Sunbird (86 page)

^{He saw the wounds half healed, and freshly weeping through the linen bindings. He saw a man who was extended to the limits of his strength and determination, and in whose throat was the bitter taste of defeat.}

^{'Yes,' said Huy. 'I remember.' He stood up and went to Lannon.}

^{They came back to Opet in the early morning. All night they had sat together beside the fire in Huy's hut and they had talked.}

^{Lannon told him of the course of the campaign, and the state of the nation. He told him of each battle, every strategy the enemy had employed.}

^{'I had placed much reliance upon the war elephants. That trust was ill-founded. We lost most of them in the very first encounter. They used spears dipped in the poison taken from countless bees. I learned from a prisoner how they had smoked out hundreds of hives and laboriously squeezed out the poison sack from each sting. The burning pain of the wounds drove my elephants insane. They raged through our lines, and we had to use spikes on them.}

^{'Also they had trained athletes who could vault onto the elephants' backs. They half leapt and were half thrown by their companions, flipped through the air like professional tumblers to kill the drivers and then stab the beast in the back of the neck.'}

^{'I was to blame for that,' said Huy. 'I told him of those tactics that the Romans used against Hannibal's elephants. He has not forgotten a single word of my teaching.'}

^{Lannon went on to tell Huy of each battle which, though victorious, left Opet weakened, of the slow retreat before the black hordes, of the mounting despair amongst the legions, of the desertions and mutinies, of the destruction of the greater part of the fleet upon the beaches and the blocking of the channel.}

^{'How many ships remain?'}

^{'Nine galleys,' Lannon replied, 'and an assortment of fishing craft.'}

^{'Enough to carry all of us across the lake, to the southern shores?'}

^{'No,' Lannon shook his head. 'Not nearly enough.'}

^{They talked on through the night, and in the dark hour before the first glimmer of dawn Lannon asked the question that had hovered on his lips all evening. He knew Huy would expect it.}

^{'Why did you desert me, Huy?' Lannon asked softly. If Huy were to believe that Lannon knew nothing of his relationship with the witch, if he were to believe that Lannon's choice of sacrifice was accidental, then Lannon must pretend ignorance.}

^{Huy looked up at the question and the firelight lit his face from below, leaving his eyes as dark pits.}

^{'You do not know?' he asked, watching Lannon intently.}

^{'I know only that you called out the witch's name, and then you were gone.'}

^{Huy went on studying Lannon's face in the firelight, searching for some sign of guilt, some flicker of deceit. There was none. Lannon's face was tired and strained, but the pale eyes were direct and steadfast.}

^{'What was it, Huy?' he insisted. 'I have puzzled over it so often now. What drove you from the temple?'}

^{'Tanith. I loved her,' said Huy, and Lannon's expression changed. He stared at Huy for long seconds, appalled and stricken.}

^{'Oh, my friend, what have I done to you? I did not know, Huy, I did not know.'}

^{Huy dropped his gaze to the fire, and he sighed.}

^{'I believe you,' he said.}

^{'Pray Baal's forgiveness for me, Huy,' whispered Lannon and leaned across to grip Huy's shoulder, 'that I should ever have given you grief.'}

^{'No, Lannon,' Huy answered. 'I shall never pray again. I have lost my love, and denied my gods. Now I have nothing.'}

^{'You still have me, old friend,' said Lannon, and Huy smiled shyly at him.}

^{'Yes,' he agreed, 'I still have you.'}

^{They carried the golden scrolls and the vulture axe down to the beach where Bakmor and the crew of the fishing-boat waited patiently, and they came to Opet in the early morning.}

^{The legions cheered them, king and priest, as they moved through the encampment and Huy felt tears scalding his eyelids.}

^{'I do not deserve it,' he whispered. 'I deserted them. I should have been with them.'}

^{Although the two legions were reconstituted from the shattered remnants of the original nine, yet it seemed to Huy they were built around the foundation of Legion Ben-Amon. Everywhere he saw the familiar faces, grinning affectionately at him out of the ranks. He stopped to talk with them, trying to keep his tone cheerful as he noted the dented armour and the roughly bound wounds, half healing or suppurating.}

^{He saw how exhausted they were, an exhaustion of the soul as well as the body. The smiles were short-blooming and the cheers were forced from reluctant throats - yet they were in hand, and there was fight left in them. They were lucky that none of the fevers that so often attended an encamped army had not yet weakened them further. It was strange how when they moved regularly, not staying at any one place long enough to foul the water supply or to allow their dung heaps to fester, then the fevers often did not appear.}

^{There were 26,000 men encamped upon the lake shore, and they made a brave show. Huy felt small flames of confidence and hope warming his belly as he passed amongst them. Perhaps there was still something that could be done with this force.}

^{Lannon and Huy ate the noon meal with their officers. There was no shortage of corn or meat or wine so close to the granaries of Opet, and they feasted and toasted each other while their men enjoyed the double wine ration that Lannon had ordered. In the afternoon Lannon allowed the wives into the camp. This was a privilege usually granted only after a great victory, not before a battle. They came streaming out of the city in their thousands, many of them wives for a day -to more than one husband.}

^{'Let them enjoy it,' Lannon remarked with a little regret in his voice, as they strode through the camp with an escort of officers and picked legionaries. 'The gods know well that it may be the last time any of them do so.' Then his voice hardened. 'But see to it that none of the women remain after sundown'}

^{There was a desperate quality to the mass matings, as though life was trying to insure its survival on the eve of extinction. As though in the motions of love the morrow's slaughter might be discounted.}

^{Lannon left them to their frenzy and led his party out of the camp at a trot, the easy ground-devouring gait of a legion in forced march. Lannon led them to a spur of high ground which jutted out from the cliffs to overlook the lake shore for twenty miles in each direction. They stayed for many hours, watching Manatassi's hordes debouch from the passes of the cliffs onto the gently sloping lake shore. They watched mainly in silence, for it was a sight to strike ice into the souls of the bravest men.}

^{It was as though a nest of black pythons was uncoiling, flowing outwards in long thick columns. It seemed endless, this massing of men; this stretching and bunching of primeval forces. It seemed as inevitable and undeviating as the tides of the sea, or the march of black storm clouds across a summer sky, and in the face of it they were silent and subdued.}

^{Manatassi went into camp upon the lake shore with his vanguard only five miles from Lannon's own camp. However, the rear of his army had not yet emerged from the hills, and the plain between was thick with his regiments. There was no end to his numbers, no chance of counting them, for they knew not where his columns ended.}

^{Lannon and Huy went down from the high ground in the dusk. The star of Astarte was a bright prick of light in the indigo sky above Opet. Huy averted his eyes from it.}

^{They went to the harbour and watched the embarkation of the women and children upon the remaining galleys of Habbakuk Lal. They would lie off-shore during the night, and the following day until the battle was decided. If the day went against Opet, as Huy knew it must, then they would be taken across the lake and would strike southwards in an attempt to stay ahead of Manatassi. The men who survived would follow as best they might.}

^{There was not room for all of them aboard the galleys, so the royal and noble women went first, followed by the priestesses and the merchant families. At one stage there was an ugly and fierce moment when a mob of the Yuye women and classless ones tried to rush the harbour and find seats aboard the ferries. They were clubbed down and driven back by Habbakuk Lal's sailors. Huy felt a deep pity for them as they screamed and covered their heads with their hands against the spear butts. One of them, a young Yuye girl, sat dazed upon the flags of the wharf with her head bowed over the baby in her lap and the blood flowing down the ropes of her long black hair to form a dark shadow on the stone.}

^{Lannon took leave of his wives and the children on the deck of Habbakuk Lal's flagship. He was remote and dignified as each woman came to kneel briefly before him. The children followed their mothers, and Lannon barely glanced down at them.}

^{The twins had grown into marriageable young women now. Pretty and vital with long blonde hair plaited and roped. They came to kiss Huy for the last time, and his voice was husky as he said his farewells. The younger children were unaware of the gravity of the moment, and they were tired and petulant, squabbling amongst themselves or squalling in their nurses' arms.}

^{Lannon and Huy were rowed back across the black waters on which the reflected fire-flies of torchlight danced. The crowds upon the wharf were massed and silent, opening reluctantly to give them passage through, and Huy detected a sullenness close to open hostility. The escort closed in about them and they hurried through the streets of the city towards the encampment.}

^{There were bonfires burning in the streets and about them drunkenness and revelry as the lowly citizens of Opet snatched a few last hours of pleasure before the dreaded morrow. The revels were more wild and grotesque than even those of the religious festivals. Men and women danced naked in the leaping firelight, or lay in puddles of their own vomit besotted with drink, while others rutted unashamedly in open view.}

^{Huy saw a woman reeling drunkenly past them with her tunic torn and stained with red wine hanging in tatters from pale shoulders, and one breast protruding, round and fat with a big copper-coloured nipple. She tripped and fell into one of the fires, her hair exploding in a flare of orange flame.}

^{In the shadows and dark lanes scurried other shapes, bowed under heavy burdens, and Huy knew that the looters were already at work, plundering the empty homes of the rich. Huy knew that his own slaves would still be protecting his house, but none the less he felt a pang of alarm as he remembered the golden books.}

^{'Majesty, grant me an hour,' he said as they came abreast of the turning that led down to his house beside the lake.}

^{'What is it, Huy?' Lannon demanded irritably. 'There is still much to do, and we must rest. What is it that demands your time?'}

^{'I must take leave of my household. My slaves must be released from their duties and my valuables hidden, especially the scrolls -- the golden scrolls.'}

^{'As you will,' Lannon conceded bad-temperedly. 'But do not waste time. Return as soon as you can.'}

^{The old slaves could not understand Huy's dismissal. 'This is our home,' they pleaded. 'Do not drive us out.' And Huy could not explain. He left them there sitting huddled together in the kitchens, bewildered and afraid.}

^{With one of the younger slaves to help him, both of them bowed under the immense weight of the scrolls, Huy crossed the temple of Baal and went through the cleft into the cavern of Astarte. It was silent and deserted. The priestesses were all aboard the galleys in the harbour. Huy paused beside the pool and looked down into its depths.}

^{'Wait for me, my love,' he said. 'I will follow close behind you. Keep a place for me at your side.'}