The Right Hand of God (19 page)

Geinor and the Escaignian woman stood respectfully at the entrance to the pavilion as the Company talked together.

Eventually, taking advantage of a quiet moment, the woman came over to the table. 'There are people waiting to speak to us,' she informed them. 'They say they have been chosen by the Jugom Ark. Some of them are very angry.'

'What?' Leith asked, confused. 'What people? Why are they angry? How were they chosen?'

Kurr placed a steadying hand on his shoulder. 'Why don't we go and find out?'

'There are so many others we need to talk to,' Leith replied flatly. 'Te Tuahangata for one; Hal for another. Can't these people wait? Most likely they just want another look at the Arrow.'

'We refuse help at our peril.' The old farmer tightened his grip on the boy's shoulder.

'Very well,' Leith conceded, then smiled ruefully. 'I'm not used to this! I naturally feel as though I should do what I'm told; but I'm supposed to be the leader, so I try to resist the feeling. But then I become harsh. I'm not sure I'll ever get used to this.'

'They await us outside the pavilion,' Geinor reported. 'There are many people there; some, I think, were identified by the Arrow of Fire yesterday when you challenged the crowd about the losian. Remember?'

The members of the Company made their way out into the late-morning sunshine. Several groups waited for them, sitting and talking quietly in what had been, until yesterday, a busy city street. As the Company approached them all chatter ceased.

Leith scanned the faces, and noticed one man sitting aside from the others. 'You!' he cried, and ran forward to him happily. It was the Pei-ratin pilot, who nodded darkly at the greeting.

Leith stepped back, puzzled.

'I do not want to become involved in this,' the navigator told him, his black eyebrows bristling in anger. 'I returned to the city yesterday to buy supplies for our return voyage, and came upon a crowd inside the gate. Your fiery arrow picked me out. What am I supposed to do? My people prepare to return to Astraea, and they cannot leave without their navigator. What help can I be? Why should I do anything for the First Men?'

Still feeling his way, Leith called some of the others over. Maendraga, Phemanderac, Kurr, Geinor, Graig, Indrett and the Haufuth came in answer. Others of the Company moved amongst the remaining groups. After Maendraga briefly explained to everyone who the dark-skinned man was, and how he knew him, Leith sat down opposite the Pei-ratin pilot.

'Would your people consider a longer route to Astraea?' Phemanderac asked the navigator. 'If Nemohaim and Tabul signed an agreement with the Council of Faltha to cede to the Pei-ra all of ancestral Astraea, would your kin set aside their plans for a season and come to our aid?'

'No - and yes. Most would not, but some might. They owe you a debt, after all, for revealing that the ancient places lie unoccupied.' He sighed. 'It seems that even though we sought refuge in places untouched by the First Men, we are continually drawn into their affairs. Many of our people will resist this, no matter how many pieces of paper are signed.

'I am a navigator, however, and my people look to me to see the currents that otherwise might drive us on to the reefs. Many of us may be swept up into your wars by the currents to come.

For myself, I want nothing more than to journey home to Astraea, to finally bury my grandsire's name and live out my life. But I listened when you and the magician Maendraga spoke in the days and nights you guested on my canoe. You are right: whatever land losian dwell in becomes an object of desire for the First Men. I fear that our hold on Astraea will be short, and again end in blood.'

He sighed, then sat on his haunches and looked up into the philosopher's face. 'Bring me a map,' he said.

'A map? Of what?' Leith had never taken much notice of maps; the lines and names confused him. Phemanderac seemed equally puzzled at the request.

'Of southern Faltha,' Graig said from behind Leith's shoulder. 'Surely Instruere must have a supply of maps.'

'They will undoubtedly be in the hands of the rulers,' Phemanderac commented. 'Gone are the days when any of us could visit the Hall of Lore to search the City archives. More is the pity; for there are precious books in the library I wish to read more closely.'

'Some parchment, then?' the curly-haired man asked. 'I will try to sketch out something.'

Phemanderac was able to supply parchment, pen and ink, and seemed now to understand what the Aslaman intended. With a few bold strokes the navigator sketched out the coast south and west from the mouth of the Aleinus down to Nemohaim, then east past Tabul, Vertensia and Sarista, where his knowledge ended. Rivers he drew, and mountains; under his hand the paper came alive, and for the first time Leith could see the lie of the land represented by the map.

There on the paper was Deruys, clearly marked; inland must be the Mist, and that heavy line, like a wound on the parchment, had to be the Valley of a Thousand Fires. If he looked closely he could almost see the Company climbing out of the valley and crossing the northern borders of Astraea, which occupied a large space in the centre of the map.

From his pocket the navigator drew a paddle-shaped object, slightly smaller than a hand's-breadth, with teeth at one end. 'This is a kai-nan, a stick we use for eating,' he explained to the small group gathered around him. He placed the object on the map, and positioned it over where he had drawn Astraea; the wider, toothed end he set to the north-east, overlapping the Valley of a Thousand Fires, the narrow handle to the south-west, just touching the sea. Then he took the pen, dipped it in the ink and drew a line around the kai-nan, enclosing it. When he took his eating-stick away, the outline remained.

'This is the land we desire,' he said in a voice of utter conviction. Almost, Leith imagined, he heard the Wordweave in it. 'From the fires in the north to Cachoeira on the coast, from the Almucantaran Mountains in the east to the Escarpment in the west; this we claim as ours for all time. None from Tabul will cross the Lifeblood without our permission. None from Nemohaim will enter the Vale of Neume unless we permit it. This land shall be the price for our participation in the war against your enemies. For this price you will receive a thousand of the Pei-ra, who will fight for you unto death. Do you agree?'

Leith turned aside for a time, and gathered the rest of the Company around him. When he returned to where the Pei-ratin navigator waited patiently, he said: 'This offer is what I had hoped for, and to me it sounds good, whether you fight with us or no. For my part, and in ignorance of claims to the land, I see no argument; but there may be others, from Tabul or Nemohaim perhaps, or from your own people, who might dispute the boundary as you have drawn it. Let this document be held by the interim Council of Faltha for one year. Copies should be sent to the kingdoms

of Nemohaim and Tabul, as well as to the Sanusi and to the islands of the Aslamen. If in twelve months from today all objections can be satisfied, the boundary will be confirmed.

You shall then have a seat on the Council of Faltha, if that is your wish.'

'Then let us seal the agreement with a meal,' said the navigator. 'The Aslamen will come within the City walls and eat with the First Men. Of course,' he added wryly, 'it is only a beginning. I have no doubt many of my kin will object; but that does not make this agreement worthless. We are not a kingdom whose people must obey the word of one, wise or otherwise.

Each one will do what seems right to them. So do not be surprised if not all of my people wish to eat with you. Some, however, will come.'

Leith smiled, and waved farewell as the navigator walked proudly through the remains of the Struere Gate.

That afternoon the Company spoke to others who had been fire-touched by the Arrow, marked out as losian and as True Falthans. The Jugom Ark was less discriminating than the Company might have wished. One man turned out to be a rogue who once served the Knights of Fealty, but more recently had abandoned that high calling to become part of a roving band of thieves that plagued camel trains out of Ghadir Massab. This last item brought a scowl from Kurr, who remembered the Pass of Adrar. The tousle-haired rogue seemed reluctant to answer questions directed at uncovering why he had left the Knights of Fealty, but did tell them he was born a Wodrani, a reclusive people living in the folded hills north of Favony, far to the east of Instruere. Of the Company only Modahl knew of the Wodrani, and even he had not travelled to their hidden land.

'There are other'n like me,' the man slurred, his soft accent difficult to follow. 'We all leave'n the birth-home and find'n livin' in the Falthan lands. I took up'n with the Fealty ones. If'n you'm want'n soldiery, can't go past'n the Fealty ones.' It turned out the ill-favoured man, who went by the name of Lessep, thought he could win the aid of the Knights of Fealty to the Company's cause. 'Talk'n a lot of the Arrow, they did,' he said.

'Had'n a carvin' of it in the Meetin' hall. Picture of it on the ceilin'. Lots of pictures.' Kurr remained dubious, but knew enough not to mistrust the Arrow.

Lessep was not the only Wodrani touched by the Fire. A woman, so old her face appeared made from leather left too long in the sun, came from an ancient lineage, she told the Company. Or, at least, her sons told them, for she did not speak the common tongue. 'We will return to the Old Land,' they said. 'There are many people who look to fight in wars for money.'

'Mercenaries!' the Captain of the Guard spat in professional disgust. 'We can't rely on such as they! All I see today are the untrained and the weak, people who will be a liability on the field of battle. This is not a task for ordinary men. We need warriors, mighty men, each of whom would be worth fifty, a hundred of these!' He spread his arms wide to indicate the rabble gathered in front of the pavilion, and the crowd still waiting between the pavilion and the Gate.

'So you think this task" is beyond anyone but heroes?' Indrett asked him pointedly. 'You think the Most High made a mistake entrusting the Arrow to people like us?'

'You can carry the Arrow, but don't bother carrying a sword,' he replied in the crisp voice of a professional soldier. 'Your task is complete. It is time for others to take on the burden.

Strength, not stealth, will be our protection.'

Indrett frowned, but said nothing.

The other losian gathered by the Arrow came from various little-known parts of Faltha. None seemed very promising, certainly not the kind of people of whom the former Captain of the Instruian Guard might approve. There was a young family from a village somewhere south of Redana'a, from the harsh semi-arid steppes on the margins of Khersos, the Deep Desert. They were descended from the Sanusi of Ghadir Massab - a tale made less unlikely by their likeness to the slavers Kurr had encountered only a few weeks ago - but they had not ventured south into the desert for generations. Two or three men hailed from the deep-sided valleys of the Remparer Mountains which divided Deuverre and Asgowan from Treika to the north and west, and belonged to related clans that traced their ancestry back thousands of years. A family from Instruere itself, bemused as to why they might have been selected, protested that they were pure First Men. Eventually, however, it turned out there might have been a connection with a northern tribe that lived somewhere near Whitefang Pass, the notorious northern passage of the Remparer Mountains.

Late in the afternoon Kurr called them all together in the name of the Arrow-bearer, whose weariness had finally caught up with him. 'The young man deserves a rest,' the old farmer explained. 'This afternoon I will speak in his place.' Not everyone was happy at the news: it seemed the Arrow inspired more loyalty than those entrusted with its care. Kurr had little patience with them, and began to speak before they could mount any serious objection.

'Now is the time of sending,' he told them. 'If we are to gather any kind of army, we must send you back to your homelands in haste. Our best guess is that the army will depart Instruere in three months' time, and set forth for the

Gap, a further three months' journey. The earliest we can hope to engage the Destroyer, therefore, is in late spring. This means we must march through winter. Some of you, therefore, will be sent ahead to prepare for our passage, as our army will require food and perhaps shelter as we journey to the east. We will call upon people from the lands of Favony, Redana'a, Piskasia and Sna Vaztha to aid us in this task, as well as those of you gathered here who come from the eastern lands.

'Others of you we send home to raise a fighting force. From our Company Te Tuahangata of Hinepukohurangi, Prince Wiusago of Deruys, Geinor of Nemohaim, Modahl of Sna Vaztha and Perdu of the Fenni will journey home to their respective lands, there to entreat their sovereigns for aid. In the event that this takes longer than three months, we request that they make their way to the Gap with all possible speed, ready to reinforce us.

'Those of us who remain have our own appointed tasks to complete. We are loath to leave Instruere in the hands of traitors: there is no point in defeating the armies of Bhrudwo only to find the City stoutly held against us on our return, or razed to the ground. We give ourselves three months to wrest control of Instruere from the remnants of the Instruian Guard. On the last day of September we will leave the City, whether it is under our control or not.'

The named members of the Company came forward, bowed once to Kurr and then left. Just like that, Kurr thought, without ceremony. Their loss was hard to bear. All had shown themselves faithful and true, good friends and advisers. Perdu was a particularly heavy loss to the Company: though Kurr had spoken little to him, he admired the Fenni man's directness and humility. He had been a balance between himself and

Farr, the two mercurial antagonists, and would be missed even in the absence of the latter.

Perdu would travel north from Instruere, accompanied for the first part of his journey by Modahl, the two Wodranian families and by three men from the Remparer Mountains. A few days north of the City the others would depart for the north and the east, leaving the adopted Fenni to journey on his own to the west. Even with Wisent, who, surprisingly, had thrived in the stables they found for him, the journey would take him many weeks. Modahl's journey to Faltha's far east would take longer still.