Crusade

fermented mare's milk.' He shuddered and licked his lips. 'Some men love it. I have yet to acquire even a tolerance for the nasty stuff.'

Only after both Azoun and Koja had drunk did Chanar lift his goblet to salute Yamun. Through all of this, the khahan watched Azoun closely. Finally Yamun himself gulped down what was left of the kumiss in the skull-cup, then returned it to the servant. The two young men put Abatai's skull back in its wrappings of silk, returned it and the golden goblet to the chest, and hurried away.

Yamun asked Koja what the king had used as a toast. When the bald man told him, the khahan frowned. 'I am emperor of all peoples, Azoun of Cor-meer,' he rumbled. 'I will prove that to you tomorrow when I empty out your skull and make it like Abatai's.'

Hesitantly Koja relayed the statement. Azoun paused for a moment, then stood. 'Tell your master that my troops will not surrender. Let your army meet us tomorrow, then. We will be waiting.'

'Perhaps I should kill you now,' Yamun replied. As Koja voiced the threat, Chanar reached for his curved sword.

Azoun wished in that instant for Vangerdahast to be well and at his side. He had only accepted the khahan's invitation because he believed the royal wizard could extricate him from a situation such as this one. He let that hope pass quickly, however, and steeled himself for his fate. 'If you kill me here it is proof that you fear my armies.'

Chanar and Batu both stood and drew their swords as soon as the historian had finished the reply. Scuttling backward like a crab, Koja hurried away from the circle of men. Yamun shouted, and ten of his black-armored guards entered the tent. The khahan remained seated; his face did not reveal any anger. He issued another order, and both of his generals spun around to look at him, surprise on their faces.

Immediately Batu Min Ho sheathed his sword and bowed to Yamun. The Shou glanced at Azoun as he made his way from the yurt, but said nothing more. Chanar Khan, however, rattled off a string of questions. The Tuigan general's face was red, and he gestured menacingly with his sword at Azoun.

With a grunt, Yamun finally raised himself from his throne and shouted at Chanar. The general bowed deeply, then backed out of the yurt. His face held an odd mixture of anger and contrition.

Koja stood, walked to the khahan's side, and asked him a question, too softly for Azoun to hear. Yamun leaned close to the Khazari and replied. The historian nodded, then faced Azoun. 'The audience is over, Your Highness,' he announced formally. 'You may gather your men and leave. I will escort you away from our camp.'

Azoun bowed stiffly to the khahan. Yamun nodded in reply, then said something to Koja. The bald historian smiled and whispered his answer to the warlord. Azoun waited politely, then followed the Khazari from the yurt. In turn, the king was followed by the ten black-garbed Tuigan soldiers. Within a few minutes, Thom, Vangerdahast, and the Cormyrian guards joined him, and they were quickly on their way out of the Tuigan camp.

The royal wizard was still unconscious, slung unceremoniously over his horse. Thom talked at length about the Tuigan shamans and the unusual rites they'd performed over Vangerdahast.

'The Tuigan stumbled across this magic-dead area a day or two ago,' the bard said from horseback. 'The wizards from Thay all left as soon as they'd learned the khahan intended to stay here until he met with you.'

Koja, who rode on the opposite side of Azoun from Thom, nodded his agreement to the bard's statement, then noted, 'Yamun does not trust sorcery, so he wasn't sorry that the Red Wizards went home.' When he saw he had both Thom's and Azoun's attention, he added, 'Magic has little place in Tuigan culture.'

Azoun found it surprising that Koja would reveal that information to him, since he could certainly turn it to his army's advantage. Still, the Tuigan's confidence in the power of mundane swords and arrows was grounded in months of victory. The king knew that his wizards alone couldn't win the war for him.

By the time Azoun and his escort reached the spot where they'd first met Koja, the sun was low in the cloud-filled sky to the west.

'I am happy to have met you, Your Highness,' Koja said, bowing in his saddle. 'It is sad that we will not meet again in this world.'

Azoun heard the sincerity in the Khazari's words and wondered how the obviously peaceful man found life with the Tuigan bearable. A bit sadly, the king returned the compliment, then turned to go. Before he got his horse pointed toward his camp, however, Azoun remembered a question that had been plaguing him since he'd left the khahan's yurt.

Wheeling his horse to face the historian, the king called out, 'A moment, Koja. I have one last question for you. What did the khahan tell you after he'd dismissed the generals?'

The bald man maneuvered his horse and trotted it up to the king. 'As I warned you, offering any insult to the khahan is death,' the historian said simply. 'I asked Yamun why he did not kill you for your insult.'

'And his answer?'

'The khahan told me that what you said could not be an insult unless it proved to be true,' Koja replied. He shrugged. 'I don't understand the difference, but tomorrow the khahan intends to show he is no coward, that he does not fear your army.'

With Koja's words echoing in his mind, Azoun reined in his horse and faced it back toward the west. Again, the king set a brisk pace along the Golden Way. All the way back to camp he wondered if the patchwork army that awaited his return could ever be a match for the horsewarriors.

Like most of the Army of the Alliance, Razor John waited anxiously for King Azoun to return from the Tuigan camp. With overworked, cramped fingers, he crafted arrows for the upcoming battle. That work couldn't keep his mind occupied, so he listened to the other weaponsmiths exchange rumors about the Tuigan camp.

'Well, I heard they sacrifice someone to their dark god every day at highsun,' an arrowsmith said authoritatively. He looked up from the arrowhead he was fashioning and turned to the decrepit bowyer sitting next to him. 'I heard that from the mouth of the Cormyrian captain who was in the Tuigan camp.'

'Could be why they killed the three other envoys Azoun sent,' the bowyer ventured casually without taking his eyes off the yew longbow he was finishing. The craftsman's hands shook, but from what John could see, the bow was expertly fashioned.

'I thought only two envoys went,' John corrected. He took a finished arrowhead from a pile to his right and fastened it to a shaft.

The arrowsmith snorted. 'Shows how much you know, fletcher. I bet you haven't even heard about the babies the barbarians had spitted on pikes.'

Though he thought that particular rumor to be false, since from all reports the Tuigan didn't fight with pikes, Razor John decided to keep silent. He'd learned soon after joining the army that it was practically impossible to argue with a gossipmonger. Fact was something such men falsely cited so often that they couldn't recognize its true form even in the most simplistic of debates.

Shaking his head, the aged bowyer took out a long, heavy string of hemp and fitted it to the nocks at either end of the yew stave. 'Them damned horsemen done far worse than killing infants when they overran Tammar.' He tested the bow's pull and pretended to sight along an imaginary arrow. 'I can't wait to get at those monsters.'

The arrowsmith grunted his agreement, then continued to list the atrocities of which he'd heard the Tuigan accused. Many of the various grisly crimes were based upon the reports of 'reliable men who'd been there when it happened.' The most outrageous claims were mitigated by the fact that they came only second- or third-hand to the arrowsmith.

Tiring of his co-workers babble, John let his mind wander. Unsurprisingly, the first thing that pushed into his thoughts was Kiri. The fletcher had grown increasingly fond of the daughter of Borlander the Trollslayer as the days passed. Had the timing been better, he would even have considered asking her to marry him, but the chances of one of them dying on the crusade were too great to set any such plans before the end of the fighting.

Snatches of other conversations, the ones taking place between the various clutches of workmen preparing for the battle, intruded on John's contemplation of his future with Kiri. Fletchers, bowyers, and arrowsmiths surrounded Razor John almost completely, but the armorers and sword-smiths weren't so far away that he couldn't hear the ring of their hammers or smell the sharp smoke from their fires. He listened to the steady, clanging beat of hammers on hot metal and tried to let the familiar sound drown out all others. It was a warm late afternoon, even for the high summer month of Flamerule, and John was soon nodding off.