Paul Kearney - The ten thousand

“You are Macht,” he said in Asurian.

“We are.”

“We have seen the likes of you before. Nine days ago your people came through here, a thousand of them. They stole our cattle and looted our farms and slew our folk out of hand. Are you here now to finish what they began?”

“Aristos,” Rictus said through clenched teeth.

It was Jason who spoke up in the Headman’s own language. “We need food, draught animals, and wagons. Give us those, and I swear we shall harm none of you.”

“How can I believe you?”

Tiryn stepped forward, dropping her veil. “You may believe him. These are not like the ones who came before. They are men of honour.”

The old Kefre stared at her, both startled and scandalised. “What do you do here, with these animals?” he demanded in Kefren, the language of the kings.

“I am guiding them home. The faster you provide them with what they need, the sooner they shall be gone. They are starving. If you do not give it to them, they will take it.”

The Kefre nodded slowly. “So it has always been. The spearpoint cannot be denied. Very well.” He paused. “I have heard stories from the south. These then are the Macht who fought the Great King?”

“They are.”

“Then we will feed them. But we will curse their names, and rue the very footsteps they must take across our world.”

Tiryn nodded. “I know,” she said.

They marched across the green hills and open farmland of Askanon, and upon meeting the Sardask River, they consulted Jason’s map and decided to cross it before it broadened in the flatter plains below. The army splashed through it thigh deep, and on the far side they pitched camp and sent out foraging parties. They drew water from the river and set it to boil in the centoi, whilst the herd of livestock that now travelled with them was picked through for the day’s meat. The citizens of Kumir had handed over all their draught animals to Aristos, and what was left over in their grain stores after the winter. There had been little enough to spare for the main body of the Macht, but for hungry men it had been enough. For a while at least.

Rictus and Jason stood at the riverbank, watching the water pass by and tossing stones into it like bored children. Both wore the Curse of God. Both were as lean as a man can be and still live. They looked almost of an age now; Rictus had lost the last rags of his youth in the Korash. His face was lined and he had the makings of a beard on his chin, for all his light colouring.

“In the mountains, we passed the line at which rivers choose where to flow,” Jason said. “In all our march thus far, they have been flowing from the west to the east, into the lowlands of the Middle Empire. Here, on this side of the high country, they flow east to west. This river ends in the sea, Rictus.” He shook his head slightly, and chuckled.

“I was born by the sea,” Rictus said. A moment later he added, “I like the sound of it, the smell. I shall be glad to look on it again.”

“Ah, it’s something to look at, I suppose. But I’ll not set sail upon it again, not if I can help it.”

Rictus turned, surprised. “You’ll have to, if you want to make the crossing to the Harukush.”

“There you have me. I’ve been meaning to say it, and now seems the time. I’ll be leaving you very soon, you and the army.” Rictus stared at him, mute.

“I’ve had enough of soldiering, Rictus. I’ve seen enough death. I’ve tramped halfway across the world, killing and watching others kill. Most of my friends are dead. I-” He stumbled a little. “I have no sons to carry on my name. I have nothing but this black armour on my back, and the spear-calluses on my hands. It is not much to show for a life.”

“You have a name among us whom you have led, and one day soon you will have one among all the Macht. You go home, and you’ll be a hero. There’s not a city in the Harukush would not empty its treasury to hire the man who led the Ten Thousand back from Kunaksa.”

“I am no longer that man.”

Rictus looked away. “Is it the woman? Is it Tiryn?”

“It’s her, as much as anything else.”

“You think you can live here, in the Empire, in peace-a Macht and a Kufr together?”

“The Empire is a big place. I intend that we shall lose ourselves in it. I want that peace, Rictus. I want soil to till, grapes to grow, an old hound to lie scratching itself at my feet.”

Rictus shook his head. For a second there flashed through his mind a picture of his father’s glen, the farm buildings, the quiet river. “The Great King will hunt you down,” he said, not without bitterness.

“I think he may have other things on his mind. From what we’ve heard, a good portion of the Empire is in chaos. Let him chew his way through that for a while, and he’ll forget us.”

“You’re wrong, Jason. You should stay with us. Come back to the Harukush.”

“And you think I could settle there in peace, with a Kufr woman for a wife? I’d sooner take my chances with the Great King’s wrath. My mind is made up. Tiryn and I leave the army in the morning. I’m sorry, Rictus.”

The Iscan moved away, stared out into the west and the blue distance there with the sun going down behind it. “I wish you luck, then.”

Jason set a hand on his shoulder. “You have come a long way from the strawhead I hired in Machran. You were born to lead, Rictus. Your time in the colour is only beginning. You, too, have a name among the Macht now.”

“Stay with us a little longer. Look upon the sea with me, Jason, and then take your leave. We’ll have a feast to mark your going. I’d not have you leave like a thief in the night.” Rictus’s voice was thick and raw. He remained staring at the western horizon. Jason shook him slightly.

“Very well. I suppose a new life can wait a few more days.”

Past the city of Ashdod the army marched, the Imperial Road unwinding beneath their feet like a carpet spread to speed them home. This was the province of Askanon, which once in the semi-legendary past had been conquered by their forefathers. They had landed in their black galleys at the mouth of the Haneikos River and had issued forth across the Great Continent with an arrogance the world had not seen since. Those ancient armies had marched east to the Korash Mountains, and there the black tide of the Macht had been foiled, beaten back by the overwhelming numbers and valour of the Kufr armies. That defeat had set the fate of the world for millennia, giving rise to an empire and an unbroken line of Kings. Now a Macht army was marching west in the footsteps of their ancestors. They were a mere remnant of what they had been: ill-equipped, half-starved, and ragged as tramps. But they were unbeaten, and word of their deeds had spread out across half the world.

Talking to frightened Kufr peasants in the farms they passed, Tiryn learned that the Juthan had set up a king for themselves, a soldier named Proxis. There were rumours of great battles with the Imperial armies along the Jurid River. And Ancient Artaka was still in revolt, shielded from reprisal by the bulwark of Jutha. All over the Empire, it was said, slaves were rising up against their masters, and chaos was threatening the line of Asur. Perhaps what men whispered around their night-time fires was true: the Empire’s day had come and gone. The world was being crafted anew according to some unknown whim of the gods above and below. Mot had destroyed the harvest of Pleninash, and there was hunger in the Land of the Rivers, the most fertile provinces in the entire world. The march of the Ten Thousand had been ordained by God, the Macht the instrument with which he had visited his wrath upon the earth.