The Ten Thousand (43 page)

The old Kefre
stared at her, both startled and scandalised. “What do you do here, with these
animals?” he demanded in Kefren, the language of the kings.

“I am guiding them
home. The faster you provide them with what they need, the sooner they shall be
gone. They are starving. If you do not give it to them, they will take it.”

The Kefre nodded
slowly. “So it has always been. The spearpoint cannot be denied. Very well.” He
paused. “I have heard stories from the south. These then are the Macht who
fought the Great King?”

“They are.”

“Then we will feed
them. But we will curse their names, and rue the very footsteps they must take
across our world.”

Tiryn nodded. “I
know,” she said.

* *
*

They marched
across the green hills and open farmland of Askanon, and upon meeting the
Sardask River, they consulted Jason’s map and decided to cross it before it
broadened in the flatter plains below. The army splashed through it thigh deep,
and on the far side they pitched camp and sent out foraging parties. They drew
water from the river and set it to boil in the centoi, whilst the herd of
livestock that now travelled with them was picked through for the day’s meat.
The citizens of Kumir had handed over all their draught animals to Aristos, and
what was left over in their grain stores after the winter. There had been
little enough to spare for the main body of the Macht, but for hungry men it
had been enough. For a while at least.

Rictus and Jason
stood at the riverbank, watching the water pass by and tossing stones into it
like bored children. Both wore the Curse of God. Both were as lean as a man can
be and still live. They looked almost of an age now; Rictus had lost the last
rags of his youth in the Korash. His face was lined and he had the makings of a
beard on his chin, for all his light colouring.

“In the mountains,
we passed the line at which rivers choose where to flow,” Jason said. “In all
our march thus far, they have been flowing from the west to the east, into the
lowlands of the Middle Empire. Here, on this side of the high country, they
flow east to west. This river ends in the sea, Rictus.” He shook his head
slightly, and chuckled.

“I was born by the
sea,” Rictus said. A moment later he added, “I like the sound of it, the smell.
I shall be glad to look on it again.”

“Ah, it’s
something to look at, I suppose. But I’ll not set sail upon it again, not if I
can help it.”

Rictus turned,
surprised. “You’ll have to, if you want to make the crossing to the Harukush.”

“There you have
me. I’ve been meaning to say it, and now seems the time. I’ll be leaving you
very soon, you and the army.” Rictus stared at him, mute.

“I’ve had enough
of soldiering, Rictus. I’ve seen enough death. I’ve tramped halfway across the
world, killing and watching others kill. Most of my friends are dead. I—” He
stumbled a little. “I have no sons to carry on my name. I have nothing but this
black armour on my back, and the spear-calluses on my hands. It is not much to
show for a life.”

“You have a name
among us whom you have led, and one day soon you will have one among all the
Macht. You go home, and you’ll be a hero. There’s not a city in the Harukush
would not empty its treasury to hire the man who led the Ten Thousand back from
Kunaksa.”

“I am no longer
that man.”

Rictus looked
away. “Is it the woman? Is it Tiryn?”

“It’s her, as much
as anything else.”

“You think you can
live here, in the Empire, in peace—a Macht and a Kufr together?”

“The Empire is a
big place. I intend that we shall lose ourselves in it. I want that peace,
Rictus. I want soil to till, grapes to grow, an old hound to lie scratching
itself at my feet.”

Rictus shook his
head. For a second there flashed through his mind a picture of his father’s
glen, the farm buildings, the quiet river. “The Great King will hunt you down,”
he said, not without bitterness.

“I think he may
have other things on his mind. From what we’ve heard, a good portion of the
Empire is in chaos. Let him chew his way through that for a while, and he’ll
forget us.”

“You’re wrong,
Jason. You should stay with us. Come back to the Harukush.”

“And you think I
could settle there in peace, with a Kufr woman for a wife? I’d sooner take my
chances with the Great King’s wrath. My mind is made up. Tiryn and I leave the
army in the morning. I’m sorry, Rictus.”

The Iscan moved
away, stared out into the west and the blue distance there with the sun going
down behind it. “I wish you luck, then.”

Jason set a hand
on his shoulder. “You have come a long way from the strawhead I hired in
Machran. You were born to lead, Rictus. Your time in the colour is only
beginning. You, too, have a name among the Macht now.”

“Stay with us a
little longer. Look upon the sea with me, Jason, and then take your leave. We’ll
have a feast to mark your going. I’d not have you leave like a thief in the
night.” Rictus’s voice was thick and raw. He remained staring at the western
horizon. Jason shook him slightly.

“Very well. I
suppose a new life can wait a few more days.”

THE SEA, THE SEA

Past the city of
Ashdod the army marched, the Imperial Road unwinding beneath their feet like a
carpet spread to speed them home. This was the province of Askanon, which once
in the semi-legendary past had been conquered by their forefathers. They had
landed in their black galleys at the mouth of the Haneikos River and had issued
forth across the Great Continent with an arrogance the world had not seen
since. Those ancient armies had marched east to the Korash Mountains, and there
the black tide of the Macht had been foiled, beaten back by the overwhelming
numbers and valour of the Kufr armies. That defeat had set the fate of the
world for millennia, giving rise to an empire and an unbroken line of Kings.
Now a Macht army was marching west in the footsteps of their ancestors. They
were a mere remnant of what they had been: ill-equipped, half-starved, and
ragged as tramps. But they were unbeaten, and word of their deeds had spread
out across half the world.

Talking to
frightened Kufr peasants in the farms they passed, Tiryn learned that the
Juthan had set up a king for themselves, a soldier named Proxis. There were
rumours of great battles with the Imperial armies along the Jurid River. And
Ancient Artaka was still in revolt, shielded from reprisal by the bulwark of
Jutha. All over the Empire, it was said, slaves were rising up against their
masters, and chaos was threatening the line of Asur. Perhaps what men whispered
around their night-time fires was true: the Empire’s day had come and gone. The
world was being crafted anew according to some unknown whim of the gods above
and below. Mot had destroyed the harvest of Pleninash, and there was hunger in
the Land of the Rivers, the most fertile provinces in the entire world. The
march of the Ten Thousand had been ordained by God, the Macht the instrument
with which he had visited his wrath upon the earth.

“Imaginative
fellows,” Jason said when Tiryn apprised him of the peasants’ stories. “I never
thought I would be an instrument of God. Still, it’s something to know we’ve
shaken the foundations of a world, the Juthan and us. I always thought those
yellow-eyed folk were too quiet.”

“It’s why they
were made slaves, far back in the past. They loved their freedom too much,”
Tiryn said.

“Then I wish them
luck. May they be a thorn in the Empire’s side forever.”

“You dismiss a
world you know little about,” Tiryn said quietly.

“I do. I am an
ignorant fool. I have walked half the earth with nothing in my heart but the
craft of killing. I am changing, though. Be patient, Tiryn. Speak to me now,
and tell me new words.”

“The word for a
plough is
kinshir.
The word for a hoe is
atak.”
She paused. “The
word for a child is
oba.”

Jason looked at
her, and smiled. “Good words. I shall have need of them all one day.”

The days passed,
and the army came upon signs of Aristos’s passage ahead of them. Burnt-out
villages, looted farmsteads, smoke on the far horizon. Every time they came to
a large town, Tiryn had to speak with the inhabitants and assure them that the
main body of the Macht would not behave as these forerunners had done. The men
were in no mood for looting at any rate. They took what the folk of the country
gave them and moved on, intent now on the way ahead, the end of the road. There
were some five and a half thousand of them left alive. The wounded, the sick
had all died in the mountains, and those who were left were the hardiest or the
luckiest of the fourteen thousand that had taken ship with Phiron the year
before. They moved in a compact column not two pasangs long, the single-axled
carts hauled along in their midst and clattering on the stones of the Imperial
Road. They had no armour left worth speaking of, their shields were piled in
the mule-carts, and they marched with their spears to hand like nothing so much
as a procession of staff-bearing pilgrims pursuing some crack-brained vision.
Most still had their scarlet cloaks; the only badge they bore now. Centons had
been amalgamated from half-strength remnants, and the Kerusia had more or less
ceased to function. They followed Rictus and Jason, obeying their orders
without question— for there were not many orders left to obey. They had only to
march, to put one foot in front of the other, to keep their ranks and eat up
the pasangs day after day with their eyes fixed on the west.

Whistler commanded
the light troops now and took them ahead every morning at dawn to sniff out the
way ahead. Seventeen days out from Kumir the army found itself marching up a
long incline, a line of high ground dotted with woods and cropland, the earth
rising up to bring close the horizon. Rictus and Jason, at the front of the
column, saw some of Whistler’s men come running back down this hill, sprinting
like men who carry news. As they drew closer, it could be seen that these were
the youngest and fleetest among the Hounds, mere boys most of them, with hard
eyes now wide and bright. They were shouting as they ran, waving their arms as
though afraid they would not be seen.

“What is it?”
Rictus demanded as one collapsed at his feet, chest heaving. “Geron, isn’t it?
Take your time.”

“The sea!” the boy
cried, gulping for air as though the words would choke him. “The sea!”

The words went
down the column more quickly than a racing horse. They were repeated. The
entire army took them up. Rictus bent over the gasping, grinning, hiccupping
boy. “Geron, are you saying—”

I he column broke
up. Men began running up the long slope ahead. At its top, more of the Lights
could be seen now, waving their spears in the air, hallooing down at their
comrades. The Macht became a crowd of running men, hundreds, thousands leaving
the road to begin running westwards towards the men on the hill ahead. The
mule-carts were abandoned. Men tripped up and were knocked aside. Jason and
Rictus and Tiryn stood together over the boy Geron as he climbed to his feet. “General,
up ahead, you can see it from the hilltop, I swear. You can even smell it on the
air.”

Mochran and Mynon
joined them, jostled and bumped by the tide of men running past. “Is it true?”
Mochran demanded. “Boy, I’ll brain you if it’s not.”

“Just a few
pasangs, General, I swear by the mother that bore me. Go up the hill and see
for yourself.”

They looked at one
another and finally Jason said, “Well, brothers,” and led the way.

At the top of the
hill fully two thirds of the army now stood and knelt and embraced each other
and wept and shouted thanks to the gods. Rictus felt his heart rising in his
throat, beating as fast as if he were going into battle. Beside him, Jason and
Tiryn strode hand in hand. The Kufr woman had torn the komis from her head and
her dark hair was blowing out like a flag in the wind.

And Rictus smelled
it, that salt in that air, that slake of earth. He pushed his way through the
raucous crowds on the hilltop and stood at their fore, his knuckles white on
the shaft of his spear. So dazzled was he by his tears and the sunlight that
for a moment all he could see was a bright blur, a blueness. He blinked his
eyes clear, and there it was, all the way to the horizon.

“The sea, the sea,”
he whispered, the tears streaming down his cheeks. The immensity of it, and on
the edge of that vast blueness, the darker shapes of the Harukush Mountains, a
mere guess at the end of sight. He bent his head, and the hammering of his
heart began to ease. He was thinking of Gasca, of Phiron and Pasion and a dozen
others. The faces of the dead filled his heart until he thought it would burst.

Jason set an arm
about his shoulders. “I wish you joy of the sight, brother,” he said quietly. “I
wish you joy.”

They camped that
night within sound of the breakers, and men left the campfires to splash in the
shallows like children and throw up cascades of moonlit spray at one other,
laughing. Phobos cast a long glittering path of broken light below him, so that
men said he was making a road for them across the waters to the Harukush
beyond. He had forgiven them their failings; his brother and his mother had
softened his heart. He would let them see home again after all.

Rictus sat by a
driftwood fire at the shoreline, his toes buried in sand. He rested his elbows
on his knees and stared out at the waters, the vast panoply of the stars above
them, the white foam of the waves catching the moonlight. All around him, the
Macht had lit their fires up and down the coast and men were talking around the
flames as they had not done in a long time. They talked of home, of ships, of
Sinon. Some even broached the topic of employment. They talked of the future.
It was something they had not cared to raise since Kunaksa. Something in them
had come alive again, if only for tonight.