The Right Hand of God (34 page)

This morning there was little to discuss. The supplies awaited them at the docks, causing Kurr to note that the army itself might have taken the same route, thereby saving valuable time. To Leith's delight the generals did not agree, instead applauding his decision to strike southwards and make certain of his reluctant ally. He tried to restrain his smile at the old farmer's discomfiture, but from the scowls directed at him, he doubted he had succeeded.

They left the Aleinus River at Sivithar and struck out eastwards towards Vindicare, the main city of Austrau, the eastern province of Straux. To the north of their route the wide plains descended into the stinking mires and stagnant lakes of the Maremma, through which the Aleinus picked its way in a never-ending series of snake-like bends, switchbacks and oxbow lakes. To their south, and drawing ever nearer as they marched, were the Veridian Borders, from

which, Kurr told Leith, the Company descended on their way north out of the desert slavelands of Ghadir Massab. Indeed, he said on the fourth day east of Sivithar, the army now followed the very road they had used. To the right, in the distance, he pointed out the northward-thrusting spur of ancient rock down which the Hamadabat Road wound, and upon which stood the one-time fortress of Fealty.

Out on the plains of southern Straux the army made good time, as much as fourteen leagues a day. 'It's all a matter of leagues marched per day,' Leith's generals would tell him. 'Ten leagues a day for a hundred days and we will arrive at the Gap ready to fight.' But increasingly he noticed their guarded looks as they told him this, and he wondered how they might keep this pace up in more difficult terrain. He remembered the slowness of their journey over Breidhan Moor. 'Are there any places like that?' he asked them, the reply to which was a shuffling of the feet and the odd equivocal comment: 'The Nagorj can be tricky in places,' or 'You wouldn't want it to snow in the Vulture's Craw.' Leith's anxiety grew as these comments were repeated.

Eventually he made them show him the whole journey on a map. Their progress eastwards from Instruere, a small dot near the coast on the left margin, was marked by a red line with a cross showing every place the army had stopped for the night. Vindicare stood in the path of the red line, still more than seventy leagues to the east, on the banks of the Aleinus River which, as Leith remembered from his own map now lining his cloak, described a huge loop to the north between Sivithar and Vindicare. Their projected route was dotted in charcoal black, and east of Vindicare it seemed to follow the river very closely. 'That's because we're taking to boats between Vindicare and the Gates of Aleinus,' said his generals and strategists. 'We told you all this, remember? That's why we sent anyone with shipcraft ahead on swift horses.' Leith nodded, not bothering to correct their impression he had forgotten their words. From the writing on the margins of the map he could see that shipping the army up the great river would save them many days of walking and cut more than a week off the total journey. 'My masterstroke,' said his chief steward proudly.

The map allowed a total of fifty days for the army to reach the Gates of Aleinus, nearly three-quarters of the way across the parchment, then another fifty days for the last quarter. 'It will be colder then,' he was told. 'We will have to allow for winter storms.' The Aleinus was not navigable above the Gates, and the army would have to negotiate the Vulture's Craw, a narrow and difficult path. The Wodranian Mountains to the north had no paths suitable for armies, and no food supplies to sustain them, while the Taproot Hills to the south were too tall, with high passes unable to bear a winter traverse.

Once the passage of Vulture's Craw had been effected, the remainder of the journey was arduous but by no means impossible, according to his strategists. East of Kaskyne, the Redana's capital, which the map said they would reach after sixty days, they would follow the north bank of the Aleinus through Piskasia to the town of Adolina at the mouth of Sivera Alenskja, the vast and impenetrable upper gorge of the great river. They would reach this small town at the eastern limit of habitable lands after eighty-five days' marching, leaving the army fifteen days to make their way up the Northern Escarpment and on to the Nagorj Plateau. From there they would make their way eastwards to the Gap, a low saddle between the huge bulk of the northern Aldhras Mountains and the cold, dry spikes of the Armatura to the south, where they would dig in and wait for the Bhrudwans to appear.

One hundred days in total, of which eighty-eight remained. As he rode on down the road, doing the sums in his head, farmers paused in their harvest to cheer the passing army and the boy with the burning arrow. Leith did not acknowledge them. He could not stop thinking about the mathematics. Fifty thousand soldiers, one thousand leagues, one hundred days - and one unpredictable enemy, who might already, at this very moment, be pouring through the Gap like a colony of ants bent on picking the Falthan larder clean.

Stella had no, maps to tell her where she was. Day after featureless day passed in the company of her keeper, the eunuch who might at any time become the Destroyer's mouthpiece. He would ride beside her litter - which, he told her, travelled at the rear of the Bhrudwan army, in the company of the Undying One's carriage, a position of the highest honour - or, on occasion, would sit with her. At first she simply turned away from him, afraid she would suddenly find herself talking to the Destroyer, and stared out of the window at the grey hills that seemed to follow them westwards. The eunuch would say nothing, but would regard her with his blurred, poached-egg eyes, remaining silent even when she wept with frustration at her captivity.

He used to hurt me when 1 cried, Stella realised during one interminable afternoon. He used to pinch me on the shoulder. He doesn't do that any more. Why? she asked herself. Perhaps she had been conditioned, and no longer stepped over the invisible line of unacceptable behaviour. But no, that couldn't be it, for why did he let her cry? Perhaps he feels sorry for me. Surely no heart could be so hard as to not feel pity for my plight.

She turned from peering through the curtain of her prison and stared at the face of her keeper.

Close-cropped hair, round, hairless cheeks, a small mouth - except when it was distorted by the Destroyer - and large brown eyes like that of the village dogs she used to play with. Just like a tamed dog, obedient to his master, denied the pleasure of freedom -just like me. He's just like me. She tried to read his face. Was there the merest sign of shared suffering, of sympathy, around those eyes?

'Where are you from?' she asked him, her voice hushed, willing him to answer. 'Where is your home?' Steeling herself, Stella leaned towards him, trying to elicit a response.

His mouth twitched, and he drew in a breath as though about to answer her; but, as if he'd been taken by surprise, he mastered himself and his face went blank, expressionless, unblinking, and looking into his eyes was like staring though the windows of an uninhabited house.

Almost, Stella told herself. Almost.

On the sixth afternoon east of Sivithar the Knights of Fealty came down from their rocky castle to confront the Falthan army. One hundred and nine there were, wearing the full ceremonial armour of an earlier age, each mounted on a black horse, each with a flag-bearer and page in attendance, and they were followed down the slope from their castle by the townspeople, dressed in bright clothes and in festive mood. For a moment worry gripped Leith. He feared the formidable-seeming knights were about to attack his army, but he heard laughter from around and behind him, and looked where the amused generals were pointing.

Some of the knights were having obvious difficulty staying in the saddle, while others clearly struggled to bear the weight of

their armour, and when they removed their helmets the reason became clear. They were old men. A closer look showed that some of the horses had been blackened to disguise their greying muzzles, and much of their gear, while well kept, was clearly past its best.

But the laughter died as, with immense dignity, the foremost knight rode up to Leith, dismounted and knelt before him. There was something timeless, something noble in his bearing. He remained kneeling, making no sign that he would stand. Discomfited, Leith looked around, searching for guidance.

'You must'no keep'm kneeled, good sir,' said the knight's page, smiling widely. 'Bid'm rise, m'lord. Bid'm rise!'

'Rise, sir knight,' Leith said, in exactly the same voice he had always used by the Loulea lake when he and the other children played at swords. To his amazement, the man arose, and nodded respectfully to him. A dream come true. To his further amazement, he recognised the roguish face of the page with the broken speech.

'Lessep!' Leith cried, surprised. 'You brought me the Knights of Fealty, after all!'

'Was tellin'ee I knowed the knights!' the man crowed. 'Was unbelieved, was I, but knowed them I did!'

'I believe you now,' Leith replied, smiling at the simple man. In the silence that followed his words, he heard one of the generals beside him mutter: 'But what use will they be?'

The knight stepped forward, a small frown on his face. 'I do not judge a man by what I can see of him,' he said in a crisp, clipped voice. 'I would be interested to cross swords with a man who thought he correctly judged my skill by my appearance.: He directed a blazing stare at the Deruvian

general who had spoken, then turned to Leith. 'By your leave, Arrow-bearer?'

The sensible thing to do would have been to refuse. Leith knew that. But events funnelled down a track centuries old in its tradition, and it seemed no one could do anything to prevent what was going to happen. Leith nodded, the Deruvian general - Reaf, his name was -

dismounted and drew his sword, and before wisdom had a chance to clear its throat, the two men were bowing to each other. Reaf was a portly man in his fifties, who looked bemused that a careless word could lead him to this pass. A sudden thought passed through Leith's mind like a draught of cold air. Was this to the death? He was about to call a halt, when the Fealty knight stepped forward and flicked his sword in an impossibly quick motion. Reaf's blade spiralled lazily through the air. By the time it landed point-first in the grass at the side of the road, the knight had sheathed his own sword and extended a hand to the bewildered Deruvian. 'You have a good stance,' the man from Fealty said to his beaten opponent, nodding his approval.

Leith took a deep breath, and the Jugom Ark flamed as though sharing in his relief. Drawn by the brightness, the knight turned to Leith and bowed. 'We are the Knights of Fealty,' he said.

'One hundred and forty-four is our number, though in truth some are not hale enough to make the journey down to greet you. Chalcis is my name. I am a direct descendant of Conal Greatheart, the man whose band drove the Bhrudwans out of Faltha nearly a thousand years ago.' He smiled, removed the glove from his left hand and ruffled the hair of his page. 'My rascally son told me you would be coming, but his is only the latest voice of many to predict your arrival. We have known for many years the Bhrudwans

would return to Faltha, and the Jugom Ark would be raised against them. We have a Seer amongst us, one who exhorted us to prepare, and for twenty years we have trained to be ready for what lies ahead.' He smiled again, and nodded to the humiliated Deruvian, who had remounted his horse and was sucking his stinging hand. 'What use can we be? We have prepared a banquet for you, and our town is ready to entertain your soldiers with feasting and music. And tomorrow, with your leave, we will march eastwards with you to make war on our enemies. Will you come to Fealty with us?'

The tall castle presented a formidable outline but, like the knights themselves, seemed a little shabby, a little frayed at the edges when looked at more closely. Again Leith wondered whether these knights would be all they promised. Thus he was not prepared for what he found in the castle's Great Hall.

The Knights of Fealty formed an honour guard, flanking the Company and the generals of the Falthan army as they walked up the ever-narrowing road and under the arched entrance to the castle. Once through the entrance they were led across a substantial courtyard, past a well and towards a rectangular structure with a steeply raked roof, a building the equal of anything to be found in Instruere. Here, at least, the stone looked well maintained. A knight - Sir Pylorus, Chalcis named him - flung open the tall double doors and the Company walked in to a room of wonder.

Leith heard a bitten-off exclamation behind him, in a voice that sounded like Hal's. He hadn't seen his brother to speak to for more than a week. Not since that night, If it was him, he's losing control. The old Hal would never have ... His

attention was drawn to the hall spread before him, and he had to work not to cry out himself.

Wambakalven. It was the first word that went through his head. The architect who created this hall had captured the essence of an underground cavern: the shimmering play of light and shade, the golden sand spread across the floor coun-terpointing the fluted marble columns that rose to the ceiling like a hundred stalagmites. And the ceiling! A hundred swirling scenes chased each other across the vaulted heaven of the hall, each one directing the eye to a vast centrepiece depicting a rainbow hanging over a field of deepest battle.

In the centre of the hall stood a table laden with food, around which the Knights of Fealty began to seat themselves. The single board looked too small to be able to seat them all, but as he drew closer Leith realised this was a trick of scale: anything human-sized, including the largest table he'd ever seen, would be dwarfed by the cavern-like hall surrounding them.

'Please, be seated,' Sir Chalcis beckoned to his visitors, his voice magnified in a way subtly different to the illusions spun by Phemanderac and others. His words seemed to come from all parts of the hall at once.

'Oh, my!' Phemanderac exclaimed, his eyes wide with wonder. 'Perfect acoustics.' He unlimbered his harp from his shoulder. 'May I?' he asked Sir Chalcis.