Queen of Springtime (60 page)

But what was this?
Biterulve
in the outermost arc of one of the wedges?

That was against his explicit order. The boy was never to be exposed in that way. Athimin knew that. Let him fight in the secondary line, yes, but never in the prime row of warriors. Salaman looked around in fury. Where was Athimin? He was supposed to look after his brother at all times.

There he was, yes. Five or six men down the row from Biterulve, hacking away vigorously.

Salaman called to him and pointed. “Do you see him. Get over there! Get over to him, you fool!”

Athimin gasped and nodded. Biterulve seemed heedless of his own safety. He was striking at the hjjks in front of him with a ferocity that the king hadn’t imagined he possessed. Athimin was turning now, fighting his way across the confusion, going to the boy’s defense. Salaman came rushing forward also, intending to slay the hjjk closest to Biterulve and shove the boy deeper into the phalanx of warriors.

Too late.

Salaman was still twenty paces away, struggling through a zone of phantom monsters and murky black cloud, when he saw as though by a quick flash of lightning a hjjk that seemed twice the height of Thu-Kimnibol rise up before Biterulve and drive his spear through the boy’s body from front to back.

The king let loose a terrible roar of rage. It seemed to him as though a hot bar of iron had been thrust through his forehead. In an instant he reached the spot where Biterulve lay and sent the hjjk’s head flying across the field with one swift stroke. An instant later Athimin was blurting useless apologies and explanations into his ear, and unhesitatingly Salaman, turning on him the full force of the fury that possessed him, cut him down too with the stroke of his backswing, slashing him across his chest, deep through fur and flesh and bone.

“Father—?” Athimin murmured thickly, and fell at his feet.

Salaman stared. Biterulve lay to his left, Athimin at his right. His mind was unable to absorb the sight. His soul throbbed with unanswerable torment.

What have I done? What have I done?

Everywhere about him the battle raged; and the king stood silent and still, purged in one stunning instant of all madness and blood-lust. To his ears came the sounds of sobbing wounded warriors and the moans of the dying and the savage cries of those who still lived and fought, and it was all incomprehensible to him, that he should be here in this place at this time, with two of his sons dead on the ground before him, and phantoms and monsters dancing all about, and huge-eyed shrieking insect-creatures waving swords in his face. Why? For what?

Madness. Waste.

He stood frozen, bewildered, lost in pain.

Then he felt a searing flash of pain of a different sort as a hjjk weapon went lancing through the fleshy part of his arm. It was astonishing, the agony. Sudden hot tears stung his eyes. He blinked in confusion. A heavy mist shrouded his soul. For a moment, under the shock of his wound, the years rolled away and he thought that he was the ambitious young warrior again, nearly as clever as Hresh, whose scheme it was to build a great city and a dynasty and an empire. But if that was so, why was he in this old stiff body, why did he hurt like this, why was he bleeding? Ah. The hjjks! Yes, the hjjks were attacking their little settlement. Already Harruel had fallen. Everything looked hopeless. But there was no choice but to keep on fighting—to keep on fighting—

The mist parted and his mind cleared. Biterulve and Athimin lay before him on the ground and he was about to die himself. And there came to him with complete clarity an awareness of the futility of his life, the years spent in building a wall, in hating a distant and alien enemy who might better have simply been ignored.

He turned and saw the gleaming yellow-and-black creature studying him gravely, as though it had never seen a man of the People before.

It was preparing to strike again.

“Go ahead,” Salaman said. “What does it matter?”

“Father! Get back!”

Chham, that was. Salaman laughed. He pointed to his two fallen sons. “Do you see?” he said. “Biterulve was fighting in the front line. And then Athimin—Athimin—”

He felt himself being pushed aside. A sword cleaved the air in front of him. The hjjk fell back. Chham’s face was close up against his own, now. The same face as his: it was like looking into a mirror that reflected back through time.

“Father, you’ve been wounded.”

“Biterulve—Athimin—”

“Here—let me help you—”

“Biterulve—”

Thu-Kimnibol said, “What? Salaman here? And his army?”

“What’s left of them,” said Esperasagiot. “It’s a fearful sight, sir.

You’d best ride out to meet them. They hardly seem to have the strength to come the rest of the way to us.”

“Can this be some sort of trick?” Nialli Apuilana asked. “Does he hate us so much that he means to draw us out of our camp and attack us?”

Esperasagiot laughed. “No, lady, there’s no hatred left in him. If you saw them, you’d know. They’re a beaten bunch. It’s a wonder any of them made it here alive.”

“How far are they?” Thu-Kimnibol asked.

“Half an hour’s ride.”

“Get my xlendi ready. You, Dumanka, Kartafirain to accompany men, and ten warriors.”

“Shall I go also?” Nialli Apuilana asked.

Thu-Kimnibol glanced at her. “You ought to stay with your father. They tell me he’s very weak this morning. One of us should be with him if the end comes.”

“Yes,” she said softly, and turned away.

What remained of the army of the City of Yissou had made camp, more or less, beside a small stream in the open country a little way north of Thu-Kimnibol’s encampment. Esperasagiot had not exaggerated: it was a fearful sight. Only a few hundred warriors, of the great horde that had set forth from Yissou, were there, and every one of them seemed to bear wounds. They were sprawled here and there like a scattering of cast-off garments on the ground, with three ragged tents behind them. As Thu-Kimnibol approached, a grim-faced man whom he recognized as Salaman’s son Chham came limping out to greet him.

“A sad and sorry reunion this is, Prince Thu-Kimnibol. It shames me to come before you like this.”

Thu-Kimnibol sought for words and did not find any. After a moment he reached down and embraced the other in silence, doing it gingerly, for fear of opening some wound.

“Can we do anything for you?” he asked.

“Healers. Medicines. Food. What we need most of all is rest. We’ve been in retreat for—I couldn’t tell you how long. A week, two weeks? We kept no count.”

“I’m saddened to see how badly things have gone for you.”

Chham managed a momentary flare of vigor. “They went well enough at first. We beat them again and again. We killed them without mercy. My father fought like a god. Nothing could stand before his attack. But then—” He looked away. “Then the bug-folk used tricks against us. Wonderstone illusions, magical fantasies, things out of dreams. You’ll see: they’ll come at you the same way, when you next encounter them.”

“So there was a battle of dreams. And a great defeat.”

“Yes. A very great defeat.”

“And your father the king?”

Chham jerked his hand over his shoulder, toward the largest of the tents. “He lives. But not so as you’d know him. My brother Athimin was killed, and Biterulve also.”

“Ah. Biterulve too!”

“And my father was gravely wounded. But also he’s changed within, very much changed. You’ll see. We escaped by mere luck. A sudden windstorm came up. The air was full of sand. No way for the hjjks to see where we were. We crept away unnoticed. And here we are, Prince Thu-Kimnibol. Here we are.”

“Where is the king?”

“Come: I’ll take you to him.”

The withered, feeble man who lay on the pallet within the tent was not much like the Salaman that Thu-Kimnibol had known. His white fur was matted and dull. In places it had fallen out completely. His eyes too were dull, those wide-set gray eyes that had pierced once like augers. Bandages swathed his upper body, which seemed shrunken and frail. He didn’t appear to notice as Thu-Kimnibol entered. A thin old woman whom Thu-Kimnibol recognized as the chief offering-woman of the City of Yissou sat beside him, and holy talismans were piled up all around him.

“Is he awake?” Thu-Kimnibol whispered.

“He’s like this all the time.” Chham stepped forward. “Father, Prince Thu-Kimnibol has come.”

“Thu-Kimnibol?” A faint papery whisper. “Who?”

“Harruel’s son,” Thu-Kimnibol said quietly.

“Ah. Harruel’s boy. Samnibolon, that’s his name. Does he call himself something else now? Where is he? Tell him to come nearer.”

Thu-Kimnibol looked down at him. He could hardly bear to meet that burned-out gaze.

Salaman smiled. In the same faint voice he said, “And how is your father, boy? The good king, the great warrior Harruel?”

“My father is long dead, cousin,” said Thu-Kimnibol gently.

“Ah. Ah, so he is.” A flicker of brightness came into Salaman’s eyes for a moment, and he tried to sit up. “They beat us, did Chham tell you? I left two sons on the field, and thousands of others. They cut us to bits. No more than we deserved, that’s the truth. What foolishness it was, making war on them, marching like idiots into their own land! It was madness and nothing but madness. I see that now. And perhaps you do too, Samnibolon. Eh? Eh?”

“I’ve been called Thu-Kimnibol these many years.”

“Ah. Of course. Thu-Kimnibol.” Salaman managed a kind of smile. “Will you continue the war, Thu-Kimnibol?”

“Until victory is ours, yes.”

“There’ll never be any victory. The hjjks will drive you back the way they did me. They’ll drown you in dreams.” Slowly, with obvious effort, Salaman shook his head. “The war was a mistake. We should have taken their treaty and drawn a line across the world. I see that now, but now’s too late. Too late for Biterulve, too late for Athimin, too late for me.” He laughed hollowly. “But do as you wish. For me the war’s over. All I want now is the forgiveness of the gods.”

“Forgiveness? For what?” Thu-Kimnibol said, his voice rising suddenly above a sickroom murmur for the first time.

Chham tugged at Thu-Kimnibol’s arm, as though to tell him that the king did not have the strength for such discussions. But Salaman said, his voice louder now too, “For what? For leading my warriors off to be cut to pieces in this filthy land. And for sending my Acknowledgers to their doom, and the army that followed them also, all for the sake of stirring up a war that should never have been fought. The gods didn’t mean us to strike at the hjjks. The hjjks are the gods’ creatures as much as we are. I have no doubt of that now. So I have sinned; and for that I will undertake a purification, and by the grace of Mueri and Friit I will have it before I die. I should ask the forgiveness of the Queen as well, I suppose. But how would I do that?” Salaman reached up and caught Thu-Kimnibol by the wrist with surprising strength. “Will you give me an escort home, Thu-Kimnibol? A few dozen of your troops, to help us retrace our steps across all this miserable wasteland that we’ve crossed at such cost. To bring me back to my city, so that I can go before the gods in the shrine that I built for them long ago, and pray them give me peace. That’s all I ask of you.”

“If you wish it, yes. Of course.”

“And will you pray for me, also, as you go onward toward the Nest? Pray for the repose of my spirit, Thu-Kimnibol. And I’ll do the same for yours.”

He closed his eyes. Chham gestured, beckoning Thu-Kimnibol from the tent.

Outside Chham said, “He’s beside himself with guilt for my brothers’ deaths. His soul is flooded with remorse, for that, for everything in his life that he sees now as a sin. I never knew a man could be so changed in a single moment.”

“He’ll have his escort home, you can be sure of that.”

Chham smiled sadly. “He’ll never see Yissou again. Two, three days—that’s all he has, so the healer tells me. We’ll put him to rest in hjjk country. As for those of us that remain—” He shrugged. “We’re willing to put ourselves under your command for the rest of the war. If you’ll have us, broken as we are. Or if you won’t, we’ll limp back to our city and wait to hear how you’ve fared.”

“Join us, of course,” Thu-Kimnibol said. “Join us and fight alongside us, if you have the strength to go on. Why would we refuse you? We are meant to be allies always, your city and mine.”

Darkness was coming quickly on. Nialli Apuilana knelt beside her father. Thu-Kimnibol stood well back from them, in the shadows where the glowglobes couldn’t reach.

“Take this amulet from around my throat,” Hresh whispered. “Put it on.”

Nialli Apuilana’s hands tightened into fists. She knew what must be in Hresh’s mind. He had worn that amulet all his life: she had never seen him without it. To give it to her now—

She glanced toward Thu-Kimnibol. He nodded. Do it, he said silently. Do it.

Unfastening the cord that held the amulet, she drew it gently free. It was a little thing, just a bit of smooth green glass, or so it seemed, with signs inscribed on it that were much too small for her to decipher. It seemed very old and worn. She felt an odd chill coming from it; but when she tied it around her neck she was aware of a faint tingling, and a distant warmth.

She stared at it, resting between her breasts.

“What does it do, father?”

“Very little, I think. But it was Thaggoran’s, who was chronicler before me. A piece of the Great World, is what he told me. It’s the chronicler’s badge of office, I suppose. Sometimes it summons Thaggoran for me, when I need him. You have to wear it now.”

“But I—”

“You are chronicler now,” Hresh said.

“What? Father, I have no training! And the chronicler has never been a woman.”

Hresh managed the bare outlines of a smile. “All that’s changing now. Everything is. Chupitain Stuld will work with you. And Io Sangrais and Plor Killivash, if they live through the war. The chronicles must stay in our family.” He reached for her hand and clutched it tightly. His fingers seemed tiny, she thought. He was becoming a child again. He opened his eyes for a moment and said, “I never expected to have a daughter, you know. To have any child at all.”