Paul Kearney - The ten thousand

Tiryn sat near one of the central fires in the midst of the baggage, her Juthan slave heating something in a copper pot over the flames. Jason looked out for them, making sure they had food at the end of each day, and the common soldiery knew better now than to try and molest the general’s Kufr. When he could, he would join them at the fire in the later part of the night, and he and Tiryn would trade words in each other’s tongues, she reaching Asurian and learning Machtic as he did the opposite. It was a little piece of routine which anchored Tiryn to some kind of reality in a bewildering world, and she had come to look forward to those quiet nights by the campfire, even the animals asleep in their rope corrals, Jason and she exchanging quiet words, using their minds for something other than the day to day business of survival.

He was frowning as he arrived this night. He wrapped his cloak about his knees as he took his usual place by the fire, as if to keep out the memories of the day as much as the cool night air. He looked around at the wagons and carts parked in lines, the hobbled horses and mules, the nodding oxen, and the lines of chained Juthan sitting silent and exhausted by their day’s labour.

“They’re damn near as good as mules, these people,” he said to Tiryn, nodding at her personal slave. The Juthan girl sat eyes downcast on the other side of the fire, a hemp slave collar about her broad throat. In her hands the copper pot sat forgotten.

“Her name is Ushdun,” Tiryn said. “She was born in Junnan, in northern Jutha, and was given to an Imperial Tax Collector as part payment for her father’s debt.”

Jason considered this, disgust on his face. “These people give up their children to pay a tax?”

Tiryn’s eyes burned. “It is the way the Empire works. Arkamenes told me it was good for the… the circulation of the population, and it avoided beggaring the smallholders. Most have too many mouths to feed as it is.” Like my father, she thought hut could not say-would never say.

“Then they deserve their Empire,” Jason said with contempt.

“Do you not have slaves in your homeland?”

“Yes, but they’re taken in war, not freely given up by their parents.” He thought again, shrugged a little. “Well, maybe the goatherder tribes-but they’re little better than animals.”

“And are we, then, little better than animals?”

Jason looked at her, head cocked to one side. “Your Machtic is very good now. What say you, we try and get my Asurian up to the same mark?”

“The word for slave is durun. The word for animal is qaf. Have you heard of the Qaf?”

Jason smiled. “I see I am to be educated in several ways tonight. I have heard of them, yes.”

“They are taller than the tallest Kefre, and broader than Juthan. They live far north of here, in the snows of the Korash Mountains. They do not like the heat of the lowlands, but I saw some in Ashur.”

“They sound like fearsome creatures indeed.”

“The word for angry is irghe. You are angry tonight.”

“Did Gasca bring you that jar of wine? I’d have some, if there’s any left.”

She ordered the Juthan to get it out of the wagon. Jason clicked off the clay lid and drank straight from the lip of the jar. He wiped his mouth, nodding. “That’s the right stuff. I was sick of palm wine. It’s a relief to know someone here makes a drink out of the grape.” He caught Tiryn’s eyes still upon him. “Yes, I am angry.”

“Why?”

“I do not come here to discuss my day.”

“I know. You come here to receive language instruction from animals. Why are you angry?”

He laughed at that. “Was this why Arkamenes kept you by his side? To needle him out of a dark mood?”

“Perhaps. You like to talk to me, Jason. You lead this army. I do not think you can talk to others.”

“You’ve met Rictus. No? I talk to him. I talk to my friend Buridan. And I talk to you. I do not know why. I do not know why I trust you, but it happens that I do.”

He was in all seriousness, the laughter gone. He stared into the fire and nudged an errant faggot closer to the flames with his foot.

“We are not one army, but two,” he said at last. “For now, we are together, because if we split up, we will no doubt die here. But if the Great King forsakes our pursuit, there will be factions in our ranks. They will tear us apart.”

“Kill the leaders of the other factions,” she said. She took the forgotten pot out of the Juthan girl’s hands and began ladling the lentil stew within onto three earthenware plates.

“The Macht do not conduct their affairs in that way,” Jason said. He seemed displeased.

“Are you hungry?”

“I’ll eat.”

He ate with his fingers, as did the Juthan. Tiryn scooped up her own food with a horn spoon. The taste took her back to the hearth of her father’s house, in the mountains. The fire in the centre of the round room, the woodsmoke tainting every mouthful. She stared at her plate and across her mind a flickering pageant of childhood images played themselves out, stealing away her appetite.

Jason set down his empty plate. He lay back in his cloak and stared up at the stars. “I see Gaenion’s Pointer,” he said. “It shows the way north. Many’s the night march I’ve made with it to guide me. It seems strange, somehow, that our stars are here, in this land.”

“Your stars?” Tiryn asked.

“Gaenion the Smith made the stars out of Antimone’s tears. When she wept he loved the way his wife’s light caught in them-his wife is the sun, Araian. So he caught some of Antimone’s tears, and set them in the heavens in patterns and chains ordained by God Himself. And there they stick.”

“The stars are the gems of Bel, thrown into the sky as the god celebrated the killing of the great Bull, Mot’s beast of the dark,” Tiryn said. “The eyes of the Bull he set in the sky also, though one was full of blood from the beast’s death-throes. They are our moons, Firghe and Anande, Wrath and Patience.”

Jason grinned. “Each to his own gods, I suppose. I don’t know about your Bel, or bull, but I have heard the beat of Antimone’s Wings upon the battlefield, like some black flutter in the core of my heart. And then of course there is this.” He cast aside his cloak, and sitting up, he thumped the black chest of his cuirass, the Curse of God.

“I do not know how these things were made if they are not the work of some god, because assuredly, there is no smith on earth who can fathom their creation.”

Tiryn raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps there was once.”

“What is the word for stubborn?”

“Kura. A mule is a Kuru. I am thinking it a good word for Macht, also.”

Jason got to his feet, and bowed. “Thank you for the wine, the food, and the instruction in humility, my lady.”

She lowered the komis from her face, looking up at him as he stood there. She did not want him to go. “I will see you on the march perhaps, tomorrow?”

“Perhaps.” He reached out his hand, and for an unthinking second she did the same, her fingers longer than his, pale in the firelight. They did not touch. She drew back, startled by the temerity of her own impulse.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “I wish to learn the words for hearth, home, and happiness, in case I should ever need them.” Then he turned to go.

“I hope you may need them, one day,” Tiryn said, watching his cloak-wrapped shape disappear into the firelight and shadows of the sleeping camp. She did not think he had heard her.

The next day, a large tell loomed out of the morning mists before Rictus’s trudging skirmishers. All about, the flatlands of the Middle Empire croaked and clicked and buzzed as the sun began to warm the air. A solitary Kufr farmer, leading his ox out for a morning’s work, saw the Macht appear out of the mists and fled, leaving his puzzled animal behind. Rictus slapped the beast’s rump as they passed it, and Whistler grinned. “Rictus, shall I?”