Black Jade Page 4

  I would give anything, I thought that she should grow into womanhood without the blight of murder and war.

  Then she called back to me in her silent way, with a smile and a flash of her eyes. She placed one hand over ay heart and the other upon my hand that held my sword. I watched as its fires

  dimmed and died.

  'All right, we won't attack - not tonight, not like this,' I said. I slid my sword back into its sheath. 'But if Morjin is out there, it will come to battle, in the end.'

  After that, I sat back down with my friends to finish our dessert of fresh berries. Maram brought out his brandy bottle; I heard him muttering to himself, commanding himself not to uncork it. He licked his lips as he held himself proud and straight. In the west, lightning continued to torment the sky, but the threatened storm never came. As I watched our enemy's campfires burning with a hazy orange glow, far into the night, the wolves on the dark grass about us howled to the stars.

  Chapter 2

  The sun, at the breaking of the morning, reddened the green grasslands in the east like a great blister of flame. We rose at first light and ate a quick, cold breakfast of dried sagosk and battle biscuits. I pulled myself on top of my great, black warhorse, Altaru, as my friends did their mounts. The twelve Manslayers formed up behind us to cover our rear. Their captain was Karimah, a fat, jolly woman who was almost as quick with her knife as she was with her arrows, which she could fire with a deadly accuracy while turning in her saddle. Bajorak and his thirty warriors took their places on their lithe steppe ponies ahead of us, as a vanguard. If we were attacked from the rear, he and his men could quickly drop back to support Karimah and the Manslayers. But as he had told me the day before: 'The danger in that direction is known, and I scorn the Zayak, even more the Crucifier's knights. But who knows what lies ahead?'

  As we pushed our horses to a quick trot and then a canter, I watched this young headman of the Tarun clan. Although he was not tall, as the Sarni headmen and chieftains usually are, he had an air of fierceness that might easily intimidate a larger man. His handsome face was thrice-scarred: an arrow wound and two saber cuts along his cheeks had the effect of pulling his lips into a sort of permanent scowl. Like his warriors, he wore much gold: around his thick, sunburned arms and wrists and encircling his neck. Unlike the men he led, however, the leather armor encasing his barrel chest was studded with gold instead of steel. A golden fillet, woven with bright blue lapis beads, held back his long, blond hair and shone from his forehead. His senses were as keen as a lion's, and as we pounded across the grasslhe turned to regard me with his bright blue eyes. I liked his eyes: they sparkled with intelligence and spirit. They seemed to say to me: 'All right, Valashu Elahad, we'll test these enemy knights - and you and yours, as well.'

  For most of an hour, as the sun rose higher into a cobalt sky, we raced across the steppe. Bajorak and his warriors fanned out in a great V before us, like a flock of geese, while the Manslayers kept close behind us. Our horses' hooves - and those of our remounts and our packhorses - drummed against the green grass and the pockets of bitterbrush. Meadowlarks added their songs to the noise of the world: the chittering of grasshoppers and snorting horses and lions roaring in the deeper grass. I felt beneath me my stallion's great surging muscles and his great heart. He would run to his death, if I asked him to. Atara, to my right, easily guided her roan mare, Fire. It was one of those times when she could 'see' the hummocks and other features of the rolling ground before us. Then came Daj and Estrelia, who were light burdens for their ponies. What they lacked in stamina, they made up for in determination and skill. Master Juwain and Liljana followed close behind, and Maram struggled along after them. His mounds of fat rippled and shook beneath his mail as he puffed and sweated and urged his huge gelding forward. Kane, on top of a bad-tempered mare named the Hell Witch, kept pace at the end of our short column. He seemed to be readying himself to stick the point of his sword into either Maram's or his horse's fat rump if they should lose courage and lag behind. But we all rode well and quickly -though not quite quickly enough to outdistance our enemy.

  As we galloped along, I turned often to study these two dozen Red Knights, flanked by as many of the Zayak warriors. At times, a hummock blocked my line of sight, and they were lost to me, and I hoped that we might truly outride them. And then they would crest some swell of earth, and the sun would glint off their carmine-colored armor, giving the lie to my hope. They seemed always to keep about a mile's span between us; I could not tell if they held this close pursuit easily or were hard put to keep up. Fear and hate, I sensed, drove them onward. I felt Morjin's ire whipping at them, even as I imagined I heard the crack of their silver-tipped quirts bloodying their horse's sides.

  'Damn him!' I whispered to myself. 'Damn him!'

  After a while we slowed our pace, and so did our pursuers. Then we stopped by a winding stream to water our panting horses, and change them over with our remounts. Bajorak rode up to me, and so did Karimah and Atara. Bajorak nodded at Maram and said, 'You kradaks ride well even the fat one, I'll give you that.'

  Maram's face, red and sweaty from his exertions, now flushed with pride.

  Then Bajorak turned to look farther down the stream where the Red Knights had also paused to change horses. 'Well indeed but not well enough, I think. The Crucifier's men will not break chase. Their horses are as good as yours, and they have more remounts.'

  It was Bajorak's way, I thought, to speak the truth as plainly as he knew how.

  'We still might outrun them,' I said.

  'No, you won't. You'll only ruin your horses.'

  Bajorak dismounted and came over to lay his hand on Altaru's sweating side. It amazed me that my ferocious stallion allowed him this bold touch. But then it is said that the Sarni warriors love horses more than they do women, and Altaru must have sensed this about him.

  'If all you kradaks had horses like him,' Bajorak said, stroking Altaru, 'it might be a different matter. I've never seen his like. You still haven't told me where you found him.'

  'This isn't the time for tales,' I said. I shielded my eyes from the sun's glare as I took in the red glint of our enemy's armor a mile away.

  Bajorak spat on the ground and said. 'The cursed Red Knights won't move unless we do. Why, I wonder, why?'

  I said nothing as I continued studying the twenty-five knights and the Zayak warriors who stood by the stream to the east of us.

  'You haven't told me, either,' he went on, 'why you wish to cross our lands and what you seek in the mountains?'

  At this, Kane stepped up and growled at him: 'Such knowledge would only burden you. We've paid you good gold that we might ride in silence, and that's burden enough, eh?'

  Bajorak's blue eyes flashed, and so did the fillet of gold binding his hair and his heavy golden armlets. And he said, 'The gold you gave us is only a weregild to pay for my men's lives should there be battle between us and Morjin's men - or anyone else. But it is not why we agreed to ride with you.'

  I knew this, and so did Kane. I grasped his steely arm to restrain him. And Bajorak, while blood was up, went on to state openly what had so far remained unspoken: 'I owe a debt to the Manslayers, and debts must be repaid.'

  He nodded at Karimah, and this stout, matronly woman gripped her bow as she nodded back.

  'When Karimah came to me,' he said, looking at me, 'and asked that we should escort your company across our lands, I thought she had fallen mad. Kradaks should be killed out of hand - or at least relieved of the burdens of their horses, weapons and goods. Hai, but these kradaks were different, she said. One of them was Valashu Elahad, who had ridden with Sajagax to the great conclave in Tria and would have made alliance against the Crucifier. The Elahad, who had taken the Lightstone out of Argattha and whom everyone was saying might be the Maitreya.'

  As he had spoken, two of his captains had come over, bearing their strung bows. One of them, Pirraj, was about Bajorak's height, but the other, whose name was Kashak, was a giant of a man
and one of the largest Sarni warriors I had ever seen.

  'And with the Elahad,' Bajorak went on, 'rode Atara Manslayer, Sajagax's own granddaughter, the great imakla warrior. She, the blind one, who has slain seventy-nine men! And so might become the only woman of her Society in living memory to gain her freedom.'

  Here Bajorak's sensual lips pulled back to reveal his straight white teeth. It was a smile meant to be charming, but due to the thick scars on his cheeks, seemed more of a leer. All the women of the Manslayers, when they entered their Society, took vows to slay a hundred of their enemy before they would be free to marry. Few, of course, ever did. But those who fulfilled this terrible vow had almost free choice of husbands among the Sarni men, who would be certain to sire out of them only the strongest and fiercest of sons. As Bajorak's desire pulled at his blood, my own passion surged inside me: hot, angry, wild and pained. I glared at him as I gripped the hilt of my sword. Then it was Kane's turn to wrap his hand around my arm and restrain me.

  'And so,' Bajorak said, looking at Pirraj and Kashak, 'my warriors and I agreed to Karimah's strange request. We were curious. We wanted to see if all kradaks are like them.'

  He pointed to the Red Knights down the stream. Then his clear blue eyes cut into me, testing me.

  And I said, testing him, 'Do you think we're alike? The Red Knights are our enemies, as they are yours. What is strange is that you allow them to ride freely across your lands - the Zayak, too.'

  'You say,' he muttered. He shot me a keen, knowing look. 'I think you want us to attack them, yes?'

  'I have not said that, have I?'

  'You say it with your eyes,' he told me.

  I continued scanning the glints of red armor along the river looking for a standard that might prove the presence of Morjin

  'If we attacked them,' I asked Bajorak, 'would you join?'

  'Nothing would please me more,' he said, causing my hope to rise. And then my sudden elation plummeted like a bird shot with an arrow as he continued, 'But we may not attack them.'

  'May not? They are crucifiers! They are Zayak, from across Jade River!'

  'They are,' he said, turning to spit in their direction, 'and Morjin has paid for their safe passage of our lands.'

  This was news to us. We crowded closer to hear what Bajorak might say.

  'In the darkness of the last moon,' he told us, 'the Red Knights came to Garthax with gold. He is greedy, our new chieftain is. Greedy and afraid of Morjin. And so Garthax allowed the Crucifier's knights to range freely across our country, from the Jade River to the Oro, from the Astu to the mountains in the west. They are not to be attacked, curse them! And curse Morjin for defiling the Danladi's country!'

  His warriors, savage-seeming men, with faces painted blue, braided blond hair and moustaches hanging down beneath their chins, nodded their heads in agreement with Bajorak's sentiments.

  'Was it Morjin, himself, then,' I asked Bajorak, 'who paid this gold to Garthax? Does he lead the Red Knights?'

  'I have not heard that,' he told me. 'Were it so, we would attack them no matter if Morjin had paid Garthax a mountain of gold.'

  'It will come to that, in the end!' Kashak barked out. Blue crosses gleamed on his sunburned cheeks to match the smoldering hue of his eyes. 'Let us ride against them now, with these kradaks!'

  'And break our chieftain's covenant?'

  'A chieftain who makes covenant with the Crucifier is no chief-ten! Let us do as we please.'

  Bajorak, too, shared Kashak's zeal for battle. But he had a cool head as well as a fiery heart, and so to Kashak and his other men he called out: 'Would you commit the Tarun clan to going against our chieftain? If we break the covenant, it will mean war with Garthax.'

  'War, yes, with him,' Pirrax said, shaking his bow. 'We're warriors, aren't we?'

  Now Atara stepped forward, and her white blindfold gleamed in the strong sunlight. Her face was cold and stern as she addressed these fierce men of the Tarun clan: 'It's wrong for warriors to make war against their chieftain. Can not Garthax be persuaded to return this gold?'

  Bajorak shook his head. 'You do not know him.'

  'I know what my grandfather, Sajagax, said of Garthax's father: that Artukan was a great chieftain who would never scrape before Morjin. Does a lion sire a snake?'

  'Garthax,' Bajorak said, 'is not his father's son.'

  'Have you tried helping him to be?'

  It was one of Atara's graces, I thought that she tried ever to remake men's natures for the good.

  'Help him?' Bajorak said. 'You do not understand. Ganhax quarreled with Artukan over the question of . nether we should treat with Morjin. And two days later Artukan died while drinking his beer . . .of poison!'

  'Poison!' Atara cried out. 'That cannot be!'

  'No, no one wanted to believe it - certainly not I,' Bajorak told her. 'But it is said that upon taking the first sip of his beer, Artukan cried out that his throat was on fire. One of his wives offered him water, but Artukan said that this burned his lips. Everything . . . burned him. No one could touch him. It is said that he put out his own eyes so that he would not have to bear the torment of light. His skin turned blue and then black, like dried meat. He screamed, like a kradak burnt at the stake. It took him a whole day to die.'

  Master Juwain's faced paled, and then he said to Bajorak, 'If what you tell is true, then surely the poison was kirax.'

  Surely it was, I thought as my heart pushed my flaming blood through my veins. And surely thus I would have died, too, if only the assassin sent by Morjin had managed to bury his arrow even a tenth of an inch into my flesh.

  'I do not know this poison, kirax,' Bajorak said to Master Juwain.

  And Master Juwain told him, 'It is used only by the Red Priests of the Kallimun. And by Morjin.'

  Bajorak s gaze flashed from Master Juwain to Kashak and Pirraj, and he made a warding sign with his finger as he cried out. 'Treachery! Abomination! If Garthax really was in league with the Red Priests, if he is then. . .'

  'Then his eyelids should be cut off, and he should be staked out in the sun for the ants and the yellowjackets to eat!'

  These terrible words came from Atara. and I felt my heart nearly break against my chest bones to hear her pronounce the age-old punishment that the Sarin meted out to poisoners. 'He should be unmanned,' she added, 'and his parts given to the vultures!'

  It was one of Atara's griefs, I knew, that when her hopes for men failed, she could fall icy cold and full of judgment, like a killer angel.

  'If true,' Bajorak said, nodding his head, 'what you say should be done. But we know not that it is true. Only that, from what we've learned of Garthax, it could be.'

  'Then until it is proved,' Atara said, 'he is still your chieftain. And so you must persuade him with words to break this covenant with Morjin, rather than with arrows and flaying knives.'

  'Words,' Bajorak spat out. He looked from Atara to Kane and then at me. 'Valashu Elahad, all of you, rode with Sajagax to Tria to unite the free peoples against Morjin, with words. And what befell? Alonia is in flames, and in the Morning Mountains, the Elahad's own Valari make war with each other. And on the Wendrush! The Zayak ride openly into our country! It is said that the Marituk have allied with the Dragon, the Janjii, too! And so the Tukulak and the Usark, and other tribes, soon will. They think to choose the winning side before it is too late. They have no sense of themselves! Whatever side the Sarni choose will be victorious. And that is why we Tarun, and the other Danladi clans, must choose another chieftain, before it is too late. And we shall make our votes with these!'

  So saying, he reached into his quiver and drew out a long, feathered shaft. With one smooth, quick motion, he nocked it to his bowstring, drew it back to his ear and loosed it toward the Red Knights and the Zayak warriors. His great horn bow unbent with a crack like thunder. The arrow whined through the air and buried itself in the grass a few hundred yards away. Not even Sajagax, I thought, could shoot an arrow a mile.

  Bajorak's ey
es gleamed, but he sighed. 'Atara Manslayer is right,' he said. 'Until Garthax's treachery is proven, he is still our chieftain. And so his cursed covenant will be honored.'

  Much of what he had told me we had learned while in winter camp with Karimah and the Manslayers, for the Wendrush is Ea's crossroads, and news flows as freely as the great sagosk herds over its windswept plains. I had not, however, known about the Marituk's alliance with Morjin. They were a great tribe, and so this was evil tidings - but no surprise. In Tria, I had nearly claimed the Lightstone for myself; I had spoken a lie and slain a man, and as with a stone cast into a black water, these evil deeds had rippled outward to touch many peoples and many lands.

  'And so,' Bajorak continued, looking from the Red Knights back at me, 'we shall not attack our enemy. They know this. It is why they ride so impudently.'

  'But what if they attack us?' Maram wanted to know. It was a question that he could not stop asking Bajorak - and himself.

  'They won't,' Bajorak told him. 'They haven't the numbers ... yet.'

  'Yet?' Maram called out. 'Ah, I don't like the sound of that, not at all. What do you mean, yet?'

  'I believe,' Bajorak said, 'that these are not the only companies of Red Knights or Zayak that Garthax has allowed into our country.'

  At this Maram craned his neck about, scanning the horizon. And all the while he muttered, 'Oh, too bad, too bad!'

  Bajorak ignored him and looked straight at me. He said, 'Until Karimah came to me asking us to escort you, I could not imagine what these companies were seeking in our lands.'

  I said nothing as I watched the Red Knights, who seemed to be waiting for us to remount so that they might renew the chase.

  'But I do not understand,' he went on, 'why they are seeking you.'

  'Surely that is simple,' I told him. 'We are Morjin's enemies. Surely he would pay much gold to anyone who brings him our heads.'

  I rested my hand on the hilt of my sword; I looked into Bajorak's eyes to see if he desired this gold badly enough to betray us. But I saw there only a blazing hatred of Morjin and a fierce pride.