The Siege of Hinnereth had begun.
After a week of preparations, the Men of the Tusk made their first assault. Clouds of arrows fell among them. Boiling oil poured down upon their mantlets. Men fell screaming from their ladders, or were cut down on the battlements. Fiery pitch transformed their siege towers into soaring pyres. They bled and burned beneath the walls of Hinnereth, and the Fanim mocked them from the heights.
In the wake of the disaster, some Great Names sent a delegation to the Scarlet Spires. Chepheramunni had already warned Saubon and the others that the Scarlet Schoolmen, short of Shimeh or a Cishaurim attack, had no intention of assisting the Men of the Tusk, so the decision was made to limit their demands. They asked for one breach in the walls, no more. Eleäzaras’s refusal was scathing, as was the condemnation of Proyas and Gotian, who had forsworn the use of blasphemy unless absolutely necessary.
Another round of preparations followed. Some toiled in the hills, harvesting timber for more siege engines. Others hunched in the darkness of sappers’ tunnels, dragging stone and sharp gravel out with blistered hands. Still others raised pyres of scrub and burned the dead. At night, they drank water carted down from the hills, ate bread, golden-red clusters of figs, roasted quail and goose—and cursed Hinnereth.
During this time, bands of Inrithi knights ranged south along the coasts, skirmishing with the remnants of Skauras’s host, plundering fishing villages, and sacking those walled towns that failed to immediately throw open their gates. Earl Athjeäri struck inland, scouring the hills in search of battle and plunder. Near a small fortress called Dayrut, he surprised a detachment of several thousand Kianene and put them to rout with as many hundred thanes and knights. Returning to the fortress, he forced the locals to build a small catapult, which he then used to lob severed Kianene heads into the fortress one at a time. One hundred and thirty-one heads later, the terrified garrison threw open the gates and prostrated themselves in the dust. Each of them was asked: “Do you repudiate Fane and accept Inri Sejenus as the true voice of the manifold God?” Those who answered no were immediately beheaded. Those who answered yes were bound with ropes and sent back to Hinnereth, where they were sold to the slavers who followed the Holy War.
Other strongholds likewise fell, such was the general terror of the iron warriors. The old Nansur fortresses of Ebara and Kurrut, the half-ruined Ceneian fortress of Gunsae, the Kianene citadel of Am-Amidai, built when the populace had been still largely Inrithi—all of them, like so many coins swept into the mailed fist of the Holy War. Gedea would fall, it seemed, as quickly as the Inrithi could ride.
At Hinnereth, meanwhile, the Great Names had completed their preparations for a second assault, only to be awakened by shouts of astonishment. Men tumbled from their tents and pavilions. At first, most pointed to the great flotilla of war galleys and carracks anchored in the bay, hundreds of them, bearing the Black Sun pennants of Nansur. But soon, they all stared in disbelief at Hinnereth. The great forward gates of the city had been thrown open. All along the curtain walls, tiny figures pulled down the triangular banners of Ansacer, the infamous Black Gazelle, and raised the Black Sun of the Nansur Empire.
Some cheered. Others howled. Bands of half-naked horsemen could be seen galloping toward the towering gates, where they were halted by phalanxes of Nansur infantrymen. For a moment swords flashed in the distance.
But it was too late. Hinnereth had fallen, not to the Holy War, but to Emperor Ikurei Xerius III.
At first, Ikurei Conphas ignored the summons of the Council, and the daunting task of placating Saubon and Gothyelk fell to General Martemus. With the arrival of the Nansur fleet the previous night, he brusquely explained, the Gedean Sapatishah had seen the hopelessness of his position, and so sent Conphas the terms of his surrender. Martemus even produced a letter, dark with the cursive script of the Kianene, which he claimed was in Ansacer’s own hand. The Sapatishah, he asserted, was deeply frightened of the fervour of the Inrithi, and would surrender only to the Nansur. In matters of mercy, Martemus said, a known enemy was always more preferable than an unknown. It had been the first instinct of the Exalt-General, he continued, to summon all the Great Names and present this letter for their appraisal, but Martemus himself had reminded the Exalt-General that the proffered capitulation of one’s enemy was always a delicate thing, the result perhaps of passing apprehension rather than real resolution. Accordingly, the Exalt-General had decided to be decisive rather than democratic.
When the Great Names demanded to know why, if Conphas had truly acted in the interests of the Holy War, Hinnereth still remained closed to them, Martemus merely shrugged and informed them that those were the terms of the Sapatishah’s surrender. Ansacer was a tender man, he said, and feared for the safety of his people. He had, moreover, great respect for the discipline of the Nansur.
In the end, only Saubon refused to accept Martemus’s explanation. Hinnereth was his by right, he bellowed, just spoils of his victory on the Battleplain. When Conphas finally arrived the Galeoth Prince had to be physically restrained. Afterward, Gothyelk and Proyas reminded him that Gedea was an empty and impoverished land. Let the Emperor gloat over his first, hollow prize, they said. The Holy War would continue its march south. And ancient Shigek, a land of legendary wealth, awaited them.
“Stay with me, Zin,” Proyas called out.
He’d dismissed the council only moments earlier. Now standing, he watched his people mill and make ready to leave. They filled the smoky interior of his pavilion, some pious, others mercenary, almost all of them proud to a fault. Gaidekki and Ingiaban continued to argue, as they always did, over things material and immaterial. Most of the others began filing from the chamber: Ganyatti, Kushigas, Imrothas, several high-ranking barons, and of course, Kellhus and Cnaiür. With the exception of the Scylvendi, they bowed one by one before vanishing through the blue silk curtains. Proyas acknowledged each with a curt nod.
Soon Xinemus was left standing alone. Slaves scurried through the surrounding gloom, gathering plates and sticky wine bowls, straightening rugs, and repositioning the myriad cushions.
“Something troubles you, my Prince?” the Marshal asked.
“I just have several questions …”
“About?”
Proyas hesitated. Why should a prince shrink from speaking of any man?
“About Kellhus,” he said.
Xinemus raised his eyebrows. “He troubles you?”
Proyas hooked a hand behind his neck, grimaced. “In all honesty, Zin, he’s the least troubling man I’ve ever known.”
“And that’s what troubles you.”
Many things troubled him, not the least of which was the recent disaster at Hinnereth. They’d been outmanoeuvred by Conphas and the Emperor. Never again.
He had no time and little patience for these … personal matters.
“Tell me, what do you make of him?”
“He terrifies me,” Xinemus said without an instant’s hesitation.
Proyas frowned. “How so?”
The Marshal’s eyes unfocused, as though searching for some text written within. “I’ve spilled many bowls with him,” he said hesitantly. “I’ve broken much bread, and I cannot count the things he’s shown me. Somehow, some way, his presence makes me … makes me better.”
Proyas looked to the ground, to the interleaved wings embroidered across the carpet at his feet. “He has that effect.”
He could feel Xinemus study him in his cursed way: as though he saw past the fraudulent trappings of manhood to that sunken-chested boy who’d never left the training ground.
“He’s only a man, my Prince. He says so himself … Besides, we’re past—”
“How is Achamian?” Proyas asked abruptly.
The stocky Marshal scowled. He buried two fingers between the plaits of his beard to scratch his chin. “I thought his name was forbidden.”
“I merely ask.”
Xinemus nodded warily. “Well. Very well, in fact. He’s taken
a woman, an old love of his from Sumna.”
“Yes … Esmenet is it? The one who was a whore.”
“She’s good for him,” Xinemus said defensively. “I’ve never seen him so content, so happy.”
“But you sound worried.”
Xinemus narrowed his eyes an instant, then sighed heavily. “I suppose I do,” he said, looking past Proyas. “For as long as I’ve known him, he’s been a Mandate Schoolman. But now … I don’t know.” He glanced up, matched his Prince’s gaze. “He’s almost stopped speaking of the Consult and his Dreams altogether … You’d approve.”
“So he’s in love,” Proyas said, shaking his head. “Love!” he exclaimed incredulously. “Are you sure?” A grin overpowered him.
Xinemus fairly cackled. “He’s in love, all right. He’s been stumbling after his pecker for weeks now.”
Proyas laughed and looked to the ground. “So he has one of those, does he?” Akka in love. It seemed both impossible and strangely inevitable.
Men like him need love … Men unlike me.
“That he does. She seems exceedingly fond of it.”
Proyas snorted. “He is a sorcerer after all.”
Xinemus’s eyes slackened for an instant. “That he is.”
There was a moment of awkward silence. Proyas sighed heavily. With any man other than Xinemus, these questions would’ve come naturally, without uncertainty or reservation. How could Xinemus, his beloved Zin, be so mulish about something so obvious to other men?
“Does he still teach Kellhus?” Proyas asked.
“Every day.” The Marshal smiled wanly, as though at his own foolishness. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You want to believe Kellhus is more, but—”
“He was right about Saubon!” Proyas exclaimed. “Even in the details, Zin! The details!”
“And yet,” Xinemus continued, frowning at the interruption, “he openly consorts with Achamian. With a sorcerer …”
Xinemus mockingly had spoken the word as other men spoke it: like a thing smeared in shit.
Proyas turned to the table, poured himself a bowl of wine. It had tasted so sweet of late.
“So what do you think?” he asked.
“I think Kellhus simply sees what I see in Akka, and what you once saw … That a man’s soul can be good apart fro—”
“The Tusk says,” Proyas snapped, “‘Burn them, for they are Unclean!’ Burn them! How much more clarity can there be? Kellhus consorts with an abomination. As do you.”
The Marshal was shaking his head. “I can’t believe that.”
Proyas fixed him with his gaze. Why did he feel so cold?
“Then you cannot believe the Tusk.”
The Marshal blanched, and for the first time the Conriyan Prince saw fear on his old sword-trainer’s face—fear! He wanted to apologize, to unsay what he’d said, but the cold was so unyielding …
So true.
I simply go by the Word!
If one couldn’t trust the God’s own voice, if one refused to listen—even for sentiment’s sake!—then everything became scepticism and scholarly disputation. Xinemus listened to his heart, and this was at once his strength and his weakness. The heart recited no scripture.
“Well then,” the Marshal said thinly. “You needn’t worry about Kellhus any more than you worry about me …”
Proyas narrowed his eyes and nodded.
There was constraint, there was direction, there was, most illuminating of all, a summoning together.
Night had fallen, and Kellhus sat alone upon a promontory, leaning against a solitary cedar. Drawn eastward by years of wind, the cedar’s limbs swept across the starry heavens and forked downward. They seemed moored as though by strings to the panorama below: the encamped Holy War, Hinnereth behind her great belts of stone, and the Meneanor, her distant rollers silvered by moonlight.
But he saw none of this, not with his eyes …
The promises and threats of what was came murmuring, and futures were discussed.
There was a world, Eärwa, enslaved by history, custom, and animal hunger, a world driven by the hammers of what came before.
There was Achamian and all he had uttered. The Apocalypse, the lineages of Emperors and Kings, the Houses and Schools of the Great Factions, the panoply of warring nations. And there was sorcery, the Gnosis, and the prospect of near limitless power.
There was Esmenet and slender thighs and piercing intellect.
There was Sarcellus and the Consult and a wary truce born of enigma and hesitation.
There was Saubon and torment pitched against lust for power.
There was Cnaiür and madness and martial genius and the growing threat of what he knew.
There was the Holy War and faith and hunger.
And there was Father.
What would you have me do?
Possible worlds blew through him, fanning and branching into a canopy of glimpses …
Nameless Schoolmen climbing a steep, gravelly beach. A nipple pinched between fingers. A gasping climax. A severed head thrust against the burning sun. Apparitions marching out of morning mist.
A dead wife.
Kellhus exhaled, then breathed deep the bittersweet pinch of cedar, earth, and war.
There was revelation.
CHAPTER TEN
ATSUSHAN HIGHLANDS
Love is lust made meaningful. Hope is hunger made human.
—AJENCIS, THE THIRD ANALYTIC OF MEN
How does one learn innocence? How does one teach ignorance? For to be them is to know them not. And yet they are the immovable point from which the compass of life swings, the measure of all crime and compassion, the rule of all wisdom and folly. They are the Absolute.
—ANONYMOUS, THE IMPROMPTA
Late Summer, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, Gedean interior
Peace had come.
Achamian had dreamed of war, more war than anyone save a Mandate Schoolman could dream. He’d even witnessed war between nations—the Three Seas bred quarrels as readily as did liquor. But he’d never belonged to one. He had never marched as he marched now, sweating beneath the Gedean sun, surrounded by thousands of iron-armoured Men, by the lowing of oxen and the tramping of countless sandalled feet. War, in the smoke darkening the horizon, in the braying of horns, in the great carnival of encampment after encampment, in the blackened stone and whitened dead. War, in past nightmares and future apprehensions. Everywhere, war.
And somehow, peace had come.
There was Kellhus, of course.
Since resolving not to inform the Mandate of his presence, Achamian’s anguish had receded, then fallen away altogether. How this could be mystified him for the most part. The threat remained. Kellhus was, Achamian would remind himself from time to time, the Harbinger. Soon the sun would rise behind the No-God and cast his dread shadow across the Three Seas. Soon the Second Apocalypse would wrack the world. But when he thought of these things a queer elation warmed his horror, a drunken exhilaration. Achamian had always been incredulous of stories of men breaking ranks in battle to charge their foe. But now he thought he understood the impulse behind that heedless rush. Consequences lost all purchase when they became mad. And desperation, when pressed beyond anguish, became narcotic.
He was the fool who dashed alone into the spears of thousands. For Kellhus.
Achamian still taught him during the daylong march, though now both Esmenet and Serwë accompanied them, sometimes chatting to each other, but mostly just listening. Surrounding them, Men of the Tusk marched in their thousands, bent beneath their packs, sweating in the bright Gedean sun. Somehow, impossibly, Kellhus had exhausted everything Achamian knew of the Three Seas, so they talked of the Ancient North, of Seswatha and his world of bronze, Sranc, and Nonmen. Soon, Achamian realized from time to time, he would have nothing left to give Kellhus—save the Gnosis.
Which he could not give, of course. But he found it hard to resist wondering what Kellhus with his godlike intellect would make of it. Thank
fully, the Gnosis was a language for which the Prince possessed no tongue.
The marches tumbled to a halt sometime between mid-afternoon and dusk, depending on the terrain and, most important, the availability of water. Gedea was a dry land, the Atsushan Highlands especially so. After the brisk routine of pitching camp, they gathered about Xinemus’s fire, though Achamian often found himself eating alone with Esmenet, Serwë, and Xinemus’s slaves. More and more, Xinemus, Cnaiür, and Kellhus supped with Proyas, who, under the Scylvendi’s coarse tutelage, had become a man obsessed with strategy and planning. But usually they all found themselves about the fire for an hour or two before retiring to their pallets or mats.
And here, as everywhere else, Kellhus shone.
One night, shortly after the Holy War had left Hinnereth, they found themselves eating a contemplative meal of rice and lamb, which Cnaiür had secured for them the previous day. Commenting on the luxury of eating steaming meat, Esmenet asked the whereabouts of their provider.
“With Proyas,” Xinemus said, “discussing war.”
“What could they possibly talk about all the time?”
Caught mid-swallow, Kellhus held out a hand. “I’ve heard them,” he said, his eyes wry and bright. “Their conversations sound something like this …”
Esmenet was laughing already. Everyone else leaned forward eagerly. In addition to mischievous wit, Kellhus had an uncanny gift for voices. Serwë fairly chortled with excitement.
Kellhus assumed an imperious and warlike face. He spat between his feet, then in a voice that raised goose pimples, so near was it to Cnaiür’s own, he said: “The People do not ride like sissies. They place one testicle to the left of the saddle, one testicle to the right, and they do not bounce, they are so heavy.”
“I would,” Kellhus-as-Proyas replied, “be spared your impudence, Scylvendi.”
Xinemus coughed a mouthful of wine.