Azoun cast his mind back to the meeting that seemed to signal the beginning of the problems with the Tuigan. Over a year ago, the countries of Faerun and of Kara-Tur had met in Semphar to discuss the Tuigan and their attacks on trade caravans crossing the steppes between the two great powers. There had been many nations represented at the council, and the eastern land of Khazari had claimed only a small voice in the proceedings.
Koja smiled warmly. "It is not surprising that you cannot remember me, Your Highness. I had very little to add to the discussions." He paused and motioned for the lead riders to move ahead to the camp. They set off at a gallop. "But I remembered you quite well. I even mentioned your speech at the council to the khahan when I first met him."
Azoun looked puzzled. "My speech?"
"Yes," Koja said. "You spoke after Chanar Khan interrupted the meeting. Chanar informed us all that the khahan demanded a tax on all caravans, that he wished to be recognized as sovereign over us all, but you told him-"
"— that Yamun Khahan could expect no gold from Cormyr," the king said, finishing Koja's recollection. "I bade the general inform the khahan that he did not rule the entire world."
"Yamun Khahan has not forgotten that," Koja said, a hint of a warning buried deep in his voice.
Azoun brought his horse to a stop. "Is that why my emissary was slain?" he snapped, his eyes growing hard. "Because of something I said a year past?"
"Of course not," Koja said quickly. He turned from the king and watched a group of forty or so soldiers race from the camp toward them. With a smile, he glanced at Azoun again and concluded, "Your emissary refused to honor our customs and insulted Yamun Khahan in his own tent. He was punished according to Tuigan law."
Vangerdahast, who had been napping in the saddle, snorted awake when the procession stopped. Thom held out a hand to steady the old man. "Vangy," he whispered. "Are you feeling all right?"
The old wizard motioned to the bard as if he were ready to reply. Suddenly his eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped from his horse to the ground, unconscious.
Azoun spun around in his saddle, and the Cormyrian guards all drew their swords. The western soldiers closed a tight circle around the king, but Koja, who had been trapped in the press with Azoun, shouted, "It's no use to fight. Hundreds of soldiers block the way back to your camp."
Thom looked up from the ground, where he cradled the fallen wizard in his arms, assuring the soldiers' horses did not trample the old man. "Vangy's alive," he called.
Azoun drew his own sword and pushed it close to Koja. "If you think this will stop the army, you're a fool."
The emissary reached out with an empty hand. "Please, Your Highness. You have the word of the khahan to insure your safety. Had I known the old one was a wizard, I could have warned you about this place."
The Cormyrian soldiers looked to Azoun, waiting for orders. The five black-garbed Tuigan still guarding the westerners had drawn their weapons, too. They sat atop their prancing horses, wide grins on their scarred faces. "What do you mean, this place?" the king asked sharply.
"We chose to camp here because it is like the Tuigan capital in the steppes, Quaraband. This place is magic-dead," Koja replied, gesturing with his empty hands. "The whole camp is located in an area where magic will not work. That is why the wizard is sick."
Glancing at the soldiers racing from the camp, Azoun realized that a fight would be out of the question. With Vangerdahast unable to cast spells of any kind, he and his men would be slaughtered. The king gritted his teeth and ordered his guards to lower their weapons.
Koja breathed an audible sigh of relief, then slid to the ground and helped Thom sling Vangerdahast onto a horse. "You are in no danger, Your Highness," he said, smiling sincerely. "The khahan is, if nothing else, a man of his word."
As they set out again toward the khahan's tent, this time surrounded by fifty guards, Azoun and Thom exchanged concerned glances. And though they couldn't know it, the same thought was running through each of their minds.
Both the bard and the king prayed silently that Lord Rayburton, who'd written that the Tuigan were uncompromising savages, had taken at least some literary license in his depiction of the horsewarriors.
12
"More tea, Your Highness?"
Azoun nodded politely, and Koja refilled the king's cup with warm, salty tea. "I much prefer this brewed in the Shou style," the historian said casually. "They put dollops of butter in their brew."
"Actually," Azoun replied, "this is quite good." He brought the cup to his lips and took a small sip. Not as appetizing as tea with milk and sugar, he added silently, but certainly not bad.
The king and the Tuigan envoy sat on piles of brightly colored cushions in a large yurt-at least that was what Koja called the round Tuigan huts. Made mostly of felt, the tent was musty after the recent rains. The place was dark, too, as the only illumination came from a single lantern hanging from the center pole. Little decoration lightened the oppressive mood of the yurt, save for a few small felt idols that hung over the door.
"Are you sure Vangerdahast will be all right?" Azoun asked Koja. The king placed his cup on the dirty floor in front of him and leaned forward. It seemed that he was emphasizing his question with body language, but he was actually stretching out his sore back. The king wasn't used to sitting cross-legged on the ground for hours at a time, and his muscles were complaining.
"Yes, Your Highness," Koja replied calmly, though he'd answered this question for the king once before. "The sickness will pass, and when the wizard leaves the area, he'll be able to cast spells again."
Azoun sighed and leaned back with a short, almost silent groan. If Koja had heard him, the Khazari gave no indication of it. And, as it had many times in the last two hours, the yurt fell silent.
However, the king did not relax. The noise from the bustling camp outside the quiet, dark tent kept him on guard. The Tuigan soldiers' shouts and the clanging of weapons being forged and repaired reminded the Cormyrian king that he was still amongst the enemy.
Not that Azoun had been threatened since entering the Tuigan camp. On the contrary, Koja and the various Tuigan khans Azoun had met since arriving had treated him with respect, even deference. And while the king was led to the central yurt to await the khahan, tribal healers who wore masks of birds and beasts had taken Vangerdahast into their care. Because he'd been denied access to the khahan's yurt, Thom had gone with the wizard to keep an eye on things. Still, the king realized that much of the civility he saw from Koja was a show for his sake alone.
The bulk of the Tuigan army had greeted the king's procession with little regard and, in a few cases, open scorn. Most simply went about their business, cleaning weapons and tack, eating, or simply exchanging stories around the many smoky cookfires scattered through the camp. At least on the surface, the Tuigan camp was not all that different from the western one Azoun had recently left, and nothing like the horrifying place Lord Rayburton had described in his journals. Yet, the king was not foolish enough to assume that the many apparent similarities between his camp and the khahan's were anything other than superficial. Hundreds of details set the two camps apart, ranging in significance from the Tuigan's use of dung to stoke their acrid-smelling fires to the violent punishment the khans frequently and openly meted out to their soldiers.
The most important difference Azoun noted between his troops and the Tuigan army was a little harder to define, but it made the two camps seem very different indeed. From Rayburton's book, the king recognized a few of the hundreds of standards dotting the camp, rallying points for the various barbarian clans. Despite this obvious fragmentation, the Tuigan camp seemed unified, whereas the Alliance's camp was home to a loose confederation of troops. In Azoun's army, the orcs were not welcome in many places, the Sembians and mercenaries not welcome in others. Cormyrians fraternized with Cormyrians, dalesmen with dalesmen.