Gods of Nabban (41 page)

“Yeh-Lin? Your mother chose you an ill-omened name.” An appraising look, a curl of the lip. Was his youth and high rank a sign of competence, or was he some kin of the general's? Or promoted for an apparent lack of ambition, perhaps, but there was a cunning in his study of her, a calculation. Miscalculation. The look assessed and dismissed her. “I'm surprised the traitor Daro Korat would trust a colony mercenary.” His bow in the saddle was entirely mocking. “Ah, Daro Raku, a pleasure to find you in good health.”

“You will dismount and lay down your arms, and order your banners struck. Dernang is claimed for the heir of Nabban.”

“Don't be a fool, woman. Where is General Zhung Musan? Release him, and I may let you flee over the border.”

A lie on his tongue.

“Quite dead. He attacked the gods' chosen. You haven't had the pleasure of meeting the—” Not
gewdeyn
, no.
Rihswera
. That was the word she wanted, and very much on her mind now, because—this young lordling was too arrogant to be bluffed into caution, into negotiation and the putting aside of his advantages. Ahjvar was not here, but there was more than one sword would serve Nabban. “—the
rihswera
, which is to say, the champion, of the young god. I assure you, there are some would rather face me than him. And that is saying more than you know.”

“Would this be the man and his—creature, who fled the castle last evening?”

Lord Raku's horse jibbed at some twitch of the bridle-hand. Yuro did better, impassive, but Hani Gahur smiled, seeing his words find their mark.

“Oh, yes, my wizard was watching your walls. Did you think not? We expected spies, but the Daro puppet seems to have had second thoughts about his role in your wretched last gasp of rebellion. He's run for the hills.”

Creature? Wizard enough to see something amiss in Ahjvar—definitely Bamboo Badge, and that was dangerous. But even a Bamboo lord was not necessarily more wizard than Ahjvar could deal with, she told herself. Wizard, Hani Gahur said, not wizards. He had been careful about that. Too careful?
My
wizard . . . How easily and arrogantly he put himself in General Musan's place.

“Wizard or wizards, Lord Gahur? Did you send your best strength after the holy one on his pilgrimage and keep only your diviner here? I hope you took a proper farewell; he or she is marked for death. The heir of the gods has gone to speak with his gods, and when he returns, it will be to take all Choa in his hand. Will you give me your sword now, and spare yourself?”

Hani Gahur was disinterested rather than baffled, impatient, turning to speak to the man beside him.

She shrugged. “No? And I asked most courteously, too.” She raised her sword, wished for a moment she did have a god to pray to. Lord Gahur's gaze snapped back to her, eyes widening, lips beginning to part.
Do not let the crossbows mistake the gesture, horseboy, as you love me, as I and they are yours.
“The new goddess is a lie and the empress is a traitor to the gods, an usurper of the land, no daughter of any gods small or Great. The throne of Min-Jan will be cast down.”

Behind her the castle was a range of swooping eaves, white and dark, against the dawn and the sun just showing a burning edge, a shaft of light piercing through the clouds and the gaps of the buildings to strike on her uplifted blade. She breathed a word. It was wizardry, a great wizardry such as she doubted even the Pine Lord or Lady, whoever they might be in this time, could work single-handed, but it gave no offence to the gods. She did not promise them, or Nabban, that she would always work so.

Yeh-Lin did not need to look behind to see the sudden glint on gilded thunder-charms rearing on the peaks. It was before her eyes like a reflection on water, and in the staring eyes of Hani Gahur and those about him, two-score uplifted mirrors. The banners of the Min-Jan flared like polished copper catching the sun.

And they burned.

Scarlet, yellow, white flame—roaring, announcing itself as if all the keep were afire. Folk cried out, staring, even Yuro and Raku turning in the saddle, the horses laying back their ears, nostrils flaring. The imperial banners shrivelled to black, floated away in ashy flakes like dry leaves dropped on a bonfire. Too brief a fury, maybe. Had enough seen in all the yards of the castle, in the town, the camp . . . throughout the land, as every banner of the Min-Jan in all the empire turned to ash? Neither soot nor smoke would be staining the plastered walls of the White River Dragon; no charring would mar its beams. She would not swear it was so at the imperial palace in the Golden City.

A small miracle of the new god. She did hope the empress, wherever she might be, had word of it and took due note of the omen.

Or challenge.

And now—almost she held her breath. Now Yeh-Lin did risk a glance back, and up, but the children were true to their time. A push was all it would take—yes. The three bolts of heavy silk unrolled, spilling down the white wall, rippling like water, floating out on the wind like the dragon the Wild Sister had once been. Against the lime-washed plaster and the curdling grey of the clouds that closed again over the sun they blazoned the promise of clear skies.

“I will have Dernang for my god,” she said. “Lord Hani Gahur, our forces are more evenly matched than you know—” A lie, but she did not think the wizard back somewhere among the footsoldiers was capable of sifting
her
truth. “—and we are all folk of Nabban and folk of Nabban's god. Dernang has seen enough of blood. Will you fight me, champion against champion in the manner of Praitan, for command of this place and this army?”

His mouth, open to gawp like a child for all he must recognize wizardry, snapped shut. “Are you insane, old woman?”

“If you would rather not face me, you may of course appoint another champion to stand for the empress and her false god.”

“In the manner of
what?
”

“A tradition of the king's justice of Praitan, particularly apt, here, where we two can agree on no god's judgement.”

“You want to fight me? Old woman—”

“Not so old as all that,” she snapped, with careful indignation. “Some might say, there is an imbalance here yes, of long experience set against a young man so clearly promoted above his competence for—what, family connections, a pretty face?” Though not one to her taste, especially when he flushed the colour of old brick. All flesh and no bones. “All I have heard of you assures me—”
you are arrogant and a fool
“—that you are an honourable man who would keep his oath once given and would abide by the judgement of fate and the sword, and would demand the oaths of the lords and officers under you to do likewise, or I would not have offered this challenge. If you fear—”

“Fear has nothing to do with it. Why would I fight for what I have only to take? And why would I trust some wizard from the colonies, which you clearly are?”

“What you have only to take?” She glanced aside at the crossbows. “I hear that your army is on the edge of mutiny, Lord Gahur.”

“Then you have heard lies.”

“Word of the return of the heir of the gods passes among your soldiery. The overthrow of the tyranny of the line of Min-Jan is proclaimed. Neither the conscripts nor the banner-lords and -ladies have any faith in this lie of the empress as goddess. She has murdered her brother and her father. Priests are slain throughout the land by her word.” Young Ti-So'aro had provided much rumour that would be of service this day. “Buri-Nai and the emperors before her have shown no care for the folk of this land, and the folk of the land are turning against her. A sensible man would lay down his sword and surrender command of the town to its rightful lord under the gods, but if you will not, then at least settle this with honour.”

His lip curled.

“Or I will have you shot down, here, now, and proclaim
that
the will of the gods, and if you say, we have not the numbers to withstand you, I say, are you so devoted to the usurper that your ghost will find consolation in that? Count the crossbows, Lord Hani Gahur. All with you alone their target. Your company may ride over us, but your armour could be dragon-scale wrought by the true Yeh-Lin herself and still you personally would not survive it. Don't!” she snapped, as he raised a hand to lower the mask of his helmet, and he froze.

“Good,” she said, as he dropped his hand again and sat back. She pushed at him, just that little, not to bend his will but to nudge it. Would her god approve? No. But it bought lives. Not excuse enough? She restrained herself. A nudge, no more. He was all nerves and fear, not of her but of the eyes of his own officers. That need to be admired and an arrogant temper made a seething soup.

“It's you who should be appointing another champion for this fight,” Gahur said. “
Grandmother
. But since you've made the challenge I'll take it, and let Dernang be the prize.”

“And should fate give you the victory, the Kho'anzi Daro Korat and all his folk, and all your folk who have given their oath to the holy one of the gods, will suffer no reprisal from you, but be allowed to depart over the border to Denanbak.” She must make such a condition; he would expect it. “We fight not only for Dernang, but for command of your army, and the oaths of your officers to turn their backs on the empress and her false god and serve the true heir of the gods.”

“Very well. But I can't command their oaths to the gods.”

Yeh-Lin gave a brief bow to the truth of that, which she had not expected him to acknowledge even to present a face worthy of respect to his officers. It was plain as mud in water he meant to honour nothing of this agreement once she was dead.

“You will have to make do with their oath to surrender to your command,” Hani Gahur continued, “on condition that they be allowed free passage to the Old Capital and return to the empress's service.” His turn to make conditions for the look of the thing, his lip curling in a sneer. But he was confident. Wary, a little, suspecting some trickery, but confident in himself against a woman old enough to be—surely not his grandmother? Yes.

She ought to have left more black in her hair.

They rode together to meet face-to-face under the shadow of the gatehouse, each with two witnesses to hear their bargain made again and formally, invoking the Old Great Gods. He ordered up the young Palm Badge wizard who had hung back among the ranks, to ensure no wizardly trickery. Yeh-Lin took Yuro and Lord Raku from the small company which had followed her. Her own wizard was busy with Lady Ti-So'aro, sowing mutiny throughout the town, and she feared no treachery any wizard of Hani Gahur's could arrange, even were there another, hidden from her. But no, when she reached out briefly searching again . . . nothing. She shrugged off the nagging feeling that there should be.

The negotiations were tedious and exasperating, and she would concede to none of Lord Gahur's fishing for greater delay. She would not have him sending the most faithful of his officers off to find the truth of rumours of mutiny; she wanted haste to keep his anger and contempt, his humouring of the rebel folly and their misplaced faith in their pretender divine heir, on the boil. Have this over and done with, and send Daro Korat's head rather than his person to Buri-Nai, that was Hani Gahur's thought. And the head of this arrogant mercenary captain, too. She pressed, encouraging that set of his mind. Glory, when the empress received the salt-packed boxes. His success, blazing over Zhung Musan's failure.

Here, now, not noon, not tomorrow's dawn, by which time the rational sense of Daro Raku would have overruled the fool old woman. Here in the market square of the town, and Hani Gahur agreed, yes, laughing behind his teeth at her folly, her willingness to bring her little band into town, but she would not have him within the castle gates where he—or more practical officers among his following—might yet overturn all.

A play. A game for children. But he demanded further solemn oaths from her, by the Old Great Gods, that she would use no wizardry. She gave her most pious word.

Nine witnesses. He argued, for form's sake, that there could be no fairness in that, no even balance. Nine, she said. It was the tradition of Praitan. The circle was made of nine, who should be bards and wizards of the tribes, but of course Nabban had no equivalent of the bards of Praitan. The scholars, those who were not clerks of the imperial court, were all poor scrabbling things, holy folk of Father Nabban, and the priestess of the town was, they told her, a crow-picked corpse.

Three from the castle—Yuro and Raku and a commoner, a middle-aged Zhung archer of Ti-So'aro's following whom Yeh-Lin chose for her grim face. Three from Hani Gahur's corps of officers, including his young wizard. Three picked from the streets of the town, witness for the judgement of fate—Yeh-Lin pointed at random to a man in a caravaneer's coat, his head wrapped in a loose turban. He was Nabbani, but he wore his hair long, hanging in the many braids of the road. The man gave her a slow look, as if he considered protest, but then bowed and stepped forward. He moved like a warrior, fluid as a cat, and his face did not have the pinched look of this town's hard winter. Mercenary? Spy? She would think the worse of Prince Dan's competence if he did not have folk in this town. The caravaneer would bear investigation, later. Hani Gahur pointed to another caravaneer. Random chance or did he think strangers were required? This one was a woman, maybe a Marakander, with the amber eyes of the Grass, though her features were more north-provinces Nabbani, delicate and rounded, and she was very pale for a Grasslander. Well, make sure the next was for Dernang, then. Yeh-Lin pointed to an old man, beckoned him forward. So. Done.

Nine witnesses to make the circle, under the Old Great Gods. Neither she nor Hani Gahur believed anything but skill of the blade would determine this meeting, but they made yet again, and publicly, their most pious oaths, and declared again the stakes, command of castle and town and army, for all to hear.