Джеффри Лорд: Champions Of The Gods

Breakfast was flat cakes of bread, cheese, onions, and sour wine with some sort of herb in it. The herb did not put Blade to sleep again. It did dull the pain of his wounds and of being moved around. He watched in a rather detached frame of mind as the men of the patrol loaded up everything, including him, and prepared to move out.

It took them three days to reach Kano. By the end of the first day they were definitely leaving the desert behind them. The bushes now rose nearly as high as trees, flocks of ash-gray birds flew overhead, and small herds of antelope ran off as the party rode by. Once they splashed through a few inches of slow-moving mud-brown water at the bottom of a gulley. They camped within sight of a small pond and filled their empty waterskins and bottles to the bulging point.

By noon of the second day they were completely out of the desert, into a region of small villages, sparse grain fields, and fruit orchards. It reminded Blade of parts of California he had seen when he had been in the United States for a desert-survival course.

Some of the villages and orchards were flourishing., From these Jormin's guards brought back whole baskets of oranges and lemons so plump and shiny they seemed to be glowing in the sunlight. From the sullen looks on the faces of the villagers, Blade doubted that Jormin had paid for the fruit.

This was also a frontier land, where the Raufi could strike at any time, sweeping in and out of the desert on their fast-striding camels. Wherever they struck, they left fields turned to dry, blowing dust, orchard of trees girdled, chopped down, or blackened by fire, and the ashes and rubble of huts and meeting halls. They carried the women off into the desert, slaughtered the men on the spot, and drove the survivors in panic into Kano.

Blade saw enough ruins and overheard enough grimfaced snatches of conversation to understand clearly what faced Kano and its people. For centuries the city had stood on the edge of the desert. Fields and orchards surrounded it, fed it, made it a pleasant place to live. But it had risen to power and wealth and beauty on the black jade. Blade had guessed right. Under the rock and sand of the desert lay black jade, endless miles of it. Five centuries of mining had barely scratched the surface. Another five might possibly make a real dent in the supply, if Kano lasted that long.

The black jade poured out of the mines. Some of it remained in Kano, to build the great beautiful city, to adorn its temples and its women. Most of it was loaded into caravans, into carts, into riverboats. The caravans and carts and boats took it off to all the lands that lay farther to the east and brought back whatever they produced that Kano wanted. Of all the cities known to the people of this Dimension, Kano was the richest, and all because of the black jade.

For just as many centuries, the Raufi had ridden out of their grim, sun-baked deserts on their raids. Their harsh life gave them enormous endurance and made them expert riders and expert shots. Few men of Kano could match them. Their fanatical worship of Jannah made them completely merciless and utterly contemptuous of death. They neither gave nor asked for quarter. They had always been formidable; they always would be. Over the centuries Kano had grown and flourished in spite of them. They had always been a nuisance, but seldom a menace.

Now, however, the situation was different. It had been changing for the last three years. A new war chief had come to power among the Raufi, a man called Dahrad Bin Saffar. A brilliant commander as well as a brave warrior, he had united all the Raufi as no man had done for three hundred years. No man had ever led the united tribes to such success against the men of Kano. In the past three years the Raufi had become a menace-and one that grew daily.

It was not only the new united strength of the Raufi under Dahrad Bin Saffar that made them a menace. It was the weakness of Kano. No enemy had approached its walls in nearly a thousand years. There was a mobile fighting force, to meet the raids of the individual Raufi clans and tribes. That force was passably good-Mirdon was one of its officers-but it was small. It was much too small to face the united Raufi.

In the past, Kano would have hired mercenaries from lands farther east to meet such a crisis. Now there were none to be hired, at any price. Blade heard a good many bitter remarks about this. Had Kano been too proud and overbearing, until her neighbors and customers were happy to see her in trouble? Did the eastern cities and kingdoms hope to see Kano and the Raufi destroy each other-so that they could then take the jade mines and the orchards for themselves without effort?

The «whys» didn't really matter. What did matter was that the people of Kano now had to take up arms themselves. After centuries of indolent luxury, most of them were finding this painfully difficult. Even those who tried hardest found they could not learn all they needed as fast as they needed to learn it. The few trained men like Mirdon did their best, but they were spread thin.

So it was only very rarely that the men of Kano could meet the Raufi on anything like equal terms. Over the past three years they had lost five men for every Raufi warrior killed. Their strength and courage shrank as the Raufi grew bolder and bolder. It was only a matter of time before the Raufi had grown strong and bold enough to ride out of the desert in a united host and lay siege to Kano itself.

That would be final disaster. Fighting behind their own walls, the people of Kano might gain courage, but they would gain no skill. The Raufi might swarm over the walls and treat mighty Kano like any frontier village.

Even if the walls held at first, it would only delay the end. The Raufi would hold all the country around the city, the fields and the orchards, even the jade mines themselves. They would bar all the roads and rivers to reinforcements and supplies. If Dahrad Bin Saffar could hold his men together, sooner or later power and food would run out in the besieged city.

«Then the Raufi will dash out babies' brains on the walls of our temples. They will rape women under the bushes in the Gardens of Stam. They will stable their camels in the House of the Consecrated, and shovel camel dung into the Mouth of the Gods. It must not be!» That was Mirdon, in an unusual fit of passion.

Jormin's reply was cool. «We cannot hope to be saved without the favor of the gods. So it is proper that such a strong man as this Rauf prisoner be thrust into the Mouth. It is also proper that the words of the Consecrated be heeded.»

Mirdon's face puckered up as though he had tasted a rotten lemon. «I have already said that I respect your decisions. There is no need for any more words on that.»

«I say otherwise. You respect me when you are thinking clearly. But your wits are not always as keen as the edge of your sword, or as swift as your whip, or as sure as the feet of your horse. When they fall, you speak words best left unsaid. I must remind you of this.» Mirdon took the lecture in silence, then spurred his horse on ahead, out of Blade's sight and hearing.

On the morning of the third day, they started out unusually early. By noon they had covered more than thirty miles. The roads underfoot were now broad and well kept, paved with a blackish cement and bordered with trees and bushes. Beyond the trees Blade began to see country estates, sprawling whitewashed houses roofed and trimmed with black jade tiles.

Another hour, and they were riding past marching columns of cavalry and infantry. Blade's professional eye took in their clumsiness, their exhaustion, the men who were barely staying in their saddles or on their feet. Only a few men here and there seemed to know what they were doing. What Blade saw now confirmed everything he had heard about the army Kano was improvising.