Diamond Warriors

King Talanu ordered a great canopy set up above the banks of the raging Rajabash and three chairs placed beneath it in the shade of the sun. I watched him ride out from his lines toward this meeting place. My uncle was now an old man — almost too old to hold a horse's reins and wield a sword, let alone command an army. Despite the pains of his joints and old wounds, however, he held himself proud and straight as if he would let nothing in the world bend him. He was thick through the shoulders and chest as my brother Karshur had been, and I had never known a man with such large, strong hands — except, perhaps, for Sajagax. Nineteen brightly-colored battle ribbons festooned his shining white hair, and I knew of no other warrior in the Morning Mountains who sported so many. Over his diamond armor, he wore a bright blue surcoat showing the white tiger of Kaash.

'Greetings, nephew!' he called out as our horses drew closer to each other. 'Welcome and bless you, honored King Valamesh!'

I dismounted and would have helped him do the same if he hadn't waved me off. I could feel a sharp stabbing pain in his shoulder, elbow and crippled right foot as he struggled down from his horse. Two men — Prince Viromar and Lord Yarwan — hovered near him, but he eschewed their attentions. With difficulty he walked over beneath the canopy and sat down in the middle chair. He beckoned for me to take the one to his right.

'This is a great day,' he said to me. 'Perhaps the greatest in Kaashan history since Kaash and Mesh threw back the invasion from Delu a thousand years ago.'

At the time he spoke of, Delu had been nearly the strongest Kingdom on Ea instead of one of the weakest. In fact, it had been one of Maram's own ancestors, King Kasturn, who had led Delu to her age of ascendence. Maram seemed to take an uneasy pride in this, for he hung back behind me with my captains and other friends, and he gazed at King Talanu with conflicting emotions lighting up his face.

'I have things to tell you before King Sandarkan arrives, King Talanu said in his straightforward way. 'First, I regret with all my heart not marching to Mesh when your father called for us to come. I did not think we could arrive in time — and we couldn't have, as events proved. But more, King Sandarkan made maneuvers against Kaash, and I felt that I couldn't let him ravage my kingdom. I was wrong. No Valari, not even King Sandarkan, would commit the atrocities that Morjin did against Mesh. It took the torture of my own sister and too many of your countrymen for me to see that Morjin is our true enemy. Even though I knew it, in my heart, I was afraid to fight him.'

Here he placed his great, scarred hand across his chest and looked at me. And his captains, standing behind him nearer the river, looked at him with the poignant reverence they held for their old king.

'Anyone who knows the Red Dragon,' I said to my uncle, 'is afraid to fight him. But what other choice do we have?'

'What choice, indeed? At least we won't have to fight the Waashians, though I must tell you that many of my knights looked forward to washing their swords in our enemy's blood.'

Behind me I could almost feel my other uncle, Prince Viromar, directing his rancor toward the Waashians in their diamond block out in the middle of the field, and so it was with my cousin, Lord Yarwan, a bold-looking man with a great hawk's nose and a bloody eye for vengeance. And with several other of the Kaashan lords standing there, too. All of us, I thought, waited to see how long it would take King Sandarkan to force himself to ride out and face his defeat.

'But it is best to avoid bloodshed, as I have always said,' King Talanu told me. He shifted about in his chair the better to look into my eyes. 'When Lord Yulsua's messenger arrived to tell us that you were coming, we all rejoiced, for victory seemed at hand. But I must tell you that when your Lord Harsha confirmed that you had taken the route around the mountain, many despaired.'

Lord Harsha, standing off to my right as he conferred with Lord Tanu, bowed his head to me as if to inform me that our baggage train had arrived safely behind the Kaashans' lines.

'We nearly despaired as well,' I said to him. Then I told him something of our journey and Maram's great feat in cutting a way across Mount Ihsan's slope.

'A great feat, indeed, King Talanu said. 'And I mean the whole of your march: it will go down as one of history's great ones. As will this victory today. What you have done is both brilliant and bold.'

I bowed my head to him, and looked at Maram, Master Juwain, Master Storr and Abrasax. 'I have had great help from great companions,'

Then I turned to gaze off down by the river, where Kane stood talking to one of the men who had ridden out with King Talanu from the Kaashans' lines. This stranger wore a stained traveling cloak instead of diamond armor, and was too short and thick to be a Valari. Although I could not get a good look at his face, he seemed familiar to me.

'Ah, at last!' Maram's voice boomed out as he pointed toward the Waashians' army. 'He comes!'

From between the warriors forming one wall of the Waashians' square, a short column of knights rode out across the field. A herald flying the white banner of truce kept pace with another holding up King Sandarkan's standard: two crossed silver swords against a black field. King Sandarkan, a tall reedy man, wore a black surcoat emblazoned with the same charge. Three of his captains — Lords Telsar, Rayadan and Araj — followed behind him. King Sandarkan led them straight up to our canopy, where he dismounted and sat down on the chair to King Talanu's left.

My uncle spent only the barest moments dispensing with the formal politenesses. He greeted King Sandarkan, as did I, and he asked after the health of King Sandarkan's family. Then he barked out at him in his gruff, old voice: 'Are we agreed that you have come to surrender?'

King Sandarkan's thin face tightened with such tension that it seemed his skin collapsed around his bones. And then he gritted his teeth and forced out, 'I am here to offer my army's surrender.'

'Good. Then let us agree upon the terms.'

'Let us agree,' King Sandarkan said, in his dry, raspy voice, 'but I can tell you that I will never ask my warriors to surrender their swords or their armor.'

'That has not been asked, and may not be. But you must know that you are in no position to insist on the point.'

'My army,' King Sandarkan said, pointing out into the field, 'still holds position. And we will fight to the death before giving up our swords.'

'We are met here so that we might avoid needless deaths. But since you have made your surrender, you must know that you must give up something.'

'What is it you want, then?'

'First,' King Talanu said, holding up a blunt finger, 'that Waas pay Kaash a weight of diamonds to compensate for the expense of my kingdom being threatened and having to prepare for battle these last two years.'

'How great a weight?'

'A bushel of bluestars. Or three hundred bushels of armor-grade whites.'

'Very well, then.'

King Talanu pulled at one of the ribbons tied to his long white hair as he studied King Sandarkan. He said, 'Second: You will agree to make common cause with Kaash if there should be war between Kaash and Athar. Eight thousand warriors you will agree to lead to Kaash's defense.'

'Very well — Athar is Waas's enemy, too.'

'Third,' King Talanu said, 'you will recognize Kaash's reclaiming of the Arjan Land. You will sign a paper stating that the Arjan Land is to belong to Kaash until the end of the world — or until the Star People return to earth.'

Now King Sandarkan hesitated. His long, predatory face fairly trembled with old grievances and desires. He shouted out: 'But the Arjan Land is ours! My own ancestors shed their blood so that — '

'This term,' King Talanu said, cutting him off, 'is not subject to dispute. Every warrior you have led onto the field today will shed his blood if Waas's king does not agree to it.'

King Sandarkan closed his eyes as he breathed in deeply in a meditation exercise. Then he finally looked at King Talanu. and he croaked out, 'Very well — the Arjan Land is yours.'

I sensed my uncle wanting to smile in triumph. But he would not allow himself such petty gloating. Instead, he bowed his head to acknowledge King Sandarkan's great sacrifice in giving up at long last the Arjan Land. Then he delivered his fourth term: 'During the course of your reign and for so long as you live, you shall forswear waging war upon Mesh.'