Proxis allowed himself a small, humourless smile. “I have heard that also.”
“These fine fellows we’re after, if we let them they’ll tear up half the Empire in their wake.”
“Perhaps the Empire’s day has come and gone,” Proxis said and looked away, not able to meet Vorus’s eyes.
“If it has, then so has ours,” Vorus said angrily, and he kicked his horse forward.
The Great King took up residence in the Governor’s Palace of Kaik. His immense baggage train was moved forward from the east bank of the river, and for the space of a day the unfortunate inhabitants of the city watched as the endless line of wagons and carts and pack mules entered their gates. They were to have the honour and blessing of the King’s presence among them for some time to come, as he had designated Kaik his forward headquarters. What crumbs the Macht had left them were now ferreted out by the stewards of the Royal Household. Skeining out across the bountiful lowlands of Pleninash, the foraging parties went in their columned thousands, more troops set to gathering supplies than marched behind Vorus in pursuit of the enemy. These were the realities of warfare. Even the diminished host the Great King still held to his standards represented another three or four cities of hungry mouths set down in the middle of the region. And more troops were arriving by the week: levies come late to the campaign, summoned from every crevice of the Empire which would produce and arm warriors.
“I want reports from Vorus every day,” Ashurnan said. The fanbearers wafted perfume into his face. Lately, the very hall in which he sat had been used as a meeting-place by the generals of the Macht. It had been scrubbed clean by Juthan slaves and sluiced down with well-water, but still the Great King could not get out of his mind the picture of those creatures sitting up and down the long table before him. He ordered the table taken out and burnt.
“They have made of Kaik a sewer,” he said to himself. And when old Xarnes leaned closer to catch his words he waved a hand. “No matter. General Berosh, we are certain that the messengers went off before the Macht took possession of the city?”
Berosh, the new commander of his majesty’s bodyguard, bowed by way of affirmation. “They and their escorts were on the road before the battle on the hills had ended, my lord. They are well on their way.”
“So much the better.” Ten heads, ten dead men’s faces pickled in jars, to be shown around the Empire like so many signposts of warning. That, at least, had gone to plan.
“A pity we could not have been so quick with the gold,” he said, and Berosh bowed again.
“When the Asurian Horse has refitted and rested they are to join Vorus. We need cavalry to keep pace with these animals. We must get ahead of them, pen them in.” Ashurnan thumped his fist down on the elbow of his throne. “They must be rounded up and destroyed to the last man.”
“All possible steps are being taken, my lord,” Berosh said, inclining his head.
“Taken—yes—taken now. Now that the foe is on the wing.” He stood up, and the whole chamber full of courtiers, slaves, soldiers, and attendants bowed deep. All his life, this had been the protocol, the way things were done, but right now he felt it suffocating him.
His brother’s face, as the blade took him under the chin.
“Clear the room,” he said. “All but Xarnes and Berosh. Now.”
They went out in a hushed queue, even the fanbearers. Ashurnan stripped the heavy robe from his shoulders. In the long linen singlet he wore beneath, he went to one of the great wall-openings, a tall window without glass. There was a breeze up here, and it played cool on the soaked fabric of his undergarment. He pulled off the royal komis and felt the air on his face, breathed deep. Even here, he could smell the foul stench of the lower city.
“Great King,” Xarnes began uncertainly.
“I was too hot, Xarnes, nothing more. Leave me be. There is nothing to fear. Nothing at all.” To Berosh, he spoke over his shoulder. “Have couriers sent to the north-west provinces, all governors. If I find one city which opens its gates to the Macht, I shall raze it. Do you hear me, Berosh?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“I shall have no more Kefren cities defiled as they have defiled this one, filling the streets with blood and excrement. I want the streets washed. Turn out the whole population if you have to, but make this place clean again.”
He turned to face them, and closed his eyes, the breeze cooling his back, unwrinkling the sodden linen.
“We must wash them from our world, Berosh. They do not belong here. I do not think they ever have.”
When they camped for the night, the Macht dug a shallow ditch all around their camp. It was not so much a defence as a demarcation. The ten morai laid out their bedrolls in a great hollow square, and in the centre of this were the baggage vehicles and the draught animals, the paychests full of the gold of Tanis, and the Juthan slaves that had been led out of Kaik in chains with sacks and barrels and jars balanced on their heads, the way in which the Kufr had carried their burdens since the world had been created.