Mistress of the Empire (73 page)

Awkward of body as he was with emotions, Incomo arose. He gave a deep bow, and another shy smile, then hastened away to fill Saric’s ears with last-minute advice, whether or not it was wanted.

Mara swallowed past a tightness in her throat. She regarded Arakasi’s messenger, who seemed weary enough to fall asleep on the cushions without the bother of lying down first. ‘Can you tell me whether the news you brought
has also been sent to my husband?’ she asked gently, hating to disrupt his peace.

The man blinked and roused. ‘Mistress, Lord Hokanu will have heard ahead of you, since he was closer to Kentosani. Arakasi dispatched other couriers to carry word to the Shinzawai when the first in our relay was sent to you.’

Mara longed to know what Hokanu had done when the ugly news reached his ears. She might never learn; or she might live to regret the final knowledge. For whether or not she had made her husband’s life forfeit by her orders to Lujan, which were in blatant disregard of the Assembly’s edict, in her heart she suspected that her husband would never allow Jiro to reach the sanctuary of Kentosani. Revenge for his murdered father would not permit, and in addition, the life of his heir was at stake. Hokanu would serve his honor and attack, Mara thought, whether or not he had a prayer of success.

She regarded the exhausted messenger and delivered her last instruction, which she hoped would give him his best chance at life. ‘You will leave this company,’ she commanded in an iron tone. Instantly the messenger was alert and listening closely to her commands. ‘You will go at once, and you will swear to me that you will not stop until you have reached the next courier in your relay. You must send the following instructions to Arakasi: tell him to seek out his happiness. He will know where to find it, and if he demurs, tell him that is my injunction as his mistress, and his honor requires he obey.’

Fully awake now, the messenger bowed. If he found the message odd, he simply assumed it was but another clever code. ‘Your will, my Lady.’ He arose and stepped off into the dark.

Alone in the palanquin, Mara released the curtain ties. The fine silk fell with a sigh of sound, affording her a rare
moment of privacy as she buried her face in her hands. The reprieve she had won in Chakaha now seemed futile. Had she died there, the outcome would still be the same: her son’s life sacrificed for Jiro’s ambition. She wondered in self-pity whether fate might have treated her differently if, so many years past, she had not slighted Jiro by choosing Buntokapi for her husband.

Was this snarled, vicious political mess the gods’ vengeance for her vanity? Was she being punished for her selfish, all-consuming drive to keep her family’s name and honor, begun with the sacrifice of a man’s life? She had wed Buntokapi only to see him die as a result of her scheming. Had he silently cursed the Acoma name, in the moment he had fallen on his sword? Mara felt a chill course through her flesh. Perhaps things were all foreordained, and her remaining children would die as Ayaki had, as pieces sacrificed in the Game of the Council.

Mara’s shoulders spasmed as she choked back a sob. Over the years, each move of the Great Game drove the stakes higher. Now nothing less than an Emperor’s throne would ensure the safety of her family. To protect her children, she must change the course of the Empire’s history, and discard long centuries of tradition. She felt frail and vulnerable, and the feeling of beaten desperation would not leave her. Then her moment of soul searching ended; she had no further chance to ponder if she would survive to greet her children on this side of the Wheel of Life as Saric returned to the palanquin with an armload of borrowed armor.

‘My Lady?’ he queried softly. ‘We will need to make haste. The nearest cho-ja hive is a day and a half distant. If we are to have a prayer of reaching Kentosani in time enough to matter, we dare not delay for a second.’

Her Adviser wore armor himself, Mara realised. Observant almost to a fault, he caught her glance of surprise as he
knelt to help her arm. ‘I was a soldier once,’ he reminded. ‘I can be so again – I’ve not let my swordwork become entirely lax. That is all to our advantage. A small company of fast-marching warriors must perchance draw less notice when they are not accompanied by a man clad in robes of high office, don’t you think?’

Saric’s habit of speaking in questions did have the effect of drawing the mind away from insoluble problems. Forced to respond despite her worry, Mara conceded the wisdom of the disguise.

‘Gods preserve us, we may need an extra sword before all is said and done.’ Saric expertly applied himself to the buckles of Mara’s breastplate, while, with false appearance of normality, the company’s water boy made his rounds with his bucket and dipper, as he would through a natural pause for rest.

Lujan slid off the cho-ja, his body leaving streaks in the dust that caked its carapace. He staggered slightly from stiff muscles, and was caught and steadied by the fast reactions of the sentry standing guard outside the command tent. ‘Where is Force Leader Irrilandi?’ the Acoma Force Commander croaked through his parched throat. ‘I bring orders from Lady Mara.’

The Patrol Leader on day duty arrived breathless, having seen the cho-ja race in. After one glance at his exhausted commanding officer, he assisted Lujan to take a seat on a cushion in the shade. ‘Irrilandi is out with the scout patrol. There has been movement reported among Lord Jiro’s troops. He went to see for himself,’ he summed up.

‘Send our swiftest runner to fetch him back,’ Lujan commanded. Servants rousted from the command tent by the day sentry arrived with cool water and towels. Lujan accepted a drink, then waved them off to undertake the task of seeing the cho-ja who had carried him made
comfortable. His voice stronger since the dust was washed from his throat, he added, ‘Whatever the creature requires, see that its needs are promptly met.’

The servants bowed and backed off, to crowd around the tired cho-ja. Lujan knuckled the aching muscles of his thighs, speaking fast, and like a swirl in a deep current the surrounding encampment heaved into motion in response.

While runners dashed off to convene a meeting of officers, and begin the process of a main muster, Lujan summoned the highest-ranking warrior at hand and directed at him a rapid-fire string of questions.

The officer’s answers were direct, and as he used his sword to trace out the deployment of the enemy troops, Lujan also perceived the emerging pattern that had concerned Irrilandi.

‘Jiro’s troops have gathered to march,’ he summed up.

‘You see that, too,’ the officer’s worried eyes followed his Force Commander’s hands, which had tightened fiercely on his sword hilt. ‘Though the gods alone know why the Anasati Lord would issue such a command. His war host can’t attack our holdings or our force without invoking the wrath of the Black Robes.’

Lujan looked up abruptly. ‘I have news. Jiro has started his bid to take the throne in Kentosani. Though cursed if I can figure how word traveled so swiftly from his position in the north to the Anasati Force Commander in the field.’

The scout rubbed sweat from his face. ‘That I can answer. He has birds.’

Lujan raised his eyebrows. ‘What?’

‘Birds,’ the scout insisted. ‘Imported from Midkemia. They are trained to fly to a homing point, with a message scroll fastened to their leg. They are called pigeons. Our archers shot two of them down, but others got past.’

‘The messages were in cipher?’ Lujan asked, then answered himself. ‘None of Arakasi’s decoding patterns translated?’

The scout leader gave a nod indicating that the Anasati codes were still unbroken.

Lujan forced his aching body to obey his will, and stand, and walk. ‘Accompany me,’ he ordered the scout leader; to the duty officer he added, ‘When Irrilandi arrives, have him meet me in the command tent over the sand table.’

The dimness inside the pavilion offered no relief; the rain had ended, and the sun beating down on its hide roof heated the air to steaming closeness. Lujan unstrapped his helm. He splashed the dregs of his water cup over his already sweat-drenched hair. Then, rubbing salty droplets from his eyelashes, he leaned on the rim of the sand table. ‘These are accurate?’ he asked in reference to the rows of colored silk flags and troop markers.

‘Updated this morning,’ the scout replied.

Silence fell. From outside, the commotion of warriors rushing to muster filtered through the tent walls and hangings; as fine a commander as any in the Empire, Lujan kept his ears tuned to their activities while his eyes roved the sand table in swift assessment.

‘There,’ he announced presently, his dusty hands reaching and rearranging whole companies of markers at a sweep. ‘The Plain of Nashika. That is where we will take him.’

The scout gasped in fear and turned pale. ‘We attack Lord Jiro? Force Commander, what of the Black Robes?’

Lujan never paused as he manipulated markers. ‘The Black Robes shall do as they will. But by our Lady’s order, we attack. If we hesitate, or fail her, every man in this army will be masterless, grey warriors cursed by the gods.’

The tent flap slapped back, admitting a swirl of dust and the long-striding figure of Force Leader Irrilandi. Lean and toughened as cured bark, the older man jerked off his gauntlets and positioned himself at the sand table opposite his superior officer. He wasted no word of greeting, but swept a glance that missed nothing across the changed
deployment of markers. ‘We will attack, then,’ he surmised, his typically bitten-off speech animated by a lilt of pleasure. ‘Good. At first light, I presume?’

Lujan looked up, a hardness to him that his mistress had seen only once, and that in the moment before he had entered the challenge circle in Chakaha. ‘Not at first light,’ Lujan corrected. ‘Today, immediately after nightfall.’

Irrilandi grinned voraciously. ‘Darkness will offer no cover. You won’t deceive any Black Robes.’

‘No,’ Lujan agreed. ‘But we might have the satisfaction of spilling as much Anasati blood as we can before dawn comes. Let the Great Ones find out what’s happened after they stir from their sleep and view the result of our night’s activities.’

Irrilandi studied the sand table. ‘Plain of Nashika? A good choice.’

‘Tactics?’ Lujan queried back tersely. ‘I would have your opinion before we meet with our officers and commit to engagement.’

Now Irrilandi gave back a chuckle. ‘Fight a wide, sprawling battle, one with many small forces and multiple vectors of attack. We have enough numbers, and gods know, we can field dozens upon dozens of messengers to ferry orders and information back and forth. No single arrow point of attack this time, with feints and false deployment; a swarm of arrow points striking at scores of places along the line!’

Lujan paused in puzzled assessment, then caught his Force Leader’s drift. He threw back his head and laughed in admiration. ‘You crafty old son of a harulth! That’s the best advice I’ve heard in all my years of service. Create as much confusion as possible, so maybe we can steal time and inflict as much damage as possible!’

‘If we’re going to force the Assembly to incinerate us, let us take enough of the enemy into the halls of Turakamu
to cause a great song of honor.’ Irrilandi looked up with a deadpan expression that could make Keyoke at his most unresponsive seem animated. ‘Let’s hope it works. Gods pity us, it’s a flimsy enough countermeasure to stack against the aroused might of the magicians.’

The afternoon passed in flurried activity, mostly overseen by Force Leader Irrilandi as Lujan stole his last chance to catch up on sleep. Although the orders that were given amounted to a virtual death sentence, no man among Mara’s thousands shirked his part. To die was Tsurani, and to meet the Red God in battle, the finest accolade of the warrior. If the Acoma name continued, and rose in prestige and power, the better were a man’s chances of earning higher station on the next turn of the Wheel of Life.

It was ironic, Lujan thought as he rose and ate a hasty meal at sundown, that the very traditions and beliefs that lent these warriors incentive were the ones that Mara would change, should Justin survive to be the Nations’ next Light of Heaven. Some of the officers knew of this twist of fate; if anything, they worked the harder. If a warrior had one recurrent nightmare, it was to waken one day and find himself still alive and taken captive by an enemy. Officers were traditionally killed, but an unusually cruel victor might keep them alive to toil as slaves with no possibility of reprieve. If Mara would discontinue the glory of bloody death in battle, she would equally eradicate the degradation of slavery that ground a man down regardless of his talents or his merit.

Sunset washed the sky gold and copper, then deepened into starlit night. Mara’s warriors assumed their final formation at the edge of the Plain of Nashika under cover of darkness. The command to engage the enemy, when the moment came, was silent.

No horns sounded, drums beat no tattoos, and warriors did not shout their mistress’s name or any other Acoma
battle cry. The start of the greatest conflict of succession to be fought in Tsuranuanni began without the fanfares that traditionally accompanied a war.

The only warning that the massed army of the Anasati had was the thunderous pounding of thousands of feet as the Acoma forces charged. For once the Anasati were not served by Chumaka’s superior intelligence; he had made the obvious conclusion: the Acoma war host must be positioning themselves for a dawn attack.

Then the night resounded with the crash of swords, and the cries of the fatally wounded. The fighting was vicious and without quarter. Within the first hour, the ground became churned to muck, watered red by the blood of the fallen. Lujan and Irrilandi took turns overseeing the action on a raised hillock, moving counters across the sand table under a pool of lantern light as messengers came and went with reports. Orders were dispatched and formations advanced, or retreated and drew the enemy into pockets. Ground was won and lost, and won back again at crippling cost in lives. The dusty floor beneath the table became littered with counters as Force Leader and Force Commander cast away colored pins to account for losses, which were ruinous, as though every man fought with berserk energy, the better to court the known death by the sword, rather than risk perishing in magic-born flames.