Diamond Warriors

had brought in.

Lord Zandru the Hammer, riding a large white gelding, steered us straight toward the opening in the southwest curve of the mountains known as the Lion's Gate. Tall, white-capped peaks rose up to either side of this narrow and rocky gap. The Kaashans had built a great fortress on a hill overlooking the Lion's Gate. Lord Zandru, with Lord Avijan, Lord Noldashan and other knights, rode up to this heap of stones to inform the fortress' commander that the Meshians had come to answer Kaash's call. The commander — a Lord Yulsun — seemed both surprised and delighted to learn this news. He opened the Lion's Gate to our army, in a manner of speaking, and we encamped that night on pasturage along a river to the north of the fortress.

Lord Yulsun, according to protocol, invited my captains and me to take meat in his fortress. But because I did not want to leave my men, I invited into our encampment Lord Yulsun and as many of his warriors as could leave their duties. I had my council table set up on the grass outside between four blazing fires, and there I sat at dinner with Lord Yulsun, Lord Zandru and my captains and the other greatest lords of Mesh.

Lord Yulsun, a spare, old warrior who had lost one eye and part of his cheek bone from a Mansurii arrow, wasted no time in niceties. He was hard, blunt man used to speaking his mind.

'King Valamesh,' he said, addressing me with a grave formality, 'no one in Kaash expected you to gain your father's throne. And for you to march to our aid at a moment's notice, when we failed to march to yours — this is a very great thing. Who would have thought it possible?'

'Sometimes,' I said, thinking of my father, 'it seems that everything is possible.'

'Perhaps it is,' he told me, 'for the one who gained the Lightstone out of Argattha and tried to bring our people together in alliance. But then King Shamesh was a great man, and so why should we not expect even greater things of his son?'

I bowed my head to acknowledge his kind words. And I looked around the table at my captains, and I told Lord Yulsun: 'We cannot let Waas defeat you. Our two kingdoms have been allies for ages, and we cannot let your misfortune of two years ago break that bond.'

'I wish King Talanu were present to hear you say that! Your uncle would be proud of you, Valashu Elahad, if you don't mind my saying that. And pleased to see you leading ten thousand men. With our six thousand, we will surely outnumber the Waashians. If you can move quickly enough, we have a great chance to defeat them once and for all.'

He told us that King Sandarkan's Waashians were marching down from Charoth, and that King Talanu had called up nearly every available warrior to throw them back. Their armies were to meet in battle along the west bank of the Rajabash River just south of a village called Harban.

'I scouted that place two years ago,' Lord Zandru said to Lord Yulsun. 'It is a good battleground, with a pasturage of ten miles along the river, and almost two miles wide, rising up to the forest beneath Mount Ihsan.'

In Kaash, most mountainous of the Nine Kingdoms, clear and level ground on which a battle could be decently fought was almost as rare as water in the middle of the Red Desert.

'Has a date been set for the battle yet?' Lord Zandru asked.

'Yes,' Lord Yulsun told him, nodding his head. 'The sixteenth of Marud.'

Lord Zandru turned to me. 'King Valamesh — it is a hundred miles from here northeast to Harban. Tomorrow will be the fifth, will it not? And so that gives us eleven days to cover a hundred miles.'

Lord Zandru, in his zeal to lead reinforcements to his king, neglected to mention the obvious, which Maram now pointed out: 'Ah, but you're speaking of mountain miles, aren't you? It might be a hundred miles for a bird to fly from here to Harban, but how far is it really!'

In the mountains, as my father had taught me, over rugged terrain that bent and twisted, rose and fell, a hundred miles' journey equaled twice or thrice that of a route taken across flatter country.

Lord Zandru had no numbers to offer to Maram. but he did try to encourage him, saying, 'There is a road that leads from the Lion's Gate through the Ice Mountains to the Rajabash River.'

'The Ice Mountains — oh, excellent!' Maram said. 'I suppose the peaks there did not acquire their name by accident? No? I thought not. Well, I hope it is a good road.'

'As good as any in Kaash,' Lord Zandru told him. He turned toward me. 'If the weather holds, you should have time to make the march and meet up with your uncle south of Harban. When the Waashians learn of this, they will either have to retreat back to Waas or face defeat.'

'Defeat,' I murmured. It had come that time in our meal when the plates of food were taken away and pitchers of beer set on the table. 'But can there be a defeat without defeat?

'What do you mean, King Valamesh?' Lord Zandru asked, fixing me with a puzzled look.

'Is the road you spoke of the only one that leads to Harban?'

'Well no — there is a track around the backside of Mount Ihsan that gives out to the north of Harban. But you could never get a wagon over it, and even the horses would have a hard work of that route.'

'But it is passable, is it not?'

'It is — but why would you want to pass that way? It would add twenty miles to your journey.'

'Oh, no!' Maram said to me with sudden understanding. 'I hope you're not thinking what I think you're thinking.. Sire, isn't it enough to defeat the Waashians? Or turn them back?'

'No, it is not enough,' I said. 'Not nearly enough.'

I turned to look at Kane, sitting to my right. His black eyes glistered with the same fire I felt blazing inside me.

'Tomorrow,' I said to Lord Zandru, 'I would ask you to lead us toward Harban and the track that you have told of. We must march like the very wind.'

We all drank to that; in short order Maram downed not only one large mug of beer, but three more as well. His voice had begun to thicken as he came up to me and said, 'All right, my daring friend, tomorrow we will march — the beginning of the last leg of the march we've been making toward that place that we're loath to speak of. You know where I mean. That very, inevasible, inevitable place. I can see it, can't you? Well, I've promised to follow you there, and I will.'

With that he drank another mug of the golden-brown Kaashan beer, and then another. The Kaashan and Meshian knights regarded his capacity for holding his drink with great respect, and Maram took an obvious pride in this. But they would respect him even more, he must have known, if he stopped himself from drinking himself into a stupor that would slow him down the next day of impair his ability to fight. And so, finally, knowing himself as well as he did, he pushed his froth-stained mug away from him. And in his loud, beery voice, he announced: 'I've drunk to our commit-ment to reaching the end of the road, and that is the end. . for me. For Maram Marshayk. the end of brandy and beer. This promise I make, upon my honor, in respect of yours: Sar Maram will take no more drink until Morjin is defeated!'

Lord Noldashan and Joshu Kadar — and many others — cheered Maram's sacrifice, and not a few made similar pledges of their own. But I had already marched with Maram for too many miles to take too much encouragement from his new vow. I caught Master Juwain looking at me as if to ask: 'Can a fish give up swimming in water?'

The next morning, Lord Yulsun sent a messenger galloping ahead of us to inform King Talanu to expect us on the battlefield near the ides of Marud. Then I commanded my captains to form up the warriors, and I led them out of the Lion's Gate and up the road toward Harban.

For the next nine days we marched at a brutal pace. The road, while not quite as sound as those that my father had maintained, was built of good stone and well-drained against the frequent summer rains that came up and drenched the forest spread over most of Kaash. The road led around the curves of high mountains, through green, grassy valleys and up and over the sides of tree-covered hills. The Kaashans made a hard living from the farms carved out of this rugged country, and had little food to spare a foreign and hungry army. But what little they had, they gave to us in order that we might preserve our stores for our march and the coming battle. In village after village, they welcomed us with open hearts and cheered us on; in a little town called Yarun, they urged upon us leaves of the khakun bush. The bitter green leaves, when chewed, would impart great stamina and strength to a man, or so they said.

Great strength we all needed. While I tried to take care with my men's feet, to say nothing of their legs, we