Daughter of Lir (13 page)

o0o

They rode slantwise from the track of the march, crossing
the scouts’ trails. They found the marks of many hooves converging toward a
single point, but they moved aside from that. They were not hunting the mass of
tribes arrayed against the People, not as few as they were, light-armed,
without chariots. They were raiding, harrying stragglers, bringing fear where
and as they could.

Dias had not come with them. Minas’ right side felt oddly
naked. But there were others to guard his back, and they were all strong
fighters. They would do.

One trail drew him more strongly than the others. There were
maybe a score of riders, which would match his own company well enough, and
they were riding as if they strove for stealth. They were spying on the People,
maybe, and if the hoofprints that came and went were as he thought, they were
bringing word to the gathered tribes of what they had seen.

Minas hoped that they were well and truly frightened. The
People were the scourge of the world. Tribes of sense or foresight knew it.
They surrendered if they were prudent, or fled if they were truly wise. Only
the fools and the brave dared to fight.

They had been fighting more often since he was small. Metos
said that the world was growing too narrow; that there was not room for every
tribe. Nor was the sea of grass endless, as many of the People believed. It had
limits, and they were reaching the westward edge of it.

Then they would have conquered it all, from the wall of the
world to the river of souls. And perhaps beyond, if Metos’ trader had spoken
the truth.

Minas turned his mind from these high matters to one rather
more pressing. The track he followed was fresh. The sun was sinking; a scouting
party might think to camp, if it did not know itself pursued.

He called his men together. “We’ll let them camp,” he said,
“and eat and drink. When they’re well on their way to sleep, we’ll take them.”

“Alive?” asked Kletas. He was bloody-minded but cold in
battle: an alarming enemy, but a strong ally.

“Leave one or two for questioning,” Minas answered him.
“Aias, Borias, if there are guards, dispose of them. Zenon, see to their
horses.”

They were all quick to obedience. The camp was close, secreted
in a fold of earth near a bit of river. Wiser or warier men would have camped
on high ground so that no enemy could fall upon them, but these must reckon
themselves safe.

They were lolling about their hollow. One or two were even
splashing in the little river. They were well-fleshed for so early in the year,
soft and fair-skinned young men in richly woven fabrics, ornamented with gold
and the gleam of colored stones.

The People were rich. They had conquered tribes as wealthy
as any man could imagine, and won booty so vast that it seemed as common as the
grass underfoot. But these easygoing raiders were wealthy even by the reckoning
of the People.

He who came up from the river with an armful of cloth and
gold was perhaps a prince. His hair was very long and plaited in many plaits,
and his beard hung to his broad breast, wound with threads of gold and copper.
He was a big man but light on his feet, and he was dark as these westerners
increasingly often were: a black-haired man, but very white of skin. Maybe a
woman would reckon him good to look at.

Minas marked this handsome man for himself, even before he
saw what the man carried. He had a long knife, as long as his forearm, in an
elaborately tooled and chased scabbard. When he laid his belongings by the fire
that one of the others had built, he kept the long knife by him.

The camp settled to eat the young deer that roasted on a
spit over the fire, and to drink from skins that emptied as the day waned and
the light drained out of the sky. The prince took first share of the meat and
first swallow of the drink—whatever it was; kumiss most likely. When he had had
his fill, the others were just beginning.

He drew out a stone then and a bit of soft leather, and drew
the long knife. It gleamed in the firelight, bright as gold.

Minas’ breath caught. The blade was bronze. It put to shame
the sliver of a thing that Metos had shown him. It was more beautiful than
gold. Its master honed it as he watched avidly, drawing the stone down the edge
in long loving strokes.

He took a long time about it. It was a precious thing, and
clearly he cherished it.

Minas wanted it. His belly was sick with yearning. It was
all he could do not to leap screaming out of his hiding place.

But he waited, because he had learned to be wise. He watched
the foreign prince hone his sword till it gleamed. And when he had done that,
he drew a shorter knife that was also of bronze, and honed that, too.

One might have thought that he knew there was a battle
coming. Or maybe there was a woman waiting for him in the gathering of his
tribes, and he made even his weapons beautiful for her.

o0o

The darkness fell. The camp settled slowly. Minas was
aware of all of it, but his spirit was caught in the bronze. He would have it,
both knife and sword.

A small niggling voice observed that such a prize would by
right go to the king. If he kept it, he would commit an act of defiance that
might not be forgiven.

It did not matter. He would have these things. He would not
surrender them to the thing that walked in the king’s body.

It seemed the enemy would roister the night away. But at
long last, as the stars wheeled toward the middle night, it was time. A soft
rumbling in the earth, retreating eastward, gave the signal. Zenon had driven
off the horses.

Close upon this, the call of a nightbird sounded thrice. The
guards were down. Minas’ lips stretched back from his teeth.

He surged to his feet, slipped quickly back to the place
where his horse drowsed hipshot, swung astride. The stallion roused with a
snort and half-reared. Minas laughed. With a high fierce cry, he sent his horse
leaping on the camp.

They had taken the foreigners utterly by surprise. But these
were warriors, however soft they had seemed—and their captain was armed with
bronze. They were fierce in defense.

Minas’ blade was a princely thing, copper honed to the best
edge he could give it. The keen bronze hewed it in two. He was mad, he knew as
he did it: he grappled with the western prince, body to body, snatching at his
belt. The prince twisted. Minas lunged. The bronze knife sprang into his hand.

It pierced the man’s breast as if it had been fine curded
cheese. He felt it pierce the heart, and the heart leap, protesting.

The prince fell. The knife caught in his breastbone. Minas
wrenched at it. It tore free. He whipped about. The man who stooped over him
fell with blood spurting from his throat.

Minas swept back and around, caught the hilt of the sword
from the dead prince’s hand, and whirled into the thick of the fight.

With bronze in his hand, he was like a god. Blades of
copper, blades of flint, notched and shattered. Bronze mastered them all.

For all Minas’ fine intentions, they left no one alive in
that camp. The bronze had thirsted; he had slaked it. It was sated with blood.

He wiped the blades with the well-woven cloth of the
prince’s coat, and honed them with the stone that had been in the prince’s bag.
He sheathed them in the prince’s fine tooled scabbards and slipped them through
his own belt. He rose up then and began to sing. His voice rang like bronze; it
clashed like blades. It proclaimed to the stars that he was victorious.

They took rich booty from that camp, even as small as it
had been. The enemy had been laden with gold, fine fabrics, beautifully wrought
leather. The horses were fat and sleek, handsome stallions with long gleaming
manes.

And these had been raiders, outriders. The tribes themselves
must be glorious in their wealth.

Minas brought his men and his prizes to the king as was
proper. Even, in the end, the most precious of all. He was a fool, maybe, but a
loyal fool. The king was the king, whatever walked in his flesh.

The king was in his golden chariot, gleaming amid the throng
of the People. Young men and boys whooped to see Minas come back with his
raiders, trailing gold and bright weavings.

Dias circled his chariot round to Minas’ side. His grin was
swift and brilliant and a little rueful. His slowness had cost him a splendid
fight.

Minas led his men to his father. He could see no one he knew
in that tall masked figure, but it was still the king. He willed himself to
remember that. “My lord,” he said, “we bring you spoils of battle.”

The king’s shadowed eyes passed over the gold, the weavings,
the fine trappings for men and horses. The horses scarce won a glance. And the
blades, the beautiful bronze blades—Minas’ breath came shallow and quick.

The king passed them by as if they had been of no account.
He laid his hand on nothing, made no move to claim any of it.

It struck the People somewhat sooner than it struck Minas,
what the king seemed to have done. They roared in approval. Kingly generosity,
to leave his warriors all their spoils—even gold.

They did not know what the sword and the knife were. Did the
king? There was no telling. Nor was Minas going to test it. He took them back
quietly, leaving the rest where it lay, and let anyone take it who pleased to.

o0o

That night’s camp was a war-camp. They were within a day’s
ride of the enemy’s gathering. The scouts had come in with word: the enemy was
aware of them. But none of those great warriors would come here, for the People
had camped in a circle of barrows, tombs of old kings. They feared no spirits
of outland chieftains; their magic was stronger, their spirits unshakable.

Tonight, while the spirits fluttered and chittered helplessly,
they made the war-magic, the dancing and singing, the painting of bodies,
shaving of faces. The king’s men shaped their hair into high crests. Those who
could, tumbled with willing women—and sometimes a husband or father caught
them, and there was blood to consecrate the warriors’ riding to the battle.

No one caught Minas. He had his pick of the young women on
any night—they were all eager to lie with the king’s son. But tonight, after
his raid, not a shadow but was full of soft words and burning eyes. Hands
reached out of tents to brush him as he walked by.

One or two did more than that. Most wicked of all was the
one who caught him by the belt and stopped him short, then caught him by quite
another and far less harmless handhold. He stood rooted.

This was Red Keraunos’ tent. The hands must belong to one of
his myriad daughters. Minas grinned to himself. They were all as fiery as their
hair, and wonderfully wicked.

He slid hands up beneath the coarse fabric of the cloak that
she wore.

Bare flesh heated at his touch. She wore nothing under the
concealing cloak, not even a loincloth.

Her belly was soft, her secret hair thick and moist. She
rocked against his hand. The other moved upward to cup a full soft breast. Her
nipple was large and hard.

She drew him into the dimness of the tent. Whispers
surrounded him, but this was a sheltered corner. They were alone in it.

She took him into herself with eagerness that left him
gasping. He had bruises from the fight; cuts, small wounds. They ached or
stung. Then he forgot them.

She ate him alive. She drained him dry. She took all his
power to herself, and restored it a hundredfold through the medium of her body.

This was as sacred a magic as any of the exiled shamans
could have worked. Minas left her on legs that buckled at the knees, but his
spirit was strong—wonderfully so. He laughed and danced, staggering a little,
grinning at the stars.

It was some long while before he realized that he did not
know which of the daughters it was. He had never seen her face.

o0o

He went where he had been going when Keraunos’ daughter
distracted him. Metos’ forge was lit and roaring. His apprentices were mending
weapons for men who had left it to the last moment, and seeing to the chariots,
making certain that they were ready for battle.

Metos had been in the midst of them: he was stripped for the
forge, but the sweat had dried on his body. He sat with his daughter inside of
his tent, with the flap lifted to catch the light of his campfire.

Aera smiled at her son. Metos frowned as he always did.

Minas carefully kept his face still. He knelt in front of
his mother and his grandfather, and laid the sword and the dagger at their
feet.

Metos leaned forward. He took up the knife, balancing it
between his hands, and breathed out slowly. “The king’s wife knows nothing of
bronze,” he said.

“And we are fortunate for that.” Aera bent over the sword.
She did not touch it, but she peered along the length of its blade. “This makes
war a terrible thing.”

Minas shivered lightly. He felt anew the ease of blade
cleaving flesh and slipping past bone.

“War is already terrible,” Metos said. “We have chariots.”

“Chariots and bronze.” Aera sighed. “The gods will grow
greedy, with so much blood to feed on.”

Women never understood war—even Aera, who understood
everything else. “We will feed the gods,” Minas said.

“You’ll feed the witch who rules the king,” she said. She
clasped her arms about herself as if with a sudden chill. “He’s growing
stranger. He never shows his face to the sun now. He goes masked to his wives’
beds.”

“Yours?” Minas could not keep a growl out of his voice.

“And if he did,” she said austerely, “that would be no
affair of yours.” Minas looked down. He never could resent her, even when she
brought him down from prince and victor to jealous child.

“I think,” said Aera in his chastened silence, “that you may
do well to prepare yourself. This battle you go to, it will—decide things. Both
on the field and in the camp.”