hope that she had been wrong.

'Wennem?'

The woman looked up at Eynon and froze completely.

Eynon knelt down next to her and cupped her face in his hands. 'Wennem? What has happened to you?'

For a long while nothing happened, and then a single tear tracked down her cheek. She opened her mouth to say something but could only make a croaking sound.

'What happened, Wennem?' Eynon gently asked again.

Kayakun left the room and returned with a cup of wine. He held the cup in front of the woman's mouth and slowly tipped some of the wine into her mouth. She sipped at it, swallowed, and lifted one hand to push the cup away. She opened her mouth again and uttered, 'All dead.'

'All dead?' Eynon heard his own voice crack.

She nodded slowly. 'All dead,' she repeated. 'My husband. My baby.' She grabbed Eynon's arms suddenly and shook him. 'My baby! Dead!'

Eynon wrapped his arms around her and held her to him as tightly as he dared. Tears now flooded down her face, but she made no sound as the grief emptied from her and swallowed them all.

Under the stars, Eynon said to Makon, 'And what is it you are thinking about her?'

'That she should not be with us. She should have stayed at the Strangers' Sooq.'

'I agree. But would you have tied her to her chair? It would have been the only way to stop her.'

'No.'

'I have seen you talk to her.'

'I want to learn about our enemy.'

'Does she tell you anything we don't already know?'

'No.'

Eynon lifted himself on one elbow. 'You like her.'

'She has no one to look after her.'

'She is a Chett. She can look after herself.'

'She needs someone.'

'What she needs is a strong mare and a strong sword and the opportunity to use them against the Saranah. That is what I am going to give her.'

'You are her guardian.'

Eynon opened his mouth to say, 'With all her family dead, of course I am her guardian' when he realised where Makon was trying to take the conversation. 'Wennem is badly hurt,' he said instead.

'I will protect her.'

'What if you or she do not survive the coming season?'

'That is a risk whether or not we are together.'

'How does she feel about you?'

Makon shrugged uselessly. 'I am afraid to ask. It is so soon after she has lost everything she loved.'

'I advise you to say nothing to her for the while. Wait.'

'To see if we both survive,' Makon said, nodding. 'I thought you would say that.'

'And you know it is what you would say if you were the clan chief and I the suitor.'

Makon looked up sharply at the last word. 'I am no suitor—' he started to say.

'You are Makon, commander of three troops of King Lynan's Red Hands, warrior of growing fame, son of a Truespeaker, brother of Gudon, friend of Eynon. And we are all in the middle of a war that may not end in our lifetime, however long that may be for each of us.'

Makon slumped on to his back. Eynon joined him and they both stared into the sky. After a while Makon asked, 'Did you have a wife?'

'Yes. A long time ago.'

'Did you have children?'

'Two. One died being born, together with his mother. The other died in the last battle against Korigan's father, taking a spear that was meant for me. She was thirteen, but already had slain three enemies.'

Eynon tried to block out the memories. Some pain never left, and it was best simply to ignore it, to make it a part of your life rather than the point of it. But he could not shut his mind against it. He closed his eyes and saw again the faces of his wife and daughter, and even the strange, cold, purple thing that had been, if only for a handful of moments, his son. He even heard again its last faint mewlings.

'Did you hear that?' Makon said, and quickly stood up.

Eynon blinked, looked up at Makon's dark shape. 'What are you talking about?'

'Listen!' Makon said sharply, looking west.

Eynon stood up then and cupped his ears. For a long while there was nothing, and he was about to ask Makon what it was he had heard when a slight breeze came out of the west and he heard something faintly like crying.

'Yes. But I don't know—'

More sounds. Despair. Pain.

'God!' Eynon shouted. 'It's them! It's the Saranah! They're attacking another clan!'

'So close?' Makon asked disbelievingly.

'Why not? They've obviously been ranging all along the border seeking out those clans that wander this far south in the summer and autumn. We had to come across them eventually, or their trail.' He turned and shouted to the sleeping camp: 'Arise! Arise! The enemy is near! The enemy is near!'

The response was almost immediate. Those still awake roused their companions, horses were saddled, gear thrown on, low fires stamped out. By the time the column was ready to ride two scouts were galloping back from the west, breathless with their news. Eynon grabbed the first one and shouted in his face: 'How far?'

The scout looked surprised that Eynon already seemed to know his news, but quickly gathered his wits. 'An hour's hard ride. I heard the fighting as soon as it started.'

'An hour?' Makon cried. 'We'll never make it in time,'

'Gods but we can try!' Eynon shouted, and kicked his horse into a fast trot that would eat up the leagues and still leave his mare some strength at the end for a charge. His column wheeled in behind him. Makon rode by Eynon's right-hand side, and soon after he saw a third figure sidle up beside them. He glanced around and saw the determined outline of Wennem's face; in her right hand she already gripped her sword.

Dekelon paused from the fighting and quickly looked around him. His warriors had hit from all sides, but because of the smaller size of their force now some of the Chetts had inevitably escaped, most on horseback. Around him some of the Saranah were starting to set alight the camp, the flames somehow making the dark night even more intense. He quickly searched for Amemun, and guessed he was in the midst of a clump of fighters that had encircled a staunch group of defenders and were gradually wearing them down. If Dekelon had his way he would order his warriors back to send in flight after flight of arrows, but Amemun's enthusiasm for the kill was too keen and too contagious.

He should have been born one of us instead of one of those soft easterners.

He started walking among the bodies littering the ground, cutting the throats of the wounded, divesting them of any jewellery or fancy weapons. He did not have any idea how much booty his war band had gathered, but enough he was sure to set up his family for two or more generations. Already the uncrowned king of his people, he even thought about building something more permanent than the extended shack he now lived in. Something from stone imported from Aman, perhaps. Once he had a palace, no matter how small compared to the one in Pila or Kendra, it would not be long before he would be called king, and his family's dominance of the Saranah would be complete.

But only if he and his war band made it back to the desert.

He thought again about the escaping Chetts. Yes, it was time to go home. It would not be long before the clans in this part got together for defence, and maybe even tried to hunt down his war band.

There were cries from the east. He looked up and grunted in surprise. Some of the Chetts had decided not to flee after all but to make one last heroic charge. Amemun would be pleased.

Dekelon knelt down to pick up an interesting looking clasp, turned it this way and that to catch the light from a nearby burning wagon. Good work. Probably High Sooq made. His father had told him stories about the High Sooq, exaggerated over time, he was sure. One day he would like to see it; maybe he would when all this was over. King Dekelon, on a diplomatic mission from the Saranah to the Chetts, from the allies of victorious Queen Areava to the defeated supporters of the slain Prince Lynan. An offer of peace. He smiled to himself. For a price. He put the clasp in his belt pouch.

More cries from the east. He glanced up again and saw what was charging down on his war band.

Eynon surprised himself by staying so calm it almost felt as if he was floating above the Oceans of Grass and directing events like one of the gods. When they were still two leagues from the Chett camp the first scattered groups of refugees flew past, wheeled and joined the end of the column. He waited until there was only a league to go before allowing the lancers to take the van and straighten their line. Half a league to go he gave the signal for his own clan's warriors to ride far out on the flanks, and they fanned out like the waters in a delta, streaming north and south. A quarter of a league to go he nodded to Makon, who signalled the Red Hands to line up behind the lancers, sabres drawn. Only then, and when the enemy was less than two hundred paces away, did Eynon kick his mare into a gallop, take the lead and lower his own sword. The lancers lowered their spears and charged, and suddenly earth and sky shook with the beating of their hooves. The Red Hands gave the cry of the white wolf, and it echoed over the plains, freezing the blood of their enemies.

They rode through the camp like a wild wind; nothing opposing them could withstand the charge. The lancers skewered fleeing Saranah, who had never experienced anything like charging cavalry, piercing hearts and kidneys and lungs. Then the Red Hands hewed in, swinging their sabres in great arcs that lopped off heads as easily as limbs. Once through the camp the lancers wheeled and charged again, their line more ragged, their targets now diving close to the ground and coming up only to aim sword blows at the horses' bellies, but behind the lancers the Red Hands, now dismounted, caught and killed them. There seemed to be no escape east or west, so the Saranah with any wits left fled north and south, straight into the waiting arrows of the Horse Clan archers.

Then, as quickly as it had started, the battle was over. Lancers rode through the camp looking for more enemy; the Red Hands sorted through the wounded to save what Chetts they could and killing anyone else, and the horse archers slowly closed the ring. At the end of it Eynon and Makon were in the centre of the camp, feeling as if there should have been more to it, more slaughter and blood, more to make up for all the death and destruction the Saranah had caused their people. Some of their warriors wept that they had not themselves found an enemy to slay.

The whole time Eynon seemed apart from it all, and he felt cheated. His burning hate hid under his terrible calm and was not satiated. It filled him so completely he thought he would burst.

'Here,' Makon said, moving one of the enemy corpses with his foot.

'What have you found?' Eynon asked tonelessly.

'This is no Saranah.'

Eynon leaned over the body. 'I know that dress. I saw it at the Strangers' Sooq when I was a boy. This is an Amanite.'

'Rich clothing,' Makon said, sorting through it. 'Some jewellery. A Chett sabre.' He pulled something off a belt and held it up for Eynon. 'And this little pretty.'

Eynon handled the dagger, slipped it out of its sheath and touched the blade to his tongue. 'This was a nobleman, or someone connected to a noble family. This is good steel, not forged. Rainbow steel. Gold-inlaid hilt.'

Makon grunted. 'Now we know who financed a war band this size.'

Eynon felt his muscles suddenly relax. It was alright. There was more to come. 'Now we know where to take our revenge,' he said with something like joy.

In the morning, while Eynon was talking with the survivors of the Chert clan they had saved, Makon went to find Wennem. He found her squatting next to the corpse of the Amanite, and she was staring into his face as if trying to discover something there. Makon knelt next to her and hesitantly, gently, put a hand on her shoulder.

'Are you alright?'

'He saved my life,' she said.

Makon blinked at her. 'This man?'

'When they attacked the Horse Clan this man killed the Saranah who was going to slay me, then told me to run.'

She put her hand around the Amanite's jaw and moved it up and down. Dried blood cracked between his lips. 'Why?' she asked the corpse. 'Won't you tell me?' She started working the jaw more violently, and Makon heard the muscles click from rigor mortis.

'No, Wennem,' he said. 'Stop it.'

Instead of stopping she grabbed the man's thin grey hair with her other hand and started pulling the face apart. 'Why won't you tell me?' she screamed at it.

Makon grabbed her arms and tried dragging her away, but she stood suddenly and twisted out of his grip, drew her sabre and brought it down with one graceful, heavy blow against the Amanite's neck. The head rolled away, and dark, thick blood seeped onto the grass.

'I wanted to die with my husband and baby!' she cried, and fell to her knees, using both her hands to drive the sabre point through the Amanite's chest. She hung onto the grip and was suddenly overwhelmed by racking sobs. This time when the tears came so did the wailing, and it tore at Makon's heart to hear it. He knelt beside her again and put his arms around her shoulders. She cried a while longer then slumped against him, burying her head in his shoulder.