David Zindell - The Diamond Warriors

Our course took us into a long taper of grassy land wedged between the Lake of the Ten Thousand Swans to our right and Mount Eluru to our left. As we moved further into the pass, this taper grew narrower and narrower. Finally, we came to that place where the road cut through a band of grass only ten yards wide. There we came to a halt. We had a nearly perfect day to wait for Lord Tanu and his army. The sky above us shone a deep and dazzling blue, with a few white clouds moving slowly along a cool breeze. This slight wind, however, failed to ripple the lake’s silvery waters, which had fallen as clear and still as a mirror. In its perfect sheen, I saw the reflection of Mount Eluru: a great and nearly symmetrical cone of green, tree-covered slopes, blue rock and white ice pushing straight up into the heavens.

After some time had passed and the sun rose over Mount Eluru’s eastern ridgeline, Maram rode forward to speak with me. As we had no privacy at the head of fourteen diamond-armored knights, we urged on our horses a few dozen more yards, and closer to the lake.

And then Maram held up his firestone to the glaring sunlight, and said, ‘Do you remember the Kul Moroth? A single blast from this, and I filled up that damn pass with enough rocks to stop an army.’

He looked up at the smooth, steep slopes of Mount Eluru above us; they were not so steep, however, that any of the few large rocks or boulders sticking out of the ground could easily be dislodged and rolled down into the pass.

‘I think I see the direction of your worries,’ I said to him.

‘Do you?’ he said, pointing his firestone down the road through the pass. ‘At Khaisham, I used this to set men on fire, like torches. But never again. I won’t use this against men, Val.’

‘You won’t have to,’ I said to him. ‘There will be no violence here today’

‘Oh, no? Why can’t I believe that? I have a bad feeling about you meeting Lord Tanu here.’

I waved my hand at this. ‘You have had other bad feelings before.’

‘Yes, I have,’ he said. ‘And most of them have proved out even worse than I had feared.’

‘It will be all right,’ I told him. ‘I have known Lord Tanu all my life, and he is a man I can reason with.’

‘Is this a day for reason , then?’ He shook his head then gazed at me. ‘I will not summon fire out of this stone, but ever since Liljana told you about Bemossed, you’re practically burning up with this rage to become king. That makes a bad situation urgent. And urgency, in my sad experience, too often leads to violence.’

I laid my hand on the diamonds encrusting his arm. ‘We have faced more urgent situations before.’

‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘but one never knows about these things. A mole’s little hole can trip a horse and break a man’s neck. A single match can set a whole grassland on fire. What might a few ill-considered words do? It is all too much, do you see? Alphanderry told us, in effect, that we had until this fall to succeed or fail, once and for all. I’m telling you, Val, that I don’t have it in me to go on any longer than that, as we have gone through one hell after another these past three years.’

My hand tightened around his arm, and I smiled at him. ‘ You say that? The man who crossed half the Red Desert by himself to save me?’

‘I do say that!’ he called out as he pulled away from me. He looked at the knights gathered behind us with the flag of truce barely rippling in the soft wind. ‘We could die here today, as easily as anywhere. Your Sar Vikan and Sar Jessu seem eager enough to draw swords.’

‘It will not be a day for swords’ I reassured him as I patted Alkaladur’s scabbard, slung on my back. Then I added, ‘At least, not kalamas.’

‘Well, if it is ,’ he said, staring at Jessu the Lion-Heart, ‘I won’t be of much use. Not against Valari knights. And they know that.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, your countrymen all see me as a complainer and a coward.’

‘No, you are wrong – it is just the opposite,’ I told him. ‘You have succeeded in two great quests. And taken a second in wrestling at the tournament and a third in archery. And above all, you slew half a dozen Ikurians at the Culhadosh Commons. To my people, you are a true Valari knight. They regard you as a hero, Maram.’

Maram thought about this as he studied Sar Shivalad, Sar Kanshar and Viku Aradam, who sat bunched together and looking back at him. And he muttered, ‘Well, if they don’t see me as a coward, they should. It can’t be long, you know. Today, or tomorrow, or at the next urgent situation, whatever it is, I’ll finally have had enough. I’ll turn my back and flee, as any sane man would, and then your people will finally see what Sar Maram Marshayk is made of.’

‘No, Maram, you are –’

‘It is too much!’ he said to me. ‘Do you understand? Too, too damn much! I don’t want to be anyone’s hero.’

And with that, he wheeled his horse about, and rode slowly back to rejoin the others.

Then I took my place again at the head of the column of knights jammed into the pass. After perhaps a half an hour, I caught sight of a sparkling light ahead of us. Soon the knights of Lord Tanu’s vanguard came closer, and the sun’s reflection off their diamond armor shone with an eye-burning brilliance. I could not, at this distance, make out Lord Tanu’s face, but I could see quite clearly his black, double-headed eagle banner held high and the same emblem emblazoned on his surcoat. As well I made out the charges of his two greatest captains: the red bull of Lord Eldru and Lord Ramjay’s white tiger. I estimated the number of knights riding behind him at three hundred, which accorded with our reports. And behind this mass of mounted men with their long lances and triangular shields marched the rest of Lord Tanu’s warriors, some four thousand strong. I could see practically the whole of the army, strung out around the curve of the lake like a mile-long strand of diamonds.

Lord Tanu, of course, had an equally good view of us. He must have seen Sar Vikan’s white banner clearly enough, for he made no move to deploy his warriors into a battle formation, nor did he change his slow and relentless march toward us. The silver bells tied to the boots of the thousands of warriors that he led sent a high-pitched jingling into the air. This eerie sound, tinkling out with a terrible beat, had often unnerved the enemies of the Valari. And sometimes the Valari themselves. I remembered hearing it before on the battlefield of the Red Mountain in Waas. I reminded myself that we faced no enemy, but only proud Meshian warriors who should be as brothers to us.

I could almost feel Maram sweating in his saddle behind me and the hearts of my companions beating more quickly as Lord Tanu rode forward. For a moment it seemed that he and his entire vanguard might keep on going and try to sweep us from the pass down into the lake. At the last moment, however, at a distance of only ten paces, he stopped his horse and held up his hand to call for a halt. The three hundred knights behind him ceased their march, as did the thousands of warriors behind them.

‘Lord Valashu Elahad,’ he called out to me formally in his sawlike voice, ‘we had heard that you had returned to Mesh, though we hoped you never would.’

Lord Tanu sat on a big horse as he regarded me with his small, black, deep-set eyes. At nearly sixty years of age, he still retained the suppleness and strength of a much younger warrior. Although not large in his body, his fighting spirit and skill at arms had almost always led him to prevail against his foes. He had a tight, sour face that did nothing to hide his irascible temperament. I had known this man all my life. I remembered my father telling me why he had chosen Lord Tanu as one of the two greatest captains of his army: because he was quick of mind and fearless in battle and as steady as a rock. My father also had counted on Lord Tanu always to tell him the blunt and painful truth.