The Diamond Warriors. David Zindell

Чтение книги онлайн.

       6

      It took more than a week for Lord Tanu’s emissaries to ride across Mesh and arrange with Lord Tomavar a time and place for the gathering of the warriors: On the 21st of Soldru we were to converge on a great open meadow to the west of Hardu along the Arashar River. This field, where the Lake Country gave way to the Gorgeland at the very heart of the realm, was almost exactly equidistant from Mount Eluru, Godhra and Lord Tomavar’s stronghold in Pushku. Other claimants to the throne – Lord Ramanu, Lord Bahram and Lord Kharashan – would have to make longer journeys. As they had no hope of becoming king, however, few worried that they might take insult in not being given equal consideration. It had proved hard enough to persuade Lord Tomavar to attend the gathering. In the end, however, his innate character drove him straight toward this historic confrontation. Perhaps he suspected that Lord Tanu and I would join forces against him, and he wanted to forestall such a combination. More likely he simply assumed that he could go among Mesh’s warriors and win them to his banner with his bravura, a few quick smiles and a great show of strength.

      As the spring deepened toward summer, warriors who had pledged to Lord Avijan continued riding up to his castle. By the ides of Soldru, almost all of these had arrived. Of course, there would always be a few who would miss the call to gather. As had happened with Sar Jonavar a year before, they might be away on hunting trips or meditation retreats deep in the mountains. These two or three dozen men, though, would not significantly diminish our forces, which Lord Avijan counted at more than twenty-three hundred. In combination with Lord Tanu’s army, I thought, we would slightly outnumber the six thousand warriors said to be pledged to Lord Tomavar.

      At dawn on the 18th we finally marched out of the castle and down to the pass. I led forth with Joshu Kadar flying my banner beside me. A hundred and fifty knights on horses came next, followed by more than two thousand warriors stepping along at a good pace. At the rising of the sun, their full diamond armor glittered with a fiery brilliance. My companions had leave to ride where they would, and most of them remained within the vanguard near me, though from time to time, Atara would drop back behind the marching columns to check on the wagons of the baggage train and to look for enemies in that direction. Or perhaps, I thought, she just wanted to gain a few moments of solitude riding behind the whole of our army. Although we had no reason to fear attack, a lifetime of discipline drove me to keep everyone moving in good order. My army, almost ten times the size of the greatest force that I had ever led, needed no extraordinary urging to negotiate the excellent roads leading down to Hardu. My father had always said that half the skill of commanding an army was just to keep men moving from one point to another and then seeing them lined up in good array for battle – but only half, and much the lesser half at that.

      Our first day’s march took us down the North Road a good part of the way to Hardu. On the second day we passed through this little city of waterwheels, mills and breweries, and we crossed over the Victory Bridge spanning the fast-flowing Arashar River. There we turned onto a smaller road paralleling it. It led north and west, behind the tree-covered slopes of Mount Vayu, and through some rolling green pastures toward the Gorgeland farther to the north. In the trough between two low hills, we came across acres of grass ablaze with blue and red starflowers. I knew of no other place on earth where these glorious things grew. A few miles farther on, however, where the road led away from the river, the flowers gave way to fields of long-bladed sweetgrass and the many sheep and cattle that grazed upon it.

      At the end of the day, in a stretch of country where the hills flattened out a bit, we came upon the place of the gathering. This was a broad meadow perhaps a mile across. Acres of tents dotted the grass. Its center, though, had been kept clear, with many banners of truce flapping in the wind almost like great swans’ wings. According to our agreement with Lord Tanu’s emissaries, everyone was to encamp around a central square. Already Lord Tomavar’s army, marching from Lashku in the west, had settled in to the west of the square, while Lord Tanu’s four thousand men made camp to the south. Fanning out above the square’s northern perimeter I made out the standards of Lord Ramanu, Lord Bahram and Lord Kharashan. They commanded four hundred, two hundred and a hundred and fifty men respectively. Other warriors and knights – those who had not given their pledges to any lord – set up there as well. Most of them had arrived without tents of their own, and so I had a hard time counting their numbers. If Lord Avijan was right, though, more than two thousand of these free warriors, as they called themselves, would assert their right to stand or not for any lord wishing to be king.

      We made our way down to the expanse of meadow east of the square, scarcely four hundred yards from the roaring Arashar River. There we set up our camp, with neat lanes at regular intervals running down the lines of our tents. I had inherited my father’s campaign pavilion: a great, billowing expanse of black silk embroidered with the silver swan and stars of our ancestors. My companions would sleep within tents next to mine, as would Lord Avijan, Lord Harsha and my other counselors. I did not like being so close to the river. Although we would not have to haul water so far as Lord Tanu’s or Lord Tomavar’s men, everything I knew about strategy warned me against taking a position with a river or lake at my back. If the worst befell and a battle did break out, we would have little room to maneuver against what might prove a much greater force.

      ‘But I will not let it come to that,’ I promised Maram that evening as we gathered around one of our campfires to eat some roasted lamb. ‘And neither Lord Tanu or Lord Tomavar will break the truce.’

      ‘No, of course they won’t,’ Maram said between bites of bloody meat. ‘If it becomes obvious that the warriors want you as king, Lord Tomavar will march off beyond the bounds of the truce – and then turn and attack you farther down the river.’

      For a while, after dinner, I stood at the edge of our encampment staring out across the square. Lord Tomavar stood with his knights in his encampment, staring back at me. Although the distance was too great to make out the features of his face with any clarity, I could see the black tower of the Tomavars emblazoned on his white surcoat. I sensed his black eyes seeking out my own and warning me not to oppose him.

      As we had also agreed, we spent the night in our own encampment, with the warriors ordered to remain near their campfires, and so it was with Lord Tomavar and Lord Tanu and their men. Although most of us had friends or kin in the other encampments, we had foes, too, and it wouldn’t do to let a little casual mingling lead to arguments that might very well end in swords drawn and warriors lying dead in pools of blood.

      Despite Maram’s gloom, which he assuaged with cups of both beer and brandy, the night passed peacefully, and the next day dawned with СКАЧАТЬ