“Most of them,” O’Gan said. “There are many more, but they went east when the Elders…”
“Panicked?”
O’Gan had not replied.
With the Shantasi still coming in from the east, O’Gan Pentle had stood on a rock on the hillside and issued a rallying call that had Kosar in tears. Here was a man, he realized, who had been forced into being a general. A man who, though he was a Mystic and a seer, had always relied on those above him to make such monumental decisions of life and death as he now faced. The fate of Noreela was on his shoulders, and it was a heavy weight indeed.
As Kosar had watched him climb onto the rock, he thought, He looks so weak. Slow. Beaten already. But then O’Gan stood, lifted his head and smiled. And in that one expression Kosar saw no consideration of failure at all.
He had told his people of the threat they knew, and the many likely dangers they did not. He beseeched them to stand firm and strong. They were the slave race, he said, and the greatest vow any Shantasi could make-to the people, or to him- or herself-was to never be a slave again. The Mages were enslaving Noreela and its people. They would imprison their bodies and steal their minds, kill their children and destroy the culture the Shantasi had built up for thousands of years. And in the end, they would wipe their history from New Shanti.
We are the triumph of our ancestors, he said, and the memory of our descendants. Let us make it a proud memory. One of forbearance and determination, rather than submission and slavery. Today, fight for tomorrow, and make tomorrow thankful.
The assembled Shantasi had cheered-one long, loud exhalation that echoed from the low hills and seemed to set the dying spice farms swaying on their massive frames. And then they had begun their journey, with O’Gan and senior members of his army planning as they moved.
Kosar was becoming travel weary. He had been on the move for so long that he craved a day and a night in the same place. Though it had been a comparatively short time since the Red Monks had invaded Trengborne and set everything in motion, the period between then and now seemed even longer than those decades he had spent wandering Noreela as a thief. I’ve done so much more in the past few days, he thought. Lost a lover, lost my friends. Lost so much. What drives me on? Why is this so much to me? It disturbed him that he could not answer, but he did not dwell on the question lest the true answer distress him even more.
Lucien had not spoken since setting off. He had settled down, resting forward on the creature’s back, and a couple of times Kosar wondered whether the Red Monk was dead. But when he turned around he could see the Monk’s hands moving, fingers fisting and unfisting as though trying to grasp something from the air as they moved.
We’re running toward a battle, Kosar thought. He had A’Meer’s sword strapped once again to his side, but what could that do against the Mages and their army? What was a sword against magic? He was terrified. He did not understand what still drove him on, and the idea of dying in the foothills of Kang Kang was terrible to him. Not there, he thought. I don’t need to die there. He needed to save his death for somewhere else.
He had seen the Mages without their dark magic, and they had been terrible. With magic? He could hardly bear to imagine.
Several groups of Shantasi parted from the main army and headed north into the desert. Each group comprised half a dozen men and women, and they ran as fast as they could out across the sand. They disappeared quickly into the dusk. Kosar watched them go, and jumped as a voice spoke up beside him.
“We’ll be within sight of Kang Kang soon,” O’Gan Pentle said. “We’ve been making plans, but it’s difficult without knowing where the Krote army will arrive. We can’t dig in. We can’t sit and wait. We have to maintain mobility.”
“Take the fight to them,” Kosar said.
“And what if they pass us by?”
“I know where they will enter Kang Kang,” Lucien said. Kosar and O’Gan exchanged glances; neither of them wanted to look at the Monk.
“Where?” O’Gan asked.
“North of the Womb, of course. That’s where the witch and the girl will be going, and that’s where the Mages will send their army to follow.”
“I can’t trust you,” O’Gan said. “You’re a Red Monk.”
“I’ll tell you what I know,” Lucien said, lifting his head and sitting up for the first time. “Do with it what you will.”
“Let him speak,” Kosar said. “His cause is our cause right now, you know that.”
“He killed A’Meer,” O’Gan said. That was cruel. He held Kosar’s gaze.
“He killed her when our causes were conflicting,” Kosar said.
“You trust the Monk?”
“No, but I trust in his obsession. And he’s never told me a lie.”
O’Gan steered his creature away for a while, conversing with several running Shantasi in their clear, clipped language. Then he moved back alongside their mount. “So tell us,” he said, looking ahead.
“I know only of where the Womb is supposed to be: in the southern reaches of Kang Kang, but close to this end. North of there is where the Krote army will try to enter, if they know of the girl by now, that is. If not-if their cause is still the destruction of New Shanti-then we’re going the wrong way.”
Kosar turned and searched for a glimmer of humor in the Monk’s face. He found none.
“We have our scouts,” O’Gan said. “We’ll know soon enough.”
More Shantasi veered away and headed north. “So what are they harvesting?” Kosar asked again.
O’Gan rode ahead and called over his shoulder, “I told you: weapons.”
LATER, WHEN THE first hills of Kang Kang appeared in the gloom to the south, they paused for a rest. Kosar and Lucien sat beside their ride, watching the Shantasi slumping to the ground, glugging water, chewing on dried meats and panting at the cool air. Some of them steamed. No fires were lit and no camps were set, because they all knew that they would be moving on again soon. A few glanced at Kosar and the Monk, but they looked away quickly. Most of the warriors seemed absorbed in their own thoughts.
So like A’Meer, Kosar thought. He was watching a female warrior, taller than A’Meer had been but possessing the same long hair and sharp features. She checked her weapons while she ate; drew her sword, pricked her finger and resheathed it. She was unaware of Kosar’s observation and he felt like an intruder, but there was something about the unconscious grace of her movements that gave him comfort. She was confident and assured, at ease with her weapons and unquestioning of the task they had been set. Kosar looked down at his hands and gave the warrior her brief privacy.
O’Gan came to them, flanked by several Shantasi, who glared at Lucien with barely disguised hatred. Have they come to kill him? Kosar thought, and he was surprised at the panic he felt.
O’Gan knelt beside Kosar. “How do you feel?” he asked.
Kosar shrugged, trying not to wince at the pains from across his body. “Fine,” he said. “Never better.”
“Good. I want you and the Monk to go south with a complement of Shantasi into Kang Kang. We’re splitting in two: two thousand will remain here, awaiting the word of scouts and ready to move wherever necessary to ambush the Krotes. The other two thousand will go into the foothills, spread out and hide. If they get through us, they’ll have another surprise awaiting them when they enter the mountains.”
“How do you know we’re at the right place?”
“I don’t,” O’Gan said. “But the going ahead is tough. A scout returned and said that twenty miles from here, the land has been stripped bare as far as she could see. Down to the bedrock. Not an easy route for whatever machines the Krotes may have.”
Kosar nodded. “You’re staying here?”
“I will lead the First Army. I assumed you and the Monk would want to accompany the Second. And if he…” O’Gan looked at Lucien and started speaking to him. “If you really know the location of the Womb, it would be best for you to be with the Second Army.” The Mystic shook his head and looked down at the ground. “Who knows what may happen if they break through to Kang Kang? There are so many factors unknown: we don’t know where the girl is, whether she’s still alive, whether she and the witch even know where the Womb is. We know so little.”