David Zindell - The Diamond Warriors

I led the way toward my pavilion then, and Sar Vikan, Lord Avijan, Sar Shivalad and others cleared a path forus. Although Kane walked with all the smooth power of a tiger, I could almost feel the agony of the arrow grinding against his ribs and searing his lungs. My companions and I went inside my huge tent, where Alphanderry joined us in a splash of glittering lights. Daj pulled the flaps closed behind us. We sat on one of the carpets there, in a circle, as if gathering around a fire on one of our campaigns. From one of the braziers heaped with hot coals, Master Juwain removed an iron pot full of hot water and prepared Kane a cup of tea that would help keep the blood inside Kane, or so he said.

‘I’ve bad tidings from Galda,’ Kane told us without further ado. ‘The revolt has failed. Gallagerry the Defiant defies no one anymore: the Dragon Guard captured him, and the Red Priests crucified him. His followers are being hunted down. And Morjin …’

Here he paused to take a sip of tea as he grimaced in pain. Then he continued, ‘I was not able to determine if it was Morjin who led the Dragon Guard and the Karabukers into Galda, or only one of his droghuls. I think it was he. All of Galda reeks with his stench. The Galdans are gathering their armies again – exactly why, no one would say. But everywhere I heard soldiers speak of marching forth on a great crusade.’

He took another sip of tea, and stared into the dark liquid of his cup. And he muttered, ‘So, my crusade failed, eh? Everyone except myself captured or killed.’

‘Everyone?’ Maram said, looking at him. ‘Do you mean your knights of the Black Brotherhood?’

In answer, Kane just stared at him in a dark, dreadful silence – and that was answer enough.

‘Then you had to flee,’ Maram prompted him, ‘so that you could tell us this news?’

Kane shook his fearsome head. ‘With my men held captive and Morjin still on the loose, I would not have fled. But there is something that I learned that overruled these considerations.’

Here he looked straight at me, and added, ‘There is something that has been sent to destroy you, Valashu. A dark thing, so damned dark – you cannot know.’

At this, I stared into the corner of the tent, where I could feel an emptiness pulling at me. Then Alphanderry, sitting across from Kane, recounted our battle with the Ahrim in the woods near Lord Harsha’s farm and our speculations as to its nature. He said, ‘It followed us all the way from the Skadarak, and so we thought it must be some part of the Skadarak.’

‘No,’ Kane said, ‘the Ahrimana is something worse – much worse.’

He moved to take another sip of tea, then looked up at the tent’s roof as if his eyes could pierce the black silk to gaze at the heavens.

‘So, it came through the Skadarak,’ he told us. ‘From far, far away it came. The Dark One, Angra Mainyu, sent it from Damoom. It is all his malice and spite, the very shadow of his soul. In a way, his herald.’

‘His herald!’ Maram cried out. ‘But it was so powerful! It nearly killed Val!’

At this, Kane looked at me as he shook his head. ‘This you must know about the Ahrimana: it has no power, of its own. But the power you give it, which it seeks out as a leech does blood, that power can burn you like hellfire and utterly destroy you.’

Upon speaking these words, Kane’s immense strength finally seemed to fail him. Air bubbled out of his back in a sprinkling of bright red blood as if he could no longer will his veins to keep his life’s essence within him. His eyes closed, for a moment, and he seemed ready to topple over.

‘That is enough for today’ Master Juwain said, going over to Kane. He positioned his small body against Kane’s side to prop him up. ‘I don’t know how you learned of what you have told us, or how you could ride four hundred miles with an arrow in your lung. But I’ve got to draw it, now, or even you might be destroyed.’

Kane slowly nodded his head at this. Then I called for a litter, and Kane had to consent to being carried from my pavilion into Master Juwain’s smaller and starkly furnished tent. There, with Liljana’s help and that of two other healers, Master Juwain went to work with his gleaming steel instruments to draw the barbed arrow from deep within Kane’s flesh. This difficult surgery nearly killed the unkillable Kane. Finally, though, with a great spray of blood, Master Juwain pulled free the arrow. He used his green gelstei to stop the ferocious hemorrhaging and heal the terrible wound torn into Kane. Finally, he helped Kane drink a tea that would make him sleep.

‘I shall stay with him the rest of today and tonight,’ Master Juwain told me. He looked over toward his own bed, where Kane rested with his eyes closed. ‘Liljana will stay, too. But there is no need for you to remain here – you must have many things to do.’

I did indeed have matters to attend to, though none so important as seeing Kane restored to himself. I waited by his side all the rest of the afternoon, through dinner and late into the evening. And then as the night deepened and the stars came out, Atara finally returned with news of her own. She stepped into Master Juwain’s tent, and came over to kiss Kane’s forehead. She smiled sadly as if she had looked upon his still form a thousand times. Then she said to me, ‘May I speak with you alone?’

I nodded my head at this. We went outside and walked along the rows of campfires, where warriors gathered drinking beer and telling of deeds at the Culhadosh Commons, and other battles. Joshu Kadar and a few knights kept a vigil outside my pavilion. No one seemed bothered that I should hold council inside alone with Atara. I closed the flaps behind us, and went around this large space lighting the many candles in their stands. They cast little, flickering lights on the long council table and the tent’s walls and ceiling. Atara and I sat facing each other on a red carpet at the center of the tent.

‘We are as alone as we can be,’ I said, gazing at the blindfold that bound her face. ‘What is troubling you?’

Atara cocked her head as if listening for eavesdroppers along the walls. ‘It might be better if we took a walk in the hills.’

I laughed softly at this, and told her, ‘Joshu Kadar and Shivalad, to say nothing of Lord Avijan, would never allow that. Now that the gathering has begun, they look for assassins everywhere. They don’t even like me to walk around our own encampment alone.’

Atara smiled grimly at this, then her deep, dulcet voice grew even lower. ‘It is beginning, Val. At last, this terrible, terrible future that I have seen for too long is upon us.’

I moved even closer to her, and covered her hot, long hand with mine. Outside the tent came the sound of crickets chirping and men chanting out the ancient epics. Inside, it was nearly so quiet that I could hear the drumbeat of Atara’s heart – and my own.

‘Kane,’ I whispered to her, ‘said that in Galda, people spoke of a great crusade. I didn’t think Morjin could be ready to order forth his armies so soon.’

She drew out her scryer’s crystal, and she pressed this sphere of white gelstei against her forehead. ‘I don’t know that he is. But he makes ready something. Out on the Wendrush. Karimah told me that the Zayak have crossed the Blood River, the Janjii, too. It can only be that they have gone to join with the Marituk. From the south, there have come reports that the Tukulak are making common cause with the Danyak and Usark.’

‘Kane always said,’ I murmured, squeezing her hand, ‘that Morjin would try to unite the Sarni before falling against the Nine Kingdoms.’

Atara smiled sadly as she cupped her clear crystal in her free hand. ‘He will never unite all the Sarni – not so long as my grandfather can pull a bow. Sajagax has called for the tribes to join with the Kurmak in alliance against Morjin.’