They stopped just short of the front row, and Mata hunched down to his uncle’s height to avoid drawing attention from the emperor’s guards.
“They’re here!” the crowd shouted as airships burst through the clouds near the horizon and the tip of the Throne Pagoda rose into sight.
While the townspeople cheered the beautiful dancers and applauded the daring soldiers, Mata Zyndu had eyes only for Emperor Mapidéré. At long last, he would set his eyes on the face of the enemy.
A wall of soldiers now stood in a circle on top of the Pagoda, arrows nocked, swords drawn. The emperor sat in their midst, and the spectators could only catch occasional glimpses of his face.
Mata had imagined an old man grown soft and fat from complacency, but instead, through the wall of soldiers, as through a veil, he saw a gaunt figure with hard, expressionless eyes.
How alone he is, high above in his peerless splendor.
And how afraid.
Phin and Mata looked at each other. Each saw in the other’s eyes the same mixture of sorrow and smoldering hatred. Phin didn’t have to speak aloud. Mata had heard from his uncle the same words every day of his life:
Do not forget.
Back when Emperor Mapidéré was still only the young King of Xana, and when the army of Xana routed the crumbling forces of the Six States across land, sea, and sky, one man had stood in its way: Dazu Zyndu, Duke of Tunoa and Marshal of Cocru.
The Zyndus came from a long line of great Cocru generals. But when Dazu was a young man, he was scrawny and sickly. His father and grandfather decided to send him north, far away from the family’s fiefdom in the Tunoa Islands, to be trained under the legendary master swordsman Médo in the misty isles called the Silkworm Eggs, at the other end of Dara.
After one look at Dazu, Médo said, “I’m too old and you’re too little. I taught my last student years ago. Leave me in peace.”
But Dazu did not leave. He knelt outside Médo’s house for ten days and ten nights, refusing food or drink except rainwater. On the eleventh day, Dazu collapsed to the ground, and Médo was moved by Dazu’s persistence and accepted him as a student.
But instead of teaching the young man sword fighting, Médo used Dazu only as a ranch hand to care for his small herd of cattle. Dazu did not complain. In the cold and rocky mountains, the young man followed the herd everywhere, watching for wolves hiding in the mist and huddling for warmth among the lowing cows at night.
When a new calf was born in the spring, Médo told Dazu to carry the baby animal back to his house for a weigh-in each day so that the calf’s legs would not be injured by the sharp stones on the ground. This involved walking many miles. At first the trip was easy, but as the calf gained weight, the trip became more difficult.
“The calf is capable of walking quite well now,” Dazu said. “He never stumbles.”
“But I told you to carry him back here,” the teacher said. “The first thing a soldier must learn is to obey orders.”
Every day, the calf grew a little heavier, and every day, Dazu had to struggle a little harder. He would collapse, exhausted, when he finally got to the ranch, and the calf would bound out of his arms, glad to be able to walk on his own and stretch out.
When winter rolled around again, Médo handed him a wooden sword and asked him to strike as hard as he could at the practice dummy. Dazu looked with distaste at the crude weapon with no edge, but he swung obediently.
The wooden dummy fell in half, cut clean through. He looked at the sword in his hand with wonder.
“It’s not the sword,” his teacher said. “Have you looked at yourself lately?” He brought Dazu to stand in front of a brightly polished shield.
The young man could hardly recognize the reflection. His shoulders filled the frame of the mirror. His arms and thighs were twice as thick as he remembered, and his chest bulged over his narrow waist.
“A great warrior trusts not his weapons, but himself. When you possess true strength, you can deal a killing blow even if all you have is a blade of grass.
“Now you’re finally ready to learn from me. But first, go thank the calf for making you strong.”
Dazu Zyndu was unmatched on the battlefield. While the armies of the other Tiro states succumbed like kindling before the fierce hordes of Xana, the men of Cocru, led by Duke Zyndu, held back the assaults of Xana like a steady dam against a raging flood.
Because his troops were outnumbered, Duke Zyndu placed them in strategically located forts and garrison towns across Cocru. Whenever Xana invaded, he directed his men to ignore the taunts of Xana commanders and stay behind the walls like a turtle retreating into its shell.
But whenever the Xana army tried to bypass these well-defended forts and cities, the defenders would swoop out of their fortresses like moray eels erupting from their secret crevices and attack ferociously from the rear to cut off Xana supply lines. Though Gotha Tonyeti, the great Xana general, had at his disposal many more men and better equipment than Duke Zyndu, he was bogged down by Zyndu’s tactics and could not advance.
Tonyeti called Zyndu “the Bearded Tortoise,” intending it as an insult, but Dazu laughed and adopted the moniker as a badge of pride.
Unable to prevail on the field, Tonyeti resorted to plots. He spread rumors in Çaruza, the Cocru capital, of the ambition of Duke Zyndu.
“Why does Duke Zyndu not attack Xana, but only hide behind stone walls?” the people whispered to one another. “The Xana army is clearly no match for the might of Cocru, and yet the duke hesitates and leaves the invaders occupying our fields. Perhaps the duke has a secret agreement with Gotha Tonyeti, and Tonyeti is only pretending to be attacking. Could they be plotting to overthrow the king and set up Duke Zyndu as his replacement?”
The King of Cocru became suspicious and ordered Duke Zyndu to abandon his defensive positions and engage Tonyeti in field battles. This would be a mistake, Dazu Zyndu explained, but his arguments only made the king more suspicious.
Duke Zyndu had no choice. He put on his armor and led the charge. Tonyeti’s forces seemed to melt before the fearsome Cocru warriors. The Xana troops kept on falling back, and back, and then collapsed into total chaos.
The duke pursued the defeated Tonyeti into a deep valley, where the Xana general disappeared into the dark woods. Suddenly, Xana troops, five times the number of men Zyndu had with him, emerged from the sides of the valley in ambush and cut off his path of retreat. Zyndu understood then that he had been tricked, and there was nothing to do but to surrender.
Dazu Zyndu negotiated for the safety of his soldiers as war prisoners and then took his own life, unable to live with the shame of capitulation. Gotha Tonyeti reneged on his promise and buried alive all the surrendered Cocru soldiers.
Çaruza fell three days later.
Mapidéré decided to make an example of the Zyndu Clan, who had resisted him for so long. Every male Zyndu within three degrees of relatedness was put to death and all the women sold to the indigo houses. Dazu Zyndu’s oldest son, Shiru, was flayed alive in Çaruza while Tonyeti’s men forced the capital’s citizens to watch and eat bits of his flesh afterward to confirm their loyalty to Xana. Dazu’s daughter, Soto, barricaded herself and her servants in their country estate and set fire to it to escape the worse fate that awaited her. The flames raged for a full day and night as though the goddess Kana was expressing her grief, and the heat was so intense that even Soto’s bones could not be found afterward in the wreckage.