“And now we must feed them all through what remains of this winter,” Ashurnan said, rubbing his eyes.
“My lord, this works to our advantage. He must make the passage of the Asurian Gates soon after the spring melt. His men will be marching down from a mountain-crossing, tired, their supply lines strung out. We meet him here, on the plains before Ashur itself, where our cavalry will carve him up and our numbers can be brought to bear. Our men will be rested and well-fed, and we will outnumber the foe three or four to one. My lord, the traitor will die before the walls of the Imperial City, I promise you.”
Ashurnan smiled. He stepped across the room in three strides and set one hand on Vorus’s shoulder. The Kefren among those present stirred in shock. The Great King bent, and kissed Vorus on the cheek, the greeting of a close friend, or a kinsman. Vorus felt his face flush with blood. There were murmurings among those present.
“You will lead this army,” Ashurnan said. He turned and looked over the high officers and courtiers of the Empire, who stood stiffly before him now, eyes downcast, heads bent.
“Who else could I choose that would better know how to kill an army of Macht?”
It was a bad place for a girl to be, this far into the bivouac-lines of the army. In the firelight she wore a komis pulled across her face, but there was no mistaking the curves that filled her silk robe, or the peep of her pale hand as it tugged the veil closer about her nose. She was as tall as the average strawhead from the mountains, and she was Kufr, wandering through a Macht camp at night. One of the other army’s whores, Jason supposed, though she was well dressed, and more demure than most. The Macht did not copulate with Kufr—never had, never would. That was the chosen line they all took. But at night, when the camps of the Macht and the Kufr drew close for protection, there was a certain traffic of figures flitting back and forth that had nothing to do with the daytime commerce. It was hard to know. Even Jason could not say for sure, and he had a quicker wit than most. And even he, the scroll-scratcher, was beginning to feel the lack of female company. It had been a long time since they had taken ship, and now the Kufr did not look so outlandish as once they had.
Orsos, of all people, turned up in her path. He was middling drunk, as affable as a pig like him was likely to get. He grinned at her, shaven bristles standing up on his head, and took her by one slim arm as she tried to pass.
“Ha! Dearie, you picked the wrong spot to splay your legs. We’re men here, not those ball-less calves you’re used to servicing.” He drew her close to his large, lumpen face, and leered happily.
“Let’s have a look then, and see what the Kufr call a good fuck. Set aside that rag on your head.” With a twitch of his wrist, Orsos ripped the komis from the Kufr’s face. The girl cried out something in her own tongue, and twisted in his grasp. Tall though she was, her wrist was engulfed by his meaty fist. “You’ve come here, so you’re looking to get a taste of—”
“What’s this you’ve found, brother?” Jason asked lightly, stepping up. Around him, other Macht spearmen were rising from their camp-fires with anticipation shining in their eyes. If Orsos was starting something, there would be sport to watch ere it ended. Jason snapped out at them; “Back on your arses, and keep your eyes to yourselves!” And he could not quite account for the anger which bit through his voice.
“Centurion’s meat,” someone said with a shrug. There were a few catcalls around the farther fires, from those too far away to be identified, but in the main the centons settled down again. Orsos was about to rape something—it was not exactly news.
The Kufr girl had darker eyes and skin than the high-caste Kefren Jason had seen, in Tanis and about Arkamenes’s tents. She was shorter too, though still a head higher than either of them.
“She could almost be one of us,” he said to Orsos, surprised despite himself.
Orsos was turning her face this way and that, as though studying a melon at market. The girl was silent in his grasp now, clearly terrified.
“What do you think, Jason, is the rest of her as good-looking as her face?”
Part of Jason wanted badly to find out, but then the girl met his eyes. There was more than fear in them; a kind of pitiful resignation. And then, in clear and perfect Machtic, she said, “Please.”
Orsos dropped his hands from her face as though they had been burned. “Phobos! Did you hear that, Jason? It speaks our tongue. Kufr—say something else!” He was grinning, and he poked the girl with his finger.
Her face was still now, though tears had marked tracks down it, streaking the kohl about her eyes. “Please,” she said again, “I am Arkamenes’s... woman.”