Paul Kearney - The ten thousand

“And will his ten thousand be happy to die in ours?” Tiryn responded.

There was a stately series of raps on the door, as though someone were knocking a cane against the heavy wood.

“Yes, yes,” Arkamenes said, rubbing his forehead. “Amasis, you heard everything, did you not?”

An immensely tall, gaunt, golden-skinned creature stood undulating slightly in the doorway. Its eyes were mere blue glints deep in a crevice of bone. The nose was a pair of black slits. It held an ivory-coloured staff in one naked arm and the other was tucked in the breast of a seven-times wound bolt of blindingly white linen. Scarlet slippers completed the picture. The creature smiled, showing white teeth inset with tiny jewels.

“Every word, my Prince. What a presumptuous beast it was.” Amasis strode over to the brazier and warmed his free hand over the red coals. “Breath of God, but I will be glad to leave this end of the world. Some warmth in the air; a blast of true sunlight! How can they live without it?”

Tiryn poured the old Kefre some wine, and he raised the cup to her.

“To learn Kefren speaks well of this thing’s intellect and ambition,” Amasis said. “He could have settled with Asurian, but chose to learn the tongue of the highest caste. I like this in him. It shows that he concerns himself with details, and argues for a more subtle mind than we have perhaps given these creatures credit for. Perhaps there is more to them than the bloody savagery which paints our legends.”

“We’ll see,” Arkamenes said. “I intend to run him with a long leash until we enter Jutha, to see his paces. These red-cloaked warriors of his shall be the spearhead of the army. I shall hone them as a man does a knife; at every opportunity it shall be they who bleed, not our own forces. At the end, if any are left, then they should be a more manageable number.”

“A curiosity,” Amasis said, amused. “When the battles are done, we should perhaps erect cages for the survivors in the grounds of the palace, and charge admission.”

Arkamenes held up a hand. “Let us not tempt God’s wrath. I do not intend to end this adventure with a Macht army intact in the heartlands of the Empire, but I shall not squander them either. These fearsome, bloody men of bronze, they are half my treasury on the march. I intend that they shall see good service. My investment will be repaid in their blood.”

The storm had blown itself out at last, and now from horizon to horizon the sea was a tawny, white-toothed and ragged plain upon which the ships tossed and pitched under a hand-me-down of sail. For perhaps twenty pasangs, the scattered fleet plunged in tattered skeins and clots of heavy-laden wood and flapping cordage. In the holds of the overworked vessels thousands of men sat shoulder to shoulder whilst the fetid bilge splashed around them, and from the bellies of the big freighters the mules could be heard shrieking in angry panic and kicking at the confining timber of their stalls.

“We came through better than I thought we would,” Myrtaios said with a degree of satisfaction that Pasion found quite inhuman. He bent over the ship’s rail, only to find himself manhandled by the captain. “No-the leeward rail, for Phobos’s sake. Why can you soldiers never learn to puke away from the wind?”

Pasion gave a watery belch, his face almost the same colour as the water below. “Because we’re past caring. Had it been up to me, I think I’d have wished us all drowned two days ago.”

“Aye, well, you damned near had your wish. As nasty a blow as I’ve seen, this side of Gygonis.”

“What of the fleet? What do you see?” Pasion wiped his mouth and straightened. He had left off his cuirass, and his red chiton was smeared with all manner of filth. Below-decks the stink was well-nigh insupportable, but the men down there were also beyond caring.

“I’ve lookouts up counting, but that’s no easy job in this swell. There won’t be a full accounting made until you’re numbering them off on the wharves of Tanis itself. Be prepared though, my friend; some ships will have been lost-you mark my words. You don’t come through a four-days’ blow such as we just had without some poor souls finding it their last.” The captain shook his head mournfully and ran his fingers through the matted grey nest of his beard.

“I’ll bear that in mind. So how long now until we’re out of these damn contraptions and back with our feet on the earth again?”

The captain tramped to the windward side of the deck, beckoning Pasion after him. The cursebearer picked a path through a tangle of snapped rigging and made way for the working party that was intent on reinforcing the cracked timber of one of the great steering-oars. Seawater washed up and down the deck-planking to the depth of a man’s hand. From the black noisome depths of the open mainhatch more of the crew were hauling up great skins of water by tackles to the mainyard, helped by those of the mercenaries who were not incapacitated by sea-sickness. The skins were tilted overboard, and when emptied were flung down the hatch again to be refilled. The process seemed unending.

“There,” Myrtaios said, pointing with one thick forefinger. “You see that line on the horizon to the west?”

“That’s land, is it?”

“That’s Gygonis, the south-eastern shore of it, and if you were at the masthead you’d see the snow on the Andrumenos Mountains. I thank Antimone’s pity the wind didn’t back round sooner, or we’d all be floating on bits of firewood by now, pounded up and down that bastard black-rocked coast. No, rough though it was, it was as good as I could hope for at this time of year. You set sail in winter, you’re thumbing your nose at Phobos, and he’ll stir up the seas against you. Why, if it were not for the fee, I’d have laughed in your face when you hired me.”

“So,” Pasion said patiently, “assuming Phobos has turned his face away, how much farther is there to go?”

Myrtaios grinned, a stale exhalation of garlic. He picked at what teeth he had with one thumbnail’. “Why, we’re past Gygonis, so that’s the worst of it over, and we’ve a good wind now, fair on the quarter. If it’s more than four hundred pasangs to the coast of Artaka, well then I’ll kiss my steersman’s arse. And we can rattle that off in three days, barring storms, shipwreck, and this old bitch under us taking on any more water.”

“Thank you, captain,” Pasion said. “I am obliged to you, and your crew.”

Myrtaios laughed. “You keep your thanks, sell-spear, and make sure my fee stays in the hold where it belongs. Now that’s ballast I’d be happy to carry more often.” He raised his hands as though he were cupping a woman’s breasts. “All those lovely little round bags a’ clinking together, like the gold was talking to you through the leather. You live long enough to need a return trip, and I’m your man!” He stumped off along the deck, laughing with his head back. Pasion belched, put his palm across his mouth, and lurched towards the windward rail.

During the day the wind dropped an octave, and what rags of cloud remained about the sky went with it, off into the west. The fleet bowled along in an almost stately fashion, and as the ships began to behave more like sensible means of transport and less like contrivances of torture, so the men below began to make their way up on deck. Rictus and Gasca climbed up the hatch-ladders and staggered forward to the bows. Here, the salt spray was refreshing as rain, and there was a warmth in the sun which seemed a new and strange thing. They almost fancied they could smell some new scent in the air, as though the senses changed along with the world’s geography.