High on the heat-burned uplands, the imperial party was split again. Leaving the tents to blossom like flowers beside a shallow river, the King, his bastard brother, and some twenty-five guard, rode full tilt away up the slopes, the racing chariots roaring through the dust. For such ardent hunters, their tactics seemed rather poor.
From the peak of a brown hill it was possible to look out toward the sea, miles off, the great glitterings of a sleeping snake, under a sky of cobalt. It was also possible to look down into the valley below, and behold another hunting party. There was one dark tent, men and zeebas straying about.
The King gestured, and the banner of Anackyra was unfurled.
The second party answered promptly with their own device. It was not the Lily of Karmiss. Over the black cloth poured a scarlet lizard-beast.
Rarmon who had been Rem felt muscles clasp together all along his spine. He turned a little to Raldanash, but the tent flap was just then pulled aside. A figure came out and stood in the valley looking up at them. It was Kesarh.
The chariots sluiced forward.
“My lord,” Rarmon said decidedly, “this isn’t some counselor. It’s their King.”
“You recognize him?” Raldanash seemed unmoved. “I had a suspicion. He fought with his fleet, apparently, dressed as a common soldier. He likes the heart of things.”
They were over the brink, the vehicles lightly bowling into the valley.
Had Raldanash done more than suspect? Conceivably, he had known.
Rarmon, with no way out, geared his mind grimly to the confrontation.
Twenty yards off, the chariots pulled up. The white banner-bearer advanced, planted his standard and called out:
“Sir, you are in the presence of Raldanash, son of Raldnor son of Rehdon, Storm Lord of Dorthar, Dragon King of all Vis.”
There was no show from the other side. Kesarh walked forward, and rendered the Storm Lord that grave slight inclination of the head which one king owed another.
Eight years had added to the physical power natural to the man Rarmon remembered, and taken nothing of the style away. His build, like Rarmon’s own, remained a fighter’s, the body had stayed slim and lithe, and tough as iron. Between the right cheekbone and the eye there was a little scar, hardly the length of a child’s Fingernail. No other marks were displayed. The eight years had done something to the eyes themselves, to be sure. They seemed more deeply set, blacker, their gaze less penetrable, though the strength in them was flagrant now, and the evaluating watchfulness. Every last scrap of youthful formlessness seemed gone. Kesarh had become only himself.
He wore black, as ever, and unblazoned. Black-haired in the black he faced white-haired Raldanash in his pale leathers. That was almost theater again. They were two pieces of a board game.
Raldanash dismounted from his chariot.
“I hope Karmiss is well-governed in your absence.”
“I see I’m identified,” said Kesarh.
“My brother,” said Raldanash, “recalls you.”
Rarmon, too, had left his chariot. He began to approach them. It seemed one of the game-pieces was using Rarmon himself as a game-piece. Kesarh’s eyes were moving by the Storm Lord, finding Rarmon, fixing on him. Yes, the eyes were truly Kesarh. They could drive you to your knees. Rarmon walked nearer. Kesarh had recognized him now. Rarmon knew there would be no change of expression. As he came up by Raldanash, Kesarh said, with only the merest inflection, “Your brother, my lord?”
Raldanash did not reply, leaving the blade for Rarmon to pick up. Rarmon said, trying to keep from his tone the clichés either of explanation or insult, “Raldnor Am Anackire’s bastard, by his Karmian mistress.”
Kesarh went on looking at him. At Rarmon who had been Rem, who had merited ten lashes from a whip called Biter, who had milked snake poison at Tjis, who had ridden back with the rags of Val Nardia’s death too tardy to be of service, who had taken Kesarh’s daughter aboard Dhol’s ship. And who had not returned.
The black eyes said all this to him. They told him they had forgotten nothing.
Then the smile came, the brisk charm now and then awarded a servant.
“Yes,” Kesarh said, “I thought Karmiss was in it somewhere.” And to Raldanash, “Shall we go into the tent and talk business, my lord?”
The front of the tent had been looped aside, and afternoon light fell in on them. Thirty paces off, the guards, white and black, maintained their stations.
Kesarh had brought one aide to the table, and a clerk to take notes. Raldanash’s two men sat or stood beside their lord. Rarmon was left to sit farther up, his role as observer unspokenly stressed.
The wine was Karmian. Rarmon noticed the grapes had improved.
For an hour the discussion maundered. The victory of Kesarh’s ships was examined and approved, even the massacre of Ankabek touched on—“An impious cowardly act. The goddess will be paid in blood,” Kesarh remarked. He did not bother to glance at Rarmon anymore, who knew very well, and had probably detailed to others, the depths of Kesarh’s love of Anackire.
The Storm Lord in turn allowed his aides to name predations of Free Zakoris on Dorthar’s coasts. A system of northern and eastern coastal defenses, out of use since the War, had been re-established. There was no startling revelation in that.
Old Zakoris, for twenty-nine years under Vardish rule, was tossed on the table and regarded. It had of course no bargaining worth at all. Vathcri and Vardath were in firm alliance, and the Vardian claims, staked undeniably in battle, siege and surrender, could not be quashed. Yl Am Zakoris, in any case, was now beyond the appeasement of a returned diadem. All symptoms indicated it was the entire continent he lusted after, when he should be mighty enough to snap at it.
The second hour commenced.
Raldanash’s seated aide, taking a cue from Raldanash, desired of the air how many ships were left to Free Zakoris after the disastrous rout.
“Reports indicate ten ships escaped us,” said the Istrian aide. “These were the devils who destroyed Ankabek. Since the sacred island had been given military defense by King Kesarh, there could have been no less than ten in the offensive.”
Raldanash’s aide said ingenuously, “I’d heard Ankabek had no military defense. Having refused it on religious grounds,” he appended sweetly.
“You’re misinformed. A detachment of soldiery guarded the island, and a naval garrison was situated on a high vantage point of the Karmian mainland, looking across the straits and ready to put out should the goddess’ beacons be lit.”
Kesarh’s resonant voice cut effortlessly through this small under-play.
“Yl did not, besides, spend all his ships in the sea-fight. A quantity were left at Zakoris-In-Thaddra. The Thaddrian forests are prolific. They don’t lack for timber.”
“We’ve picked up word from Thaddrian sources of a second fleet of one hundred vessels,” said Raldanash’s aide.
Kesarh said, “My own sources indicate Yl has two fleets now stashed in deep-water bays along the northwestern shore. One hundred ships is certainly the tally of the smaller of these fleets.”
This was news. Raldanash’s aide scowled, and looked at the Storm Lord.
“Your sources are impeccable,” said Raldanash.
“No source is ever that.”
“What tidings do your sources give you,” said Raldanash, “of the Southern Road?”
Kesarh smiled, and poured wine for the Storm Lord and for himself, flustering the mobile Dortharian aide, who should have seen to it.
“You refer to Yl’s fabled highway being hacked through the jungle toward Vardian Zakoris?”
“And therefore toward the western limits of Dorthar.”