He found his captain a few minutes later. He was still kneeling over Sanguinet's mutilated body when Reskird shouted, "Hey! Bragi! Come here!"
Ragnarson rose, looked, saw Reskird facing a group of Royalist horsemen. He gathered his sword and shield and trudged back. "Sanguinet is dead," he said in Trolledyngjan. "So are Tomas and Klaus. Who's going to take over?" He surveyed the horsemen. "Well I'll be damned!"
"That's one I paid you back, Bragi." Haroun grinned.
Reskird whispered, "Isn't that that Haroun guy from when we was commissioned at el Aswad?"
"Yeah," Bragi said. "We were handling them, Haroun."
"What are you doing here?"
"High Crag detached us to Altea. To give the locals a little backbone."
An older Royalist asked, "Your men did this?" He indicated the carnage.
"They wouldn't leave us alone," Bragi replied, making a sour joke of it. "We would've cleaned up on them good if your boys hadn't chickened out on us."
Haroun said, "Pardon me?"
Bragi explained that a group of Royalists had left the company to its fate. Haroun's face darkened.
"We met some of them. We thought they were messengers. I'll find their captain. I'll show him this. Then I'll hang him."
Haaken called, "You want I should croak the old guy too, Bragi?"
"No. Give him to these guys. They might get something out of him."
Haaken pulled their captive out of the rocks, where he had concealed himself.
"Wahla!" several horsemen cried.
"Karim!" Haroun shouted. "Ah!" He began laughing. His followers joined in, pummeling one another like joyous children.
"What is it?" Bragi asked.
"You've caught Karim. The great Karim, who is second to the Scourge of God himself. There will be rejoicing when the world hears of this. And many tears will be shed in the councils of the usurper. Oh, how the Scourge of God will rage! My friend, you have given us our first great victory. My spirit soars! I feel the tide turning! The Fates no longer vie against us. But what became of the northern traitors who rode with him?"
"I don't know. I wish I did. I'd like to get my hands on them. They caused this. This Karim didn't want to attack."
"You recognized them?"
"Yes. We thought they were your people at first. Then this Karim killed our Lieutenant."
"They wanted no witnesses to their treachery. They were going to meet with Nassef. To betray the northern host. We've been chasing them more than a week."
"You caught Karim. Take him if you want. Will you excuse me? Many of my brothers are injured."
Haroun grinned at Karim. "Beloul. Do you have anything special in mind?"
"Lord, you know I do. All the torments of all the hundreds who died at Sebil el Selib."
Karim sprang at Haaken, seized his sword. He ran himself through before he could be stopped.
"A brave man for a former bandit," Haroun observed.
Because none of the surviving noncoms seemed inclined, Bragi began putting the company together again. One hundred twelve Guildsmen had survived. Fifty-three, miraculously, had come through unscathed.
"We'll shed tears for these for a long time," Bragi told Haaken. He and the young king stood facing the long rank of graves the Royalists had helped dig. "There were some great men among them."
Haroun nodded. He knew what it meant to lose old comrades.
Chapter Eleven:
VICTORY GIFTS
El Murid and his party departed the Sahel at Kasr Helal, travelling as salt merchants desperately seeking a supplier. The war threatened to destroy the trade. Salt prices were soaring as the flow into the desert dwindled.
It was at Kasr Helal that, unrecognized by the garrison commander, El Murid learned that, to obtain salt, traders had to deal with a Mustaph el-Kader, an uncle of Nassef's General el-Kader. The elder el-Kader was disposing of stockpiles from the captured Diamiellian works.
El Murid had heard of Mustaph el-Kader. He was infamous as a procurer and as a supplier of religiously proscribed wine. What was a man like that doing controlling the salt supply?
"Don't whine at me!" the garrison commander snapped when the Disciple protested.
"But... To deal with whoremasters and thieves, at usurious prices... "
"You want salt? Good. You buy from who we tell you to. If you don't like it, go home."
El Murid turned to Hali, who was supposed to be his master of accounts. "Mowaffak?"
Hali controlled himself. "We'll do what we have to, and pass the costs along. But nobody's going to love us. I wonder, Captain, what the Disciple would think of your profiteering."
"What he don't know won't hurt him. But complain if you want. He'll tell you to go pound sand. It's his brother-in-law's game. He won't turn on his own kin, will he?"
That was not the desert way. Family was concrete while truth, justice and sometimes even God's law were subjective.
"Who knows the heart of the Disciple?" Hali asked. "Surely not a bandit disguised as an officer in the Host of Illumination."
"A True Believer, eh? Get out of here. You're wasting my time. You guys are a royal pain in the ass, you know that?"
When they had gotten beyond the captain's hearing, El Murid murmured, "Nassef is doing it again, Mowaffak. If it isn't one thing, it's something else. He's driving me to distraction."
"Something has to be done, Lord."
"Of course. How do these things happen? Why hasn't anyone complained?"
"Maybe they have and the complaint hasn't been passed on. Maybe they never had the chance. Our most reliable people follow the heaviest fighting. Nassef bears your writ of command over the Invincibles. He's been exercising it, possibly to keep them away from evidence of evils such as this."
"Mowaffak, hear me. I speak for the Lord. You will chose one hundred men of irreproachable repute. Men immune to blandishment and extortion. Reclaim their white robes and return them to their original professions. They are to travel throughout the Kingdom of Peace, including both Hammad al Nakir and all the new provinces, unmasking evils such as this. They aren't to distinguish between the grievances of the faithful and the infidel, nor those of the desert-born and foreigner, nor of the mighty and the weak. All men will be equal before their judgment. I will arm them with letters giving them absolute authority in anything they care to judge, and will back them completely, even against my own family. Even if I disagree with their judgments. This exploitation must stop."
"And who will watch the watchers?" Hali murmured to himself.
"I will, Mowaffak. And I'll be the most terrible judge of all. And Mowaffak. Collect this barbarous captain when we leave. We'll chastise him, and release him to spread the news that El Murid walks among the Chosen, as one of them, hunting their oppressors."
"How much longer will you tolerate the Scourge of God, Lord?" Hali asked, returning to a subject dear to his heart.
"How long will the fighting last? The day we begin beating swords into plowshares, then I'll have no use for captains of war."
It was at Kasr Helal, too, that Esmat told him another Ipopotam courier had failed to return. That made three who had vanished; two regular couriers and the special messenger sent after the disappearance of the first.
"Your worst fears have been realized, Esmat. Three men lost strains a belief in chance. Select six warriors from my bodyguard. Send them. Then another to see what happens to them. Do it right away, and tell them to ride hard. How long can we last?"
"Perhaps forty days, Lord. If luck rides with us."
He wanted to admonish Esmat for the pagan remark, but could not invoke the Lord now. That would be to claim God's countenance of his secret shame.
From Kasr Helal El Murid travelled northwestward, toward Dunno Scuttari and Nassef's promised spectacle. He and his companions often paused to ogle what they thought were great wonders. El Murid lingered over structures bequeathed to the present by the engineers of the Empire. Then the flame of the Empire of tomor
row burned in his eyes, and Hali would remind him that they were travelling incognito. He had had few opportunities to preach since Disharhun. The words piled up within him.
Even the towns and little cities were splendid, despite Nassef's rapine. But never had he imagined such splendor as burst upon him when first he gazed upon Dunno Scuttari.
"Oh, Papa!" Yasmid cried. "It's magnificent! So big and... and magnificent!"
"Your uncle tells me he's going to make it a gift to me. What would I do with a city? You think it's beautiful? I'll give it to you. Assuming Nassef can take it."
"He can, Papa. I know he can."
"What about me?" Sidi demanded surlily.
"There are other cities. Which one do you want? Hellin Daimiel?"
"I don't want another city. I want... "
"Let him have this one, Papa. It's beautiful, but I'd rather have Hellin Daimiel. That's where everything interesting... "
"He saidI could have Hellin Daimiel, Yasmid."
"What you're going to get, Sidi, is a taste of the strap. Act your age. You're not four years old anymore."
"How come she always gets her own way? When do we get to see the ocean? I want to see the ocean."
El Murid's hand whipped out. "There are times, Sidi, when you disgust me," he said as the boy rubbed his cheek. El Murid glanced at Mowaffak Hali, who pretended an intense interest in the River Scarlotti. "There are times when I'm tempted to foster you with the poor tribesmen of the Sahel so you'll learn to appreciate what you have and stop whining about what you don't." El Murid stopped. The boy was not listening. "Mowaffak, have someone find the Scourge of God and tell him we're here."
Nassef himself came to greet them. He was an adolescent mass of uncontrolled emotion. He had happy smiles and ferocious hugs for everyone.
El Murid easily identified the indelible tracks loneliness had stamped into Nassef's face. He saw them in his own face whenever he glanced into a mirror.
"I'm glad you came," Nassef enthused. "So much work went into this. It would have been a sin if you'd have missed it."
El Murid noted how attentive Nassef was to Yasmid, with his little jokes, his teasing, his mock flirtation. He indulged in an old speculation. Did Nassef have designs on the girl? She was on the brink of marriageability. For Nassef to wed her would be a great coup for the ambitious Nassef who sometimes thrust his head out of the shadows surrounding the several Nassefs the Disciple knew.
There were those who would frown on a man marrying his niece, but it was not without precedent. Many of Ilkazar's emperors had married their own sisters.
A few months earlier Hali had brought El Murid a chart of succession found in the apartment of Megelin Radetic at el Aswad, the fortress the Wahlig of el Aswad had abandoned shortly before the assault on Al Rhemish. What El Murid had seen in that chart had startled him. And had revivified all the specters that had haunted him throughout his association with his brother-in-law.
If Radetic had guessed correctly, Nassef had powerful motives for pursuing Yasmid. Only Haroun bin Yousif stood between Nassef and the throne on that chart. A marriage could lead to Crown and Disciplate conjoined.
El Murid had visited his wife's father on the way west. The old man, who had disinherited his children in the beginning, had been on his deathbed. El Murid had introduced the old chieftain to his grandchildren. They had conquered him immediately. He had recanted. There had been tears of forgiveness and of reconciliation.
"Nassef."
"Lord?"
"I came by way of el Aquila."
A strained longing shone on Nassefs face.
"I saw him, yes. And these two stole his heart. He said they were just like you and Meryem at the same ages. He forgave us all. He wanted me to tell you that."
For an instant a tear glinted in Nassef's eye. "Then I can go home? I can see him again?"
"No. You know the Fates were never that kind. He was on his deathbed when we arrived. We stayed till the Dark Lady came for him. He had a gentle, peaceful death."
"And my mother?"
"She abides, but I don't think she'll survive him long."
"I'll visit her as soon as we go into winter quarters. What did he think about me?"
"Pray for him, Nassef. He never accepted the Faith. He died an unbeliever. But he was proud of his son and daughter. He talked incessantly of the things you've accomplished. He said he always knew you'd go far."
Nassef glowed through his sorrow.
Mowaffak Hali watched with the cold eyes of a raptor. For a man who abhors politics, his prophet thought, Mowaffak can play them craftily.
Nassef wasted little time getting on with the event that had drawn the Disciple to Dunno Scuttari. The next day he ferried the family across the river and guided them to a pavillion on a hilltop.
"You won't be able to see much, really," he said. "But what there is you can see best from here. In the morning."
"What is it, Nassef?" Yasmid demanded.
"A surprise, Little Dove. Get up early and you'll see."
"Come on, Nassef," she breathed. Already, unconsciously, she was adopting the little wiles a woman uses to bend a man to her will.
"No, I'm not telling. Not even you. You'll wait like everybody else." He gestured downriver, toward the eastern end of the fortress island. "They'll be the most surprised."
Yasmid's pleading and flirting went for naught. This, Nassef said without verbalizing, would be his greatest triumph. It was his game. It would be played his way, by his rules.
El Murid, uncharacteristically, had an image of an unconfident roue stalking a virgin who had spurned the advances of countless lovers with more to offer. A roue who did not disguise his intent to use her once and pass her on-yet one who had staked his fortunes and ego on the successful outcome of an otherwise inconsequential affair.
And so he gained yet another perspective on this stranger who was his oldest acquaintance. There seemed to be no end to the faces of Nassef.
That night El Murid stood outside his pavillion and marvelled at the magnitude of the Host of Illumination. Its campfires covered the countryside on both banks of the river. It seemed that whole shoals of stars had descended to the plains and hills. "So many... " he murmured. "All brought here bymy dreams."
Nassef had told him that he had recruited almost twenty thousand westerners. The Word, or parts thereof, stirred sympathetic resonances in some western hearts. The New Empire was battling its way from the womb.
Yasmid began tormenting him before sunrise. "Papa. Come on. Come and see what Nassef did. You won't believe it when you see it."
It was hours before his usual rising time. He preferred to work late and sleep late. He fought her till it became obvious that her determination was the greater. Accepting defeat grouchily, he rose. He dressed and followed her to the pavillion's exit.
"All right, brat. Show me this miracle and get it over with. I need my sleep."
"Can't you see, Papa? It's right there. Look at the river, Papa."
He peered down at the Scarlotti.
The river was not there.
The once vast flood had dwindled to a few lakes connected by one murky stream a dozen yards wide. Great expanses of mud lay exposed to the breeze and the rising sun. The breezes shifted while he wrestled with his awe. A foul odor assailed his nostrils.
"How in the world... ?"
Nassef came striding toward the pavillion. Weariness seemed to drag him down, yet when he saw them watching, his step took on a boyish bounce. A broad grin captured his face. "What do you think?" he shouted.
The roue has broken his beloved's maidenhead, El Murid thought. And now he comes to gloat, to adore himself publicly, to brag...
He snorted softly. "What did you do?" he demanded. "How can you dry up a river overnight?"
"You can't. What you do is impress a couple hundred thousand people and make them dig a new riverbed. I started as soon as we got here. I got the idea fromThe Wizards of llkazar. Where the poet tells about Varthlokk
ur sending the earthquake to demolish the walls and a building collapses into the Aeos and dams it and floods part of the city. I thought, why didn't they dam it upriver? Then they could have gotten in through the water gate. Then I thought, why not reroute the river? It would just spill over a dam."
Nassef babbled on. This ingenious stroke clearly meant more to him than just adding the jewel of another city to his diadem of clever conquests. He had invested of hisself , like a child undertaking a severely ambitious project in hopes of winning paternal approval.
El Murid remembered Nassef once mentioning his trouble communicating with other children. He realized that in his superbly competent campaigns, and especially in this conquest, his brother-in-law was trying to make a statement to the world.
What was it? A simple, "I exist! Notice me!" Or something more complex?
Something more complex, surely. Nothing about Nassef was simple.
"Some of my men are in the city already," Nassef told him. "They went down in boats during the night and waited for the water level to fall below the bottom of the water gate grates. They've occupied the area inside. I had other men laying plank roads across the mud as the river fell. Those should be done by now. The Host should be entering the city. They should surrender before nightfall."
Nassef was overoptimistic. Led, cajoled, and bullied by stubborn Guildsmen, the defenders resisted for nine days, yielding their inner strongholds only when overwhelmed. By the fifth day Nassef was frantic. The stone and earth dam shunting the Scarlotti was weakening. And he had yet to capture one of the fortified causeways connecting the inner and outer islands with the riverbanks.
He drove his forced laborers to prodigies and kept the dam intact. On the seventh day the Invincibles captured a causeway.
That sealed the city's fate. Nassef had acquired indefinite access.
On the eighth day a messenger arrived from the Lesser Kingdoms.
Nassef had no color and was shaking when he approached El Murid afterward. "Micah... My Lord Disciple. They've slain Karim. Bin Yousif's rabble and some Guildsmen. They got him in Altea. Karim... He was like a father to me. I'd sent him on a critical secret mission. He was coming back. He may have been successful. If he was, he was bringing us the chance to finish the war before winter."