The Ten Thousand (45 page)

Aristos’s men
streamed forward, Gominos at their head. Rictus and Aristos stood looking first
at each other, and then at Jason, appalled. Rictus tossed his knife to the
ground and knelt down beside the prone man. “Jason,
Jason
.”

They stood around
him. Rictus clamped his hand to the deep hole in Jason’s side. His face was as
white as marble.

“Damn you,” Jason
whispered. “I had a life. Ah, Phobos. Antimone, keep me.” His voice trailed
away.

“
Tiryn
,” he
breathed, almost inaudible. And then he died.

All around them,
the clamour of the city went on, the night bright and gaudy and tattered with
the celebrations of the Ten Thousand. Aristos and Gominos and their men stood
mute, frozen, staring. Rictus closed Jason’s eyes, then bent and kissed his
forehead.

“You were the best
of us,” he whispered.

Of its own accord,
his hand went out and found the hilt of his knife. He stood up, and when he
turned to face the Macht in the street they backed away from the light in his
eyes, as men will give space to a mad dog. Three strides he took, the movement
a swift flash, and the blade gleamed in the air as he swept it out before him.
Aristos dropped his own weapon, startled. His hands scrabbled for his throat,
to the great, gouting hole that had opened there. He gargled words through the
blood, staggered, went down on his knees. One scarlet hand grasped Rictus’s
thigh. Then he fell to his side in the street, struggling to stillness in the
steaming puddle of blood which was both Jason’s and his own. Rictus watched
him, and finally tossed the knife onto his body. He looked up at Gominos, at
the rest of Aristos’s men who stood silent and still before him.

“Now, it’s over,”
he said.

THE DEBT

The flames of the
pyre were nearly out; that which had burned in the midst of them was now no
more than blackened ash. A wind came off the sea and lifted the ash into the
air, sending it scattered about the heads of the assembled men like a flock of
dark birds.

On the beach stood
several hundred spearmen, shields on their shoulders, scarlet cloaks on their
backs. Some wore the Curse of God. All had torn their chitons in the
grief-mark. As the flames sank, so they began to sing the Paean, the death-song
of the Macht, the hymn that had accompanied them into battle so many times.
Standing at a slight distance from them were a tall, fair-headed young man and
a veiled Kufr woman.

“What will you do
now?” Rictus asked.

Tiryn did not look
at him. “I don’t know. All my thoughts were bent on him. All my hopes. There is
nothing else.”

“You could go
home.”

“I have no home. I
am between two worlds now.” One long-fingered hand came out from under the
black robe and touched her belly. “In here, a child is growing whose father was
Macht. In which world should he be born: in mine, or in his father’s?”

Rictus stared at
her. “Jason’s child? Did he know?”

“I think perhaps
he did. He had talked of a farm, a quiet life.” She laughed, and the sound
dropped into something like a sob. “Jason, a farmer.”

Rictus stared out
to sea, to where the dark guess of the mountains loomed at the edge of the
world. That was home, that far place. It was home with nothing familiar in it,
no man he called a friend, no blood his own.

“Stay with me,” he
said to Tiryn. “I will look after you.”

“You! If it were
not for you he would be alive yet!”

“I know. I owe you
a debt of blood. I will repay it. Stay by me and I shall be a father to this
child of yours and Jason’s. He was my friend. He would not want it to come into
the world without one.” When she said nothing, he added. “Please, let me do
this thing.”

“What—so you can
sleep at night without his ghost to haunt you?”

Rictus hesitated.
His jaw worked. “I have no one. I have no family to go back to, no reason to go
home. If you would let me, I would have you stay with me, to repay my friend
for his death, and to make a new family. To have a new life.”

Tiryn looked at
him now. They were almost the same height, and he was as fair as she was dark.

“A new life?” she
said. She touched her stomach again. “This, in here, is a new life. I will bear
Jason’s child somewhere in the world where there are no Macht, no soldiers,
where we can live in peace. I shall tell my child his father was a good man,
who travelled with barbarians. Leave me be, Rictus. Go back to your soldiers.
It is the only life you will ever know. It is the only thing you are fit for.”
She walked away.

Rictus watched her
go, the files of Macht spearmen making a lane for her to pass. Her mule was
hobbled on the hill behind, and upon it Jason’s black armour glittered cold in
the sun.

Aichme
: A
spearhead, generally of iron but sometimes of bronze. The spearhead is usually
some nine inches in length, of which four inches is the blade.

Antimone
:
The veiled goddess, protector and guardian of the Macht. Exiled from heaven for
creating the black Macht armour, she is the goddess of pity, of mercy, and of
sadness. Her veil separates life from death.

Antimone’s Gift
/ the Curse of God
: Black, indestructible armour given to the Macht in the
legendary past by the goddess Antimone, created by the smith-god himself out of
woven darkness. There are some five to six thousand sets of this armour extant
upon the world of Kuf, and the Macht will fight to the death to prevent it
falling into the hands of the Kufr.

Apsos
: God
of beasts. A shadowy figure in the Macht pantheon, reputed to be a goat-like
creature who will avenge the ill-treatment of animals and sometimes transform
men into beasts in revenge or as a jest.

Araian
: The
Sun, wife of Gaenion the Smith.

Archon
: A
Kufr term for a military officer of high rank, a general of a wing or corps.

Bel
: The
all-powerful and creative god who looks over the Kufr world. Roughly equivalent
to the Macht “God,” but gentler and less vindictive.

Carnifex
:
An army physician.

Centon
:
Traditionally the number of men who could be fed from a single centos, the
large black cauldron mercenaries eat from. It approximates one hundred men.

Chiton
: A
short-sleeved tunic, open at the throat, reaching to the knee.

Gaenion
:
The smith-god of the Macht, who created the Curse of God for Antimone, who
wrought the stars and much of the fabric of Kuf itself. He is married to
Araian, the sun, and his forges are reputed to be upon the summit of Mount
Panjaeos in the Harukush.

Goatherder
tribes
: Less sophisticated Macht who do not dwell in cities but are nomadic
hill-people.

They possess no
written language, but have a large hoard of oral culture.

Goatmen:
Degenerate savages who belong to no city, and live in a state of brutish filth.
They wear goatskins by and large, and keep to the higher mountain-country of
the Macht lands.

Hell
: The
far side of the Veil. Not hell in the Christian sense, but an afterlife whose
nature is wholly unknowable.

Honai
:
Traditionally, a Kefren word meaning
finest.
It is a term used to
describe the best troops in a King’s entourage, not only his bodyguards, but
the well-drilled professional soldiers of the Great King’s household guard.

Hufsan / Hufsa
:
Male and female terms for the lower-caste inhabitants of the Empire,
traditionally mountain-folk of the Magron, the Adranos, and the Korash. They are
smaller and darker than the Kefren, but hardier, more primitive, and less
cultured, preferring to preserve their records through storytelling rather than
script.

Isca
: A
Macht city, destroyed by a combination of her neighbours in the year before the
Battle of Kunaksa. The men of Isca were semi-professional warriors who trained
incessantly for war and had a habit of attacking their neighbours. Legend has
it the founder of Isca, Isarion, was a protege of the god Phobos.

Juthan
: The
squat, grey-skinned slave-race of the Asurian Empire. They are a stubborn,
secretive and hardy folk, and were one of the last peoples to be conquered by
the Great Kings.

Kefren
: The
peoples of the Asurian heartland, who led the resistance to the Macht in the
semi-legendary past, and then established an Empire on the back of that
achievement. Throughout the Empire they are a favoured race, and have become a
caste of rulers and administrators.

Kerusia
: In
Machtic, the word denotes a council, and is used to designate the leaders of a
community. In mercenary circles it can also refer to a gathering of generals,
sometimes but not always elected by common consent.

Komis
: The
linen head-dress worn by the nobility of the Asurian Empire. It can be pulled
up around the head so that only the eyes are visible, or can be loosed to
reveal the entire face.

Kuf
: The
world, the earth, the place of life set amid the stars under the gaze of God
and his minions.

Kufr
: A
derogatory Macht term for all the inhabitants of Kuf who are not of their own
race.

Mora
: A
formation of ten centons, or approximately one thousand men.

Mot
: The
Kufr god of barren soil, and thus of death.

Niscian
: A
breed of horse from the plains of Niseia, reputedly the best warhorses in the
world, and certainly the greatest in stature. Mostly black or bay, and over
sixteen hands in height, they are the mounts of Kings and Kefren nobility, and
are rarely seen outside the Asurian heartland.

Obol
: A
coin of small value, made of bronze.

Ostrakr
:
The term used for those unfortunates who have no city as their own, either
because they have been exiled, their city has been destroyed, or they have
taken up with mercenaries.

Othismos
:
The name given to the heart of hand-to-hand battle, when two bodies of heavy
infantry meet.

Paean
: A
hymn, usually sung upon the occasion of a death. The Macht sing their Paean
going into battle, to prepare themselves for their own demise.

Panoply
:
The name given for a full set of heavy infantry accoutrements, including a
helm, a cuirass, a shield, and a spear.

Pasang
: One
thousand single paces. Historically, one mile is a thousand double-paces of a
Roman Legionary, thus a pasang is half a mile.

Phobos and
Haukos
: The two moons of Kuf. Phobos is the larger and is pale in colour.
Haukos is smaller and pink or pale red in colour. Also, the two sons of the
goddess Antimone. Phobos is the god of fear, and Haukos the god of hope.

Qaf
: A
mysterious race native to the mountains of the Korash. They are very tall and
broad and seem to be a strange kind of amalgam of Kufr and ape. They are
reputed to have their own language, but appear as immensely powerful beasts
that haunt the snows of the high passes.

Rimarch
: An
archaic term for a file-closer, the last man in the eight-man file of a
phalanx, and second-in-command of the file itself.

Sauroter
:
The lizard-sticker. The counterweight to the aichme, at the butt of the spear,
generally a four-sided spike somewhat heavier than the spearhead so the spear
can be grasped past the middle and still retain its balance. It is used to
stick the spear upright in the ground, and also to finish off prone enemies. If
the aichme is broken off in combat, the sauroter is often used as a substitute.

Sigils
: The
letters of the Macht alphabet. Usually, each city adopts one as its badge and
has it painted upon the shields of its warriors.

Silverfin,
Horrin
: Silverfin roughly correspond to a kind of ocean bass, and horrin to
mackerel.

Strawhead
:
A derogatory term used among the Macht for those who hail from the high
mountain settlements. These folk tend to be taller and fairer in colouring than
the Macht from the lowlands, hence the name.

Taenon
: The
amount of land required for one man to live and raise a family. It varies
according to the country and the soil quality, a taenon in the hills being
larger than in the lowlands, but in general it equates to about five acres.

Vorine
: A
canine predator, midway between a wolf and a jackal in size.

Paul Kearney
studied at Lincoln College, Oxford where he read Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, and
Middle English and was a keen member of the Mountaineering Society and the
Officer Training Corps. He has published several titles including the Sea
Beggars series to critical acclaim, being long-listed for the British Fantasy Award.