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Authors: R. Scott Bakker

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BOOK: The Darkness that Comes Before
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Very many,
he thought,
have underestimated this man
.
“How about war?” Proyas asked. “What do you know of the Kianene manner of war?”
“Much.”
“How so?”
“Eight years ago, the Kianene invaded the Steppe much as the Nansur did, hoping to put an end to our raids on Gedea. We met them at a place called Zirkirta. Crushed them. These here”—he ran a thick finger across several scars low on his right wrist—“are that battle. This one is their general, Hasjinnet, son of Skauras, the Sapatishah of Shigek.”
There was no pride in his voice. For him war was simply a fact to be described—little different, Achamian imagined, from describing the birth of a foal on his pastures.
“You killed the Sapatishah’s son?”
“Eventually,” the Scylvendi said. “First I made him sing.”
Several of the watching Conriyans laughed aloud, and though Proyas conceded only an aloof smile, Achamian could tell he exulted. Despite his coarse manners, this Scylvendi was saying exactly what Proyas had hoped to hear.
But Achamian remained unconvinced. How did they know the Utemot had been annihilated? And more important, what did this have to do with risking life, limb, and skin crossing the Nansurium to join the Holy War? Achamian found himself looking over the Scylvendi’s left shoulder at the Norsirai man who had accompanied him. For an instant, their eyes locked, and Achamian was struck by an intimation of wisdom and sorrow. Unaccountably, he thought:
Him . . . The answer lies with him.
But would Proyas realize this before he brought them under his protection? Conriyans regarded issues of hospitality with absurd seriousness.
“So you know Kianene tactics?” Proyas was asking.
“I know them. Even then, I had been a chieftain of many years. I advised the King-of-Tribes.”
“Could you describe them to me?”
“I could . . .”
The Crown Prince grinned, as though he had at last recognized a kindred spark in the man. Achamian could only watch with numb concern. Any interruption, he knew, would be dismissed out of hand.
“You’re cautious,” Proyas said, “which is good. A heathen in a Holy War should be cautious. But you’ve little need to be wary of me, my friend.”
The Scylvendi snorted. “Why is that?”
Proyas opened his arms, gesturing to the great whorl and scatter of tents that plumbed the distances. “Have you ever witnessed such a gathering? The glory of the Inrithi has assembled across these fields, Scylvendi. The Three Seas have never been so peaceful. All their violence has gathered
here
. And when it marches against the Fanim, I assure you, your battle at Kiyuth will seem a mere skirmish in comparison.”
“And when will it march?”
Proyas paused. “That might very well depend upon you.”
The barbarian stared at him, dumbstruck.
“The Holy War is paralyzed, Scylvendi. A host, especially a host as great as this, marches on its belly. But Ikurei Xerius III, despite agreements forged more than a year ago, denies us the provisions we need. By ecclesiastical law the Shriah can demand that the Emperor provision us, but he cannot demand that the Nansur march
with
us.”
“So march without them.”
“And so we would, but the Shriah hesitates. Months ago, some Men of the Tusk secured the provisions they needed by yielding to the Emperor’s demands—”
“Which are?”
“To sign an indenture ceding to the Empire all lands conquered.”
“Unacceptable.”
“Not to the Great Names at issue. They thought that they were invincible, that waiting for the rest to gather would simply rob them of glory. What is a mark on parchment in exchange for glory? So they marched, crossed into Fanim lands, and were utterly destroyed.”
The Scylvendi had raised a contemplative hand to his chin—an oddly disarming gesture, Achamian thought, for a man of such savage aspect. “Ikurei Conphas,” he said decisively.
Proyas raised his brows in appreciation. Even Achamian found himself impressed.
“Go on,” the Prince said.
“Without Conphas, your Shriah fears the Holy War will be entirely destroyed. So he refuses to demand the Emperor provision you, dreading a repeat of what happened earlier.”
Proyas smiled bitterly. “Indeed. And the Emperor, of course, has made his Indenture Conphas’s price. The only way for Maithanet to wield his instrument, it seems, is to sell it.”
“To sell you.”
Proyas released a heavy breath. “Make no mistake, Scylvendi, I’m a devout man. I don’t doubt my Shriah, only his appraisal of these recent events. I’m convinced that the Emperor bluffs, that even if we march without signing his accursed Indenture, he’ll send Conphas and his Columns to eke whatever advantage he can from the Holy War . . .”
For the first time, Achamian realized that Proyas actually feared Maithanet would capitulate. And why not? If the Holy Shriah could stomach the Scarlet Spires, could he not stomach the Emperor’s Indenture as well?
“My hope,” Proyas continued, “and it’s just a hope, is that Maithanet might accept you as a surrogate for Conphas. With you as our adviser, the Emperor can no longer argue that our ignorance will doom us.”
“The Exalt-General’s surrogate?” the Scylvendi chieftain repeated. He shuddered with what, Achamian realized a heartbeat later, was laughter.
“You find this amusing, Scylvendi?” Proyas asked, his expression baffled.
Achamian seized the opportunity. “Because of Kiyuth,” he murmured in quick Conriyan. “Think of the hatred he must bear Conphas because of Kiyuth.”
“Revenge?” Proyas snapped back, also in Conriyan. “You think that’s his real reason for travelling here? To wreak his revenge on Ikurei Conphas?”
“Ask him! Why has he come here, and
who are the others?
”
Proyas glanced at Achamian, the chagrin in his eyes over-matched by the admission. His ardour had almost duped him, and he knew it. He had almost brought a Scylvendi to his hearth—a Scylvendi!—without any hard questions.
“You know not the Nansur,” the barbarian was saying. “The great Ikurei Conphas replaced by a Scylvendi? There will be more than wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
Proyas ignored the remark. “One thing still troubles me, Scylvendi . . . I understand that your tribe was destroyed, that your land turned against you, but why would you come
here?
Why would a Scylvendi cross the Empire, of all places? Why would a heathen join a Holy War?”
The words swatted the humour from Cnaiür urs Skiötha’s face, leaving only wariness. Achamian watched him tense. It seemed a door to something dreadful had been unlatched.
Then from behind the barbarian, a resonant voice declared, “I am the reason Cnaiür has travelled here.”
All eyes turned to the nameless Norsirai. The man’s bearing was imperious despite the rags clothing him, the mien of one steeped in a life of absolute authority. But it was moderated somehow, as though seasoned by hardship and sorrow. The woman clutching his waist glared from face to face, seemingly both outraged and mystified by their scrutiny.
How,
her eyes cried,
could you not know
?
“And just who are you?” Proyas asked of the man.
The clear blue eyes blinked. The serene face dipped only enough to acknowledge an equal. “I am Anasûrimbor Kellhus, son of Moënghus,” the man said in heavily accented Sheyic. “A prince of the north. Of Atrithau.”
Achamian gaped, uncomprehending. Then the name, Anasûrimbor, struck him like a sudden blow to the stomach. Winded him. He found himself reaching out, clutching Proyas’s arm.
This can’t be.
Proyas glanced at him sharply, warning him to hold his tongue.
There’ll be time for you to pry later, Schoolman
. His eyes clicked back to the stranger.
“A powerful name.”
“I cannot speak for my blood,” the Norsirai replied.
“One of my seed will return, Seswatha—”
“You don’t look a Prince. Am I to believe you’re my equal?”
“Nor can I speak for what you do or do not believe. As for my appearance, all I can say is that my pilgrimage was hard.”
“An Anasûrimbor will return—”
“Pilgrimage?”
“Yes. To Shimeh . . . We have come to die for the Tusk.”
“. . . at the end of the world.”
“But Atrithau lies far beyond the pale of the Three Seas. How could you have
known
of the Holy War?”
Hesitation, as though he were both frightened and unconvinced by what he was about to say. “Dreams. Someone sent me dreams.”
This cannot be!
“Someone? Who?”
The man could not answer.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
 
MOMEMN
 
Those of us who survived will always be bewildered when we
recall his arrival. And not just because he was so different then.
In a strange sense he never changed. We changed. If he seems so
different to us now, it is because he was the figure that transformed
the ground.
—DRUSAS ACHAMIAN,
COMPENDIUM OF THE FIRST HOLY WAR
 
Late Spring, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, Momemn
 
The sun had just set. The man who called himself Anasûrimbor Kellhus sat cross-legged in the light of his fire, outside a pavilion whose canvas slopes had been stitched with black embroidered eagles—a gift from Proyas, Achamian supposed. In appearance there was nothing immediately impressive about the man, save perhaps for his long straw-coloured hair, which was as fine as ermine and seemed curiously out of place in the firelight. Hair meant for the sun, Achamian thought. The young injured woman who had clutched his side so fiercely the previous day sat next to him, her dress simple yet elegant. The two of them had bathed and exchanged their rags for clothes drawn from the Prince’s own finery. As he neared, Achamian was struck by the woman’s beauty. She had looked little more than a beaten waif earlier.
They both watched him approach, their faces vivid in the firelight.
“You must be Drusas Achamian,” the Prince of Atrithau said.
“Proyas has warned you about me, I see.”
The man smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly. It was unlike any smile Achamian had ever seen. It seemed to understand him much more than he wanted to be understood.
Then the realization struck.
I know this man.
But how does one recognize a man never met? Unless through a son or other kin . . . Images of his recent dream, of holding the dead face of Anasûrimbor Celmomas in his lap, flickered through his soul’s eye. The resemblance was unmistakable: the furrow between the brows, the long hollow of the cheeks, the deep-set eyes.
He
is
an Anasûrimbor! But that’s impossible . . .
And yet the times seemed rife with impossible things.
Gathered around Momemn’s grim walls, the Holy War was a sight as astonishing as anything from Achamian’s nightmares of the Old Wars—save, perhaps, for the heartbreaking Battles of Agongorea and the hopeless Siege of Golgotterath. The arrival of the Scylvendi and the Atrithau Prince had merely confirmed the absurd scale of the Holy War, as though the ancient histories had themselves come to anoint it.
One of my seed will return, Seswatha—an Anasûrimbor will return . . .
As remarkable as the Scylvendi’s arrival had been, it smacked of happenstance. But Prince Anasûrimbor Kellhus of Atrithau was a different story. Anasûrimbor! Now there was a name. The Anasûrimbor Dynasty had been the third and most magnificent dynasty to rule Kûniüri—the bloodline the Mandate had thought snuffed out thousands of years before, if not with the death of Celmomas II on the fields of Eleneöt, then certainly with the sack of great Trysë shortly afterward. But not so. The blood of the first great rival of the No-God had somehow been preserved. Impossible.
. . . at the end of the world.
“Proyas has warned me,” Kellhus said. “He told me that your kind suffers nightmares of my ancestors.”
Achamian felt a pang of betrayal at this. He could almost hear the Prince:
“He’ll suspect you of being an agent of the Consult . . . And failing that, he’ll hope that Atrithau still wars against the Consult, and that you bear news of his elusive enemy. Humour him, if you wish. But don’t try to convince him that the Consult doesn’t exist. He will never listen.”
“But I’ve always believed,” Kellhus continued, “that one must ride another man’s horse for a day before criticizing.”
BOOK: The Darkness that Comes Before
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