“I know,” Pasion said.
“Quite a little mission,” Jason said. And even he, the urbane man of letters, had trouble keeping his teeth together. “Pasion—”
“I know,” Pasion said. His face was as set as some statue hewn from stone. “Ready your cantons to disembark. Leave nothing behind. We will assemble on the quays in full wargear. If we must fight our way off the ships, then so be it. Brothers, see to your men.”
Up the backstays of the leading ship went pennants of coloured linen. The following vessels of the fleet modified their courses, taking in sail and coming forward up the channel, line upon line of them. On every deck the Macht stood in assembled companies with their weapons to hand. And still the shore glided closer and the immense towering heights of Tanis loomed.
The messenger flung himself down at the lip of the dais. Prostrate, he babbled, “Great One, they have arrived. The ships are sailing into the harbours now, in lines as endless as the sea. Hundreds, Great One, and on the decks of every one the warriors of the Macht stand in armour in their thousands, their spearheads bright as stars. It is a sight glorious and fearsome, like some picture of legend—”
“Yes, yes,” Arkamenes said. “Get out. I have eyes in my head.”
He stood up, swaying slightly as he took the weight of the Royal Robes. Amasis drew near a step and raised the space where an eyebrow should have been. “Shall I—”
“God, no. Thank you, Amasis. A king must needs have strong thighs it seems.”
“Those robes would pay for a second army by themselves,” Amasis murmured. Turning to look down the length of the audience chamber, he said, “Do you think we put on a brave enough show?”
There were fully two thousand people in the hall, and the heat was stifling despite the best efforts of the fanbearers posted in lines along the galleries above.
“Where is Gushrun?”
“He stepped out. Even the Governor of Artaka has to piss now and then, it seems.”
Arkamenes smiled. As he had risen from the throne, so the occupants of the hall had bowed themselves before him, and all talk had stilled. There was a clear way down the middle of that vast, echoing chamber, and posted along both sides of it, in a fence of flesh, were two hundred of the highest-caste Kefren of the Bodyguard, the Honai. Armoured in corselets of iron scales, they had been chosen for their height, their strength, their ferocity. The tall, plumed helms they wore made them stand out head and shoulders above anyone else in the crowd—in any crowd.
Arkamenes went to the window at the rear of his throne. It was two spear-lengths in height, and had been glazed with true glass, every finger’s length of it. Through the blurred brightness, he could look down on the wide triple harbours of Tanis below. He could see the fleet make landfall, and watch the beetling crowds on the wharves, kept back by more of his own spearmen so that the fearsome Macht might once more walk the earth of the Great Continent.
“Have his officers brought to me at once,” he told Amasis. “Let them come here on foot, armed or unarmed as they choose. But make haste. This crowd will start fainting anytime soon. And Amasis?”
“Yes, lord?”
“Find out where Phiron is.”
The heat of the land was something they had not expected, not in winter. As they followed the men in front in endless file down the gangways, Rictus and Gasca pursed their lips and looked at one another in silent surmise. This was winter? They felt as though they had come to some place beyond the natural run of the seasons. And as Gasca stood on the quay with his armour on his back, the helm close upon the bones of his face and his spear becoming slick in his grip, he wondered if Rictus might not have some truth in his tales. For this heat could not be right, not at this time of the year. Perhaps there were flowers here indeed, and spices too, whatever they might be.
The centurions went bare-headed, the better to shout and be recognised by those they were shouting at. As ship after ship came in, and more and more men filed off them to stand in rigid rows upon the quays, so the crowds who had gathered to watch grew noisier and more packed. Lines of Kufr spearmen kept them back from the ranks of the Macht, but under their tall helms their eyes were as wide as those of the straining hordes behind them.
Jason went up and down the front rank of his centon in full armour, his iron helm with its transverse crest bumping at his hip. “Stand still, you bastards,” he said in a low snarl. “Show them who you are. Buridan, kick those fucking skirmishers into line.”
They were led off the quays by Orsos’s Dolphins, a disreputable crew even by the standards of mercenaries. In some moment of grim gaiety, these had slathered their armour in black paint found in the hold of their ship, and so it was as though a whole centon of cursebearers led the army from the waterside into the teeming vast-ness of the city that awaited them. Pasion was up in the van, conversing with great reserve with a pair of Kufr guides, each inclining gracefully to hear his words in the hubbub of the crowd. Even at a distance, it was possible to see that he was fighting not to recoil as the fragrant, golden faces leaned closer to his own, the violet eyes in them gleaming bright as some stone found in the desert.