Diamond Warriors

end, then, the last day of peace I will ever know. Well, Val, then I promise you that I will not fail you and will remain with you until the ugly, bitter end. The very, very end.'

After that, in the days that followed, there seemed little to do except to go about the countryside buying up beef, pork, barley, wheat, peas and other provender with which to victualize our army. We had to put in whole mountains of hay for all our hundreds of horses, and find wagons to carry this great mass of supplies. Lord Harsha proved as patient and efficient in finding food as he had been in growing it. On the second day, when I saw that he had much more talent for this task than I, I left it all to him. Then I set myself a task which nearly everyone told me would be impossible.

'I would meet the men who pledged to you,' I told Lord Tomavar. We stood with my other counselors by the side of the square watching hundreds of warriors drilling at their nightly sword practice. 'And your men, too, Lord Tanu. And yours. Lord Avijan. Every warrior who would march with me, I would learn his name.'

My father, it was said, had known five thousand warriors by name. And so that evening I retreated to my pavilion while Lords Tomavar, Tanu and Avijan — Lords Kharashan, Ramanu and Bahram, as well — set to organizing the fulfillment of my unusual request. The call came for the warriors to line up outside my tent, and this they hastened to do with a great curiosity and rare enthusiasm. I stood inside ten feet back from my tent's opened flaps as the warriors entered, one by one. The first man to greet, Yarkash the Bold, hailed from Lashku, and had strongly supported Lord Tomavar until a couple of days before. He was a tall, thickly-muscled knight, with a scar nearly splitting his chin in two. He wore his diamond battle armor, and bore a bright sun emblazoned upon his surcoat. I stood with my sword drawn, and he approached me with quick, sure strides. Then he stopped before me, and with a form that we had arranged, he drew his sword and said to me: 'Sire, I am Yarkash Jurmanu, son of Suladar Jurmanu. I pledge my sword to you, in life and in death.'

I pressed my palm to the flat of his blade, And bowed my head in acceptance of his service. And then I said to him: 'I am Valashu Elahad, son of Shavashar Elahad. And I pledge my sword to you, in life and in death.'

I held out Alkaladur for him to touch as well. Maram and Master Juwain, looking on, both drew in a quick breath at this, for in all the time that I had kept this sword, I had allowed no one to put his flesh to it — except my enemies, in wounding or death.

As Yarkash the Bold turned about to exit my tent, another warrior stepped forward. He came up to me and said, 'Sire, I am Kanshar Sharad, son of Evar Sharad, of Pushku.. '

And so it went. I could spend only a fraction of a minute with each warrior, for there were not enough minutes in a day to allot to each of them, and I had more than fifteen thousand warriors to greet. I stood for hours that night until the muscles in my legs burned with the strain of it. Twice, I broke to drink some tea and take a few moments of rest in my chair at the head of the council table. Then I returned to my new duty, listening to my warriors' pledges: 'Sire, I am Juval Eladar …'

When morning warmed the roof of my tent with a black sheen, I stepped over to the entrance. I looked out to see a glittering line of warriors stretched out down the lanes of the tents of my encampment, across the square and through the lanes of Lord Tomavar's men's tents. And then out across the grasses of the meadow beyond. I could not see the end of the line, for it disappeared behind the edge of a low hill. At this, I summoned Lord Tomavar and Lord Tanu and said to them, 'This will not do. All the warriors beyond the square — let them stand down. See to it that they are called up only as the warriors ahead of them finish making their pledges. We have a long day ahead of us.'

That day was long indeed — one of the longest of my life. And yet its hours did not suffice for me receive all my warriors' pledges. The sun reached its crest in the cloudy sky at high noon, and then dropped behind the mountains to the west, and still my warriors lined up outside my tent. When it began raining that night — big drops of summer rain that splatted against the earth and thousands of tents with a nearly deafening sound — I considered calling for everyone to break off and take some rest. But Lord Harsha informed me that our army's provisioning was nearly complete, and I did not want to delay our march. And I would not, I said, march until I heard the names of all my warriors.

And so the men of Mesh stood in the pouring rain, gaining a few moments of respite only when they stepped dripping inside my tent to face me. Their names seemed to pour from their mouths in an irresistible torrent of sound: 'Dovaru Elsar, Yulsun of Pushku, Bashar the Brave, Juradan Nolarad.. ' I heard no grumbles, even from those who had stood in the rain the longest. The warriors seemed as eager to honor me as I was to honor them.

'It is a great thing that you do,' Master Juwain said to me as I sat drinking coffee during one of my breaks. 'But you cannot continue on like this. Already, you have stood here more than a day.'

'These warriors,' I said to him, 'will march with me for many days. And then stand in line against our enemies, and many will die. And you say that I cannot continue?'

Later, long past midnight, I fought to hold myself up straight and keep my eyelids open against the burning dryness there. With every name spoken to me, my sword seemed to flare a little brighter, sending stabs of recognition deep into me. The silver gelstei. Master Juwain had once told me, could quicken all the powers of the mind, especially memory. Although it seemed impossible that I could remember each of my warriors, or even a tenth of them, I had a strange sense that my sword's silustria was drinking up their names and holding on to them the way it did the stars' light

Late on the afternoon of the following day, with many more men still to greet, a warrior who stood out from all the others came up to me. Indeed, this warrior was no man at all, but rather one of Mesh's greatest women: for it was Vareva. How she had acquired the suit of diamond armor poorly fitted to her womanly body, I did not know. Perhaps, I thought, she had forced Lord Tomavar to purchase it for her. She wore the two swords that all Valari warriors bore: a bright kalama and the shorter tharam, which she kept sheathed. I looked long and deeply as she held her kalama out to me and said, 'Sire, I am Vareva Tomavar, daughter of Manamar Tanu. I pledge my sword to you, in life and in death.'

'And I pledge my sword to you,' I told her, 'in life and in death.'

I saw the warriors behind her staring at her in anger. Then I drew in a deep breath and told her, 'Many will disapprove of what has just passed between us. They believe that a woman cannot be allowed to be a warrior. But a great man once said this to me: 'Does one let the sun shine? No one lets a woman become a warrior.''

'Then, Sire, I will march with you to the end of — '

I saw a bright hope come alive in her eyes, but I could not allow it to consume her. And so I held up my hand to silence her, 'You are what you are, and even your king must respect that. As you must respect your king. Men are only what they are, too, and all those who have stood before you and remain behind you will not bear to see you march with them to war. It is not the Valari way.'

She bowed her head to me, but then stood up straight and proud as she told me, 'That has not been our way. Sire, it is true.'

'You cannot change what is,' I said to her. 'A man faces battle more bravely for knowing that his woman is safe at home.'

'The warriors,' she informed me, 'say that no man of Mesh is braver than Valashu Elahad. He, whose woman has fought by his side in many terrible battles across the length and breadth of Ea.'

I blinked my burning eyes as I looked at this formidable woman. I had to keep a good grip on my sword to stop my legs from trembling, so that I didn't fall down.

'Atara Ars Narmada,' I said to her, 'has vowed to forsake marriage so long as she remains a warrior.'

'I, too, would make such a vow. Sire.'

'But that is not our way. That is not how a Valari woman serves her people.'

'How should I serve, then, Sire? By staying in Mesh and bearing Lord Tomavar's children?'

'A child, from you, would be a great and beautiful thing.'

'Thank you. Sire. But I want nothing more than to put this into Morjin's filthy creatures, and that would be an even greater thing.'

So saying, she thrust her sword toward the wall of my tent. I shook my head at this. 'You cannot change the nature of things. When a man dies in battle, a woman might remarry and continue to bear children, and nothing is greater than this life. But when a woman dies, all her children that she might have brought forth die with her as well. And if many women die, her people will die.'