The Darkness that Comes Before (51 page)
Read The Darkness that Comes Before Online
Authors: R. Scott Bakker
The small head bent from side to side.
“I fear my patience fails me, Maëngi.”
The thing called Sarcellus pressed sweaty palms down his vestments. “Drusas Achamian spotted Gaörtha following him.”
“He
what?
”
what?
”
“In the Kamposea market . . . But the fool knows nothing, Old Father! Nothing. Gaörtha was able to shift skins.”
The Synthese hopped to the mahogany lip of the table. Though it seemed as light as hollow bones and bundled papyrus, it bore the intimation of something immense, as if a leviathan rolled through waters at right angles to everywhere. Light bled from its eyes.
HOW
Roared through what passed for Maëngi’s soul.
I HATE
Shattering whatever thoughts, whatever passions he might call his own.
THIS WORLD.
Crushing even the unquenchable hunger, the all-encompassing ache . . .
Eyes like twin Nails of Heaven. Laughter, wild with a thousand years of madness.
SHOW ME, MAËNGI . . .
Wings fanned before him, blotting the lanterns, leaving only a small white face against black, a frail mouthpiece for something terrible, mountainous.
SHOW ME YOUR TRUE FACE.
The thing called Sarcellus sensed the fist of his expression slacken then part . . .
Like Esmenet’s legs.
It was spring, and once again the networks of fields and groves surrounding Momemn were crowded by Inrithi, far better armed, and far more dangerous, than those who had perished in Gedea. Tidings of the slaughter on the Plains of Mengedda had hung like a pall for many days over the Holy War. “How could it be?” they asked. But the apprehension was quickly stifled by rumours of Calmemunis’s arrogance, by reports of his refusal to obey Maithanet’s summons. Defy Maithanet! They wondered at such folly, and the priests reminded them of the difficulty of the path, of the trials that would break them if they strayed.
And there was much talk of the Emperor’s impious contest with the Great Names as well. With the exception of the Ainoni, all the Great Names had refused to sign the Indenture, and about the evening fires, there were many drunken debates as to what their leaders should do. Far and away most cursed the Emperor, and some few even suggested that the Holy War should storm Momemn and seize the supplies that would be needed to march. But some others took the Emperor’s side. What was the Indenture, they asked, but a mere scrap of paper? And look, they said, at the dividends of signing. Not only would the Men of the Tusk find themselves painlessly provisioned, they would be ensured the guidance of Ikurei Conphas as well, the greatest military intellect in generations. And if the destruction of the Vulgar Holy War was not evidence enough, what of the Shriah, who would neither force the Emperor to provision the Holy War nor force the Great Names to sign his Indenture? Why would Maithanet hesitate so, if he too did not fear the might of the heathen?
But how could one fret when the very heavens shivered with their might? Such a congregation! Who could imagine that such potentates would take up the Tusk? And far more, besides. Priests, not merely of the Thousand Temples but from every Cult, representing every Aspect of God, had clambered from the beaches or wound down from the hills to take their place in the Holy War, singing hymns, clashing cymbals, making the air bitter with incense and the noise of adulation. Idols were anointed with oils and attar of rose, and the priestesses of Gierra made love to calloused warriors. Narcotics were reverently circulated and sipped, and the Shakers cried rapturously from the dust. Demons were cast out. The purification of the Holy War began.
The Men of the Tusk would gather after the ceremonies, swap wild rumours or speculate about the degeneracy of the heathen. They would joke that Skaiyelt’s wife had to be more mannish than Chepheramunni, or that the Nansur were given to receiving one another up the ass, which was why they always marched in such tight formations. They would bully malingering slaves or howl at women carrying baskets of laundry up from the River Phayus. And out of habit, they would scowl at the strange groups of foreigners who endlessly prowled the encampment.
So many . . . Such glory.
PART IV:
The Warrior
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE JIÜNATI STEPPE
I have explained how Maithanet yoked the vast resources of the
Thousand Temples to ensure the viability of the Holy War. I have
described, in outline, the first steps taken by the Emperor to bind
the Holy War to his imperial ambitions. I have attempted to
reconstruct the initial reaction of the Cishaurim in Shimeh from
their correspondence with the Padirajah in Nenciphon. And I
have even mentioned the hated Consult, of whom I can at long
last speak without fear of ridicule. I have spoken, in other words,
almost exclusively of powerful factions and their impersonal ends.
What of vengeance? What of hope? Against the frame of competing
nations and warring faiths, how did these small passions come to
rule the Holy War?
—DRUSAS ACHAMIAN,
COMPENDIUM OF THE FIRST HOLY WAR
COMPENDIUM OF THE FIRST HOLY WAR
. . . though he consorts with man, woman, and child, though he lays with beasts and makes a mockery of his seed, never shall he be as licentious as the philosopher, who lays with all things imaginable.
—INRI SEJENUS, SCHOLARS, 36, 21,
THE TRACTATE
THE TRACTATE
Leaving the Utemot encampment behind him, Cnaiür rode north across barren grasslands. He passed the herds of cattle, waving reluctantly at the distant horsemen—no more than armed children—who guarded them. The Utemot had become a thin people, not so different from the wandering tribes to the northeast that they drove away time and again. The disaster at Kiyuth had exacted a heavier toll on them than on many other tribes, and now their cousins to the south, the Kuöti and the Ennutil, raided their pastures at will. Even though Cnaiür had accomplished much with little in the ways of small tribal war, the Utemot, he knew, were very near extinction. Something as simple as another summer drought could doom them.
He crested balding hillocks, urged his mount through scrub and spring-swollen streams. The sun was white and distant and seemed to throw no shadows. The air smelled of winter’s retreat, of damp earth beneath thatched grasses. The Steppe spread before him, swept by silvery wind-chased waves. Halfway to the horizon, the barrows of his ancestors swelled from the turf. Cnaiür’s father was buried there, as were all the fathers of his line, back to the beginning.
Why had he come here? What purpose could such a solitary pilgrimage serve? No wonder his tribe thought him mad. He was a man who took counsel with the dead rather than the wise.
The unkempt silhouette of a vulture rose from the burial mounds, floated like a kite, then dipped back out of view. Several moments passed before the peculiarity of this struck Cnaiür. Something had died here—recently. Something unburied or unburned.
He urged his mount to a cautious trot, peering between the barrows. The wind numbed his face and tossed his hair into ribbons.
He found the first dead man a short distance from the nearest mound. Two black arrows, fired close enough to punch through the wire-knitted plates of his brigandine, jutted from his back. Cnaiür dismounted and scrutinized the surrounding turf, parting the grasses with palm and finger. He found tracks.
Sranc. Sranc had killed this man. He studied the barrows once again, searching the grasses. Listened. He could hear only wind and, periodically, the squabbling cries of distant vultures.
The dead man was unmutilated. The Sranc had not finished.
He rolled the corpse over with his boot; the arrows snapped with two dry cracks. The grey face gaped skyward, arched back in rigor, but the blue eyes had not sunken. The man was Norsirai—the blond hair told him that much. But who was he? Part of a band of raiders, outnumbered and pursued south by the Sranc? It had happened before.
Cnaiür grabbed his horse’s bridle, pulled it down to the grasses. He drew his sword, then keeping low, sprinted across the turf. Shortly, he found himself among the barrows . . .
Where he found the second dead man. This one had died facing his foe. A broken arrow protruded from the back of his left thigh. Wounded, forced to abandon the flight, then murdered in a manner common to the Sranc: gutted, then strangled with his own bowel. But aside from his gaping belly, Cnaiür could see no other wounds. He knelt and grabbed one of the corpse’s cold hands. He pinched the calluses. Too soft. Not raiders after all. At least not all of them. Who were these men? What outland fools—and from some
city,
no less—would risk the Sranc to travel to
Scylvendi
land?
city,
no less—would risk the Sranc to travel to
Scylvendi
land?
A change in the wind revealed how close he’d drawn to the vultures. He dashed quickly to the left so that he might approach what had to be the greatest concentration of dead from behind one of the larger barrows. Halfway to the summit, he came across the first of the Sranc bodies, its neck partially severed. Like all dead Sranc, it was as rigid as stone, its skin chapped and purple-black. It lay curled like a dog, still clutching its bone bow. From its position and the bruised grasses, Cnaiür knew it had been struck on the summit of the barrow, hard enough to very nearly roll to the bottom.
He found the weapon that had killed it a short distance above. An iron axe, black, with a ring of human teeth set into a handle of leathered human skin. A Sranc killed by a Sranc weapon . . .
What had happened here?
Cnaiür suddenly found himself keenly aware that he crouched on the side of a
barrow,
in the midst of his dead forefathers. In part, he was outraged at the sacrilege, but he was more frightened by far. What could this mean?
barrow,
in the midst of his dead forefathers. In part, he was outraged at the sacrilege, but he was more frightened by far. What could this mean?
His breath sharp beneath his breastbone, he crept to the summit. The vultures were congregated around the base of the adjacent barrow, hunched over their spoils, their backs rifled by the wind. A handful of jackdaws squabbled among them, skipping from face to face. Their scavenge matted the ground: the corpses of Sranc sprawled or huddled against one another, matting the circumference of the barrow, heaped in places, heads lolling from broken necks, faces nestled in the crotches of inert arms and legs. So many! Only the barrow’s apex was bald.
The last stand of a single man. An impossible stand.
The survivor sat cross-legged on the barrow summit, his forearms resting against his knees, his head bowed beneath the shining disc of the sun. The Steppe’s pale lines framed him.
No animal possesses senses as keen as those of vultures; within moments they began croaking in alarm, scooping the wind in great ragged wings. The survivor lifted his head, watching them take flight. Then, as though his senses were every bit as keen as a vulture’s, he turned to Cnaiür.
Cnaiür could discern very little of his face. Long, heavy-featured but aquiline. Blue eyes, perhaps, but that simply followed from his blond hair.
Yet with horror Cnaiür thought,
I know this man . . .
I know this man . . .
He stood, walked toward the carnage, his limbs buoyant with disbelief. The figure regarded him impassively.
I know this man!
He picked his way through the dead Sranc, numbly realized that each of them had perished as a result of a single, unerring strike.
No . . . It can’t be. This can’t be.
The pitch of the ground seemed far steeper than it was. The Sranc at his feet seemed to howl soundlessly, warning him, beseeching him, as though the horror of the man on the summit above was enough to transcend the abyss between their races.
He paused several paces below the outlander. Warily, he raised his father’s sword before him, his scarred arms outstretched. At last, he dared look at the sitting man directly, his heart thundering with something beyond fear or rage . . .
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