Blood and Iron: The Book of the Black Earth (Part One) (9 page)

Horace showed Jirom. “What's this for?”

“A sign of respect. A gift to honor what you did.”

Horace took an egg and put it in his mouth. The taste and the soft, crumbly texture were delicious. His stomach grumbled for more. He offered
the bowl to Jirom, who took an egg and plopped it into his mouth with a smile. He also offered some to Gaz and the other slaves, but they turned away as if afraid to be seen conversing with him. Horace shrugged.

If that's the way you want it.

While he and Jirom shared the meal under the dimming sky, Horace learned how Jirom had served in several armies before he was captured by the Akeshians, and how he'd fought in the arena. Jirom wasn't so forthcoming about the circumstances that had led to him being attached to this lot of slaves, but after the big man went to sleep, Gaz shuffled over to tell Horace that the brand on Jirom's cheek marked him as a murderer. Such men, Gaz warned, couldn't be trusted, and Horace wondered what the small man said about him behind his back.

Horace watched the sky. With his collar off and the temperature starting to drop, he could almost pretend he was back home. The breeze rustling through palm leaves could be the roar of the waves. He closed his eyes and tried to conjure images of his wife and son, but his life with them felt like so long ago, like it belonged to someone else and he was watching from the outside.

Footsteps in the sand brought him back to the real world. Two soldiers came over and motioned for Horace to accompany them. He complied, but slowly, stretching his arms above his head before he followed them. They led him through the camp to a smaller tent staked out beside Lord Isiratu's pavilion. Horace frowned as they indicated he should enter. This tent had been erected for Lord Ubar and was guarded by a cordon of bodyguards. What did the noble's son want with him? Had the judgment been rendered already? Not wanting to be forced, Horace ducked inside.

Two lamps sat on the tent's floor, which was covered in thick carpet from wall to wall. Stepping on the rugs with his dirty sandals felt felonious, but there was no other option. Horace tried not to track too much sand onto the fine weaves. Lord Ubar sat on a broad cushion. He wore a clean purple coat brocaded with silver thread. His hair had been brushed and oiled. Horace ran a hand across his head and grimaced when his fingers came away covered in a film of sweat and grit.

Nasir sat beside Lord Ubar, wearing a crimson stole over his robe. A
pattern of golden sunbursts was stitched into the silk. Ubar gestured to the floor. “Please. Sit.”

He had a thick accent, but Horace could understand him fine.

A slave girl—quite fetching with her black hair held back with jade pins—rushed forward to place a cushion in front of Horace. With a nod to her, he sat down and tried not to notice the cloud of dust that settled around him. “Thank you for the extra food. And for my freedom.”

Nasir translated this to Ubar, who nodded. Horace caught a few of the words that passed between them as Nasir related the young noble's reply. “It is the law that
zoanii
cannot be enslaved. Please forgive me,
Inganaz
, but you are an outlander and possibly a spy.”

“Inga—?” Horace glanced at Nasir. “What did he say?”

“
Inganaz
. It means ‘He who does not bleed.’ I believe it refers to your lack of immaculata after the storm.”

“Yes,” Horace said. “About the immaculata, what are—?”

Lord Ubar resumed talking through the translator. “My father is still recovering from the storm-of-chaos. But when he is well, he will decide your final status. Until then, you will remain free, but under guard.”

Horace didn't like the sound of “final status,” but he didn't have a chance to inquire further as Lord Ubar launched into a flurry of questions. “Who are the most powerful
zoanii
in your country? Do they all support the invasion of our land? Is the
zoana
common in your country? Where were you trained?”

Horace held up his hand. “Hold on. I don't understand most of what you just asked me.”

“Please tell us which questions you did not understand.”

“You can start by explaining the
zoanii
and
zoana
. One of the slaves said it meant sorcery. Is that what you think I am?”

“
Zoanii
are the rulers of the empire.
Zoana
is…the closest word in Arnossi would be ‘magic.’ However, it also has a divine connotation.
Zoana
comes from the celestial realm where the gods dwell in perfection, and the
zoanii
are their instruments in this world.”

Horace tried to make sense of the words. “So, are you and Lord Ubar are both
zoanii
?”

Nasir indicated the noble's son. “His Highness, Lord Ubar, is
zoanii
like his noble father. I am not. Now, if you please, Lord Ubar has many questions regarding your homeland and its customs. And also about yourself.”

Horace's first instinct was to tell them both to go to hell, but he reminded himself that he was in their power. And, for what it was worth, Ubar had shown him a measure of…well, compassion, if not kindness. “Tell him that I honestly don't know anything about this
zoana
. Like I told his father, I'm just a simple craftsman. I build and repair ships.”

Nasir took some time relating this to Lord Ubar, and Horace started getting anxious. This was his chance to influence his own destiny. Ubar obviously had his father's ear. If he could convince the son that letting him go was the best option…

He cleared his throat. “May I ask a question, my lords?”

Ubar and Nasir halted their conversation. Ubar nodded. “Yes.”

“The other prisoners say you're taking us to a place called Nisus. Is that right?”

After a short discussion, Nasir answered, “Yes. Lord Isiratu has honored the temple of Amur with a gift.”

Amur must be their pagan sun god.

“And will we—the captives—be killed?”

Nasir's lips turned down in a disdainful frown. “That is the talk of foolish peasants. Most of them will live their remaining years serving in the temple or tending the olive groves.”

That didn't sound so bad, but Horace had noted something. “You say most. But not all? Me, for example. Why send a—” He was going to say a
prisoner of war
, but changed his mind. “—a foreigner to this temple?”

Nasir closed his mouth. It didn't appear as if he was going to reply. Then Lord Ubar, who had been watching the exchange, interjected. Nasir nodded twice and then said, “Lord Ubar says that is his father's prerogative. Once you landed on his father's domain, you became his property. Yet things may have changed. He asked you here tonight for another purpose.”

“Please,” Ubar said in his own voice. “With all humility, I ask. May I examine you?”

Horace's mouth dried up as those words sank in. Examine him? He didn't think the noble's son had a medical examination in mind. He meant sorcery. Black magic. An image came to mind, of his wife Sari kneeling beside Josef's crib, praying for the Prophet to protect their son from the Evil One and his infernal host of demons. The very idea of submitting to magical “examination” was repugnant, but part of him wanted to know more about what had happened during the storm, and these people were the only ones who might have the answers.

“I suppose that would be—” Horace started to say when the tent flap opened and two soldiers appeared.

They addressed Lord Ubar. Horace heard something about a captive—which he assumed meant him—and Lord Isiratu. Ubar and Nasir put their heads together. Horace leaned forward. “Is something wrong?”

Nasir broke off their conversation with a gesture from Ubar. “You have been summoned by Lord Isiratu. You are to go at once.”

“But what about—?”

The soldiers didn't give him time to protest as they hooked him under the arms and dragged him to his feet. Lord Ubar and Nasir followed them out. Twilight had slipped into night while they were talking. The moon hung low in the eastern sky.

“All right,” Horace said as they pulled him out of the tent. He struggled to walk under his own power. “I said all right!”

The soldiers let him go. Then, with as much dignity as he could muster, Horace accompanied them to the pavilion. The door flaps were held open by soldiers wearing deep indigo tabards over fine-mesh chain mail. Horace saw more soldiers in the same livery on the other side of the oasis setting up tents against the cool white of the moonlit dunes. A score of horses were being fed and watered inside a new, roped-off paddock.

Inside the pavilion, Lord Isiratu reclined on a bed of cushions. Both of the nobleman's arms were wrapped in bandages. A long gash, stitched closed, ran from his left temple down to the corner of his mouth. Lord Ubar and Nasir bowed as they entered and took seats to the left of Isiratu. To the noble's right was an old man who sat with a hunch as if his spine couldn't support his slender frame. The stranger wore a long robe of purple so dark it looked
almost black. Thick gold bracelets adorned his wrists that, if real, must have weighed half a stone each. His head was shaved bald like Isiratu's.

No cushion was provided for Horace, so he stood while Isiratu talked with the new arrival. Ubar and Nasir sat attentively but said nothing. Purple Robe's voice was deep but breathy, as if he had trouble speaking more than a few words at a time. After several minutes of standing and listening to their jabbering, Horace began to get irritated. He was about to demand that Nasir tell him what was being said when the conversation stopped. The old man stood up with assistance from one of his soldiers. As he turned to the exit, Horace saw a huge scar of twisting brown and gray lines dominating the right side of his face. Horace was so disturbed by the sight he didn't notice the old man's limp until he was out the door.

“Who was that?” Horace couldn't help from asking.

Nasir replied, “That was Lord Mulcibar, High Vizier of Erugash.”

“What is Erugash?”

But Nasir wasn't paying attention. Instead, he watched as Lord Isiratu leaned over to his son and began a long speech punctuated by violent hand gestures, most of them directed out the pavilion door. Horace asked what they were saying, but Nasir waved him away like an annoying insect. Eventually Isiratu ended his harangue. Nasir hesitated, a stunned expression on his face. Then he bowed his head. “Lord Isiratu has decided that we shall go to Erugash instead of Nisus.”

Horace could tell that none of the three men were happy about this development. Even Ubar appeared perturbed—a faint sheen of sweat had formed on his forehead. “So Erugash is a place?” Horace asked.

Nasir smoothed his silken stole. “Erugash is the city of Queen Byleth. In your society, she would be Lord Isiratu's liege lord.”

“Why the sudden change of plans? Is it because of the new lord? What was his name?”

“Lord Mulcibar,” Nasir said, “shall accompany us on the journey.”

Isiratu clapped, and a pair of soldiers escorted Horace out of the pavilion. As he departed, it occurred to Horace that no one had thanked him for saving their lives.

Oxen bleated as they were fed and watered by sleepy drovers. The sentries on duty stretched and rubbed their eyes while their brethren crawled out of their blankets looking for something to eat. Soon, the smells of beer and cooking wheat cakes floated through the camp.

Horace sat cross-legged on the sand, watching people move around as he broke his fast with water and unleavened bread. The sun climbed a clear azure vault. A faint breeze rustled the sand around him, but otherwise there was no weather to speak of. Not a single cloud to mar the heavens.

Another morning on the march. By evening we'll be ten leagues farther from the coast. Farther from any chance of getting home.

He still hoped to find some way to Etonia, and from there back to Arnos, but that hope grew fainter each day. Part of him was desperate to get back, but another part—the side of him that loved the wild capriciousness of the sea—was intrigued by this new land. He had already seen things beyond his most daring dreams. What else would he discover on this journey?

Lord Mulcibar was the first noble out of his tent. After a quick look around, he hobbled to his wagon and climbed inside. Lord Ubar was next, scratching his chest while he ate a pastry, berry filling dripping down his chin. Evidently, Lord Isiratu was feeling better because he was able to walk unassisted from the pavilion to his wagon. Neither he nor his son so much as looked at Horace as the caravan prepared to depart.

Lord Mulcibar's wagon—a behemoth on six wheels—preceded Isiratu's smaller vehicle. Horace also noticed that Mulcibar's soldiers outnumbered Isiratu's entourage by two to one.

The wagons set a swift pace from the start, much faster than the caravan had traveled before. The guards used their lashes more freely today to keep the slaves moving. Each blow made Horace's jaws clench in sympathy. He remained at the tail of procession, still with his personal guards. The sand kicked up by the vehicles and people in front of him soon had him squinting
and coughing, but the heat was worse. By midmorning it felt like his brain was baking. He took off his shirt and wrapped it around his head. That helped a little with the flying sand, too. When the caravan halted for the midday rest, his shoulders were red and sore to the touch. He gulped down his ration of water and gestured for more. The water-slave started to turn away, but one of Horace's guards said something in a harsh tone, and the slave stayed in place, allowing Horace a second cup. After he took another swallow, Horace offered the cup to his guards, but they refused with short bows that made him uncomfortable.

He was starting to pick up their language here and there, but it was slow going because the words didn't sound anything like Arnossi. The soldiers watching over him didn't talk much beyond what he was pretty sure were complaints about the march and the heat, although from time to time they were clearly talking about him. The slave guards were freer with their speech, but it usually boiled down to invectives hurtled at their captives.

The nobles remained inside their wagons during the rest. Horace imagined it had to be sweltering inside. Perhaps Isiratu still felt weak. Horace didn't understand how the nobleman had received his wounds, though he got that it had to do with sorcery. Jirom had made it sound like it was something that happened to anyone who used such powers, but the big man also insisted that Horace was one of those
zoanii
, and he didn't have any wounds like that.

He tried to recall exactly what had happened during the sandstorm. He remembered the fear, the feeling that he might die. There had been an instant of pain, both warm and cool at the same time, centered inside his chest. That's where his memory of the incident ended. Horace concentrated on that fire-and-ice feeling that had enveloped his insides. If he truly had this power, it might be the weapon he needed to escape this situation. He tried to envision the burst of pain and re-create it. Minutes passed and beads of sweat rolled down his face, but nothing else happened.

Soon the caravan started off again. This time Jirom fell back to walk beside him. The soldiers guarding Horace didn't appear to care, so he risked some conversation. “What do you think about our new destination?”

Jirom shrugged. He was covered in sweat and sand but otherwise appeared
unaffected by the heat. “It makes little difference to me. I have wanted to see Erugash, though I always imagined it would be at the head of a conquering army.”

Horace laughed. The big man had an easy way of talking that cut through their differences. “Will it be the executioner's block for us then?”

“I don't think you need worry,” Jirom said. “If they wanted you dead, you would not be here.”

Horace supposed that was true, but it didn't give him much hope. From what he could infer, Lord Isiratu had been willing to give him over to the priests, for whatever purpose. Now they were going to Erugash, but Horace still had no idea why, or what they expected from him. “What about the rest of you? Has Isiratu changed his plans about giving you away?”

“What will happen, will happen.”

Horace nodded as they walked together. Neither of them had much control over their immediate future. The caravan started up a long rise. The road was rockier here, which made for uncertain footing. Horace shaded his eyes to see to the top and then wished he hadn't. A cluster of poles crowned the low hilltop. No, not poles. Stakes, more than a dozen of them. A body hung from each. As the caravan approached the gruesome display, a cold grip of dread tightened inside Horace's chest. Most of the corpses were men, but he saw a couple women, too—all of them stripped nude and impaled through the back so that the pointed end of the stake protruded from their stomachs. Long, bloody tracks covered the bodies where they had been scourged before being impaled. Flies swarmed around the torn flesh. Several of the captives in the coffle muttered to each other and touched their foreheads.

“Who are they?” Horace asked.

“Slaves,” Jirom answered. “Likely they tried to escape or stole from their masters.”

Horace forced himself to look away from the bodies. No matter what their crimes, no one deserved this. Jirom ignored the impalements the way he disregarded the heat and the lashes of the guards. Horace wished he could be as implacable.

“Why haven't you tried to escape?”

Jirom kept walking as if he hadn't heard. After a couple minutes, he said,
“Where would I go? I have been running a long time, but everywhere is much like what I left behind, or worse. I've begun to wonder if the gods are testing me. Perhaps if I stay this time and let my path unfold, they will reward me.”

“With what? Freedom?”

“One way or the other, we will all be free in the end.”

They passed beyond the impaled bodies. On the other side of the hill, the bleached sands gave way to a lush countryside. The earth was dark and rich, tilled into neat squares of gold, russet, and green. The road extended for miles through these fields, as straight as a carpenter's rule, until it reached a great city on the horizon. Its walls gleamed like beaten copper in the sun. Even from this distance, Horace could tell the city was much larger than Avice back home. His elevated vantage allowed him to see a maze of white, flat rooftops and golden spires, but none of the buildings compared to the mammoth construction that rose from the center, grander than anything he had ever seen before. It was shaped like a pyramid with several tiers, rising high above the metropolis. A shimmering ribbon of green water cut through the city in a channel that fed a large lake north of the pyramid. The waterway joined to a mighty river running along the southern wall.

The leagues between the tor and the city passed quickly. There was so much to see that Horace lost track of time, and the sun was heading toward its nocturnal home when the caravan neared the walls. Unlike in the west, this city had no burg, no surrounding buffer of structures outside its walls. The fields ran up to within a bowshot of the ramparts and stopped, leaving a barren track of ground in between where nothing grew.

The lead wagon halted before a massive pair of bronze gates like the valves of a cathedral. Up close, Horace could see that the city's gleaming walls were made of brick coated with some sort of glaze. Two huge statues of lions flanked the entrance, their mouths opened in eternal roars. Battlements loomed above the gatehouse, topped with triangular merlons. Archers stood watch on the ramparts, their pointed helmets shining in the fading light.

While Horace watched from the rear of the procession, gate wardens approached Lord Mulcibar's wagon. The troopers wore bright-yellow tabards over their armor. One soldier, with a scarlet corona stitched over his breast,
knocked on the door. Lord Mulcibar emerged and spoke with the soldier for several minutes, passing various scrolls back and forth. The soldier read these documents, sometimes going back over the same scroll twice or even three times, before finally giving them back and waving the wagon through. Lord Mulcibar paused a moment, as if waiting for something, but then he climbed back into his vehicle and closed the door.

Lord Isiratu's wagon went through the same procedure, except that Lord Ubar and Nasir stood outside and handed documents to the soldier while their liege remained inside. Horace's personal guards closed in on either side of him, hands on the hilts of their swords. He looked around, feeling the tension rise. The gate wardens appeared touchy about their duty, but he didn't see any reason for Isiratu's guards to take it personally. After a quarter of an hour, the warden in charge finally rolled up the papyrus scrolls and handed them back. Ubar and the priest returned to the wagon as the signal was given for the caravan to enter.

Horace studied the wardens as he walked past. Their steel mail shone bright against their bronze skin. The soldier with the corona stitching stood in the doorway of a small shack beside the gates, speaking to someone inside. Horace turned his head as he passed and caught a glimpse of deep-red fabric, but nothing else.

The caravan entered a long tunnel that passed under the walls and into a huge walled square where they were stopped for another checkpoint. After a lengthy inspection of both wagons—which forced even Lord Isiratu to make an appearance—and the persons of the caravan, they were allowed to pass through. When the soldier in charge moved to give the documents back to Lord Ubar, Isiratu snatched them from the man's hand and stomped back to his wagon, slamming the door behind him, leaving his son and the counselor to walk alongside the wagon as it passed through another pair of gates. By this time, Lord Mulcibar's wagon was gone from view.

Inside, the city awaited. Within a few steps, Horace was lost in an eruption of sights, sounds, and smells. The caravan trundled along a broad avenue paved in hard clay, wide enough to allow three, or even four, wagons to drive side by side if not for all the people that streamed along in both directions.
The city dwellers wore garments of dyed linen like schools of multicolored fish. Many of the men went bare-chested, wearing only long wraps around their waists and sandals. The women wore sleeveless shirts and tunics, but their skirts were often shorter than those of the men, rising above their knees. Horace was more shocked by the number of iron collars in the crowd. It seemed to him as if half the passersby were slaves. Many had the same bronze complexion as their Akeshian masters, but he spotted slaves of lighter and darker browns, too. Both men and women wore collars, and even a few children, which shouldn't have surprised him, but it did.

Most of the buildings were made of the same brick as the outer walls, though without the coppery glaze. Horace was struck by how ancient many of the structures appeared. By their design and crumbling masonry, they had to be centuries old. Some of them might have been built before the Nimeans founded their empire in the west. It was a sobering thought.

Many doors were sunken into the street, some fully hidden so that they could only be accessed by sheer flights of steps. The building facades gave off waves of heat even as the sun sank out of sight, and the clay underfoot was warm through the soles of his sandals. How did people survive in this blistering country?

The procession passed a stone obelisk rising at least eighty feet from the street. Craftsmen on wooden scaffolds were carving pictures into the square column, but Horace couldn't make out if they depicted a language or were just decorations.

A woman in a sack-like garment stood in the mouth of an alley behind the obelisk with her hands extended to the people passing by. She couldn't have been older than twenty. Someone threw a coin into the dust at her feet. When she dropped down to snatch it, Horace saw another person huddled behind her, a young child. A girl perhaps, though she was so dirty it was difficult to tell. The child's round stomach protruded from her scrawny frame. Once the mother had the coin in hand, she hurried away, leaving her child behind to watch the crowds. The little girl's deep brown eyes remained in Horace's thoughts long after he passed the alley.

The caravan halted in the middle of the avenue. Horace wiped at the
sweat dripping down his face as he peered ahead, trying to see why they had stopped. He caught a glimpse of white garments passing in front of Lord Isiratu's wagon. It appeared to be a parade of some sort. With a glance at his handlers, Horace took a chance on his supposed “freedom” to move up for a closer look. No one tried to stop him as he passed Jirom and the rest of the slaves. From beside the wagon's rear wheel, he watched as a parade of men marched past to the slow beat of a drum. They varied in age from fresh-faced youths to old men with long beards. Every one of them was bald and wore a crisp white robe. They chanted in Akeshian, something that sounded like a hymn. In fact, the entire demonstration had the tone of a religious rite.