Read The Warrior Prophet Online
Authors: R. Scott Bakker
The Warrior Prophet (96 page)
Now they spun in slow circles, their golden hair mingling in the breeze, their arms and legs sweeping out like those of dancers. Esmenet glimpsed ashen breasts crushed against a shining ribcage, armpit hair twisted into horns, then Serwë’s slender back rolled into view, almost mannish because of the deep line of her spine. She glimpsed her sex, bared between outspread legs, pressed against the confusion of Kellhus’s genitalia …
Serwë … Her face blackening as the blood settled, her limbs and torso carved in grey marble, as perfect in form as any artifice. And Kellhus … His face sheened in sweat, his muscular back gleaming white between lines of angry red. His eyes swollen shut.
“But you said!” Esmenet wailed. “You said Truth can’t die!”
Serwë dead. Kellhus dying. No matter how long she looked, no matter how deep her reason, no matter how shrill her threats …
Around and around, the dying and the dead. A mad pendulum.
Holding Moënghus close, Esmenet curled across the waxy mat of leaves. They smelled bitter where her body bruised them.
“Remember when you recall the secret of battle …”
The Inrithi fell silent as he passed, their eyes following him as they followed kings. Cnaiür knew well the effect his presence worked on other men. Even beneath starred skies, he needed no gold, no herald or banner, to announce the fact of his station. He wore his glory on the skin of his arms. He was Cnaiür urs Skiötha, breaker-of-horses-and-men; others need only look to fear him.
“The hunt need not end …”
Shut up! Shut up!
The Kalaul, the broad central campus of Csokis, teemed with piteous and despicable humanity. Along the terminus of the campus, Inrithi crowded the monumental steps of temples that looked, to Cnaiür’s eyes, as ancient as any he’d seen in Shigek or Nansur. Others skulked beneath the pillared facades of dormitories and half-ruined cloisters. Across the outskirts, Inrithi sat upon mats and muttered to one another. Some even tended small fires, burning aromatic resins and woods—oblations, no doubt, for their Warrior-Prophet. The crowds thickened as he neared the great tree in the Kalaul’s heart. He saw men wearing only shirts, their hindquarters smeared with shit. He saw others whose stomachs seemed pinned to their spines. He encountered one bare-chested fool who leapt up and down shaking cupped hands over his head like a rattle. When Cnaiür shouldered the imbecile aside, something like pebbles scattered across the paving stones. He heard the madman wailing about teeth in his wake.
“… the secret of battle …”
Lies! More lies!
Heedless of the threats and curses that greeted his passage, Cnaiür continued battling forward, pressing through what seemed a malodorous sea of heads, elbows, and shoulders. He paused only when he could clearly view the mighty tree that men called Umiaki. Like an immense, upturned root, it rose black and leafless into the night sky, shrouding its precincts in impenetrable darkness.
“You still command the ears of the Great …”
No matter how hard Cnaiür peered, he could see nothing of the Dûnyain—or Serwë.
“Does he still breathe?” he cried. “Does his heart still beat?”
The Inrithi massed about him turned to one another, shared looks of anxious bewilderment. No one replied.
Dog-eyed drunks!
He plowed through them in disgust, yanking men aside to move forward. Finally he reached the perimeter of Shrial Knights, one of whom pressed a palm to his chest to hold him back. Cnaiür scowled until the man withdrew his hand, then peered yet again into the darkness beneath Umiaki.
He could see nothing.
For a time, he pondered cutting his way to the tree. Then a procession of Shrial Knights bearing torches passed on the far side of Umiaki, and for a fleeting moment Cnaiür glimpsed his sprawled silhouette—or was it hers?—against the glittering lights.
The forward ranks of Inrithi began shouting, some in rapture, others in derision. Through the uproar, Cnaiür heard a velvety voice, spoken in timbres only his heart could hear.
“It’s good that you’ve come … Proper.”
Cnaiür stared in horror at the figure across the ring. Then the string of torches marched on, and darkness reclaimed the ground beneath Umiaki. The surrounding clamour subsided, fractured into individual shouts.
“All men,”
the voice said,
“should know their work.”
the voice said,
“should know their work.”
“I come to watch you suffer!” Cnaiür cried. “I come to watch you die!”
In his periphery, he glimpsed men turning to him in alarm.
“But why? Why would you want such a thing?”
“Because you betrayed me!”
“How? How have I betrayed you?”
“You need only
speak!
You’re Dûnyain!”
speak!
You’re Dûnyain!”
“You make too much of me … More even then these Inrithi.”
“Because I know! I
alone
know what you are! I alone can destroy you!” He laughed as only a many-blooded Chieftain of the Utemot could, then gestured to the darkness beneath Umiaki. “Witness …”
alone
know what you are! I alone can destroy you!” He laughed as only a many-blooded Chieftain of the Utemot could, then gestured to the darkness beneath Umiaki. “Witness …”
“And my father? The hunt need not end—you know this.”
Cnaiür stood breathless, as motionless as a horse-laming stone hidden among the Steppe grasses.
“I’ve made a trade,” he said evenly. “I’ve yielded to the greater hate.”
“Have you?”
“Yes! Yes! Look at her! Look at what you’ve done to her!”
“What
I’ve
done, Scylvendi? Or what you’ve done?”
I’ve
done, Scylvendi? Or what you’ve done?”
“She’s dead. My Serwë! My Serwë is dead! My prize!”
“Oh, yes … What will they whisper, now that your proof has passed? How will they measure?”
“They killed her because of you!”
Laughter, full and easy-hearted, like that of a favourite uncle just into his cups.
“Spoken like a true Son of the Steppe!”
“You mock me?”
A heavy hand seized his shoulder. “Enough!” someone was shouting. “Stow your madness! Cease speaking that foul tongue!”
In a single motion, Cnaiür snatched the hand and twisted it about, wrenching tendon and bone. He effortlessly wheeled the fool who’d grabbed him from his place among the others. He struck the cow-faced ingrate to the ground.
“Mock? Who would dare mock a murderer?”
“You!” Cnaiür screamed at the tree. He reached out neck-breaking arms. “You killed her!”
“No, Scylvendi. You did … When you sold me.”
“To save my son!”
And Cnaiür saw her, limp and horrified in Sarcellus’s arms, blood spouting across her gown, her eyes drowning in darkness … The darkness! How many eyes had he watched it consume?
He heard a babe bawling from the black.
“They were supposed to kill the whore!” Cnaiür screamed.
Several Inrithi were shouting at him now. He felt a blow glance his cheek, glimpsed the flash of steel. He grabbed a man about the head, drove his thumbs into his eyes. Something sharp pricked his thigh. Fists pounded against his back. Something—a club or a pommel—cracked against his temple; he released the man, reeling backward. He glimpsed black Umiaki, and heard the Dûnyain laughing, laughing as the Utemot had laughed.
“Weeper!”
“You!” he roared, beating down men with stone-fisted blows. “YOU!”
Suddenly the clutching, cutting mob scrambled back from a brawling figure to his right. Several cried out in apology. Cnaiür glanced at the man, who stood almost as tall as he, though not so broad.
“Have you lost your wits, Scylvendi? It’s me! Me!”
“You murdered Serwë.”
And suddenly, the stranger became Coithus Saubon, dressed in a penitent’s shabby robes. What kind of devilry?
“Cnaiür,” the Galeoth Prince exclaimed, “who are you speaking to?”
“You …”
the darkness cackled.
the darkness cackled.
“Scylvendi?”
Cnaiür shook free of the man’s firm grip. “This is a fool’s vigil,” he grated.
He spat, then turned to fight his way free of the stink.
Esmi …
His heart leapt at the thought.
I’m coming, my sweet. I’m so very close!
It seemed he could smell the musky orange of her scent. It seemed he could hear her gasps hot against his cheek, feel her grind against his loins, desperately, as though to smother a perilous fire. It seemed he could see her throwing back her hair—a glimpse of sultry eyes and parted lips.
So very close!
The Tydonni—five Numaineiri knights and a motley of men-at-arms—escorted them through the dark streets. The Tydonni had been courteous enough, given the circumstances of their arrival, but until someone in authority vouched for the two of them, the knights refused to say much of anything. Achamian saw other Men of the Tusk on their route, most of them as wretched as the guards upon the gate. Whether sitting in windows, or leaning with others against the pilasters, they stared, their faces pale and blank, their eyes impossibly bright, as though housing the fires that wasted their frames.
Achamian had seen such looks before. On the Fields of Eleneöt, after the death of Anasûrimbor Celmomas. In great Trysë, watching the fall of the Shinoth Gate. On the Plains of Mengedda, awaiting the approach of dread Tsurumah. The look of horror and fury, of Men who could only exact and never overcome.
The look of Apocalypse.
Whenever Achamian matched their gazes, no threat or challenge was exchanged, only the thoughtless understanding of exhausted brothers. Something—demon or reptile—crawled into the skulls of those who endured the unendurable, and when it looked out their eyes, as it inevitably did, it could recognize itself in others. He belonged, Achamian realized. Not just here in Caraskand with those he loved, but here with the
Holy War
. He belonged with these men—even unto death.
Holy War
. He belonged with these men—even unto death.
We share the same doom.
Moving slowly for Xinemus’s sake, they trudged between two heights whose names Achamian didn’t know, and into an area one of the Numaineiri had called the Bowl—where Proyas and his household were supposedly quartered. They passed through a veritable labyrinth of streets and alleyways, and more than once the knights had to ask passersby for directions. Despite everything—the prospect of finding Kellhus and Esmenet, of seeing Proyas after so many bitter months—Achamian found himself pondering the carelessness of his declaration beneath Caraskand’s walls:
“I am Drusas Achamian, a Mandate Schoolman …”
“I am Drusas Achamian, a Mandate Schoolman …”
How long had it been since he’d last spoken those words aloud?
A Mandate Schoolman …
Was that what he was? And if so, why did he shy from the thought of contacting Atyersus? In all likelihood, they’d learned of his abduction. They were certain to have informants he knew nothing about among the Conriyan contingent at least. He imagined they assumed him dead.
Other books
A Kiss in the Night by Horsman, Jennifer
Eagle in the Snow by Wallace Breem
Tom Sileo by Brothers Forever
Only in Naples by Katherine Wilson
Filthy Dirty Secrets: Filthy Dirty Alpha Book 2 by Morgan, Grace
The Dark Assassin by Anne Perry
A Series of Murders by Simon Brett
Waterfall Glen by Davie Henderson
Church Camp Chaos by Annie Tipton
The Night Ferry by Michael Robotham