Mistress of the Empire. Janny Wurts

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СКАЧАТЬ upon the hill near the Ionani command tent.

      Intent on her bitterness, Mara barely noticed the magician still before her, nor Hokanu at her side, dispensing instructions to dismiss Clan Hadama’s forces homeward to their respective estate garrisons. Her eyes might view an ending of war, but their hardness did not relent. Honor must be satisfied. To fall upon her family sword was no just reparation for Ayaki’s life. The public disgrace remained, not to be forgotten. Jiro would use such shame to ally enemies against her house. Shaken to reassume her responsibilities, she could only atone for her error. No choice remained now, but to use intrigue to resolve the death and the insult between herself and the Anasati. The Game of the Council must now serve, with plots and murder done in secret, behind a public front of Tsurani propriety.

      A disturbance arose outside the command tent, a flurry of raised voices, and Keyoke’s rising clearest in astonishment. ‘Two companies from the extreme left flank are moving!’

      Mara hurried into the open, fear dislodging her thoughts of hatred. She stared out over the valley in horrified disbelief to see the leftmost element of the Hadama forces countermand orders and surge forward.

      The magician who had followed at her elbow hissed affront, and more of his fellows appeared out of empty air. Mara fought panic at the new arrivals. If she did not act, the Great Ones would take issue at her side’s disregard of orders. In another moment her house, her Clan, and every loyal servant of the Acoma might lie dead of the magicians’ wrath.

      ‘Who commands the left?’ she cried in shrill desperation.

      Irrilandi, now arrived on the hilltop, called answer. ‘That’s a reserve company, mistress. It is under charge of the Lord of the Petcha.’

      Mara bit her lip in furious thought: Petcha was a lord but lately come to his inheritance. Barely more than a boy, he commanded out of deference to his rank, not through skills or experience. Tsurani tradition gave him the right to a place at the forefront of the ranks. Lujan had compensated as best he might, and set the boy over an auxiliary unit, which would be called upon only when the battle’s outcome was decided. But now either his youth or his hot blood invited total disaster.

      Keyoke considered the situation in the valley with the eyes of a master tactician. ‘The impetuous fool! He seeks to strike while confusion occupies the Anasati side of the line! Didn’t he see the Great Ones? How could he ignore their arrival?’

      ‘He’s bereft of his senses.’ Hokanu gestured to the runners, who had reached even the farthest sections of the lines. ‘Or else he can’t read the command flags.’

      Saric raced off to dispatch more runners, while on the field, several older commanding officers broke away from the press of retreating warriors and hurried to converge on Lord Petcha’s moving banners.

      On the hill, Lady Mara looked on in horror as two full companies of men in Lord Petcha’s orange-and-blue-plumed armor moved forward to attack the Anasati right flank. The soldiers in red and yellow on the far hillside swirled in an about-face, preparing to meet the charge. Their commander’s shouts floated on the wind as he exhorted each warrior to keep his head. They were seasoned troops, or else their fear lent them prudence. They held in compliance with the Great Ones’ edict, and did not rush forward to answer Lord Petcha’s provocation.

      Keyoke’s sinewy hands whitened on his crutch. ‘He’s wise, that Anasati Strike Leader. He will not violate the order to withdraw, and should our men under Petcha keep coming, they will be attacking uphill. He has time to wait, and perhaps maintain the truce.’

      The words were spoken for the benefit of the Black Robes, who had banded together in a disturbed knot. Frowning under ink-dark hoods, they watched the Petcha forces race headlong up the rise on the Ionani side of the vale.

      One spoke, and two vanished with a whipping snap of air.

      Mara’s servants threw themselves prone in abject fear, and more than one veteran turned white. Lujan looked sick and Keyoke like chiseled rock.

      On the field, the two Black Robes reappeared before the charging forces. Tiny as toys, yet menacing for that smallness, they threw up their hands. Green light sparked from their fingertips, and a searing flash erupted in the path of the running warriors.

      The eyesight of every watcher was dazzled.

      Left blind by the afterimage, Mara was forced to blink tears from her stinging eyes. Moments passed before she recovered clear vision. She forced herself to face front, and gasped.

      At first glance nothing appeared wrong. Lord Petcha’s soldiers no longer ran; they still stood upright, their orange armor bright in the sunlight and their plumes twisting in the breeze. More careful study showed that their quietness masked a tableau of horror. The hands that still clutched weapons writhed and twitched, the flesh slowly blistering. Faces contorted in nightmarish, silent agony. Their skin raised up in pustules, then darkened, blackened, and crisped. Smoke curled on the wind, stinking of scorched carrion. Flesh cracked and oozed blood that boiled away into steam.

      Mara’s belly clenched with nausea. She sagged back, caught by Hokanu, who shared her tortured horror. Even the battle-hardened Keyoke looked ill to his very core.

      There came no screams from the field. The victims stood arrested as puppets as their eyes burst and empty sockets seeped. Their tongues became thick purple obscenities protruding from mouths that could not emit even a single strangled cry. Hair smoked and fingernails melted, yet the soldiers lived, their jerks and quivers clearly visible to the stunned observers upon the distant hilltops.

      Saric choked back a gasp. ‘Gods, gods, they are surely punished enough.’

      The magician first appointed to Mara’s tent turned toward the adviser. ‘They are only punished enough when we decide to allow them their crossing to Turakamu.’

      ‘As you will, Great One!’ Saric immediately prostrated himself, his face pressed to the dirt like a slave’s. ‘Your forgiveness, Great One. I regret my outburst, and apologise for speaking out of turn.’

      The magician deigned no reply, but stood in cold silence as the Petcha warriors continued to suffer on the field. Burned flesh peeled from their bodies, to fall smoking to the ground. The men at last began to topple, first one, then another, until all two hundred warriors lay tumbled, blackened skeletons, on untouched grass, still clad in gleaming armor. The orange-and-blue Petcha banner lay before them, the tassels fluttering in wind that carried barely a signature of smoke.

      The young magician at length stood apart from his fellows and addressed the Lady Mara. ‘Our rule is absolute, Good Servant. Let your people remember. Any who defy us invite instant oblivion. Is that understood?’

      Mara fought back her sickness, croaked a whisper. ‘Your will, Great One.’

      Another magician separated himself from the group. ‘I am not yet satisfied.’ He regarded Mara’s officers, all on their feet except for Saric. They might appear uncowed, as Tsurani propriety demanded, yet not one did not tremble with terror. This brave front seemed to increase the Black Robe’s displeasure. ‘Who defied us?’ he inquired of his colleagues, ignoring Mara.

      ‘Young Lord Petcha,’ came the reply, cold, and to the point. A third voice arose from the Black Robes, this one more temperate. ‘He acted upon his own, without his Warchief’s permission or approval.’

      The second magician, a sharp-eyed man with a shock of red hair that escaped the edges of his hood, shifted his regard to Mara. ‘His dishonor СКАЧАТЬ