The Starfollowers of Coramonde (33 page)

The younger man
couldn’t dispute that. He conceded the point, and Hightower was soon in a
longboat with Brodur and a dozen other volunteers. Springbuck followed them
through a spying tube, squinting elaborately to make the scene come clear, but
after they’d secured their boat and gone past the first line of houses, he lost
them.

A half-hour
passed. Springbuck ordered more boats readied, selecting a larger party to come
ashore with him. Just then the longboat put out again from the beach, and in
its wake came the canoes. Men of Coramonde loosened swords and tested
bowstrings, but heard no war cries and saw no weapons or armor flashing.

Hightower’s
boat pulled alongside the flagship, but the others stood back. Their occupants
had been warned that Coramonde, come to wage war, would be quick to misconstrue
an act as provocation.

The people
were small, brown-skinned folk whose boats were painted in bright colors and
fanciful designs. Most wore a sort of short kirtle; many had flowers woven in
their hair, and there was a good deal of simple jewelry, childlike works of
coral or shells. The
Ku-Mor-Mai
noticed, at this close range, that many
were scarred, missing a limb, maimed, bereft of an eye or ear, or otherwise
afflicted. Still, they sang a happy-tempoed tune of greeting, for all the fact
that their faces were sad and wary.

The soldiers
and sailors didn’t know what to think of these little people, but called to
them good-naturedly.

Hightower and
Brodur brought a representative to the Protector-Suzerain, a slender brown man
older than most of his people, wearing a dignified chiton. He was in awe of
Oakengrip.
“O Ku-Mor-Mai,”
Hightower boomed formally, “I present Kalakeet, who is
Speaker of these people, which call themselves the Yalloroon.”

The Speaker
smiled, but clearly had misgivings. Springbuck was to learn these people had
good reason to fear strangers. Kalakeet told him, “The great Lord Hightower has
said thou art called Protector-Suzerain, and we beg thee to take us under the
soldierly wing of Coramonde.”

Springbuck
was stuck for reply. Could he, in fact, be a Protector? “Why do you ask it of
me?”

The Speaker’s
face lost composure, as if a hope faded. “We are tormented by an enemy, as
beasts of the pasture or cooped fowl. In our whole history we have been unable
to throw off the collar of Shardishku-Salamá, and we had thought, when the
Trailingsword lit our sky night after night…”

Thinking what
it must have meant to have the Masters blight their lives for generations,
Springbuck’s impulse was to tell Kalakeet’s people deliverance had arrived. But
he had no wish to lie, and he spoke the only thing a
Ku-Mor-Mai
could
dare to, the truth.

“There is no
wing mighty enough to preserve you in surety against Salamá, but if you will
it, you have found determined allies.”

Those
listening thought it a good response, except Hightower, who clenched the hilt
of his greatsword. Kalakeet seemed as if he were awakening from a dream. “I
should have foreseen this; no plight like ours is thrown down in a day. My
people saw this arrival with too much optimism, I should say, without meaning
to offend.” He squared his thin shoulders. “There are many items we can tell
one another; wilt thou come ashore?”

“Thank you,
yes.” He took a map from an aide. “First, we would like to know precisely where
we are. Can you tell us?”

They’d been
blown east of their destination. That event was beneficent, in that the
Yalloroon were hospitable. While Kalakeet was apprising Springbuck’s navigators
and pilots of inaccuracies in maps and charts, the
Ku-Mor-Mai
took his
Warlord aside. Hightower confirmed that the city was empty of armed men.
Springbuck gave the order that unloading begin at once.

Arrangements
were formulated for some vessels to beach and others to unload by boat.
Warships dropped back to form a defensive cordon. Blocks creaked and tackle
groaned as supplies and equipment piled up on the beach. Those craft
transporting horses took high priority; armored fighting men were the backbone
of warfare.

The town had
no walls or defensive works at all; those had been banned by the
Southwastelanders. Springbuck ordered three ships to disgorge their full
cargoes of infantry, an augmented brigade of hardbitten pikemen from the late
Bonesteel’s legions. The
Ku-Mor-Mai
would feel better when he had a ring
of them around the city of the Yalloroon. Sharp-eyed archers of Rugor
positioned themselves and their mantlets, hammering in their stakes, for
supporting fire.

Leaving the
rest of the operation to subordinates, Springbuck repaired to Kalakeet’s
austere little home. Gabrielle came along, and Balagon, Divine Vicar of the
Brotherhood of the Bright Lady, Angorman’s rival. But Hightower said he had
off-loading to supervise.

When they’d
gone, the Warlord turned and stalked away, his visage fierce. He’d heard the
story of the Yalloroon’s suffering; it had lifted him to a pinnacle of rage. He
nearly trampled Bodur, who jumped from his way. Hightower scarcely registered
it. “Brodur-Scabbardless, commandeer me the first twoscore horses off the
ships. Then handpick thirty-eight more men, best of our very best. We are going
riding.”

Springbuck
and Gabrielle made themselves as comfortable as possible in Kalakeet’s
dirt-floored common room, along with Balagon. The
Ku-Mor-Mai
had not had
much chance to acquaint himself with the ageing warrior-priest. The Divine
Vicar was a figure out of fables, leader of the renowned One Hundred. Well
along in years, like Angorman, he was a canny and vigorous man. His sparse
white hairs were gathered by a simple leather circlet, and he wore black
ringmail under his white vestments. On his right forefinger was the heavy seal
ring of his station, and at his hip hung his famous two-handed blade,
Ke-Wa-Coe
which, in the Old Tongue, means Consecrated of the Goddess.

It was
strange for the son of Surehand to be in Gabrielle’s company again without
Hightower. She, on the other hand, gave no indication that she felt the same.

The food the
little Speaker put out for them was pitiful, crusts and oddments of meat
scraps, and runtish vegetables along with some puny fish. Kalakeet apologized,
explaining Salamá didn’t leave much. Springbuck expressed surprise that the
Yalloroon didn’t live under closer control.

“At times we
do, in closest arrest, and at other times not, according to the whim of the
Five. Yet, there are worse things than short rations, or going homeless, or
coming to steely harm,
Ku-Mor-Mai.”

Gabrielle
asked what he meant. Kalakeet elaborated. The Yalloroon had lived under
Shardishku-Salamá for an uncertain time, since they were forbidden records.
Once, they’d lived peacefully at the ocean’s shore. Thus, they’d been unable to
resist armed conquerors, adherents of the Masters who’d ground them down with
painstaking intimidation, torture and execution. The Yalloroon had fought back
once, disastrously. None who’d taken up arms were punished, but every other
man, woman and child was, and many of them were killed. Some rebels committed
suicide out of remorse and others simply became despondent; no uprisings
occurred again. Several groups set out to escape, by land and sea, but all were
brought back, saying they’d found no place not controlled by Salamá.

The Yalloroon
became playthings in a game of transcendent cruelty. They suffered ever-new
terrors, humiliation and pain, being tested, they concluded, in some cold experiment
to learn how to separate people from pride, from hope, from any other quality
that might inhibit total submission.

They’d
considered racial suicide. But one woman had stood up at one of their meetings,
saying, “There is only one reason they could wish to erase us so utterly. They
know we are better than they.”

The weaker
and less angry knew they couldn’t bear it. Many took their own lives or each
other’s by agreement. Those who were angriest, though, vowed to keep the things
Salamá wished to destroy. So, while the Masters could quite easily have them
killed, or broken with physical torture, or compelled by direct duress,
separating the Yalloroon from their self-worth had met insurmountable
resistance.

Springbuck
was amazed. In some way, Shardishku-Salamá itself had lost face, its clinical
subjects refusing to behave as they ought. The Yalloroon had been unshakable in
their belief that they were being tormented simply because they were better.
From it had flowed the strength to resist. Erring, the Five had converted these
unimposing people into a human alloy capable of being shattered, but never
bent, the diametric opposite of the intended result.

“But then,”
interrupted Balagon, “as far as you know, we could be of Salamá, and all this,
even the Trailingsword, a ruse.”

“As happened
generations ago,” responded Kalakeet. “An army came, and declared us liberated.
There were celebrations and thanksgivings. After a week, they revealed the terrible
truth, a sudden and subtle blow that started a more severe round of
atrocities.”

“You have
little reason to believe us then,” Springbuck observed, “but you are no longer
alone.”

“And whether
that is true or false,
Ku-Mor-Mai,
we welcome thee. If it is betrayal,
that is thy crime, not ours.” He said it in an old, formidable dignity. The
Ku-Mor-Mai
bowed homage to that.

“When deeds
are tallied,” he answered, “none will match those of the Yalloroon.”

Balagon
voiced agreement. Splendid Gabrielle took Kalakeet’s hand and inclined her head
over it.

Springbuck
began asking questions about the area. He answered Kalakeet’s questions about
Coramonde, but told nothing of his actual plan; information could be extracted
from the bravest man. A cartographer arrived with revised maps for the
Speaker’s review, and the Protector-Suzerain ordered the expedition’s healers
to move among the Yalloroon and be of whatever service they could. Night and
the Trailingsword came on, and Kalakeet lit hoarded stubs of candle.

The door
banged open. Hightower filled the frame, reeking of the fight, with new damage
to his armor, eyes smouldering. The first engagement with the Southwastelanders
on their own soil had already been fought.

He sat, to
tell them about it. Hearing Kalakeet’s story, he’d become infuriated. Seeking
release, he’d reconnoitered the countryside with Brodur and select men at his
back. They’d encountered three times their own number in enemy cavalry,
stumbling into them by chance in a winding pass. The Southwastelanders had been
astounded but Hightower, with no more hesitation than it made to drop his lance
level, had gone in among them, irresistible. His men, with scant choice, had
borne in after. The southerners, less heavily armored and without room to
maneuver, had stood their ground.

The Warlord
had driven completely through their ranks. Springbuck could picture that; he’d
seen the old giant in combat, where getting in his way was tantamount to
suicide. Gabrielle’s face wore a pride the
Ku-Mor-Mai
couldn’t begrudge.

Hightower and
his men had cut the Southwastelanders to pieces, and sent them reeling back
down the pass, shivering in fright of these terrible new foemen, found where
there ought only to have been helpless Yalloroon. The men of Coramonde had
ridden back to the city singing, with a foeman’s head on every lancetip.

Springbuck
set his hand to the Warlord’s hilt, pulled the greatsword from its sheath. It
was streaked with the dark blood of enemies, red coming to brown in the
candlelight.

“Lord
Hightower has delivered the first statement of our long communiqué of war.”

The Speaker
reached out timidly. The very ends of his fingers reached the cold blade,
rested there for a second. He drew them back as if burned, awed at the brown
stains on them. Then he buried his head in his hands, weeping.

Wrestling
within the son of Surehand were loathing of the squander of war, against
satisfaction in the delivery of the Yalloroon.

Who asks whether the enemy were
defeated by strategy or valor?

Virgil

THE Lord of the Just and Sudden
Reach gauged the dust of enemy horsemen. One of the riders of his advance
party, doing the same, estimated, “They will be here in perhaps forty minutes,
Majesty.”

Reacher shook
his head. Those were swift desert chargers, bearing lightly armored
Southwastelanders. They would arrive at the little way station here, where the
men of Freegate had stopped, sooner than that. He looked to the courier who’d
just come up from the main body of his army.

“How far back
are my sister and the array?”

The man
answered unwillingly, knowing it was bad news. “No less than an hour and
another half, my Lord. They are harried by unarmored bowmen on fleet steeds
who, firing at them, outrace pursuit. The Horseblooded might have chased and
caught them, but the Snow Leopardess would not allow her force to go asunder.
She will come as quickly as she can. It might mean delay, your Grace, or it
might mean a fight.”

“It is
Katya,” Reacher replied. “It will be a fight.” But she was handling things entirely
correctly. It wouldn’t do to let the Horseblooded become separated from the
slower-moving mailed warriors of Freegate, risking piecemeal combat in
unfamiliar country. She couldn’t know this way station was here, deserted by
its few sentinels, commanding high ground that would be defaulted to the
thousand or so Southwastelanders coming at full speed.

Reacher had
come ahead with two hundred men to scout the terrain in depth, only to find Southwastelanders
within minutes of this strong position on its high ground, approaching from the
opposite direction. He studied the hill, its grass burned brown by the
overbearing sun. To the west, enormous broken teeth of stone formed a jagged
hedge, sloping away toward the uneven, ravined land that led to the Central
Sea. The position was secure enough there. The way station and its outbuildings
were close by the side of the Southern Tangent, at the crest of the rise; from
there the hill fell away to the east. It descended into gullies, draws and
washes etched from the earth. That it wasn’t more heavily fortified was due to
the fact that it fronted league after league of barren, uninhabited land to the
north, guarding the farthest parts of Salamá’s domain. South of here, the
Southern Tangent was said to stop, vanishing beneath a region of desert.