Diamond Warriors

antagonized not only me and the men whom I led, but many of Lord Tanu's followers as well. And worse, Lord Tomavar had betrayed his essential weak-ness: he sought Mesh's kingship with such desperation that he was willing to stoop to bargaining liike a merchant rather than relying on sound arguments and force of character to win the warriors.

'All right then!' Lord Tomavar shouted. 'Do you think I have any cause to fear the judgment of the warriors? Let it be as you have said! Let them stand for a king, here and now!'

Lord Tanu positioned himself like a ram before a furious bull. Even as Lord Tomavar's face grew darker, hotter and angrier, Lord Tanu stared at him stubbornly as if he had ice in his veins.

'We all can agree to that,' Lord Tanu called out to Lord Tomavar. 'Release your men from their pledges, that they can stand for whom they will!'

But Lord Tomavar only shook his long, heavy head at this. 'My men gave their pledges of their own will, and so they have already chosen who should be king.'

'Yes, they chose — but in different circumstances. The times have changed.'

'The times are as they have always been! And they demand a king, tested in many battles, loved and trusted, who can lead his warriors. To glory and victory!'

As he said this, his warriors behind him let loose a great cheer — though it seemed not so great as Lord Tomavar might have wished.

'We cannot,' Lord Tanu said, 'allow a king to be chosen this way, with two fifths of the warriors pledged to you, and everyone else standing free.'

Lord Tomavar turned to glare at me then. And he shouted, 'I won't allow my warriors to stand for this one! They call Morjin the Lord of Lies, but Valashu Elahad deceives men into following him!'

A dark fire leaped in Kane's eyes at this, and my fearsome friend stepped forward as he grasped the hilt of his sword. And he snarled at Lord Tomavar: 'Say it to my face, Gorvan Tomavar, that I am a man who has been deceived!'

In horror of what might soon occur, both Master Juwain and Maram grasped one of Kane's arms and eased him backward. Lord Tomavar tried to ignore the furious Kane. He continued staring down his long nose at me.

'I won't let my men stand for the Elahad,' he reaffirmed. 'Not this Elahad.'

He whipped about to look at Manamar Tanu and bellowed: 'And I won't return the brooch! It belongs to Vareva, and my beloved wife is not dead!'

'The Red Dragon,' Lord Manamar said in a venomous voice, 'took my daughter more than a year ago, and so we must assume that she is dead — or worse. Return the brooch. Lord Tomavar!'

'You ask me to send diamonds to you,' Lord Tomavar snapped, 'when you command your smithies to cease shipments of diamond armor to us?'

'It is not the same thing — return the brooch!'

'You may have it,' Lord Tomavar said, grasping the hilt of his sword, 'when you pry it from my dead fingers!'

'I should like nothing better!' the small deadly Lord Manamar said. His hand, too, locked onto his sword. 'Tell me you are willing, and we shall settle this matter here!'

Now it was Lord Tanu's turn to cool things down. He grasped Lord Manamar's arm and pulled his bellicose cousin a few paces back from Lord Tomavar. It might have been thought that Lord Tanu would want Lord Manamar to put his sword through Lord Tomavar's neck, and so remove at least one contender to the throne. And Lord Tanu might have wanted this. But the most likely outcome of a duel between the two lords would see a flash of angry swords and Lord Manamar's head rolling bloody across the grass.

Lord Tomavar, with a great show of restraint, relaxed his hand from the hilt of his sword. He stood proud and too obviously pleased with himself, and he strode back and forth before his warriors in their gleaming ranks as he called out to them: 'Do you see? Do you see the madness that Valashu Elahad has brought upon our land?'

He turned to pace toward Lord Tanu's warriors as he continued his tirade: 'A brooch, your Lord Manamar wishes returned to him. My wife I demand be returned to me! How did it come to be that the Red Dragon stole the most beautiful woman in the world from me? How is it that many of you have lost brothers, sons and fathers in battle? And seen your daughters and wives slaughtered in the sack of the Elahad castle? It is because Valashu Elahad called down the Red Dragon upon Mesh! As he now calls down discord upon this field! Is this the man you would stand for as king?'

I knew that I must make a riposte to this, and soon. But Liljana was quicker with words than I. She had spent a whole lifetime manipulating men in service of her secret purpose. I sensed her will to provoke Lord Tomavar into talking himself into a trap.

'And what would you do, mighty Lord,' she said to him in a voice as sharp and precise as an acupuncturist's needles, 'to see Mesh restored and your wife returned to your arms again?'

Her calculated ridicule drove him to a fury. And he bellowed out: 'I would make Mesh strong, and lead her against our enemies! The Waashians we could defeat without too great a loss. And then, if need be, the Ishkans. And so we would gain great glory! And so the Valari would have to follow us, to the war against Morjin. We shall have our revenge! We shall storm the Black Mountain again, and this time, we shall triumph! We shall take all of Morjin's treasure, and I shall take my most beloved of treasures back!'

As Lord Tanu had observed in the pass, Lord Tomavar was a poor strategist. Everyone standing at the center of the field listened to him with doubt beginning to work at their hearts. The warriors in the front lines of each of the forces crowding the square took in his words and passed them back to the deeper ranks. I heard some shouts of acclaim, but even more grumblings of dismay. Once, at the very end of the Age of Law, at the Battle of Tarshid, Morjin had destroyed an army of Valari assaulting his stronghold inside Skartaru, the Black Mountain. The six thousand survivors, many from Mesh, he had crucified. It was the worst defeat in all the history of the Valari, and the minstrels still sang of it with mourning and lament.

Lord Tomavar, perceiving that the tide of the warriors' sentiments might be turning against him, moved quickly to the offense by attacking me: 'And what would Valashu Elahad do if you stand for him as king? Only this: he would fail you as he did before and leave your wives and daughters to be ravished!'

I knew that I must respond to this calumny, without hesitation and in a clear, strong voice so that the warriors could hear the truth of things. I knew that I had this power, to open my heart to men and speak straight from my soul. What would I do if made king, I wondered? Only this: I would use all my power and call upon every particle of my being to defeat Morjin. Strangely, Lord Tomavar's blood burned with same desire as mine to see Morjin brought down, even if his plan to do this was folly — and even if he dreamed too much of revenge and glory.

'If you stand for me as king,' I started to say to the fifteen thousand warriors assembled around the square, 'I will — '

'He will betray you!' Lord Tomavar cried out, interrupting me with an unforgivable rudeness. 'As he betrayed all of us at the Elahad castle! How could our women and children have been slaughtered like animals? How could they? It is only because Valashu Elahad deserted the castle! Out of his criminal pride! And then lied about it, putting the blame on Lord Lansar Raasharu, a great and noble man, whom King Shamesh loved and trusted as much as he did myself!'

'No, that is not true!' I cried out. 'I thought my father was dead and that my brother had summoned me, and I wanted only to — '

'You wanted to usurp your own father! By gaining glory on the battlefield, you hoped your renown would lead you to stand before the warriors! In place of your father, killed in the very battle you brought down upon us!'

His words drove me to a fury. I felt my spleen pouring out poisons into my blood and a sick heat tormenting my brain. A terrible pressure built inside my throat. I opened my mouth to draw in air and deny his vile accusations. And in that moment, the Ahrim struck. It came out of nowhere, a boiling blackness that fell over my face and eyes. For three long, bitter beatings of my heart, I could not hear nor could I see. And then the Ahrim's icy cold substance seemed to gather about my neck. It clamped down, hard, like a iron fist, squeezing the very breath from my throat with such a crushing force that I could barely speak: