The Ten Thousand(114)

“It will endure, yes; but perhaps in a different form. My lord, here at the end of my life, I have come to understand that an entire race cannot be enslaved forever.”

“Is it only your friend’s fate which has brought this thought to your mind, or has the pursuit of your own people changed you? The Vorus my father knew would not say things like this.”

“I was younger then. I had not seen quite so much death. And yes, seeing my own people again has changed me. If Proxis had not deserted at Irunshahr, I would have destroyed the Ten Thousand, and now I am glad that I did not, glad that Proxis took his people home, glad that my people escaped.”

“I thought you were loyal. I thought you were my friend.”

“I am your friend, Great King. But you and the Empire are not the same.”

“They are; they must be. My race, my blood conjured up this ancient idea out of nothing. They ordered the world, quelled all wars, made it safe for the farmer to till his land. They brought peace to millions. What have your Macht done to make them so mighty?”

“They believe in freedom,” Vorus said. “And that will never be taken out of them, not by you or any other king who ever wears a crown.”

“Freedom! Was that what they were teaching the people of Ab-Mirza? They are barbarians. They have brought war throughout the Empire, and just when you had it in your power to crush them, you failed.”

“Yes, I did. And yes, they are barbarians. But they are my people, when all is said and done. I shall die one of them.”

There was a pause. Then Ashurnan asked, “Your black armour, where is it? You were not wearing it when you were taken.”

“I buried it.”

“So no Kufr would ever find it.”

“So no Kufr would ever find it.”

The Great King’s eyes flashed. “A traitor, at the end.”

“No lord. A loyal servant, come to the end of his usefulness.”

“They want me to burn you alive, here on the battlements of Edom like a common criminal.”

Vorus’s face stiffened slightly. “So be it.”

Ashurnan watched him for a long moment. “I do not think my father would do such a thing, not to his friend.”

“Your father would have done whatever he thought necessary, and he would have regretted the necessity later, in private. But he would have done it.”

Ashurnan reached under his robe and produced a long-bladed knife. He tossed it onto the floor before Vorus with a dull clang. “I am not my father,” he said simply.

Vorus stared at the knife. Tears welled up in his eyes. He looked at Ashurnan and smiled. “Thank you, my lord,” he whispered.

The Great King bowed deep before his servant, then snapped, “Guards!”

The door scraped open again behind him.

“Goodbye, Vorus.”

The Macht general bowed wordlessly and Ashurnan left the cell, the door grating shut behind him, the key turning in the lock.

Vorus picked up the knife, tested the edge. He looked up one last time at the square of blue sky high above his head.

“Proxis,” he said, “I wish you well.”

Then he thrust the keen point of the weapon deep, deep into his heart.





Twenty-Six




GRAPES AND APPLES



Tiryn raised her head, listening. The wind had dropped a little, she thought. After three days of hearing it shriek in the same monotonous note, she was sure of it. Something else, though— something different over the wind.

Jason grasped her hand. She saw his eyes glitter, awake at once. “You hear that?” he asked.

A man screamed, quite close by, and there was a great animal bellow.

“Phobos!” Jason exclaimed. “Help me up.”

“No—stay down. You’re not fit to go outside.”

“Shut up, woman, and help me.”

Shouting all around them now, men casting orders into the storm, metal clashing. Tiryn unloosed the end-flap of the canopy and at once it flew up and flapped madly, scattering snow, beating against the frame. Freezing, snow-thick air struck her face, a physical blow. The blizzard was still upon them, snowflakes hard as gravel, the drifts halfway up the wheels of the wagon. She dropped down into them. Before her men were charging, black against the snow, disappearing and reappearing as the blizzard blasted about them. A line of white mounds close by; those were the mules.

She helped Jason down into the snow. He reached back into the wagon-bed and slid out his spear, leaned on it like an old man. Tiryn took his other arm. “What in hell is going on?” he wondered. “An attack?”

Something huge reared up out of the snow, barely twenty paces from them. It was taller than the spear Jason held. Two lights burned in its head, bright as frost. It opened a red maw and roared at them. They had a brief impression of a huge bulk, white-furred, and then it bowled away through the snow, man-like, bipedal, but using its great arms to gather speed, chopping through the drifts like a wind-driven boat.