Authors: R. Scott Bakker

The Warrior Prophet (81 page)

BOOK: The Warrior Prophet

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Whatever the answer, he would see them burn—especially Iyokus. He would show them the wages of his newfound certainty.

Perhaps that had been their gift. Hatred.

After querying several slaves, he found Xinemus drinking alone on one of the terraces overlooking the sea. The morning sun promised hot skin in cool air—a sensation Achamian had always found heartening. The crash of breakers and the smell of brine tickled him with memories of his youth. The Meneanor swept out to the horizon, the turquoise of the shallows dropping into bottomless blue.

Drawing a deep breath, he approached the Marshal, who reclined with a bowl in his hands, his feet kicked upon the glazed brick railing. The previous night Shanipal had offered to pay their way by ship to Joktha, the port city of Caraskand. Achamian intended—no,
needed
—to leave as soon as possible, but he couldn’t do so without Xinemus. For some reason, he knew Xinemus would die if he left him behind. Grief and bitterness had killed greater men.

He paused, mustering his arguments, steeling his nerves …

Without warning, Xinemus exclaimed, “All this dark!”

He was drunk, Achamian realized, noticing the pale red stains across the breast of his white linen tunic. Dead drunk.

Achamian opened his mouth, but no words came. What could he say? That Proyas needed him? Proyas had stripped him of his land and titles. That the Holy War needed him? He would only be a burden—he knew that …

Shimeh! He came to see—

Xinemus pulled his feet down, leaned forward in his chair.

“Where do you lead, eh, Dark? What do you
mean?
”

Achamian stared at his friend, studied the planes of sunlight across his bearded profile. As always, he caught his breath at the sight of his empty eye sockets. It was as though Xinemus would forever have knives jutting from his eyes.

The Marshal pressed a palm outward to the sun, as though reassuring himself of some fact of distance. “Eh, Dark? Were you always like this? Were you always
here?
”

Achamian looked down, stricken with remorse.
Say something!

But the words would not come. What was he to say? That he had no choice but to find Esmenet?

Then go! Go find your whore! Just leave me be!

Xinemus cackled, stumbling as drunks often do from one passion to another.

“Do I sound bitter, Dark? Oh, I know you’re not so bad. You spare me the indignity of Akka’s face! And when I piss, I need not convince myself my hands are big! To think …”

At first, Achamian had been desperate for news regarding the Holy War, so much so he could scarcely grieve for Xinemus and his loss. For the entirety of his torment, Esmenet had seemed unthinkable, as though some part of him had understood the vulnerability she represented. But from the moment he recovered his senses, he could think of no one else—save perhaps Kellhus. What he would give to hold her in his arms, to smother her with laughter, tears, and kisses! What joy he would find in her joy, in her weeping disbelief!

He could see it all so clearly … How it would be.

“I just want to know,” Xinemus cried in a drunk’s cajoling manner, “
who you fucking are!
”

Though at first he had only cause to fear the worst, Achamian
knew
she lived. According to the rumours, the Holy War had almost perished crossing Khemema. But according to Xinemus, she travelled with
Kellhus,
and he could imagine no place safer. Kellhus
couldn’t die,
could he? He was the
Harbinger,
sent to save humanity from the Second Apocalypse.

Yet another certainty born of his torment.

“You feel like wind!” Xinemus cried, his voice growing more shrill. “You smell like sea!”

Kellhus would save the world. And he, Drusas Achamian, would be his counsellor, his guide.

“Open your eyes, Zin!” the Marshal cried, his voice cracking. Achamian glimpsed spittle flash in the sunlight. “Open your
fucking eyes!
”

A powerful breaker exploded across the black rocks below. Salty mist hazed the air.

Xinemus dropped his wine bowl, slapped madly at the sky, crying, “Huhh! Huhh!”

Achamian dashed forward two steps. Paused.

“Every sound,” the Marshal gasped. “Every sound makes me cringe! Never have I suffered such fear! Never have I suffered such fear! Please, God … Please!”

“Zin,” Achamian whispered.

“I’ve been good! So good!”

“Zin!”

The Marshal fell absolutely still.

“Akka?” His arms fell inward, and he clutched at himself, as though trying to squeeze into the darkness only he could see. “Akka, no! No!”

Without thinking, Achamian hastened to him, embraced him.

“You’re the cause of this!” Xinemus screeched into his chest.
“This is your doing!”

Achamian held tight his sobbing friend. The broadness of Xinemus’s shoulders surprised his outstretched arms.

“We need to leave,” he murmured. “We must find the others.”

“I know,” the Marshal of Attrempus gasped. “We must find Kellhus!”

Achamian lowered his jaw against his friend’s scalp. He wondered that his cheeks were dry.

“Yes … Kellhus.”

Early Winter, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, near Caraskand

The hub of the abandoned estate had been built by the ancient Ceneians. On his first visit, Conphas had amused himself by touring the structures according to their historical provenance, finishing with the small marble tabernacle some Kianene Grandee had raised generations past. He despised not knowing the layout of the buildings that housed him. It was a general’s habit, he supposed, to think of all places as battlefields.

The Inrithi caste-nobles began arriving in the afternoon, troops of mounted men cloaked against the interminable drizzle. Standing with Martemus in the gloom of a covered veranda, Conphas watched them hasten across the courtyard. They’d changed so much, it seemed, since that afternoon in his uncle’s Privy Garden. If he closed his eyes he could still see them, scattered among the ornamental cypresses and tamarisks, their faces hopeful and unguarded, their manner arrogant and theatrical, their finery reflecting the peculiarities of their respective nations. Looking back, everything about them seemed so …
untested
. And now, after months of war, desert, and disease, they looked grim and hard, like those infantrymen in the Columns who continually renewed their terms—the flint-hearted veterans that recruits admired and young officers mortally feared. They seemed a separate people, a new race, as though the differences that distinguished Conriyans from Galeoth, Ainoni from Tydonni, had been hammered out of them, like impurities from steel.

And of course they all rode Kianene horses, all wore Kianene clothes … One must not overlook the superficial; it ran too deep.

Conphas glanced at Martemus. “They look more heathen than the heathen.”

“The desert made the Kianene,” the General said, shrugging, “and it has remade us.”

Conphas regarded the man thoughtfully, troubled for some reason.

“No doubt you’re right.”

Martemus fixed him with a bland stare. “Will you tell me what this is about? Why summon the Great and Lesser Names secretly?”

The Exalt-General turned to the black, rain-curtained hills of Enathpaneah. “To save the Holy War, of course.”

“I thought we cared only for the Empire.”

Once again Conphas scrutinized his subordinate, trying to decipher the man more than the remark. Since the debacle with Prince Kellhus, he continuously found himself
wanting
to suspect the General of treachery. He begrudged Martemus much for what had happened in Shigek. But not, strangely enough, his company.

“The Empire and the Holy War travel the same road, Martemus.” Though soon—he found himself thinking, they would part ways. It would be so very tragic …

First Caraskand, then Prince Kellhus. The Holy War must wait
. Order must be observed in all things.

Martemus had not so much as blinked. “And if—”

“Come,” Conphas interrupted. “Time to tease the lions.”

The Exalt-General had instructed his attendants—after the desert he’d been forced to enlist soldiers to do the work of slaves—to take the Inrithi caste-nobles to a large indoor riding room adjacent to the stables. Conphas and Martemus found them spread in clots throughout the airy gloom, warming themselves over the orange glow of coal braziers, muttering in the low voices of sodden men—some fifty or sixty of them all told. For an instant, no one noticed their arrival, and Conphas stood motionless beneath the arched entranceway, studying them, from their eyes, which seemed desert bright in the grey light, to the straw clinging to their wet boots.

How much, he idly wondered, would the Padirajah pay for this room?

The voices trailed as more and more men noticed his presence.

“Where’s the Anasûrimbor?” Palatine Gaidekki called out, his look as sharp and as cynical as always.

Conphas grinned. “Oh, he’s here, Palatine. In
theme
if not in body.”

“More than Prince Kellhus is missing,” Earl Gothyelk said. “So is Saubon, Athjeäri … Proyas is sick, of course, but I see none of Kellhus’s more ardent defenders here …”

“A felicitous coincidence, I am sure …”

“I thought this was about Caraskand,” Palatine Uranyanka said.

“But of course! Caraskand resists us. We’re here to ask
why
.”

“So why does she resist us?” Gotian asked, his tone contemptuous.

Not for the first time Conphas realized that they despised him—almost to a man. All men hate their betters.

He opened his arms and walked into their midst. “Why?” he called out, glaring at them, challenging them. “This is the question, isn’t it? Why do the rains keep falling, rotting our feet, our tents, our
hearts?
Why does the hemoplexy strike us down indiscriminately? Why do so many of us die thrashing in our own bowel?” He laughed as though in astonishment. “And all this
after
the desert! As if the Carathay weren’t woe enough! So
why?
Need we ask old Cumor to consult his omen-texts?”

“No,” Gotian said tightly. “It is plain. The anger of the God burns against us.”

Conphas inwardly smiled. Sarcellus had insisted the so-called Warrior-Prophet would be dead within days. But whether he succeeded or not—and Conphas suspected not—they would need allies following the attempt. No one knew precisely how many “Zaudunyani” Prince Kellhus commanded, but they numbered in the tens of thousands at least … The more the Men of the Tusk suffered, it seemed, the more they turned to the fiend.

But then, as the saying went, no dog so loved its master as when it was beaten.

Conphas glared at the assembled lords, pausing in the best oratorical fashion. “Who could disagree? The anger of the God
does
burn against us. And well it should …”

He swept his gaze across them.

“Given that we harbour and abet a False Prophet.”

Howls erupted from among them, more in protest than in assent. But Conphas had expected as much. At this juncture, the important thing was to get these fools
talking
. Their bigotries would do the rest.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CAR ASKAND

And We will give over all of them, slain, to the Children of Eänna; you shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire. You shall bathe your feet in the blood of the wicked.

—TRIBES 21:13,
THE CHRONICLE OF THE TUSK

Winter, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, Caraskand

BOOK: The Warrior Prophet

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