The shock sat hard on his mother’s face. He almost enjoyed watching her master it.
‘Is that all?’
‘The Macht did a thorough job. They hunted us all the way to the passes of the mountains. And I have heard that the Juthan have sent an army to join them. There is nothing left beyond the Magron, mother. Asuria is all that remains.’
‘And Arakosia,’ she said instantly. He tilted his cup to her in agreement.
‘We have only the city guard here in Ashur,’ she went on, staring into space. ‘Five thousand hufsan who direct traffic and beat slaves. That is all.’
Kouros lay back on the cushioned couch. It was too soft for him. The weeks in the mountains had accustomed him to the feel of earth and stone under his back.
‘I killed Rakhsar with my own hand.’ He drew the knife from his sash. ‘That, at least, is done.’
‘And Roshana?’
‘The Macht took her, I think; if she lived. She is immaterial now. The intrigues are over, mother. We must think of gathering more men. We must send to Arakosia, somehow scrape up another levy. These walls must be held.’
She nodded, watching him. She looked upon the blood-grimed blade of the knife he held in fascination and disgust.
‘We must meet with Borsanes in the morning,’ Orsana told him. ‘He commands the city guard. Lorka also. I must talk to him as soon as he gets in. The Arakosans have been coming west for weeks now, but in small numbers. There are perhaps a thousand of them in the city, and more at Hamadan.’
‘Enough to stage a palace coup — not enough to fight off an invading army. You must change your sense of scale, mother.’
Suddenly Kouros hurled the beautiful crystal cup away. It soared through the air and smashed in a shower of glass and wine against the pale Kandassian marble of a nearby pillar, staining the stone. Kouros stood up.
‘We are at the end of things here, the finish of everything we have known. Lorka looks to me now; he knows it is I who rule in Ashur. Your intrigues have not prepared you for the waging of war.’
‘And running from a battlefield has suddenly transformed you into a general of genius, I suppose!’
Kouros smiled, where once he would have flown into a fury. ‘You said yourself; war has made a man of me.’
He strode over to Orsana, where she crouched, cat-like, in a billow of silk, the knife still in his hand. From behind a pillar, he saw Charys, the massive chief eunuch, sidle out, as broad as the pillar himself.
Kouros bent and kissed his mother’s cheek, tasting the chalk that whitened it.
‘I’m going to bed, to sleep in the chambers of the King where I belong. I will see Borsanes and Lorka in the morning, and I will notify you of events as they occur. Sleep well, mother.’
Her eyes seemed black in the light of the lamps, as cold as stones on a mountainside.
‘Do not overreach yourself, Kouros. You stand in my world.’
‘Your world is too small,’ he retorted. ‘You have forgotten what life is like beyond it.’
Then he walked out of the harem, sliding the iron knife back into his sash, and not deigning to give so much as a glance at the glowering eunuch whose eyes followed him all the way to the doors.
The city was a changed place the next morning. In the early hours, before even the sun had struck the pinnacles of the ziggurats, the proclamations had gone round with the sprinting, great-lunged city criers. Crowds congested the streets in a feverish hunger for good news. For weeks now, there had been nothing but ominous rumours out of the west. A great battle had been fought, it was generally agreed, but if it had gone well, then the victory tidings would have been spread about without delay. Defeat had been suspected, but never had the high and humble of the imperial capital even dreamed that the Great King himself could be slain in battle. This was the first confirmation they had of the extent of the catastrophe now overtaking the empire. For many, it was the first time they had ever heard Kouros’s name spoken.
He rode through the streets at noon that day with an escort of Arakosan cavalry resplendent in their blue armour. A second Royal Standard had been unearthed out of the palace vaults and flew above him in a billow of rich purple and gold, the sigil of the Asurian kings catching the light in a reassuring blaze. Those who were close to the procession as it paraded down the Sacred Way could see that this new king was wind-burnt and thin. He looked like a warrior, not an aristocrat, and they took some comfort in that, and in the white grin with which he received the tossed flowers that carpeted the stones in front of his horse.
Keen observers might also have noticed that the mounts of the Arakosans were not in good flesh, and their riders had dark, tired rings under their eyes which belied the magnificence of their enamelled armour. But the parade reassured the city populace, or at any event it gave them something else to talk about. It took their mind off the storm approaching over the mountains.
In the days that followed, Kouros found he could not rest in the ziggurat — it held too many memories for him, both of his father and his mother, and it was too stiflingly confined by protocol for him to bear, after all the months on campaign. He elected to meet with his officers at the western barbican in a plain room above the gate itself. He wore a diadem now, though he had not been crowned. His father’s had been black silk. Kouros chose scarlet, perhaps as a kind of nod to the red-clad men who were now tramping across the empire.
He, Lorka, and Borsanes stood there looking down at a map of the city walls, and flicking through a bundle of tally-sticks representing those available to defend them. Kouros gripped one of these birch-wood counters in his hand as though he could squeeze more out of it.
‘It’s no good — we must recall the garrison from Hamadan. There are almost three thousand Honai up there; they will do more good with us than in the hills.’
‘Hamadan guards the eastern passes of the Magron,’ Lorka said, rubbing the triangular beard upon his chin. Many of the Arakosans were bearded; it was an archaic trait of theirs.
‘Those men will not be able to halt a field army. They will merely find themselves besieged. When I left them there, I thought the situation in Ashur was better than it is,’ Kouros said. His jaw worked, chewing on the problem.
‘If we cannot stop them at Hamadan, we will not stop them here,’ Borsanes said. He was a thin, drooping Kefre who reminded Kouros of nothing so much as a wilted sunflower. His head seemed too big for his shoulders, and he had a nose a tapir would have been proud of.
‘We will stop them,’ Kouros hissed. ‘If you lack confidence in our chances, Borsanes, then you should go back to whatever backwater my father dragged you from. You are relieved of your post. Now get out before I decide to make an example of you.’
Borsanes sputtered, eyes wide on either side of his remarkable nose. ‘Guards!’ Kouros called at once.
Two Arakosan troopers were at the door in a heartbeat.
‘Escort this fellow out of the city, as he stands. He is to leave by this very gate. Pass the word about the walls; if he is seen trying to return he is to be killed on the spot.’
The Arakosans took hold of Borsanes with some relish and dragged him, protesting and still sputtering, from the room.
Lorka roared with laughter. ‘I do not know if that was your father or your mother I just saw in you, Kouros, but it was worthy of them both.’
‘You may address me as lord,’ Kouros said icily, and Lorka’s face went flat.
‘Of course. I forgot myself, my lord. Forgive me.’
Kouros was clicking the tally sticks down on the table one by one.
‘With the Honai from Hamadan and the drafts of your people who have still to come in, I make it some twelve thousand spears. Those are the real fighters. We can probably round up some of the city low-castes and arm them also to bulk out the numbers.’
‘In Arakosia a slave who saves his master’s life is considered free by all,’ Lorka said. ‘There are thousands of imperial slaves in the city, lord. Perhaps they could be made use of. For the right incentive, a slave will fight near as well as a free man.’