Authors: R. Scott Bakker

The Warrior Prophet (56 page)

BOOK: The Warrior Prophet

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His hand closed about the back of her neck … How she loved this game!

“And why does he call me
Dûnyain?
”

“What do you mean?” Cnaiür said to the Dûnyain. “Nothing has been decided. Nothing!”

He tries to deceive me! To undermine me before these outlanders!

Kellhus regarded him with utter dispassion. “I’ve studied
The Book of Devices,
the Nansur manual describing the various personages and their signs in the Kianene order of—”

“As have I!”

The illuminated pages, anyway. Cnaiür couldn’t read.

“Most of the devices lie too far to be seen,” Kellhus continued, “but I’ve been able to infer the identity of most …”

Lies! Lies! He fears I grow too powerful!

“How?” Cnaiür fairly cried.

“Differing shapes. The manual includes lists of each Sapatishah’s client Grandees … I simply counted.”

Cnaiür swept out his hand as though beating the air of flies.

“Then who faces the Ainoni?”

“Overlooking the Meneanor, Imbeyan with the Grandees of Enathpaneah. Swarjuka of Jurisada occupies the remaining heights. Dunjoksha and the Grandees of Holy Amoteu hold the descending ground opposite the Ainoni right and Nansur left. The Shigeki, the centre. Even though Skauras’s standard flies from Anwurat, I believe his Grandees, along with Ansacer and the other survivors of the Battleplain, contest the northern pastures. Those horsemen beyond the village, the ones about to descend upon Proyas, likely belong to Cuäxaji and the Grandees of Khemema. Others ride with him, auxiliaries or allies of some kind … Likely the Khirgwi. Many ride camels.”

Cnaiür stared incredulously at the man, his jaw working. “But that is impossible …”

Where was Crown Prince Fanayal and the feared Coyauri? Where was dread Cinganjehoi and the famed Ten Thousand Grandees of Eumarna?

“It’s fact,” Kellhus said. “Only a fraction of Kian stands before us.”

Cnaiür jerked his gaze yet again to the southern hills and knew, from heart to marrow, that the Dûnyain spoke true. Suddenly he saw the field through Kianene eyes. The fleet Grandees of Shigek and Gedea drawing the Tydonni and Galeoth ever farther west. The Shigeki multitude dying as they should, and fleeing as everyone knew they would. Anwurat, an immovable point threatening the Inrithi rear. Then the southern hills …

“He shows us,” Cnaiür murmured. “Skauras shows us …”

“Two armies,” Kellhus said without hesitation. “One defending, one concealed, the same as on the Battleplain.”

Just then, Cnaiür saw the first long threads of Kianene horsemen descend the faraway southern slopes. Skirts of dust billowed behind them, obscuring the threads that followed. Even from here he could see the Ainoni infantrymen bracing … Miles of them.

The Nansur and Thunyeri, meanwhile, had charged and hacked their way past the final embankments. The Shigeki ranks dissolved before their onslaught. Innumerable thousands already fled westward, pursued by battle-crazed Thunyeri. The Inrithi officers and caste-nobles behind Cnaiür and Kellhus broke into full-throated cheers.

The fools.

Skauras need not fight a battle of penetration along a single line. He had speed and cohesion,
fira
and
utmurzu
. The Shigeki were simply a ruse, a brilliantly monstrous sacrifice—a way to scatter the Inrithi across the broken plains. Too much conviction, the wily old Sapatishah knew, could be as deadly as too little.

A great ache filled Cnaiür’s chest. Only Kellhus’s strong grip saved him the humiliation of falling to his knees.

Always the same …

Never had he been so conflicted. Never had he been so confused.

Throughout the battle, while the others had gawked, exclaimed, and pointed, General Martemus had watched the Scylvendi and Prince Kellhus, straining to hear their banter. The barbarian wore a harness of polished scale, the sleeves hacked short to reveal his many-scarred forearms. A leather girdle set with iron plates strapped his stomach and waist. A pointed Kianene battlecap, its silvering chipped in innumerable places, protected his head. Long black hair whipped about his shoulders.

Martemus could’ve recognized him from miles distant. He was Scylvendi filth. As impressive as he’d found the man both in Council and in the field, the outrage of a Scylvendi—a
Scylvendi!
—overseeing the Holy War in battle was almost too much to bear. How could the others not see the disgusting truth of his heritage? The man’s every scar argued his assassination! Martemus would’ve gladly—
gladly!
—sacrificed his life to avenge those the savage had butchered.

Why, then, had Conphas ordered him to murder the
other
man standing next to the Scylvendi?

Because, General, he’s a Cishaurim spy …

But no spy could speak such words.

That’s his sorcery! Always remember—

No! Not sorcery, truth!

As I said, General.
That
is his sorcery …

Martemus watched, unmoved by the prattle around him.

But no matter how mortal his mission, he couldn’t ignore glory in the field. No soldier could. Drawn by shouts of genuine triumph, Martemus turned to see the heathen’s entire centre collapse. Across miles, from Anwurat to the southern hills, Shigeki formations crumbled and scattered westward, pursued by charging ranks of Nansur and Thunyeri footmen. Martemus cheered with the others. For a moment, he felt only pride for his countrymen, relief that victory had come at so slight a cost. Conphas had conquered again!

Then he glanced back at the Scylvendi.

He’d been a soldier too long not to recognize the stink of disaster—even beneath the perfume of apparent victory. Something had gone catastrophically wrong …

The barbarian screamed at the Hornsman to signal the retreat. For a moment, those about Martemus could only stare in astonishment. Then everything erupted in tumult and confusion. The Tydonni thane, Ganrikki, accused the Scylvendi of treachery. Weapons were drawn, brandished. The deranged barbarian kept roaring at them to peer south, but nothing could be seen for the dust. Even still, the violence of the Scylvendi’s protestations had unsettled many. Several began shouting for the Hornsman, including Prince Kellhus. But the Scylvendi had had enough. He barrelled through the astonished onlookers and leapt onto his horse. Within heartbeats, it seemed, he was racing southeast, trailing a long banderole of dust.

Then the horns sounded, cracking the air.

Others started running to their horses as well. Martemus turned back, looked to the three men Conphas had given him. One, the towering black-skinned Zeumi, met his eyes, nodded, then glanced past him to the Prince of Atrithau. They would run nowhere.

Unfortunate, Martemus thought. Running had been his first truly practical thought in a long time.

For a heartbeat, Prince Kellhus caught his look. His smile held such sorrow that Martemus nearly gasped. Then the Prophet turned to the distances seething beneath his feet.

Vast waves of Kianene horsemen, their corselets flashing from their many-coloured coats, charged down the slopes and slammed into the astonished Ainoni. The forward ranks hunched behind their shields, struggled to brace their long spears on the incline, while above them scimitars flashed in the morning sun. Dust swept across the arid slopes. Horns brayed in panic. The air thundered with shouts, rumbling hooves, and the pulse of Fanim drums. More heathen lancers crashed into and through the Ainoni ranks.

The tributary Sansori under Prince Garsahadutha were the first to break, scattering before none other than fierce Cinganjehoi himself, the famed Tiger of Eumarna. Within moments, it seemed, the Grandees of Eumarna were pounding into the rear of the forward phalanxes. Soon every phalanx on the Ainoni left, with the exception of the elite Kishyati under Palatine Soter, was either stranded or routed. Withdrawing in order, the Kishyati fought off charge after charge, purchasing precious time for the Ainoni knights below.

The whole world, it seemed, was obscured by wind-drawn curtains of dust. Stiff in their elaborate armour, the knights of Karyoti, Hinnant, and Moserothu, Antanamera, Eshkalas, and Eshganax, thundered up the slopes, charging through the thousands who fled. They met the Fanim in an ochre haze. Lances cracked and horses shrieked. Men cried out to the hidden heavens.

Swinging his great two-handed mace, Uranyanka, Palatine of humid Moserothu, upended heathen after heathen. Sepherathindor, Count-Palatine of Hinnant, led his painted knights on a rampage, hewing men like wood. Prince Garsahadutha and his Sansori stalwarts continued charging forward, searching for the holy standards of their kinsmen. The Kianene horsemen broke and fled before them, and the Ainoni bellowed in exultation.

The wind began to clear the haze.

Then Garsahadutha, several hundred paces ahead of his peers, stumbled into Crown Prince Fanayal and his Coyauri. Skewered through the eye socket, the Sansori Prince crashed from his saddle, and death came swirling down. Within moments, all six hundred and forty-three knights of Sansor had been either unhorsed or killed. Unable to see more than several paces, many of the Ainoni knights below simply charged the sound of battle—vanished into the saffron fog. Others milled about their barons and palatines, waiting for the wind.

Horse archers appeared on their flanks and to their rear.