Authors: R. Scott Bakker

The Warrior Prophet (30 page)

BOOK: The Warrior Prophet

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But he needed to stay focused on practical mysteries—not those pertaining to the ground.

Skaiyelt tossed the skull into the bonfire, glared at his fellow Great Names. The debate continued, and one by one they acquiesced, though Chepheramunni at first refused to credit the story. Even the Exalt-General conceded without complaint. Over the course of the debate, some looks wandered toward Kellhus, but no one solicited his opinion. After a short time, Proyas announced that the Holy War would leave Mengedda and her cursed plains come morning.

The Men of the Tusk rumbled in wonder and relief.

Attention was once again yielded to aging Cumor, who, either because he was flustered or dreaded further interruptions, dispensed with the Gilgallic rites altogether and came directly to stand over Saubon. The other priests seemed more than a little disconcerted.

“Kneel,” the old man called out in a quavering voice.

Saubon did as he was told, but not before sputtering, “Gotian! He led the charge!”

“It is you, Coithus Saubon,” Cumor replied, his tone so soft that few, Kellhus imagined, could hear him. “
You
… Many saw it. Many saw
him,
the Shield-Breaker, glorious
Gilgaöl
… He looked through your eyes! Fought with your limbs!”

“No …”

Cumor smiled, then withdrew a circlet woven of thorns and olive sprigs from his voluminous right sleeve. Save for the odd cough, the gathered Inrithi fell absolutely silent. With an old man’s unsteady gentleness, he placed the circlet upon Saubon’s head. Then stepping back, the High Cultist of Gilgaöl cried, “Rise, Coithus Saubon, Prince of Galeoth …
Battle-Celebrant!
”

Once again the assembly thundered in exultation. Saubon pressed himself to his feet, but slowly, like a man wearied by a near heartbreaking run. For a moment he looked about in disbelief, then without warning, he turned to Kellhus, his cheeks shining with tears in the firelight. His clean-shaven face still bore cuts and bruises from five days previous.

Why?
his anguished look said.
I don’t deserve this …

Kellhus smiled sadly, and bowed to the precise degree jnan demanded from all men in the presence of a Battle-Celebrant. He’d more than mastered their brute customs by now; he’d learned the subtle flourishes that transformed the seemly into the august. He knew their every cue.

The roaring redoubled. They’d all witnessed their exchanged look; they’d all heard the story of Saubon’s pilgrimage to Kellhus at the ruined shrine.

It happens, Father. It happens.

But the thunderous cheering suddenly faltered, trailed into the rumble of questioning voices. Kellhus saw Ikurei Conphas standing before the bonfire not far from Saubon, his shouts only now becoming audible.

“—fools!” he railed. “Rank idiots! You’d
honour
this man? You’d acclaim acts that nearly doomed the entire Holy War?”

A tide of jeers and taunts swelled through the amphitheatre.

“Coithus Saubon,
Battle-Celebrant,
” Conphas cried in derision, and somehow managed to silence the rumble. “
Fool-Celebrant
, I say! The man who nearly saw all of you killed on these cursed fields! And trust me, this is the one place where you
don’t
want to die …”

Saubon simply watched him, dumbstruck.

“You know what I mean,” the Exalt-General said to him directly. “You know what you did was errant folly.” Reflections of the bonfire curled like oil across his golden breastplate.

The masses had fallen utterly silent. He had no choice, Kellhus knew, but to intervene.

Conphas is too clever to—

“The craven see folly everywhere,” a powerful voice boomed from the lower tiers. “All daring is rash in their eyes, because they would call their cowardice ‘prudence.’” Cnaiür had stood from his place next to Xinemus.

Months had passed, and still the Scylvendi’s penetration surprised him. Cnaiür saw the danger, Kellhus realized, knew that Saubon would be useless if he were discredited.

Conphas laughed. “So I’m a coward, am I, Scylvendi?” His right hand happened upon the pommel of his sword.

“In a manner,” Cnaiür said. He wore black breeches and a grey thigh-length vest—plunder from the Kianene camp—that left both his chest and banded arms bare. Firelight shimmered across the vest’s silk embroidery, flashed from his pale eyes. As always, the plainsman emanated a feral intensity that made others, Kellhus noted, stiffen in inarticulate alarm. Everything about him looked hard, like sinew one had to saw rather than slice.

“Since defeating the People,” the Scylvendi continued, “much glory has been heaped upon your name. Because of this, you begrudge others that same glory. The valour and wisdom of Coithus Saubon have defeated Skauras—no mean thing, if what you said at your Emperor’s knee was to be believed. But since this glory is not yours, you think it false. You call it foolishness, blind lu—”

“It
was
blind luck!” Conphas cried. “The Gods favour the drunk and the soft-of-head …
That’s
the only lesson we’ve learned.”

“I cannot speak to what your gods favour,” Cnaiür replied. “But you have learned much, very much. You have learned the Fanim cannot withstand a determined charge by Inrithi knights, nor can they break a determined defence by Inrithi footmen. You have learned the strengths and shortcomings of their tactics and their weapons against a heavily armoured foe. You have witnessed the limits of their patience. And you have
taught
as well—a very important lesson. You have taught them to
fear
. Even now, in the hills, they run like jackals before the wolf.”

Cheers spread through the crowds, gradually growing into another deafening roar.

Stupefied, Conphas stared at the Scylvendi, his fingers kneading his pommel. He’d been roundly defeated. And so swiftly …

“Time for another scar on your arms!” someone cried, and laughter boomed through the amphitheatre. Cnaiür graced the assembled Inrithi with a rare fierce grin.

Even from this distance, Kellhus knew the Exalt-General felt neither shame nor embarrassment: the man smiled as though a crowd of lepers had just insulted his beauty. For Conphas, the derision of thousands meant as little as the derision of one. The game was all that mattered.

Among those Kellhus needed to dominate, Ikurei Conphas was an especially problematic case. Not only did he suffer pride—almost lunatic in proportion—he possessed a pathological disregard for the estimations of other men. Moreover, like his uncle the Emperor, he believed that Kellhus himself was somehow connected to Skeaös—to the
Cishaurim,
if Achamian could be believed. Add to that a childhood surrounded by the labyrinthine intrigues of the Imperial Precincts, and the Exalt-General became almost as immune to Dûnyain techniques as the Scylvendi.

And he planned, Kellhus knew, something catastrophic for the Holy War …

Another mystery. Another threat.

The Great Names moved on to bicker about further things. First Proyas, using arguments he’d rehearsed, Kellhus surmised, with Cnaiür, suggested they send a mounted force to Hinnereth with all dispatch, not to take the city but to secure its surrounding fields before they could be prematurely harvested and sheltered within its walls. The same, he declared, should be done for the entire coastline. Under torment, several Kianene captives had said that Skauras, as a contingency, had ordered all the winter grains in Gedea harvested as soon as they became milk-ripe. Swearing that the Imperial Fleet could supply the Holy War entire, Conphas argued against the plan, warning that Skauras yet possessed the strength and cunning to destroy any such force. Loath to depend on the Emperor in any way, the other Great Names were disinclined to believe him, however, and it was agreed: several thousand horsemen would be mustered and sent out on the morrow under Earl Athjeäri, Palatine Ingiaban, and Earl Werijen Greatheart.

Then the incendiary issue of the Ainoni host’s sloth and the constant fragmentation of the Holy War was broached. Here masked Chepheramunni, who had to answer to the Scarlet Spires, found a surprise ally in Proyas, who argued, with several provisos, that they actually should
continue
travelling in separate contingents. When the issue threatened to become intractable, he called on Cnaiür for support, but the Scylvendi’s harsh assessment had little effect, and the argument dragged on.

The first Men of the Tusk continued shouting into the night, growing ever more drunk on the Sapatishah’s sweet Eumarnan wines. And Kellhus studied them, glimpsed depths that would have terrified them had they known. Periodically, he revisited the thing called Sarcellus, who often gazed back, as though Kellhus were a boy with fine shanks that a wicked Shrial Knight might love. It taunted him. But such a look was merely a semblance, Kellhus knew, as surely as the expressions animating his own face.

Still, there could be no doubt—not any longer … They knew Kellhus could see them.

I must move more quickly, Father.

The Nilnameshi had it wrong. Mysteries could be killed, if one possessed the power.

Lounging beneath the bellied crimson canvas of his pavilion, Ikurei Conphas spent the first hour verbally entertaining various scenarios involving the Scylvendi’s murder. Martemus had said little, and in some infuriated corner of his thoughts Conphas suspected that the drab General not only secretly admired the barbarian but had thoroughly enjoyed the earlier fiasco in the amphitheatre. And yet, by and large, this bothered Conphas little, though he couldn’t say why. Perhaps, assured of Martemus’s actual loyalty, he cared nothing for the man’s spiritual infidelities. Spiritual infidelities were as common as dirt.

Afterward, he spent another hour telling Martemus what was to happen at Hinnereth. This had lightened his mood greatly. Demonstrations of his brilliance always buoyed his spirits, and his plans for Hinnereth were nothing short of genius. How well it paid to be friends with one’s enemies.

And so, feeling magnanimous, he decided to open a little door and allow Martemus—easily the most competent and trustworthy of all his generals—into some rather large halls. In the coming months, he would need confidants. All Emperors needed confidants.

But of course, prudence demanded certain assurances. Though Martemus was loyal by nature, loyalties were, as the Ainoni were fond of saying, like wives. One must always know where they lie—and with absolute certainty.

He leaned back into his canvas chair and peered past Martemus to the far side of the pavilion, where the crimson Standard of the Over-Army rested in its illumined shrine. His gaze lingered on the ancient Kyranean disc that glinted from the folds—supposedly once the chest piece of some Great King’s harness. For some reason the figures stamped there—golden warriors with elongated limbs—had always arrested him. So familiar and yet so alien.

“Have you ever stared at it before, Martemus? I mean, truly
stared
?”

For a moment the General looked as though he might be too far into his cups, but only for a moment. The man never truly got drunk. “The Concubine?” he asked.

Conphas smiled pleasantly. Common soldiers commonly referred to the Over-Standard as the “Concubine” because tradition demanded it be quartered with the Exalt-General. Conphas had always found the name particularly amusing: he’d drawn his cock across that hallowed silk more than once … A strange feeling, to spill one’s seed on the sacred. Quite delicious. “Yes,” he said, “the Concubine.”

The General shrugged. “What officer hasn’t?”

“And how about the Tusk? Have you ever laid eyes upon it?”

Martemus raised his brows. “Yes.”

“Really?” Conphas exclaimed. He himself had never seen the Tusk. “When was that?”

“As a boy, back when Psailas II was Shriah. My father brought me with him to Sumna to visit his brother—my uncle—who for a time was an orderly in the Junriüma … He took me to see it.”

“Did he now? What did you think?”

The General stared into his wine bowl, which he held poised between his wonderfully thick fingers. “Hard to remember … Awe, I think.”

BOOK: The Warrior Prophet

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