Authors: R. Scott Bakker

The Warrior Prophet (58 page)

BOOK: The Warrior Prophet

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Overcome by dismay, many knights charged alone, only to be unhorsed by arrows and trampled into the dust.

Cnaiür rode hard, cursing himself for losing his way among the endless alleys and avenues of the camp. He reined to a halt in an enclosure of heavy-framed Galeoth tents, searched the northern distances for the distinctive peaks of the round tents favoured by the Conriyans. From nowhere it seemed, three woman dashed northward across the enclosure, then vanished past the tents on the far side. A moment later, another followed, black-haired, screaming something unintelligible in some Ketyai tongue. He looked to the south, saw dozens of plumes of black smoke. The wind faltered for a moment, and the surrounding canvas fell silent.

Cnaiür glimpsed a blue surcoat abandoned next to a smoking firepit. Someone had been stitching a red tusk across its breast …

He heard screams—thousands of them.

Where was she?

He knew what was happening, and more importantly, he knew
how
it would happen. The first fires had been set as a signal to those Inrithi in the field—to convince them they were truly overthrown. Otherwise the encampment would be closely inventoried before it was destroyed. Even now, Kianene would be encircling the camp, loath to lose any plunder, especially the kind that wriggled and screamed. If he didn’t find Serwë soon …

He spurred off to the northeast.

Yanking his black tight around a pavilion panelled with embroidered animal totems, he broke along a winding corridor, saw three Kianene sitting upon their caparisoned mounts. They turned at the sound of his approach, but at once looked away, as though mistaking him for one of their own. They seemed to be arguing. Drawing his broadsword, Cnaiür spurred to a gallop. He killed two on his first pass. Though their orange-coated comrade had called out at the last instant, they hadn’t so much as looked at him. Cnaiür reined to a halt, wheeled to make a second pass, but the remaining Fanim fled. Cnaiür ignored him and struck due east, at last recognizing—or so he thought—where he stood in the encampment.

A skin-pimpling shriek, no more than a hundred paces away, brought him to a momentary trot. Standing in his stirrups, he caught fleeting glimpses of figures dashing between crowded shelters. More screams rifled the air, breathless and very near. Suddenly a horde of camp-followers burst sprinting from between the panoply of surrounding tents and pavilions. Wives, whores, slaves, scribes, and priests, either crying or blank-faced, simply rushing where everyone else seemed to rush. Some screamed at the sight of him and scrambled either to the left or the right. Others ignored him, either realizing he wasn’t Fanim or knowing he could only strike so many. After a moment their numbers thinned. The young and the hale became the old and the infirm. Cnaiür glimpsed Cumor, the aging high priest of Gilgaöl, urged forward by his adepts. He saw dozens of frantic mothers hauling terrified children. Some distance away, a group of twenty or so bandaged warriors—Galeoth by the look of them—had abandoned their flight and now prepared to make a stand. They started singing …

Cnaiür heard a growing chorus of harsh and triumphant cries, the snort and rumble of horses …

He reined to a halt, drew his broadsword.

Then he saw them, jostling and barrelling among the tents, looking for a moment like a host wading through crashing surf. The Kianene of Eumarna …

Cnaiür looked down, startled. A young woman, her leg slicked in blood, an infant strapped to her back, clutched his knee, beseeching him in some unknown tongue. He raised his boot to kick her, then unaccountably lowered it. He leaned forward and hoisted her before him onto his saddle. She fairly shrieked tears. He wheeled his black around and spurred after the fleeing camp-followers.

He heard an arrow buzz by his ear.

His golden hair fanned in the wind. His white samite robe billowed.

“Keep down!” the Prophet commanded.

But Martemus could only stand dumbfounded. The fields beneath seethed with dust and shadowy files of Khirgwi. Before them, the Warrior-Prophet jerked first one shoulder back, then the other. He ducked his head, swayed back from the waist, crouched, then bounced upright. It was a curious dance, at once random and premeditated, leisurely and breathtakingly quick … It wasn’t until one struck Martemus in the thigh that he realized the Prophet danced about the path of arrows.

The General fell to the ground, clutching his leg. The whole world howled, clamoured.

Through tears of pain he glimpsed the Swazond Standard against the sun’s flashing glare.

Sweet Sejenus. I’m going to die.

“Run!” he cried. “You must run!”

His black snorted spittle, gasped, and screamed. Tent after tent whisked by, canvas stained and striped, leather painted, tusks and more tusks. The nameless woman in his arms trembled, tried vainly to look at her baby. The Kianene thundered ever closer, galloping in files down the narrow alleys, fanning across the rare openings. He could hear them trade shouts, cry out tactics.
“Skafadi!
” they cried.
“Jara til Skafadi!”
Soon many were pounding along parallel alleyways. Twice he had to crush the woman and her child against the neck of his horse as arrows hissed about them.

He spurred more blood from his black’s flanks. He heard screams, realized he’d overtaken the mass of fleeing camp-followers. Suddenly everywhere he looked he saw frantic, hobbling men, wailing mothers, and ashen-faced children. He jerked his mount to the left, knowing the Kianene followed him. He was the famed Skafadi Captain who rode with the idolaters. Every captive he’d interrogated had heard of him. He broke into one of the immense squares the Nansur used for drills, and his black leapt forward with renewed fury. He drew his bow, notched a shaft, and killed the nearest Kianene pounding through the dust behind him. His second shaft found the neck of the horse following, and an entire cluster of Fanim toppled in a plume of dust.

“Zirkirtaaaaa!”
he howled.

The woman shrieked in terror. He glanced forward, saw dozens of Fanim horsemen streaming into the western entrance of the field.

Fucking Kianene.

He brought his ailing black about and spurred toward the northern entrance, thanking the Nansur and their slavish devotion to the compass. The sky rang with distant screams and raw-throated shouts of
“Ût-ût-ûtût!”
The nameless woman wept in terror.

Nansur barrack tents hedged the north like a row of filed teeth. The gap between them bounced nearer, nearer. The woman alternately looked forward, then yanked her head backward to the Kianene—as did, absurdly, her black-haired infant. Strange, Cnaiür thought, the way infants knew when to be calm. Suddenly Fanim horsemen erupted through the northern entrance as well. He swerved to the right, galloped along the airy white tents, searching for a way to barge between. When he saw none, he raced for the corner. More and more Kianene thundered through the eastern entrance, fanning across the field. Those behind pounded nearer. Several more arrows whisked through the air about them. He wheeled his black about, knocked the woman face first onto the dusty turf. The babe finally started screeching. He tossed her a knife—to cut through canvas …

The air thrummed with hooves and heathen shouts.

“Run!” he barked at her.
“Run!”

Veils of dust swept over him.

He turned, laughing.

Drawing his broadsword, he ducked a sweeping scimitar, then jabbed his assailant in the armpit. He swept his sword about and shattered the blade of the next, splitting the man’s cheek. When the fool reached up, Cnaiür punched through his silvered corselet. Blood fountained like wine from a punctured skin. He caught the shield of the next, swinging his sword like a mace. The man toppled backward over his horse’s rump, somehow landed on his hands and knees. His helm bounced from his head, between stamping hooves. Flipping his grip, Cnaiür stabbed down through the back of his skull.

He stood in his stirrups, swung the blood from his blade into the faces of the astonished Kianene.

“Who?” he roared in his sacred tongue.

He hacked at the riderless horses barring him from his foe. One went down thrashing. Another screamed and bucked into the knotted heathen ranks.

“I am Cnaiür urs Skiötha,” he bellowed, “most violent of all men!”

His heaving black stepped forward.

“I bear your fathers and your brothers upon my arms!”

Heathen eyes flashed white from the shadows of their silvered helms. Several cried out.

“Who,”
Cnaiür roared, so fiercely all his skin seemed throat,
“will murder me?”

A piercing, feminine cry. Cnaiür glanced back, saw the nameless woman swaying at the entrance of the nearest tent. She gripped the knife he’d thrown her, gestured with it for him to follow. For an instant, it seemed he’d always known her, that they’d been lovers for long years. He saw sunlight flash through the far side of the tent where she’d cut open the canvas. Then he glimpsed a shadow from above, heard something not quite …

Several Kianene cried out—a different terror.

Cnaiür thrust his left hand beneath his girdle, clutched tight his father’s Trinket.

For an instant he met the woman’s wide uncomprehending eyes, and over her shoulder, those of her baby boy as well … Somehow he knew that now—that he was a son.

He tried to cry out.

They became shadows in a cataract of shimmering flame.