The main contest was to take place on the vast fields stretching from the east of Alecia. The soil there was as yet unplanted in the turmoil of the times. The Acacians mustered what they hoped would be a great army. Their means of transport had been crippled when the League of Vessels sailed their ships away without warning or explanation, but others had come to the empire’s aid with fishing boats and ferries, barges and pleasure yachts, skiffs and dugouts. On land, merchants and traders lent their carts and horses and mules. By these means and by the simple service of their feet, soldiers converged on Alecia. To whose leadership all these forces rallied was not clear. Grandiose declarations issued forth in Prince Aliver Akaran’s name, but the young whelp himself was sequestered away, as suited Hanish.
“How courteous of whomever instructs them,” Haleeven said, “to gather so many into one place so that we can treat with them all at once. Perhaps, in due consideration, we should allow them more time to gather.”
“Courtesy demands it,” Hanish said.
When the Mein forces disembarked a few days’ march from the enemy, they did not proceed toward them immediately. They made a great camp. Once they were as ready as they could be, they relaxed and amused themselves. It was so temperate a climate that men stripped off their garments and felt the touch of the air on portions of their body that had not done so in months. They were ghostly pale, crusted with dead skin, and quick to turn pink under the warmth of the Mainland spring. They held games of physical prowess: foot races and wrestling matches, sword and spear practice, tugging contests wherein the grip of two men served in place of rope. Ten or sometimes more men lifted each of the chosen men and leaned back, their legs straining to unseat the other team before the grip was broken. It was, in many ways, like one of their high-summer festivals, for the weather was as mild as it ever got around Tahalian. Several men even danced the Maseret. They drank wine and beer and cordials procured from the nearby villages. Though at times they became raging drunk, they always awoke more clear-eyed and lively than mist addicts.
These events proved most elevating to morale, and when they did march toward the enemy, song propelled them. Hanish, riding a deep-chested mount next to his uncle, had never felt more central to the workings of the world. Behind him, a sea of men trod the earth, with their legends issuing from their lips, each of them straw haired, most tall and perfect of form, wrapped in tight bands of leather for protection. So many helmets and spear points glinted in the sun, so many pairs of blue-gray eyes. They still wore the bells and chimes the Tunishnevre had demanded, the sound of them a grand music in and of itself. Hanish could scarcely look back at them without flooding with emotion. Nor was his elation any less on first beholding his enemy.
What a host these Acacians had gathered! Forty, fifty thousand, standing on the turned soil like some strange, newly sprouted crop. They were more than three times his number. They were many hued, male and female both, representatives of Acacia’s far-flung and varied subjects. Hanish’s gaze soared above and beyond them to the great wall of stone that stretched north to south from one edge of the world to the other. Alecia was several miles farther in, but behind the Acacian army stood the first barrier thrown up years ago against enemies such as himself. There was an irregular beauty in the wall’s construction, built as it was of blocks of differing sizes and colors. It might have been a rough mosaic without order, and yet there was something about the vast array of hues and quality of stone and size and shape of the blocks that drew the eye from one place to another.
Hanish knew the story of the wall’s creation. Edifus had first ordered it constructed despite the fact that suitable stone was hard to come by in the area. In answer, nation after nation of the myriad peoples suddenly subservient to him had sent emissaries to him, along with them quarried stone and masons to work it. Word of this spread and before long even the farthest flung regions of the empire, even the smallest of tribes, sent an offering of stone and labor to build the wall. Thus the sight before him represented the first, symbolic acceptance of the world order Hanish now fought to overturn.
He could not have said at that moment if the wall was more or less impressive than he imagined. It seemed both at once. He knew that somewhere along it there was a black stone in it, a giant basalt block carved from the base of the mountains near Scatevith. He would know it when he saw it. Hauchmeinish’s name was carved in some corner of it. He would search it out and have masons cut it free. It was not an offering the Mein had ever given freely, and he’d happily reclaim the stone.
It had always been custom for leaders to meet before engaging in battle, to speak face-to-face in the event that their differences could be resolved even at that late stage. Perhaps they had misunderstood each other. Perhaps one side had newfound regrets or misgivings. Hanish did not deny the Acacians this ceremony when they demanded that he parlay.
Haleeven found him sitting on a stool in an area enclosed by four sheet walls strung between upright spears in their new camp. It was what sufficed as a private space for the chieftain, a cubicle for prayer and communion with the Tunishnevre, although in truth Hanish had felt far removed from his ancestors since floating south down the River Ask. He sensed them like a distant scent of food carried to a hungry man on the breeze, but this was nothing compared to the potent immediacy of their presence when in Tahalian. He missed the palpable certainty of them, especially now that he was so close to unleashing hell on earth.
His uncle parted the material with two hands and stepped in. “Are you prepared?”
“I am,” Hanish said, controlling his voice so that there was no uncertainty in it. “I was just listening to that songbird. Have you heard it? It sings in the morning and then again in the evening. Its call is…like crystal shattering. By that I mean it has the purity, the crisp-edged beauty of crystal shattering, but captured in birdsong and let loose in the air. I’ve never heard anything like it.”
“Our birds do not have much to sing about,” Haleeven said.
Hanish was dressed in a fashion much like that for the Maseret. A white thalba wrapped his torso, adding rigidity to his posture. His braids had been pulled back from his face and shoulders and wrapped in a twine of ox leather. He wore his knife-as did Haleeven-sheathed horizontally at his belt. Neither of their thoughts were on the blade, however, nor upon any other standard device of war. Haleeven bore the weapon of the day with him. He carried it pinched between his thumb and fingers, a silver case no larger than a finger.
“Shall I open this?” Haleeven asked. As he received no negative answer, he flipped the tiny latch of the case and cracked it open. He tilted it toward his nephew. Inside, a small swatch of cloth lay framed against the metal. It was a length long, folded over once or twice. It was a rough weave of thick strands, much like the material of a Meinish noble’s robe. There was the faint remainder of a pattern on it, but liquids had crusted into it, making designs of their own. Hanish was a long time in studying it.
“This thing killed my grandfather,” Hanish said.
“Let it now slay your enemy,” Haleeven responded.
Hanish reached out, pinched the fabric between his fingers, and drew it toward his breast. He shoved it under a wrap of his thalba, in the hollow beneath the muscle of his right breast.
“Remember to hold the battle off for two days,” Haleeven said. “Do not forget to arrange it so.”
A short time later Hanish stood before a crescent of dark-eyed Acacians, each of them dressed in their nation’s finery, shades of orange fringed in red, with vests of armor like polished silver fish scales. One of the Acacians began the meeting in a ceremonial manner, calling for the Giver’s presence and invoking names of ancient Acacians. Hanish had no stomach for it.