Their forces began marshalling just before dusk. Princess Andanii arrived surrounded by a personal bodyguard of twenty Vehajarwi knights. She wore heavy leathers and a silk-wrapped conical iron helmet, a curved sword at her side, her bow on her back. Jatal bowed to her. ‘Princess. We leave at once. Before we go, however, I must ask again whether you think it is prudent that both of us accompany this force.’
Her glance was sharp at first, but softened as she nodded her understanding. She leaned close in her saddle, her voice low. ‘This cohort drawn from all the families was a masterstroke, my prince. Do you not see they must accept both of us as commanders? We will have need of a force that we alone control. One free of family obligations. Will we not?’
Jatal was quite flustered and adjusted his seating on Ash’s back to cover his reaction. He brushed at the long hanging sides of his mail coat, his robes and sword. By the Demon-King Kell-Vor! He hadn’t thought of that! He’d merely proposed this ad-hoc force to quell internecine bickering and to shuffle everything along. But now that she had mentioned it; yes, such a body could be extremely useful should they declare themselves …
And if Andanii wishes to believe it was all part of a deliberate long-term plan on my part, well, so much the better for my standing in her eyes.
He cleared his throat and twisted a hand in Ash’s reins. ‘Well, the Warleader is of the opinion that we will probably see no action, in any case.’
Andanii frowned her scepticism. ‘Why should that be?’
‘He claims the yakshakas’ first duty is to guard the Thaumaturgs. So long as we do not threaten them they should stay out of the fight.’
‘And where does a foreigner come by such intimate knowledge of our neighbours?’
Jatal gazed at the young woman in stunned admiration. Shades of my ancestors! Again, such a question hadn’t even occurred! What an impressive leader this one will be. Beautiful, cunning … and that night … Gods, the memory of her reaching down to grasp my manhood even as I …
She leaned to him, her dark eyes concerned. ‘You are all right?’
Jatal nodded, taking a shaky breath. He rubbed the sleeve of his light cotton robe across his slick face. ‘Yes. I am fine. I was just thinking … that is a very good question, my princess. Perhaps I should strive to learn more of this man. Where he is from. Why he knows so much.’
A curt nod. ‘Yes. Do so. For the time will come when we will no longer need him.’
Jatal now eyed the woman sidelong in suspicion. Did she plan on not honouring their agreement with the mercenary? Perhaps she was merely considering all the possible alternatives. So … beautiful, cunning, passionate … and ruthless.
Their force of picked Adwami mounted men-at-arms formed column as the first element. The Warleader’s mercenary troops would follow. While the troops ordered themselves, the Warleader rode up on his dappled pale stallion. He saluted Jatal and Andanii. ‘As commanders, you shall lead. I will ride with my troops. We make for the central administrative compound.’ For an instant it seemed a mocking half-smile cracked the man’s severe features. He turned his mount aside and trotted back along the column.
Jatal was more than irritated; the Warleader possessed the best intelligence regarding the city, its environs and defences. That they should lead was, well … was worse than ridiculous. It was inviting disaster. He waved over Gorot, his master-at-arms. The squat veteran urged his horse closer. ‘Send out your swiftest riders. Scout the damned city.’ Gorot saluted and fell back. Jatal watched him go, thinking himself wise not to have gone to the lancer knights, where, usually, such an ‘honour’ would be bestowed. Better now to find an actual scout who could ride rather than some young minor noble’s scion out to make a name for him or her self.
It was halfway into the night when they reached the valley floor to knee their mounts up on to a wide cobbled road that would take them to the city. Visibility remained excellent as the moon was high and waxing, while the great arc of the Scimitar very nearly over-powered it. Again Jatal admired the Thaumaturgs’ engineering works: not only the road, but the canals and reservoirs they passed — all interlocking elements of a complex system of irrigation.
A stream of mounted scouts came and went reporting on the way ahead. No roadblocks, no fielded army. Hamlets and farmers’ cottages all remained dark and quiet as the column clattered past. The glow of the city swelled ahead, though it was not as bright as Jatal imagined it ought to have been, given that Isana Pura was the southern capital.
Further scouts reported no barricades or columns massed in the streets to challenge them. Many of the surrounding bodyguard lancers grinned at the news but Jatal was not encouraged. What did they imagine was going on? That these mages had surrendered already? Fled? No. These reports only troubled him. If the magi and their soldiers and yakshaka guardians were not in the streets — then where were they?
Across the front of the column he caught Andanii’s eye and in her pale moonlit features, framed by her tall helmet, her lips held as a hardened slash, he thought he read similar misgivings. Regardless, onward they swept, passing field after farmed field, the alien sprawl of Isana Pura, population perhaps a million souls, spreading out before them.
After a series of outlying collections of farmers’ huts, wayside travellers’ compounds, and what appeared to be merchants’ staging areas, they rode on to the city proper. Here, the streets narrowed to a point where only three could ride abreast. The houses and shops lined the ways as solid walls of sun-dried brick relieved only by small barred windows and shut doors. Each street lay before them eerily empty and the jangle and clatter of their advance echoed loudly until Jatal believed that the entire city must be wincing with the racket of it. Yet no door cracked open and no gawping residents came pouring forth to crowd the way — which itself would have been an effective enough deterrent to stop their advance.
He expected imminent ambush or counter-attack and couldn’t suppress a flinch at each intersection. He and his flanking guards, and Princess Andanii ahead with her guards, all rode now with reins in one hand and naked blade in the other. Each turn brought them to a street nearly identical to the one before. It was a grim and unadorned urban conglomeration that Jatal knew from travellers’ accounts to be typical of Thaumaturg architecture and planning. Yet it remained a city of ghosts — for where was everyone? From what he knew of these mages’ firm hand of rule, he suspected the inhabitants were all cringing in root cellars and back larders: helpless and unarmed, forbidden weapons by their imperious masters.
By now he was utterly without a sense of which way to turn either to advance or to retreat. He could see no further than the looming two-storey walls surrounding him in this puzzle-box of a city. Yet hovering over these brick walls floated the pointed bell-like towers of what he imagined must be the Thaumaturgs’ quarters. In their twistings and turnings at every intersection, Andanii and her bodyguards appeared to be attempting to reach it. At one meeting of five crooked narrow ways they came roaring to a halt, drawing reins, the hooves of their mounts loud on the cobbles as they stamped and reared.
‘Where are our damned scouts!’ Andanii called to him.
‘I do not know!’ This apparent disappearance of their forward riders troubled him greatly, but he wasn’t about to say that aloud. He worked to settle Ash — who champed and twisted his neck as he had been trained for fighting — and noted to the rear of their column that the Warleader and his troops no longer followed. Damn the man! Had they lost him? Or had this been his intent all along?