Elsewhere, swordsmasters led their divisions in going through the motions of swordplay, demonstrating sweeps, parries, strokes and maneouvres, and then chaining them all together into sequences of deadly grace, their bodies dancing sinuously around the flickering points of their blades. Fire-cannons were targeted at distant boulders, and their bellowing report rolled across the estates. Ballistas were tested and their capacities gauged. Blood Amacha was gearing up for war.
Barak Sonmaga tu Amacha rode solemnly through the heat and dust of the drilling ground, his ears ringing to the rousing cries of battle all around him, the barked commands and the tumultuous responses of the training groups. The air smelt of sweat and damp leather, of horses and the sulphurous reek of fire-cannons and rifle discharges. He felt his chest swell, his pride a balloon that expanded inside him. Whatever his misgivings, whatever his fears for the land he loved, he could not help but feel overwhelmed by the knowledge that five thousand troops stood ready to give their lives at his command. Not that he appreciated their loyalty – after all, it was their duty, and duty along with tradition were the pillars on which their society was built – but the feeling of sheer power that it brought on made him feel close to the gods.
He had spent the morning making inspections, conferring with his ur-Baraks and generals, giving speeches to the troops. His decision to make them train without a break all through the hottest part of the day was heartily approved of by his subordinates, for the soldiers needed to be able to fight under any conditions. Not that the Barak had expected any dissent even if they had disagreed; the discipline of the Saramyr armies was legend, and Sonmaga was not accustomed to having his orders questioned.
Seized by a suddenly poetic mood, he spurred his horse and angled through the rows of soldiers towards the keep that sat distantly to the east, made pale and half real by graduated veils of sunlight. But it was not the keep that was his destination; instead, after a short ride, he reined in some way up the hillside that looked out over the dusty plains, and there he dismounted.
He was standing on a low bluff, where a short flap of rock had broken through the even swell of the hillside to provide level ground. Behind him and a little way upward were the first dry-stone walls that marked the edge of his orchards, and beyond that the grassy soil was subsumed in a mass of leaves and trunks and roots and fruit. He left his horse to crop the grass and walked out on to the bluff, and there he surveyed the arrayed masses of his troops.
The size of the spectacle took his breath away, but more humbling was the vastness of the plains that made even his army seem insignificant. The massive formations of men seemed antlike in comparison, their magnificence outshone by the world around them. The sky was a perfect jewel-blue, untroubled by cloud. The flow of the Kerryn was a blinding streak of maddening brightness, twinkling and winking in the fierce light of Nuki's eye, tracing its unstoppable path towards Axekami, which was hidden beneath the horizon. The plains were dotted with clusters of trees, dirt roads, the occasional settlement here and there; Sonmaga fancied he could see a herd of banathi making its slow way across the panorama, but heat haze made his vision uncertain.
Sonmaga offered a silent prayer of thanks to the gods. He was not a tender man, but what softness he had he reserved for moments like these. Nature awed him. This land awed him, and he loved it. His gaze swept over the tiny formations of his troops below, and he felt his doubts dissipate. Whatever came of this, he would know that he had done what his heart dictated. There were greater matters at play than thrones here.
He did not deny to himself that he wanted power. To elevate Blood Amacha to the ruling family would enshrine his name forever in history, and the honour would be immense. But a coup would be enacted on his terms, his way. He did not want a civil war, not now. The time was not right; it was too precipitate. Events had conspired to force his hand.
But there was a higher motive for victory than simple power. Sonmaga's deep, abiding love for the land made him sensitive to it, and the blight he saw creeping into the bones of the earth scarred him deeply. He saw the evidence even in his own orchards, the decline that was too gradual to spot until he compared tallies over the years and saw that more and more fruit was spoiling on the branch, more trees withering or coming up twisted. Though the blight had barely brushed his lands when compared to some other, less fortunate areas, he felt an unholy abhorrence of it, as if the corruption crept slowly into him as well as the soil. And then there were the Aberrants, children of the blight, born to peasants on his land; and he feared that if the time should come that he would marry and father a child, it might turn out like them, mewling and deformed and terrible. He would snap its neck himself if he saw a child of his born Aberrant.
And now, Lucia. The Heir-Empress, an Aberrant? There could be no greater affront to the gods, to nature, to simple sense. Now was not the time for tolerance of these creatures – a tolerance that would surely increase if Lucia reached the throne. They were symptoms of an evil that was killing Saramyr, and to encourage them to thrive was lunacy.
No, the desire for power would not have been enough to make Sonmaga war against his Empress, not at this juncture. But to arrest the progress of the poison in the land? For that, he would dare almost anything.
He brought out the letter in his pocket and read over it again, the letter that had been sealed with the stamp of Barak Avun tu Koli, and wondered if he might not be able to turn things around yet.
Thirteen
The isle of Fo lay off the sloping north-western coast of Saramyr, a day's travel across the red-tinged waves of the Camaran Channel. The wind had freshened as the afternoon wore on, and it cooed and whistled through the ratlines of the enormous junk, rippling the sails that sprouted from its back like the spined fins of some magnificent sea creature. The Summer Tide was a merchant vessel belonging to the wealthiest trading consortium in Jinka, and it showed. Her gunwale was moulded into the likeness of stormy waves, chasing each other from bow to stern, and in amongst them frolicked seals and whales, sea-spirits and imaginary beasts of the deep. The sails were a magnificent array, with polished wooden ribs holding great fans of beige canvas between them, and painted with the red sigil of the consortium. It was a thing of beauty, carrying a cargo of beautiful things: silks, perfumes, spices; and several passengers, two of whom were watching the desolate isle draw ever closer.
Kaiku was lounging against the thick oaken rail on the foremost deck, her feathered hair whipping restlessly against her tanned cheeks. It was not especially ladylike, considering that she was the daughter of a high-born; but then, neither were her clothes, and she had ever been a tomboy. She wore trousers of heavy, baggy fabric and soft boots wound around with leather to keep them tight. In addition, she had on a light shirt of blue, wrapped right over left -men wore their shirts the opposite way – and belted around her waist with a sash of red. She felt the sun on her skin and flexed like a cat, luxuriating in the warmth. Tane, standing nearby, watched her with a hungry eye.
A week had passed since they had left Axekami and taken a barge upriver to Jinka. Upriver travel was necessarily slower on craft that had no sails, but the Jabaza's current was not strong at this time of year, and the barge had plenty of wheelmen hired. These swarthy folk rarely came up on deck; their journey was spent in the treadmills at the hot heart of the barge, turning the massive paddle-wheels that powered the craft against the flow. For three days they had watched the flattened peak of Mount Makara rise slowly from the horizon, until it bulked vast among the surrounding mountains, a pale blue-green, and they could see the wisps of smoke that issued from its volcanic maw.