Diamond Warriors

known save one, he was the largest, not in size, for that distinction belonged to Aradhul of the Ymanir. but in his character and his vast, soaring sense of himself. It seemed that the entire steppe, stretching from the Morning Mountains to the Nagarshath range of the White Mountains, could not contain him. And as for his person, he was no small man. He stood taller than even myself and most Valari; bands of muscle bulged out from his bare, massive arms, encircled with gold. He had the neck of a bull and hands as strong as a bear's paws. As he crushed me close to him in a ferocious embrace. I smelled lion: in the black fur that trimmed his gold-embroidered doublet and upon his breath. Earlier, as I learned, Sajagax had put an arrow into a huge, black-maned lion at the unbelievable distance of four hundred yards. To celebrate this feat, he had eaten the lion's uncooked heart. Streaks of blood still stained the gray mustache that drooped down beneath his rocklike chin; his harsh face had split open with the widest of smiles. His eyes, as brilliantly blue as sapphires, seemed to take delight in all life's zest and cruelty — and most of all that night, I thought, in me.

'Valashu Elahad!' he shouted in a voice that rolled out like a clap of thunder. 'King Valamesh, now, Victor of the Battle of Shurkar's Notch, Vanquisher of the Enemy at the Seredun Sands — and Warlord of the Valari!'

For a while he stood calling out my other successes mainly those won through force of arms against Morjin or his allies. Then he turned to greet those who accompanied me: King Viromar! Duke Rezu! Duke Gorador! Prince Thubar! Lord Tomavar! Lord Tanu! Lord Avijan!. '

And so it went, Sajagax stepping forward to clasp hands and welcome us. When I presented Abrasax and the rest of the Seven, he cocked his great head to one side as if looking for secrets that he thought they must conceal. And he said: 'Master Juwain, we are well met again, wizard! If the others of your order have such prowess as you with the magic crystals, then they will surely work marvels against our enemy.'

Then he came up to Bemossed. For nearly a minute he remained motionless as if caught by the deeper marvel of Bemossed's soft brown eyes. He reached out a blunt finger to trace the lines of the black cross tattooed on Bemossed's forehead. And he called out, 'This is the one that we have been waiting for! The Shining One

— I know it is he! With him riding with us, I care not if Morjin commands a million men!'

Most of the Sarni warriors, gathered in close, looked upon Bemosscd with awe lighting up their harsh faces; but others did not. Although the Sarni could be the most hospitable of people, several of Sajagax's captains seemed not to approve of their chief-lain's open touching of men whom they scorned as outiand kradaks — even if one of them happened to be the Maitreya. They stood back in their fierce pride as Sajagax remembered his duties and in turn presented them: 'Urtukar! Baldarax! Yaggod! Braggod! Tringax!'

Although none of these famed warriors could be said to have been made from quite the same mold as Sajagax. each seemed cut from the same cloth. They were big men bearing scars on their faces and the naked limbs of their thickly muscled bodies. They wore a great wealth of gold in the chains hanging down from their necks. To all, and especially each other, they glared out a challenge in their cold blue eyes and fearsome countenances.

'Braggod, look!' a giant named Yaggod called out as he pointed past Bemossed. 'He returns, as I said he would! It is Five-Horned Maram!'

Braggod, a red-faced man with a thick yellow mustache hanging down to his chest, nodded his head to Maram with a quick snap of his neck and a sullen stare. He did not need Yaggod — or anyone — to remind him how Maram once had downed five great horns of beer to defeat him in a drinking contest.

'It is Five-Horned Maram!' Tringax said. 'Though who would recognize him, so thin and wearing a suit of Valari diamonds?'

'Thin or not,' Yaggod said, 'I'd bet that he could still hold enough beer for any three men.'

Tringax, a handsome young man with a saber cut marking his chin, smiled coolly at Braggod and said, 'Perhaps three such as Braggod.'

Braggod glowered at Tringax as if he contemplated stringing his great, double-curved bow to put an arrow through Tringax's mouth. Then he cast Maram a haughty look and said. 'It was luck that the kradak remained standing when I tripped. Fortune will favor me the next time we hold horns together.' 'I would bet against that,' Yaggod said.

'Would you?' Braggod shot back. 'What would you bet, then? Your second wife? Now Tala is a stout enough woman, and she breeds well, as I'll admit, but I have wives enough and — ' 'I would bet my horse,' Yaggod broke in. 'Your sorrel?'

'Are you mad? Jaalii is worth any ten of your horses, and like my own brother. But I would bet my white, Basir, whom I won in battle with the Marituk. Against my pick of your horses.'

While Braggod stood considering Yaggod's wager, he looked doubtfully at Maram. My best friend waited just to my left to see how this mostly amicable testing would play out. He licked his lips in anticipation of another deep taste of the potent Sarni beer — or so I thought.

'I say,' Sajagax called out, stepping up to Maram, 'that the Champion of the Five Horns could drink down any man — maybe even myself! But I also say that this is no night for duels. Such things can wait until we defeat the Red Dragon!'

'Does that mean,' Maram asked him, 'that we are to sit with you and there is to be no beer?'

'No beer?' Sajagax cried out. 'Does the sky have no sun? Of course we shall have beer tonight! And meat, and the best of company — and we shall talk of the Shining One's coming among us and how to put our arrows and swords through the Red Dragon's filthy heart!'

And so it was. I sat in close with Sajagax to his right around the main Ire, as did Bemossed, whom Sajagax insisted take the place next to him on his left. King Viromar and a few of my captains joined us there, too, along with Sajagax's captains and the Seven. A fat old warrior with saber scars splitting his gray mustache and cheeks positioned himself straight across the fire from Sajagax. Sajagax presented him as Xadharax: the chieftain of the Adirii tribe. Xadharax, as I saw, had gained his great girth from his love of beer, buttered bread and huge portions of fatty meat which he downed with quick stabs of his knife and great gusto.

Sajagax, true to his word, provided us with much meat: roasted antelope and hams of wild pig; sagosk steaks and ostrakat wings and the much-prized livers of the red gazelle. And yellow rushk cakes, too, and salted milk curds, and as much beer as a man could reasonably want to drink — even such as Maram and Braggod. I listened as Yaggod made a wager with Tringax as to which of their new wives would bear children first, and to other bits of conversation. And then, when we had finished our feast, it came time to discuss more important things.

'Morjin has certainly marched south after burning Tria,' Sajagax told me in his great, rumbling voice, 'We've had reports out of Alonia. The Dragon army moves along the Poru, and not the Nar Road, and so his first objective must be to attack us here before falling against the Nine Kingdoms.'

I nodded my head at this. 'But how far south has he come, then?' 'That, only the eagles know. But I have sent Atara and the Manslayers up the Poru to watch for his army.'

At the concern that gathered in my chest like a great, knotted fist, Sajagax slapped my shoulder and said, 'Do not worry about my granddaughter. She is a Manslayer, and none can move across the Wendrush with such stealth. Or, if discovered, flee with such speed.'

'Morjin,' I said, smiling grimly as I remembered his invasion of Mesh, 'can strike quickly, if pressed.'

'Perhaps. But the Dragon might have been slowed by a rebel-lion in the Aquantir. We had a rumor of this, too.'

'With half a million men behind him,' Tringax put in, 'the Dragon's army will move as slowly as a sagosk herd.'

'But he cannot have a half million men!' Yaggod said. 'He cannot feed so many!'

'He can if he slays every sagosk and antelope between the Long Wall and the Detheshaloon!'

'No — that's impossible,' Braggod countered. 'I'd wager that his army will starve coming across the Wendrush.' 'Will you? What will you wager, then? Your third wife?'

Sajagax allowed his captains to argue on in like manner for a while. Then he raised up his great bow, so thick with wrapped sinew and stiff that almost no one except himself could bend it. And he called out, 'I care not about our enemy's numbers, so long as we have arrows enough for each of them!'

At this, I nodded at Lord Harsha, sitting farther around the edge of the firepit. And Lord Harsha said, 'We had hoped to help with the matter of arrows.'

Then he told Sajagax of the wagon loads of birch and arrows that we had brought with us to his