Hawkwood's Voyage

commissioned the fleet to sail west.”

“To where? Hebrion is the westernmost kingdom of the world.”

“Exactly, sire. To where? They did not touch upon any of the other Ramusian states as far as I know. It may be they made landfall in the Brenn Isles or the Hebrionese, but there are rumours flying round the Hebrian capital.”

“Rumours of what?”

“It is said that the fleet sailed with a Royal warrant for the setting up of a new colony, and it carried in addition to its passengers and a complement of soldiers everything that might be needed when starting a settlement in a hitherto uninhabited land.”

“Orkh! Are you saying—?”

“Yes, my Sultan. The Ramusians have discovered a land in the far west, somewhere in the Great Western Ocean, and they are claiming it for themselves.”

Aurungzeb sank back on the bed. Orkh let his Sultan sit in silence for a few moments; he could see the wheels turning.

“How reliable is this information, Orkh?” the Sultan asked at last.

“I am not a peddler of hearsay, sire. My informants know that to feed me false news is the best way to ensure a swift end. The rumours have been investigated, and they have substance.”

Another pause.

“We cannot let it be, of course,” the Sultan said thoughtfully. “We must test the veracity of your rumours, and if they possess the substance you say they do we shall outfit our own expedition and stake our claim. But Ostrabar is not a sea power. We have no ships.”

“Nalbeni?”

“I trust them less than I do Ramusians. No, this must be done further from home. The Sea-Merduks of Calmar. Yes. I will commission them to send a fleet into the west, commanded by my own officers of course.”

“It will be expensive, my Sultan.”

“After Aekir, my credit is good anywhere,” Aurungzeb said with a chuckle. “You have agents in Alcaras. See to it, Orkh. I will select the officers of this expedition personally.”

“As my Sultan wishes. I have one boon to ask of him, however.”

“Ask! Your information merits reward.”

“I wish to be included in this expedition. I wish to sail west.”

Aurungzeb stared closely at the hideously inhuman face of his court mage. “I need you here.”

“My apprentice Batak, whom you know, is well able to take my place, and he does not have the same disability that afflicts me.”

“Are you seeking a cure in the west, or oblivion, Orkh?”

“A cure if I can find one—oblivion if I cannot.”

“Very well. You shall sail with the expedition.”

Orkh faded back into misty shadow as the vizier came into the room, bent low, eyes averted.

“My Sultan, the Nalbenic ambassadors are here. They await your inimitable presence.”

Aurungzeb waved a hand. “I’ll be there directly.”

The vizier left, still bowed. Aurungzeb stared around the chamber.

“Orkh? Are you there, Orkh?” But there was no answer. The mage had gone.

T HE first snows had come to the Searil valley. Shahr Baraz had felt them in his tired old bones before he had even thrown off the furs. His head ached. It had been too long since he had slept out under the stars like his forebears, the chieftains of the eastern steppes.

Mughal already had the fire going. It was almost colourless in the bright morning light and the snow glare. Melted slush sizzled around the burning wood.

“Winter arrives early this year,” Mughal said.

Shahr Baraz climbed to his feet. Darkness danced at the corners of his vision until he blinked it away. He was almost eighty-four years old.

“Pass me the skin, Mughal. My blood needs some heat in it.”

He drank three gulps of searing mare’s-milk spirit, and his limbs stopped shuddering. Warmth again.

“I had a look over the hill as the sun came up,” Mughal said. “They have pulled back the camps to the reverse slopes and are busy entrenching there.”

“A winter camp,” Shahr Baraz said. “Campaigning is finished for this year. Nothing else will happen until the spring.”

“Jaffan’s loyalty is to you, my Khedive.”

“Jaffan will obey the orders of Orkhan or he will find his head atop a spear before too long. He will not be left in command for he was too close to me. No, another khedive will be sent out. I hope, though, that Jaffan will not suffer for letting two old men slip away into the night.”

“Who will the new khedive be, you think?”

“Who knows? Some creature of Aurungzeb’s who is more malleable than I. One who will put his own ambitions above the lives of his men. The Searil will flow scarlet ere we take that fortress, Mughal.”

“But it will fall in the spring. It will fall. And where will we be then?”

“Eating yoghurt in a felt hut on the steppes.”

Mughal guffawed, then bent his face to the fire and nudged the kettle into the flames. They would have steaming kava to warm them before they broke camp and continued their journey.

“Will you turn your back on it so easily?” he asked.

Shahr Baraz was silent for a long time.

“I am of the old Hraib,” he said at last. “This war which we have begun will usher the world into a new age. Men like myself and John Mogen were not destined to be leaders in the times to come. The world has changed, and is changing yet. The Merduk people are no longer the fierce steppe horsemen of my youth; their blood is mixed with many who were once Ramusian, and the old nomadic times are only a memory.

“Even the way of the warrior itself is changing. Gunpowder counts for more than courage. Arquebus balls take no heed of rank. Honour counts for less and less. Soon generals will be artisans and engineers rather than soldiers, and war will be a thing of equations and mathematics. That is not the way I have waged it, or ever will.

“So yes: I will turn my back on it, Mughal. I will leave it to the younger men who come after me. I have seen a Merduk host march through the streets of Aekir; my place in the story is assured. I have that to take with me. Now I will ride east to the land of my fathers, there to see the limitless plains of Kambaksk and Kolchuk, the birthplace of our nation, and there I will leave my bones.”

“I would come with you, if I may,” Mughal said.

The terrible old man smiled beneath the twin tusks of his moustache.

“I would like that. A companion shortens a journey, it is said. And it will be a long journey.”

“But it is the last journey,” Mughal murmured, and poured steaming kava for them both.

T ELL me what you see,” Macrobius said.

They stood on the battlements of the citadel of Ormann Dyke, a cluster of officers and soldiers and one old man who was missing his eyes. Corfe stared out at the white, empty, snow-shrouded land beyond the flinty torrent of the Searil river.

“There is nothing there. The camps have been abandoned. Even the trenches and walls they delved and reared are hard to see under the snow; mere shadows running across the face of the hills. Here and there is the remnant of a tent, a strew of wreckage covered with snow. They have gone, Holiness.”

“What is that smell on the air, then?”

“They gathered their dead under the terms of the burial truce, and burned them on a pyre in one of the further valleys. It is smoking yet, a hill of ashes.”

“Where have they gone, Corfe? Where did that great host go to?”

Corfe looked at his commander. Martellus shrugged.

“They have retreated into winter camp, a league or more from the walls.”