Lord of Janissaries Read online

  “How long?” Tylara demanded. “How long until the Time?”

  “The writings are not clear,” Yanulf admitted. “The worst may not come for a dozen years. There will be other signs first. The Demon Gods will visit and offer magic in exchange for soma. Strangers will come, with strange weapons and a strange language.”

  Trakon laughed.

  Yanulf gave him a look of contempt. “It is written,” he said. “Thus came the Christians, and thus came the Legions; and thus came your forefathers. It matters not whether you believe. Before the Firestealer plunges through the True Sun five times, these things will have come to pass.”

  “Plenty of time, then,” Trakon said.

  “Nay,” Yanulf said. “When the signs are seen, all will seek refuge in the great castles. The petty wars you fight now will be forgotten as those who have built castles upon bare rock know their folly and bring their armies to strike. Soon, soon all will know that there is no safety beyond the caves of the Protectors.”

  Tylara let them talk, half-listening in case one said something new. There was little chance of that. The situation was simple enough, if you left out religion.

  But dared she? The priesthood of Yatar was universal. Whatever local gods might hold this land or that, Yatar was everywhere that humans lived. In her own land were ice caves, deep beneath the rocks, and sacrifices of grain and meat were taken there to be preserved against the days of Burning, even though few believed in the tales carried by the priesthood. If the Time approached—a time of storms when no ship sailed, and the seas rose to lap at the foothills; when Tamaerthon itself became an island; when fire fell from the sky; a time when rains would not fall, and then deadly rains fell in torrents—

  She had heard the tales. No one she knew believed them except for the priesthood. Yet everyone knew of them.

  But there was time. Religion could wait. And for the rest the situation was simple enough. Wanax Loron had not been a good ruler, and three years before his death civil war had broken out. The bheromen who fought him had justice on their side. Even Chelm had wavered, closing the gates of Dravan against Wanax Loron when he sought refuge from the bheromen, yet never quite joining the revolt either. That had been under Lamil’s father, before plague took him.

  (Plague. The legends said that as the Demon Star approached, the plague ran through the land; and certainly the plague struck every year now, with more killed each time. . . .)

  But Loron had hired mercenaries and had driven the bheromen back and back, until the great ones of the land had done the unpardonable thing and invited outside help. They had offered the crown of Drantos to Sarakos son of Toris, Sarakos in his own right one of the Five Wanaxxae, and son of Toris High Rexja of the Five.

  Before the invasion began, Loron died; but Drantos was left with a boy king and depleted treasury. When the bheromen rallied to their new Wanax with one of their number as Protector, they were too late. Sarakos continued to press his claims. Twenty years before, the council of Drantos had arranged a royal marriage between Lana of Drantos, sister to Wanax Loron’s father, and Toris Wanax High Rexja of the Five. It had been a brilliant diplomatic stroke, but now Sarakos could claim the throne of Drantos by blood, as the most legitimate adult claimant. A few minutes with a pillow would make him the only possible claimant.

  And who could blame some of the bheromen for preferring Sarakos and peace to a boy king and war? Especially now, with the Demon growing visibly brighter in the night sky, and the priests of Yatar reading from their musty books and telling of the Time which would come. These were no times for a boy king. If only Lamil had joined Sarakos! He would be alive, and he—

  “I say we fight.” The accent was uncultured—the blacksmith at the foot of the table. “I have heard how they live in the Five. Better be dead for one such as me. Is my forge to be used to hammer slave collars for my friends?”

  “Well said,” Bheroman Trakon said. “Aye. Well said. For our honor, then. Yet—honor does not demand that we hold after all is lost. I say fight, and I will be on the walls; but when Sarakos brings up towers and siege engines, I say make the best bargain we can. For all of us.”

  “You may bargain, my lord,” the blacksmith said. “But when the Demon stands high in the day sky, what do we folk do? Sarakos would like well enough to hold Castle Dravan for his people, but will he take my family into the cool of the donjon?”

  “If he will not swear to that, then I make no bargain with him,” Trakon said. “We of Chelm protect our own, even against the gods. But I think you fear too much the tales of the priesthood.”

  “When the Demon grows large and sky fire falls, you will regret those words,” Yanulf said.

  “We fight,” Tylara said. “For the rest we must wait, but we fight. See to the defenses. And bring all who wish to come within the walls. Have the herds we cannot bring inside driven into the mountains. Leave nothing to sustain Sarakos. Nothing to eat. Hide all wealth. Cover and hide the very wells. Let Sarakos find our land unpleasant for his stay.”

  “It is evil to destroy food,” Yanulf said. “Evil.”

  There was muttering from the low end of the table, but the peasantry could see it was necessary. One of the guild masters spoke for all the townsmen and crofters. “Do we make it hard enough, he may depart, leaving our own as our masters.” He fingered his neck. “It will take a heavy collar to circle this. I cannot wish to carry such.”

  “See to it,” Tylara repeated.

  “Aye, Lady,” Captain Camithon said. He paused until the bheromen were leaving, but had not gone so far that they could not hear him. “The young lord made no mistake in his choice. You’re more of a man than half the bheromen of Drantos.”

  * * *

  The great hall was empty except for Tylara and her archer commander. Cadaric was almost as old as Captain Camithon. His skin was tanned by wind and sun until his cheeks were cracked like worn leather. He wore the jerkin and kilts of his own people; they had never cared for trousers. “You’ve made no mistake, Lady,” he said. He seemed pleased. “We’ll show these westerners what Tamaerthon shafts can do.”

  “Until we have shot them all,” Tylara said. Now that the others were gone, she could slump in her chair. She seemed smaller and more vulnerable. She was afraid, and there was no need to hide that from Cadaric. He had known her from the day she was born, and had served her brother and her father before him. There was no one else within five hundred leagues whom she could trust completely. “I’ve brought you here to be killed in a strange land, old friend.”

  He shrugged. “And will that be worse than to be killed at home? I doubt not the Chooser can find me here as easily as in our mountains. When it is time to guest in his lodge, then guest you will. And yet,” he mused, “and yet the Day father holds higher sway here. Do you think old One-eye has lost sight of this land? It would be pleasant to know.”

  “They say he sees the wide world,” Tylara said. “Cadaric, I think they trust me not.”

  “They know you not. You are a young girl to them, and all they know is that their lad chose you. And because he did, they love you. Och, Lady, I know you mourn him.”

  And that was more than true. Tylara touched her cheeks, determined not to let the tears start again. A widow before she was properly a bride. It was the stuff the minstrels sang of.

  Certainly Lamil had loved her. Eqeta of Chelm, one of the great counts of Drantos, he could have had his choice of a hundred ladies; but his ship had been wrecked on the rocky Tamaerthon coast, and after a summer (overly warm—could the priests be right?) he chose the daughter of a Tamaerthon chief. Tylara had no dowry, nothing to bring to the marriage—only two hundred archers, and a hundred of them free to leave after five years’ service—but Lamil had chosen her above the great ones of his homeland.

  She had loved to watch him; young and strong, calf muscles as hard as granite and standing out like thick cords from his slim legs. He browned to a deep copper in the sun. At night they ran on high ridges lit b
y the Firestealer. By day he laughed in the surf, climbed high on the ledges above the sea in search of young eagles. And he had laughed. Those were her favorite memories, of his laughter; laughing and swearing that he would have no other but her when she knew it could not be, laughing again at the furor he caused in rejecting the great ladies of Drantos and the Five.

  And yet—it had been no silly match. Tylara brought nothing—and did not give anyone cause to fear an expanded county of Chelm. If no great lady caught the most eligible man in Drantos, then there were no jealousies. Yet she knew he had loved her.

  She was married to him before he left Tamaerthon, but she was too young to go with him. The law required that the marriage be “consummated,” and so it had been, but with a thick quilt between them in the wedding bed, and her father’s dour henchmen standing by through the night.

  And for a winter, while the Firestealer plunged through the True Sun, she had made ready to go to her new home, to join this strong and handsome young husband. She sang the winter through until her father pretended disgust that she could be so happy to leave. In spring, when shadows stood doubled at noon and the ice was thin, she sailed north with the yearly merchant fleet, too strong for pirates to molest. They sailed north, then west through the chain of islands and swamps, and then upriver. When they landed, she was so eager that she set out the same day. She drove so hard that her maidservants were exhausted and the archers muttered ribaldries.

  They reached Castle Dravan only hours ahead of the news. Lamil had chosen to stand with the boy Wanax Ganton. There had been a great battle, and Lamil was dead. Most of his troops had died covering the retreat of the boy king and the Protector. Captain Camithon told her that the Eqeta had charged Sarakos and struck him on the helmet before the guards beat him from his saddle. A dozen men had held him while Sarakos personally delivered the death stroke.

  “I mourn him,” Tylara said, and there was ice in her voice. “Have your fletchers make true shafts, Cadaric. We will teach this Sarakos what plumage the Tamaerthon gull wears.”

  2

  There were none but fighting men in the great hall of Castle Dravan. The council was not needed; and now Cadaric and three subcaptains of archers sat at the table among the knights and bheromen.

  They all stood respectfully when Tylara entered. If the bheromen resented her archers sitting as equals to armored knights, they kept that to themselves. Their lady had shown how sharp her tongue could be during the few weeks that she’d been with them—and they had seen what those shafts could do. They waited until she was seated at the head of the table. Then all began to speak at once.

  “Hold! Silence!” Bheroman Trakon pounded the table with a dagger hilt. “That’s better.” He smiled at her. “My lady.”

  She nodded her thanks. Trakon had been most attentive lately. His wife had died of the plague ten months ago. He was twice her age—but only that, and handsome enough. Certainly she could not remain a virgin ruler of this county forever. She would never find another like Lamil, and Trakon would do as well as another when her mourning period ended. But so soon, so soon—

  “They come, Lady,” Captain Camithon said. “Two days’ march to the north.”

  “Two days if they’re lucky,” Trakon said. “They’re so swollen with plunder, they’re lucky to march two thousand paces an hour.”

  “But all of them?” Tylara asked.

  “Aye, Lady,” Cadaric said. He glared at the others, ready to resent any objection that a mere Tamaerthon archer would speak. But there was only silence. Trakon, Cadaric, and Camithon had seen the advancing enemy, and the others had not. “I counted five hundred banners in their vanguard alone.”

  “You scouted the land well?” Tylara asked.

  “Aye, Lady,” Cadaric said. “It’s more than suitable. We could blunt them, aye and blood them as well, and not lose a handful were it done well.”

  More babble. Trakon pounded for order again. One of the knights shouted. “Blunt them? What madness is this?”

  Tylara noted Trakon’s grim smile. He had not been too proud to listen to Cadaric as they rode back from scouting. A good man, she thought.

  “The passes are narrow,” Tylara said. “The maps remind me of my home. In narrow passes one man is the worth of ten—”

  “Narrow they are, but not that narrow,” Captain Camithon said. He sounded hurt. Strategy was a matter for professionals, not for girls hardly old enough to bed lawfully. “Do we stand in the passes with our hundred lances, we would blood Sarakos, aye, but then his strength would ride over us. Then who would there be to defend Dravan?”

  Trakon’s grin widened. “Our lady does not propose a stand,” he said.

  “Then what in the twelfth name of Yatar are we talking about?” Camithon demanded.

  Cadaric grinned. “It is plain that you in the west have not heard the tales of how Tamaerthon won freedom from Ta-Hakos and the other greedy ones about us,” he said. “I propose to have a ballad sung for you. With my lady’s permission?”

  Tylara nodded, and before there could be any protest one of the younger archers began to sing.

  There were mutterings at first, but the boy’s voice was good. They listened in silence, not trying to hide their astonishment at this intrusion in a council of war. As the song went on, Camithon leaned forward eagerly and Bheroman Trakon began to grin broadly. Before the ballad ended, the knights and captains were huddled over the map. For the first time in weeks, there were shouts of laughter in the great hall.

  * * *

  Tylara sat astride her horse. This in itself was shocking enough; but worse, she rode no gentle mare but a great stallion—a war-horse any knight would be proud to own. She sat atop a small knoll, surrounded by a dozen men-at-arms and as many archers.

  This was the price she paid for coming herself to the battle. She had never got her people to agree to that—but she’d come anyway, and no one dared lay hands on her. One soldier, ordered by Trakon to seize her bridle and lead her back inside Castle Dravan, would bear the welt from her riding crop for weeks. She must see at least one blow struck against the man who had killed her husband.

  Below were not only all her fighting men, but hundreds of peasants with brush hooks and axes. They were using these to cut the low scraggly wax-stalks from the hillside and carry them into the pass. For five hundred paces from the top of the pass to where it widened below, the narrow road was carpeted with the newly cut brush. More was piled high to either side.

  Bheromen and knights and men-at-arms waited where the pass widened a hundred paces beyond the last brushpile. The armored knights sat on the ground, giving their mounts ease until they would be needed. A few polished mail and plate. Others threw dice.

  About half the knights were mounted on horses. The others rode centaurs; not as reliable as horses, harder to tame, and more likely to bolt when threatened. Horses were far superior, but they were more costly. They had to be fed cultivated grains and hay; they could not live by grazing.

  Priestly legend said that horses, like men, were brought to this place by evil gods. This did not seem reasonable, but like the other tales of ships in the sky, the story was universal. “Why else,” the priests said, “must we labor so hard to eat, if the Dayfather intended us to live here?” They said that the stars were suns, and the wanderers other worlds, one of which was the true home of men. Whether or not the stories were true, men were more comfortable with horses than with centaurs, and she wished that more of her knights rode them.

  Between the top of the pass and the broader area where her knights waited, the pass was quite narrow—no more than a hundred paces wide at one point. The hills rose steeply on either side. One of the peasants went up into that area with his brush hook. Before he could cut any of the upthrust stalks, a dozen voices halted him.

  “Not here, you Dayfather-damned fool!” A guild journeyman ran up to show the brushcutter the proper place. It was important that there be no signs of activity on the hill above the narrow pass—


  A horseman clattered over the top of the ridge. He drew his sword and waved it vigorously. “Enemy in sight,” an officer muttered. Tylara nodded.

  The knights and men-at-arms climbed to their feet, clumsy in their armor, and helped each other mount. This took time. The armor was heavy, and centaurs resented heavy burdens; although a few were so well trained that they assisted their riders. Before all were mounted, Tylara, from her vantage point, saw the leading elements of Sarakos’ army.

  The Wanax had deployed well. There were only fighting men in the van, and when the pass began to narrow, they fell into column in good order, not pushing each other or crowding together. Horsemen led; then a group mounted on centaurs; then more horsemen. They climbed the twisting road into the pass twenty abreast—a long column—lances high with banners fluttering in the chill morning wind.

  The group behind was not so orderly. Carts drawn by mules and arrocks, crossbowmen mingled with spearmen, camp followers, cooks, prostitutes, and priests all mixed together.

  A trumpet sounded, and Camithon’s heavy cavalrymen trotted forward over the piled brush toward the top of the pass. They raised their banners. The brushcutters scrambled away behind them, down and onto the road, running back to Dravan, raising a thin cloud of dust as they ran.

  Another trumpet sounded from the leaders of Sarakos’ army, and the column halted. The group behind became even more disorganized as the marching horde piled onto one another. Trailing elements caught up and mingled with the leaders. Pity, Tylara thought. If the knights could get among that press for ten minutes, Wanax Sarakos would feel the losses. But the lead group was not disorganized, and it outnumbered her entire army.

  Once again she felt doubts and fear, and she looked up into the vault of reddish-blue sky above, searching for a sign. But there was none. A cloudless cold day in the mountains; rare enough, the Dayfather showing himself in all his glory—but he showed no signs of favor. Would he care? Or would the ancient One-eye govern the day, choosing the most valiant to be slain, sending victory by whim?