The Warrior King: Book Three of the Seer King Trilogy (15 page)

“You never give us your name.”

“Damastes,” I said, looking at them carefully, needing to see the response. “Damastes á Cimabue.”

Their eyes widened, and two jerked off their caps, and a third reflexively clapped one hand to his shoulder in remembered salute.

“Sorry, sir,” one said. “We di’n’t recognize you, and — ”

“Fiddleshit,” I said rudely. “Put your caps back on. Right now, I’m no more than a wanderer like you. But I know where I’m going, at least for now. Amur. To join the rebels.”

The five exchanged looks, and the one I’d argued with the night before grinned ruefully.

“At least you made us an offer. More’n we’ve had lately. But no. We’re not hurting that much.”

“No,” I agreed. “But Numantia is.” I turned my horse. “Good luck to you all, no matter where you go.”

I rode off and quickly outpaced them.

• • •

The other sort I encountered wasn’t that different than the ex-soldiers, except few were armed with anything but cudgels and the stray hunting bow or spear. The closer I came to Amur, the more of them I encountered. Most were young, in their early to midteens, but a handful were my age or older.

Some were well dressed, some ragged. All of them had a single destination: the rebel army.

Rebels was the term used, although it wasn’t a good one, but how else could you describe those who wanted neither the Grand Council and Maisir to rule nor the emperor? Some wanted to enlist for excitement or even that age-old draw of a full belly and new clothes. They didn’t realize once fighting began, they’d likely be even more ragged and starved than now. But I said nothing.

Some wanted to enlist because they hated the emperor, either because of some wrong his minions had done or, as often, because one of their own had died or been mutilated in the stupidity of the Maisirian campaign.

But the oddest of all was a group of young men who galloped, on line, down a grassy hillside toward me one morning.

There were about half a hundred of them and they were quite spectacular, mounted on matching grays, and they wore a uniform I’d never seen before: green busbys, a similarly colored jacket with gold frogs and epaulettes, black pants stuffed into black boots. They were well armed, all with lance and saber, and the man riding behind their leader carried a guidon with a device I couldn’t make out.

I had no idea who they were, nor why they’d decided to ride at me. If they intended harm, there was little I could do, but I loosened my sword in its sheath. I’d decided, as I rode away from the ruins in Cimabue, I’d no more kneel to man or demon, nor would I permit myself to be taken captive.

Saionji could provide no more soul-deadening punishment after I returned to the Wheel than the degradation I’d twice known as a prisoner.

But the lances of the charging horsemen stayed vertical, nor did any of them draw steel. I noted with a bit of amusement most had enough of a task staying on their horses, as the field wasn’t nearly as level as it looked.

“Turn!” the man in front shouted, and the horsemen swept in a semicircle until they faced away from me, and I wondered if they were going to ride back uphill as pell-mell as they came.

“And …
HALT
!” The formation, with much rearing of horses and shouts from their riders, did as ordered, wheeling until they faced me once more.

“Your pardon,” the man called, “for using you for practice. But there’ve been few riders on this road today.” He was in his mid-twenties, well built, medium height, dark complected, and wore a heavy moustache that framed his mouth to below his chin.

“No injury,” I shouted back. “But, if you’re interested, the commands are ‘On line, charge,’ then, when you wish to turn your formation, ‘Wheel right or left,’ in whichever direction you’ve decided. And you might want to find yourself a bugler or two. Saves the voice.”

The man reacted, then kicked his horse toward me.

“You’re a cavalryman?” he began, then gaped. “Sir! You’re First Tribune á Cimabue. I thought you were dead, or a prisoner … no, I heard you’d made your escape. Forgot it for a moment, not being one with a quick memory.”

“I’m Damastes á Cimabue,” I said. “But not first tribune for anyone.”

“Yessir! I saw you once before, sir, when I was very young, and you rode through our lands with your Red Lancers. You were on the way to Bala Hissar, I think. I never saw anything so magnificent. That’s when I knew I was going to be a warrior.”

“You have the advantage,” I said, through his cheerful burble. I certainly didn’t remember him, for when I was the emperor’s fireman I was constantly on the move, and many were the noblemen who wanted to feast me and my men, whether out of patriotism or the hope that it would further endear them to the emperor.

“Oh. Oh yes. I’m Lasleigh, Baron Pilfern of Stowe. And these are my men. I raised the company, outfitted it, and we’re on our way to enlist.”

“With which side?” I wondered.

“Why, there’s but one,” he said, in astonishment. “The rebels, of course, although I wish they’d find a nobler name.”

That surprised me a bit. Then I remembered the hatred the rural nobility had for the emperor, mainly for upsetting the nice, comfortable idiocy of the generations-old Rule of Ten and not letting them rule their lands as if there was no other authority in Numantia.

Nor would this Lasleigh have backed the Grand Council, since it was the puppet of the hated Maisirians.

“Good,” I said. “For I have the same goal.”

“Sir! Would you do me … do us … the honor of riding with us?”

“Why not?” I said with some amusement. “It will be good to be back among soldiers again.”

Lasleigh looked embarrassed.

“I don’t know if we’re soldiers … at least not yet,” he said in a low voice so his men wouldn’t overhear. “But we’re learning. Trying to teach ourselves. Maybe you could give us some help.”

“Gladly,” I said. “Teaching always cleans the rust away, and I suspect I’ll need to be fairly sharp in the days to come.”

Lasleigh stood in his stirrups. “Men! Raise a cheer for the First … for Damastes á Cimabue!”

The men bellowed lustily, and I had fifty traveling companions.

• • •

I rapidly realized this was good, for Lasleigh’s eager questions forced me out of my broodings. I wondered if I’d been as prattling an idiot as he was when I was a fresh subaltern, decided not, for my father Cadalso had taught me enthusiasm is well and good … at the proper time and place.

But I attempted to answer his questions and those of his underlings. They were sure I’d be in command of the new army, which was probably correct. But I disavowed any ambition except to what I was assigned, for all too often the army — any army — says one thing and changes its mind the next moment.

I did have a question of my own that first day — why hadn’t Lasleigh joined the Imperial Army, when every man was needed in Maisir? He was terribly embarrassed and said he was the eldest son, and his father refused to allow the bloodline to be endangered. I kept an even countenance, for this wasn’t a unique idea, the old baronies’ thinking the continuation of their own line came before anything, even their country.

“But he allowed my younger brother to join,” Lasleigh said. “He was accepted by the Twentieth Heavy Cavalry.”

Again my face showed nothing.

Lasleigh looked away, suddenly fascinated by a rather ordinary-looking bullock grazing in a paddy.

“He did well,” Lasleigh said. “He went in, just before the emperor began the retreat from Jarrah, and joined his regiment after the army’d come back into Numantia. The last letter we had from him said he’d been promoted to captain, and that was in just a couple of months.”

That wasn’t all that remarkable — in those desperate days, a man who showed any leadership would be promoted faster than he could take the rank sashes from the bodies of his dead superiors.

“Then … then was Cambiaso.” Lasleigh choked.

If Lasleigh’s brother had ridden out with the Twentieth, just behind me and the Seventeenth Lancers, on the day of blood, the day when Saionji’s laughter shook the land, and her sword blades were drenched with blood …

“I miss him,” Lasleigh said after a moment. “He was always there, and it was more like having a friend, a real friend, than a brother.”

I changed the subject. “Your father wouldn’t let you serve. But now?”

“Now I am Baron Pilfern,” Lasleigh said, “and there’s no one to tell me nay. And I have a blood debt to settle with that man who was our emperor and wishes to drown us in gore again.”

I could have said Lasleigh was standing in a very long line but didn’t.

• • •

We came to a crossroads a couple of days later, where we should have turned due east to enter Amur, but Lasleigh said his course lay a day’s travel farther south. There was something he must see.

“Cambiaso?” I guessed.

Lasleigh nodded.

I should have left him and rode on alone, for it’s not good for a warrior to spend too much time considering his scars and defeats. But I did not, and we rode on south.

It was hot as we moved across the near-desert, and the creaking of our harness was loud around us. There was a sere wind whispering, and the occasional chirping of locusts.

We made camp beside a swampy creek. There was nothing to fear in this dead land, but for some reason we put out sentries.

The next morning, we rode on, and the rocky heights rose in front of us, the heights the Numantian Army held before making that last charge. I saw it again in my mind, saw the banners as the army roared down, even heard the screams of men fighting, dying.

But the present was as terrible as the past, for the battleground had never been shriven of its terrors. The bodies had been left where they fell on that dreadful day, and the wounded who couldn’t drag themselves to succor had been left to die.

Numantia had an excuse — we were defeated, most of us down in our blood, the rest prisoners herded into staked compounds before being released to make their way to whatever home was left. But Maisir, as I’d seen, cared little for any man who couldn’t continue to fight.

The bodies had been left to rot under the dry sun. Wild animals had done what they could over the years, and the wild grasses were growing to hide man’s shame. But there were few beasts in this wilderness, and the grasses grew slowly.

Bones still littered the ground like driftwood I’d seen on a stormy beach on my island prison. Here and there were shattered spears, swords, bits and pieces of armor.

Lasleigh and his men were silent as they looked at this awful desolation, more terrible than any bard’s tale of war’s ruination.

Finally he said, “If … if I’d thought to bring a wizard, perhaps he could have divined my brother’s resting place, and we could have had a proper ceremony.”

“No,” I said gently. “His spirit’s gone to the Wheel, and if he was a good officer, as he must’ve been, wouldn’t he want his bones to lie with his men?”

Lasleigh nodded solemn agreement. “Yes,” he said. “He would. There’s much I have to learn.”

I didn’t reply, but dropped the lead of my pack animals and let my mount canter forward slowly.

I’ve heard old soldiers say when they revisit a battlefield it’s never as they remembered it. But this wasteland was just as I recalled. Here were the Maisirian front lines, here where we’d struck and broken through, riding hard toward that rise, a rise hidden on that day by banners and tents.

Here was where our charge had been broken, and we’d fought on, afoot, toward the king’s tents on the rise. Demons had come at us, demons with the faces of brave Numantians slain in Maisir. But it was too late for horror, and we’d cut them down as we killed mortal soldiers.

I was out of the saddle, not noticing, walking forward, remembering, and the din of battle was all around, and my sword arm was slashing back, forth, killing, even though now, in this silence, it was really motionless at my side.

Here was where the Maisirian tents had been, and here was where the
azaz,
the chief wizard of Maisir, the man who’d put a spell on me and forced me to kill Karjan, had come from his tent. I’d drawn my dagger, the silver-mounted knife Yonge of the Hills had given me as a wedding present, and thrown it well, into the
azaz
’s guts and seen him go down, screaming.

The moment was very clear now. I was walking very slowly, moving as though I was ensorcelled, and I saw something, half-buried. I bent, picked it up, and saw without the slightest surprise that I was holding Yonge’s dagger.

The blade was rusty, the silver tarnished, the multicolored woods that mosaiced its handle chipped here and there.

This was completely impossible. Why had no one picked it up, as a memento or as a symbol of that dark moment when Maisir’s greatest magician, King Bairan’s closest adviser, had been killed?

Impossible.

Yet I held it in my hand.

I felt my lips curl into a strange smile.

I tucked the dagger into my belt. It could be polished, waxed, and a sheath made for it. I still needed it.

There was still blood for it to drink.

It would be a worthy companion to my father’s sword.

I turned, saw Lasleigh sitting his horse about twenty feet behind me. He flinched, arm coming up as if to block a blow, and I knew my expression was terrible.

I said nothing, but walked to where my horse waited.

We mounted and rode away from the nightmare of Cambiaso, no one speaking.

A day later, we crossed into Amur, and four days after that we found the rebel army.

Kutulu and Sinait made much of my coming. I must become commander in chief, and all units must be informed immediately.

I said not yet. There were things I needed to know before I made a final decision.

First was our strength. They told me we now had, and this was changing daily, about half a million men wanting to fight, still scattered across Amur. This was very good, a fivefold increase in a time, so our cause was popular.