The Diamond Warriors

Maram thought about this as he studied Sar Shivalad, Sar Kanshar and Viku Aradam, who sat bunched together and looking back at him. And he muttered, ‘Well, if they don’t see me as a coward, they should. It can’t be long, you know. Today, or tomorrow, or at the next urgent situation, whatever it is, I’ll finally have had enough. I’ll turn my back and flee, as any sane man would, and then your people will finally see what Sar Maram Marshayk is made of.’

‘No, Maram, you are –’

‘It is too much!’ he said to me. ‘Do you understand? Too, too damn much! I don’t want to be anyone’s hero.’

And with that, he wheeled his horse about, and rode slowly back to rejoin the others.

Then I took my place again at the head of the column of knights jammed into the pass. After perhaps a half an hour, I caught sight of a sparkling light ahead of us. Soon the knights of Lord Tanu’s vanguard came closer, and the sun’s reflection off their diamond armor shone with an eye-burning brilliance. I could not, at this distance, make out Lord Tanu’s face, but I could see quite clearly his black, double-headed eagle banner held high and the same emblem emblazoned on his surcoat. As well I made out the charges of his two greatest captains: the red bull of Lord Eldru and Lord Ramjay’s white tiger. I estimated the number of knights riding behind him at three hundred, which accorded with our reports. And behind this mass of mounted men with their long lances and triangular shields marched the rest of Lord Tanu’s warriors, some four thousand strong. I could see practically the whole of the army, strung out around the curve of the lake like a mile-long strand of diamonds.

Lord Tanu, of course, had an equally good view of us. He must have seen Sar Vikan’s white banner clearly enough, for he made no move to deploy his warriors into a battle formation, nor did he change his slow and relentless march toward us. The silver bells tied to the boots of the thousands of warriors that he led sent a high-pitched jingling into the air. This eerie sound, tinkling out with a terrible beat, had often unnerved the enemies of the Valari. And sometimes the Valari themselves. I remembered hearing it before on the battlefield of the Red Mountain in Waas. I reminded myself that we faced no enemy, but only proud Meshian warriors who should be as brothers to us.

I could almost feel Maram sweating in his saddle behind me and the hearts of my companions beating more quickly as Lord Tanu rode forward. For a moment it seemed that he and his entire vanguard might keep on going and try to sweep us from the pass down into the lake. At the last moment, however, at a distance of only ten paces, he stopped his horse and held up his hand to call for a halt. The three hundred knights behind him ceased their march, as did the thousands of warriors behind them.

‘Lord Valashu Elahad,’ he called out to me formally in his sawlike voice, ‘we had heard that you had returned to Mesh, though we hoped you never would.’

Lord Tanu sat on a big horse as he regarded me with his small, black, deep-set eyes. At nearly sixty years of age, he still retained the suppleness and strength of a much younger warrior. Although not large in his body, his fighting spirit and skill at arms had almost always led him to prevail against his foes. He had a tight, sour face that did nothing to hide his irascible temperament. I had known this man all my life. I remembered my father telling me why he had chosen Lord Tanu as one of the two greatest captains of his army: because he was quick of mind and fearless in battle and as steady as a rock. My father also had counted on Lord Tanu always to tell him the blunt and painful truth.

‘It would have been better,’ he said to me, ‘if you had stayed in exile in whatever land you found to give you shelter. Your presence here is only a disturbance. And your purpose is vain – and in vain. We have heard of your call for men to gather to your standard. Promises to defeat the Red Dragon you have given, and people believe you. You remain a firebrand who incites impossible dreams.’

I could feel the knights near me waiting for me to gainsay him. But I did not wish to dispute him word for word and assertion with counter-assertion. And so I said to him, ‘My father always valued your counsel, Lord Tanu, hard though it sometimes might be to hear. But he would not have appreciated your claim to his throne.’

I sensed Lord Tanu’s face flushing with a hot surge of blood as he lowered his eyes in shame. Then, at his right side, Lord Eldru angrily shook his head. Long white hair flowed out from beneath his winged helm, and his stern, wrinkled face showed a great round scar where an enemy spear had pierced his jaw down through his throat and nearly killed him at the Culhadosh Commons. Finally, he spoke for Lord Tanu, saying, ‘Would your father have thought you more worthy of the crown? You, who deserted the castle in defiance of your father’s command?’

Next to him sat the iron-haired and iron-faced Lord Ramjay, and Sar Shagarth, a large master knight sporting a thick mustache and black beard rare among the Valari. They nodded their heads in agreement as Lord Eldru recited the same indictments that had been made against me after the Great Battle: that five years previously, in Waas, I had hesitated in slaying the enemy, and so could not be trusted to lead men. And that two years ago, in Tria, in a fit of wrath, I had slain the innocent Ravik Kirriland, who was not my enemy, and so I should be doubly mistrusted. And that on the Culhadosh Commons, my taking command of Lord Eldru’s reserve and waiting to attack had put the entire army at risk and should be taken as a proof of my recklessness.

‘A year ago,’ Lord Eldru said to me, ‘you left Mesh for lands unknown, and in that time, nothing has changed.’

Because I had previously defended my actions to these men, to little effect, I decided to let the past remain the past. But I must, I thought, at all costs speak for the future.

‘Everything has changed,’ I told them. ‘To begin with, we have found the Maitreya.’

Lord Tanu finally looked at me again as his harsh voice whipped out: ‘So you say, Lord Valashu. As you said once before when you claimed to be the Maitreya.’

‘Every man,’ I told him, ‘deserves a chance to be wrong once in his life. But I am not wrong about Bemossed.’

As I went on to tell of this man who had worked miracles of healing and other wonders, Lord Tanu listened intently. I held nothing back in my description of how Bemossed had given new life to a dying boy and had faced down Morjin’s ghul – and so overcame Morjin himself; I spoke with all the power and truthfulness that I could summon. My love for Bemossed, I thought, if not my words, touched something inside Lord Tanu and cracked open a hidden door. But he immediately tried to slam it shut again.

‘Maitreya or not,’ he said, ‘your claim for your latest quest has little to do with the problems that Mesh faces – nor does it help men to see the way clear to their solution.’

At this, Lord Avijan took umbrage, pointing at the knights behind Lord Tanu and calling out, ‘Is this, then, your solution to a divided realm? That you should march uninvited into my lands at the head of an army?’

‘If I had made request,’ Lord Tanu countered, ‘would you have made invitation?’

I felt the steel inside Lord Avijan heating up, as with a sword plunged into a bed of hot coals. He did not, however, let his anger cause him to misspeak. He merely stared at Lord Tanu and said with an icy calm, ‘You are always welcome in my castle, Lord Tanu. We will always try to keep a room open for you – though I’m sorry to say we cannot accommodate four thousand men.’

‘We heard that you accommodated a thousand easily enough, with more expected,’ Lord Tanu told him. ‘Such a gathering of warriors, so close to Waas, might cause King Sandarkan to worry that you are about to attack him. Indeed, my counselors worry that this might provoke him into attacking you.’

Here he nodded at Lord Eldru and Lord Ramjay, who nodded back.

Then Lord Avijan, forcing down a grim smile, said, ‘One would think that your four thousand warriors pose an even greater provocation.’

‘Perhaps they do. But at least if King Sandarkan is so provoked, we will have the strength to turn him back.’

‘I see,’ Lord Avijan said. ‘Then you marched here unheralded as a show of strength?’

Lord Tanu smiled sourly at this. ‘You understand, then. We must show King Sandarkan that Mesh’s warriors remain ready to march to any part of the realm at a moment’s notice and defend it. And we must know that our castles remain in good repair so that we can mount an effective defense, if need be. Your castle is critical to Mesh’s security.’

‘Then you have my assurance,’ Lord Avijan told him, ‘that my castle is in excellent repair. Her gates are strong, and we’ve plenty of oil to heat up and pour down upon attackers – plenty of arrows, too.’

Lord Tanu nodded at this as he pulled at one of the ribbons tied to his long hair. He looked at Lord Eldru, and then at Lord Ramjay and Sar Shagarth. Finally he turned back to Lord Avijan and told him, ‘Surely you can understand that we must see this for ourselves.’

His insistence angered Sar Vikan, who shook the white banner of truce at him, and shouted, ‘See for yourself then as you stand beneath the battlements and bathe in burning oil!’

I tried to keep my face stern and still as Lord Avijan held up his hand to quiet him. Then Lord Avijan told Lord Tanu: ‘You do not have the right to inspect my lands, or my leave to cross them. And you do not have the right to be king.’

A quiet fell over the knights gathered on the road, and the only sound to be heard was the flapping of a swan’s wings far out on the lake. Then Lord Avijan said that Mesh must have a king who could unite the whole of the realm and then gain victory over the other Valari kingdoms – or win an alliance with them – in order to oppose Morjin.

At this Lord Tanu nodded his head at Lord Avijan, and said, ‘Your arguments are good ones, but it is not Valashu Elahad who should be king. He will only divide the realm further, for the reasons that have already been stated. Also, he is too taken with heroics. And he is too young.’

Lord Harsha, from on top of his horse behind me, barked out, ‘You have known Lord Valashu all his life, and you still don’t know him. And you don’t know yourself, if you think you should be king in his stead.’

‘My failings are many,’ Lord Tanu fired back, ‘and thank you for reminding me. Even as I grieve King Shamesh’s death, I wish that Lord Asaru had lived to wear his father’s ring. Or any of his brothers, save Lord Valashu, I would have wished see as king rather than myself. But fate is fate, and the world turns on. What are we to do? Lord Tomavar, as we all know, is too proud to be king. Too quick to take insult, too eager for glory and he loves war too much. A fine tactician, yes, but he is weak in strategy, and he does not listen to others’ counsel, and so what hope have we that he will lead us to victory in the wars soon to come? And you, Lord Avijan, have too little support to be king. Other claimants have less. Therefore it is upon me to take up a mantle I never sought.’

As the wind rose and bent the grasses along the side of the road, I sensed that he was speaking the truth – at least the truth as he saw it. Lord Tanu had realized all his ambitions as one of Mesh’s most renowned warriors and greatest lords: commander of half of my father’s army. My father had always counted him among the most faithful of his knights. I thought that he had no deep, driving desire to become king. But he was one of those men who reasoned relentlessly and flawlessly from unquestioned premises to reach a perfectly logical result that was dead wrong.

‘Only one man,’ he said, looking at me, ‘can be Mesh’s king.’

Each time he uttered this word, I sensed, he added another iron bar to the prison that he was building for himself.

‘Only one,’ I agreed, gazing back at him. I felt within myself a great power to use the valarda simply to batter down the doors of his will and bend him to my purpose.

‘Don’t look at me like that, Lord Elahad!’ he said to me. ‘As I have the best claim, it is upon me to do whatever must be done to make Mesh safe.’

He shot me a hard, pugnacious look, but I felt a hint of fear burn through him as well. I finally turned my gaze away from him. Battering down doors, I remembered, was Morjin’s way, not mine.

‘Four thousand three hundred warriors,’ I said, pointing behind him, ‘follow you. But five thousand stood for me upon the Culhadosh Commons.’

‘My claim is not solely of numbers. Do not delude yourself into thinking the warriors wish you to be king. Go back into exile, and Mesh will be the better for it.’

‘You speak for the warriors,’ I said, ‘but they have voices of their own. And wills. Release them from their pledges to you, and let them stand for whomever they will, and we shall see who will be king.’

Lord Tanu’s face tightened at this, and he told me, ‘At the Culhadosh Commons, five thousand stood for you – and eight thousand against. They have stood, and that is the law. It is decided.’

‘No law prevents them from standing again.’

‘It is pointless, Lord Elahad.’

‘Let the warriors decide,’ I told him.

Lord Tanu glanced behind me at Master Juwain, Atara and Liljana, and seemed to be looking for Kane, as well. And he said, ‘You keep strange company. You have a strange way about you, and nothing is stranger than the story people tell about you merely looking at the Alonian lord in Tria and somehow causing him to die.’

I gazed at the many knights gathered behind Lord Tanu. ‘I have not returned to Mesh to cause anyone to die – except Morjin and those who follow him. Release your warriors from their pledges to you that they might decide whether or not to follow me against the Red Dragon!’

Lord Tanu slowly shook his head at this like a bull preparing to charge. Then he called out to me: ‘Remove yourself from this road, and leave Mesh.’

I glanced down at the road’s paving stones, and I said, ‘My ancestors built this road, and my father saw to its maintenance. He would have wanted me to inspect it, when the time came. And he would not want me to ride off just because Lord Vishathar Tanu commanded it.’

Now Lord Tanu stared at me, in anger and dread. He pointed along the strip of land behind me, and barked out, ‘Our army marches through this pass!’

‘And here I stand!’

So saying, I dismounted, then gave my horse to the care of Sar Kanshar. I took a few steps toward Lord Tanu, out onto the bare road away from Sar Vikan and Joshu Kadar and the other knights accompanying me. They looked at me as if I had fallen mad, but I felt a great hope surging in them as well.

‘We will march,’ Lord Tanu said to me, ‘whether you stand or fall!’

I feared that I would fall, and soon. If Lord Tanu pressed his knights to move forward, jammed together in the narrow pass, one or more of their horses would inevitably knock me over, and then other horses would trample me to death.

‘If we cannot ride past you,’ Lord Tanu shouted, ‘we shall ride over you! I am not bluffing!’

‘Neither am I!’ I called back to him.

My reason told me that only I could be king of Mesh and find the way to defeat Morjin. But my heart cried out that if I died, I still might pass on the sacred sword of my dreams to others who would carry on the fight. Somehow, in the end, they would prevail. They must prevail, though it seemed impossible. Just as it seemed impossible that Lord Tanu would really command his knights to ride over me. Lord Tanu, though, did not make threats wantonly; I knew that he would let his knights’ horses drive me down to the road’s hard stones.

‘One last time, Lord Elahad, I’ll tell you to get off this road!’

I felt him steeling himself to press his knees against his horse and urge the great beast forward. Just then, from behind me, I heard the slap of boots against stone, as of someone running hard. I turned to see Estrella darting and weaving among the knights gathered behind me as she practically sprinted toward me. Daj followed close at her heels. I was never to learn how these two children found their way out of the castle; it seemed that once they had escaped, however, they had run the whole distance down to the pass. Estrella rushed up to my side, and threw her arms around me as she stood against me gasping for breath. Daj found his way to my other side, and his chest worked so hard to draw in air that it seemed his lungs might tear open. They looked up at Lord Tanu in defiance – and in fear, too.

‘What is this?’ Lord Tanu cried out to me. ‘Some trick of yours?’

In answer, I could only shake my head at him.

‘It is said,’ Lord Tanu cried out, ‘that these children accompanied you on your quest.’

In the way he gazed at Estrella, and then Daj, I wondered if he felt more keenly the loss of his two grandchildren, slaughtered when Morjin’s Red Knights had ravaged my father’s castle.

‘Well, this is no place for children,’ he continued. ‘Get them off the road!’

I moved to take hold of them, for I would not see either of them trampled to death, even for the sake of my dream. But then Daj took hold of my leg even as Estrella tightened her grip around my waist. Then, with a great and heavy sigh, Maram dismounted, too, and came forward to stand by me. So did Liljana, Master Juwain and Atara. At their show of courage, the knights behind me could do no less, and so Lord Avijan took his place on the road, along with Lord Harsha, Joshu Kadar, and everyone else.

‘I will remain with the Elahad!’ Joshu Kadar shouted, staring at Lord Tanu. He had no liking for this old man who had taken his young lady love away from him. ‘You won’t drive us away!’

‘I will remain, too!’ Sar Shivalad called out.

Estrella, locked on to me, gazed at Lord Tanu with no less defiance.

‘What is this?’ Lord Tanu cried out. ‘Must we ride over all of you?’

In the warmth of Estrella’s face pressed against my chest I felt her will to stand and die wherever I stood. So it was with my other companions and the knights who followed me, even Maram, who pressed up behind me and clasped his hand around my arm. Their hearts seemed to beat in unison like a single, great drum. In the immense silence that sounded out along the road above the lake, I gazed at Lord Tanu. And my heart filled with a wild and anguished love of life.

‘Ride, if you must,’ I said to him.

For a long time, he sat on top of his great warhorse staring down at me. He appeared at once sad, fearful and weighed down with a bittersweet longing. My companions drew in closer to me. I felt their élan passing into me and gathering in my eyes with a painful brightness. Lord Tanu stared and stared at me, and at last, a door inside him opened. Then his eyes grew all moist and glassy, like the waters of the lake.

‘I might have been wrong about you,’ he forced out in a harsh, thick voice. ‘I had thought you were vainglorious, like Lord Tomavar.’

He looked from Maram to Atara, and then at Lord Harsha, Lord Avijan and Joshu Kadar, still holding up my banner with the swan and stars. Then he said to me, ‘Too many adventurers are careless of their own lives, and those of others. But it might be that you are more like your father and grandfather. They would gladly have given their lives for the men who followed them – and did.’

I bowed my head at this, then so did Lord Tanu and everyone else. After a few moments, Lord Tanu turned to Lord Eldru and said, ‘Let us not ride any farther up this road today.’

He nodded at Lord Ramjay and Sar Shagarth, who nodded back at him. Then Lord Tanu said to Lord Avijan, standing a few paces from me: ‘We will take your word that your castle is well defended. But you should prepare your warriors to march forth from it within the week.’

‘And why is that?’ Lord Avijan asked him.

‘Because,’ Lord Tanu said, looking at me, ‘we shall call for a gathering of all the warriors in Mesh – even Lord Tomavar’s. Let it be as Valashu Elahad has said: all who have made pledges should be released from them. Let the warriors decide who shall be king!’

At this, Sar Vikan let loose a great cheer, which Jessu the Lion-Heart and Sar Shivalad and the other knights near me picked up and amplified, calling out: ‘Let the warriors decide!’

The knights who had pressed up close behind Lord Tanu must have sympathized with this sentiment, for they too repeated this cry. And then, like a command passed across a battlefield, the warriors drawn up in columns along the road shouted out that they should be allowed to stand for a new king. Their thousands of voices boomed out across the lake like a stroke of thunder.

‘Very well, then,’ Lord Tanu said, bowing his head to me. ‘Until the gathering, Lord Elahad.’

‘Until then, Lord Tanu,’ I said, bowing back to him.

It was no great work for Lord Tanu to call for his captains to turn his army about and begin marching back down the road, with the vanguard following those who marched on foot. We watched them go as they had come, a great mass of men and horses pounding at the road’s stone. When they had disappeared from our sight around the curve of the mountain, I looked down at Estrella, still clinging to me, and I said to her, ‘It was you who led the way out of the castle, wasn’t it?’

At this, she happily nodded her head as if she thought her action should have pleased me. Then Daj spoke for her, saying, ‘We couldn’t let you face Lord Tanu alone. He might have killed you!’

I tried to smile at him as I swallowed against the lump in my throat. Then Maram gazed down into the pass and muttered to me, ‘Do you see how it goes, then? We survive another urgent situation, only to be to be forced into yet another. A gathering of the warriors, indeed! Three armies will be at this gathering – and Lord Tomavar, I think, will be quicker to have his warriors draw swords than to release them from their pledges.’

At this, Sar Vikan stepped up to Maram, and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘If that is the way of things, then I shall have the pleasure of fighting by your side again. Which of Lord Tomavar’s knights can stand against Sar Maram Marshayk?’

As Maram rolled his eyes at this and let out a soft groan, Lord Avijan came over to me. ‘Which of Mesh’s knights will fail to stand for Valashu Elahad as king?’

For a while we remained there above the deep, blue lake feeling very glad for our lives – and not a little amazed that our small force had been able to turn back Lord Tanu’s army without a single sword flying from its scabbard. I thought about Lord Avijan’s words to me. Of all the questions in my life, at that moment, it was the one I most wanted to be answered.

6

It took more than a week for Lord Tanu’s emissaries to ride across Mesh and arrange with Lord Tomavar a time and place for the gathering of the warriors: On the 21st of Soldru we were to converge on a great open meadow to the west of Hardu along the Arashar River. This field, where the Lake Country gave way to the Gorgeland at the very heart of the realm, was almost exactly equidistant from Mount Eluru, Godhra and Lord Tomavar’s stronghold in Pushku. Other claimants to the throne – Lord Ramanu, Lord Bahram and Lord Kharashan – would have to make longer journeys. As they had no hope of becoming king, however, few worried that they might take insult in not being given equal consideration. It had proved hard enough to persuade Lord Tomavar to attend the gathering. In the end, however, his innate character drove him straight toward this historic confrontation. Perhaps he suspected that Lord Tanu and I would join forces against him, and he wanted to forestall such a combination. More likely he simply assumed that he could go among Mesh’s warriors and win them to his banner with his bravura, a few quick smiles and a great show of strength.