Chapter 21: Tarkan's Ride

Dawn broke on the hazy bay and in the tangled streets of Merendir, and the entire city seemed exhausted with anticipation. It was not yet hot, but the pale sun was already intense in the dewy morning. Tomorrow the finest horses in the Empire would run themselves to glory or ruin. Tomorrow knights and nobles would cross lances and swords, trophies would be won, vast sums of money would change hands, feasts would be held both large and small, and the Imperial Seer would make the assuredly unpopular announcement to the entire amphitheater that the Emperor would be married to his sister.

The rituals that the Council had performed were strenuous, requiring hours of attention and interpretations of texts so old that the language was barely intelligible. The Rider told them that the only suitable name in the Geneologies of the Library of Imiatt was Celani. The Astrologies had been as ambiguous as the Geneologies had been absolute. In every element, there was a star was falling for every star that rose. Galant had been born at a weak confluence of Earth and Wind, and his stars drifted lazily in nearly every sector. Celani had been born at an almost unfathomably rare strong confluence of Fire, Water, Plant, and Spirit, and her stars burned brightly in these same regions. Their union fell in a section of the sky which had been charted, but had no association with any element, and even Aimry— the most accomplished astronomer among them— had checked the charts again and again, having been unaware that such a region could exist.

All of this had left Corvyne uneasy. He knew that Galant and his sister loved each other, but there was so much longing in both of them that he was reluctant to end their great uncertain futures. Many of the lords and ladies would object to union, seeing it as shameless hoarding of political power. In fact, far more political capital might be gained by marrying each of them to another family, and this lost opportunity also weighed on Corvyne's mind.

Now he walked the Street of Fools, with Tarkan still following beside him, trying not to grind his teeth, as he was wont to do when he had not slept. He had not spoken to anybody as he left, not even Aimry. He had barely even looked at her. Whatever she had taught him, whatever they had shared, had no part in a night that had felt like a belabored farce. Corvyne had walked past her with the same lack of attention that every other citizen of Merendir paid the shy, squat, woman with squinting eyes, dry hair, and a limp that was not even pronounced enough to be remarkable.

Corvyne looked over at the boy. Tarkan seemed to be trying to soak in the world, with a restrained spring in his step and wide roving eyes. Corvyne sighed. Maybe the dullness of age was taking its toll, or maybe he had not been ready for a such an important portion of his life's work to have been resolved.

"Are you hungry?" Corvyne asked.

Tarkan looked at Corvyne, slightly surprised. Corvyne wondered how long it had been since he had spoken to the boy.

Corvyne said, "The Swan Feather Inn is no more than half a mile up the hill from here, and they have the best breakfast in the city. You can tell me about your travels."

Corvyne's mood had broken, but he was still quiet until they reached the inn, where the common room had been scrubbed clean from the previous night and they were the first to disturb the meticulous arrangement of the chairs. The Swan Feather Inn's breakfast was a platter overflowing with freshly baked rolls, cheeses both soft and hard, cured meats and head cheese, tomatoes and peaches, Siltian olives, Rhoudenian mustard, and fiery black peppers from the Southern Isles, preserved in sea brine. When it was set between them, Corvyne discovered that he was ravenous. They ate in silence for several minutes before Corvyne leaned back, ordered a pipe of Blue Forest shag and a bottle of blackberry mead, and listened to the story of Tarkan's ride.

"I could not have hoped for better weather heading into the plains. It was cool and dry, and the Shepherd gave me a beautiful stallion to begin my ride— so strong that we passed the first outpost well before sunset and did not even stop for provisions."

The Shepherd's outposts were found throughout the Empire, spaced in such a way that a strong rider on a strong horse could ride from one to the next in a day. Each outpost consisted of a small keep centered around a stable, where horses were bred and trained for speed and endurance. They had light garrisons to discourage bandits, and were well-provisioned, so that the Riders who bore urgent messages to all edges of the Empire could travel light. Riders could run their horses near exhaustion, and count on a fresh horse, new provisions, and a restful night when they reached an outpost.

"It was near dawn the next day when I stopped, well into Ikan Province, at the keep of a landless lord named Tirite. It was nice enough, but I fear that it must be a dismal place in the winter. There was little but bare stone and a small garrison of soldiers, who had been drinking in the courtyard all night, along with their women. Lord Tirite received me himself, and was quite hospitable, but insisted that I join him for a mug of rather sour ale and would not relent in questioning me on the politics in Merendir. I confessed to know little of the politics of Merendir, but he refused to believe me."

Corvyne had only a passing aquantaince with the Tirite family. Like most of the landless nobles, their ancestral wealth was long gone and their incomes were small, leaving them hungry to advance themselves. In times of war, the landless lords could be the staunchest fighters, seeking to distinguish themselves with their small bands of warriors. In peace, there was little for them to do but play at court intrigue from their remote keeps, and hope for a child charming enough to attract the attention of a lord of higher station.

From Lord Tirite's keep, Tarkan had ridden day and night to Petryn, without stopping longer than it took to change horses, replenish his provisions, and stretch. Naively assuming that the provincial capital of the Steppelands would be a civilized place, he rode boldy into town in the middle of the night, realizing too late that the entire city was something between a frontier camp and a gigantic slum. Finding no public place to stay where he felt he could entrust his horse, or his own neck, he made for the lavish palace at the center of town, incongruous among the hide tents, crumbling tenements, and streetside cooking fires.

"I was greeted at the gate by a man who wore an odd cross between the Imperial uniform and a foreign style, with a coat of joined bands of metals of alternating types, and a helmet sporting rams horns that had been filed razor sharp."

Corvyne nodded, "That is the style of the Dengalis, the tribes of the Steppes."

"Yes, I made the acquaintance of one of the Dengali tribes,” Tarkan told him, “but that was the following night."

The young rider had threatened and bluffed his way into the palace, invoking the name of the Emperor and showing the ignorant and slightly belligerent guard his letters, sealed with the emblem of the Shepherd. The Lord Galdhar, likely preoccupied with one of his numerous vices, had not made an appearance. Tarkan had been fed generously by a tall matronly woman with whom he shared no language, but the oils and unfamiliar meats and spices played a poor trick on his stomach. He tossed for hours under thickly woven horsehair blankets, the night surprisingly cold, to odd sounds of revelry and destruction, embellished by his dreams.

Tarkan abandoned his bed while it was still dark, taking a breakfast of plain bread and a mouth full of strong liquor that was forced on him by a sympathetic centurion who also spoke very little Imperial Standard, but gestured at Tarkan's stomach and pressed the flask on him, saying "good, good" until Tarkan relented. The fiery liquor did have a settling effect on his stomach, and soon Tarkan was saddling his horse and preparing to ride again. As the sky lightened, spiral after spiral of oily smoke issued from the grey sprawl of buildings that made up city, until a black cloud hung low above him and he felt the soot in his hair and on his teeth.

An experienced Rider, or anyone native to the land, would have skirted the steppes no matter how direct a path they seemed to provide. Corvyne knew this, but Tarkan had not, and by the time dawn broke, he was riding hard into the sun, across the steppes, toward an unnamed outpost at the edge of the Addenine Mountains and the wild unclaimed region between the Empire, Silt, and Southern Fellnia.

The gentle swells of golden grassland seemed no different from the prarie in the drought. The morning was clear and mild, and the vast blue sky seemed close to the earth. The heat of the day was becoming evident, with the sun still low in the sky, when Tarkan reined in his horse at the edge of the salt flat.

He had come to the top of a small rise, no different from the dozens of others he had crossed that day, except that the grasslands stopped abruptly below him, giving way to an utterly flat cracked grey landscape that stretched to the horizon. A hot wind blew around him as he walked his horse down to the edge of the barren expanse. Unsure of what he had found, he stepped cautiously forward, and found that the crusty surface gave way beneath his feet to solid ground just below. Scanning his surroundings once more, he picked out what he thought was a caravan, indistinct in the distance, and took this as evidence that he could cross the wasteland.

The further he pressed onto the flats, the more he regretted his decision. By the time the sun was midway through the sky, Tarkan could feel it singeing his skin and sucking the moisture from him. Still he pressed on, until his head began to swim and he felt blisters forming on his bare arms. He gave his horse a meager ration of hot water, took a few unsatisfying sips himself, and took shelter under his blanket. The ground burned beneath him. The air was stifling under the blanket, and he feared for his horse. He tried to sleep, but could not, and wasted precious hours waiting out the sun. He was forced from under his blanket when an acrid vapor began to rise from the earth, stinging his eyes and throat.

All around him, steam rose from the cracks in the earth, gathering into a great fog that smelled of salt and sulfur, but which diffused the brutal sunlight. He prayed to Quelestel, gave his horse more of his small store of water, and set off slowly across the awful land, leading his horse on foot, for fear that riding would kill the beast. The mists parched his throat with every breath, until he removed his shirt and tied it around his face. He wrapped his blanket around his shoulders to block the sun, which still burned even through the fog. His horse stepped gingerly on the scorching earth, and tossed his head and rolled his eyes when the fumes became thick. Tarkan whispered to the him as they walked, and sang muffled songs that tore his throat, and they moved slowly forward as the sun sank mercifully toward the horizon.

Gradually the ground cooled, and the abrasive vapors dissipated, and the horse and Rider breathed easily again as exhaustion began to edge in on them. Tarkan rested again briefly, shared the last of his water with his horse and began to ride hard. Neither he nor the horse was in any condition for such riding, but they were strong, and they would not survive another day in this waste.

No sooner had the sun subsided than a cold wind began to blow, and Tarkan rode in a feverish dream. Every step took him nowhere. The land did not change, but gradually it grew dimmer as the night came upon them. Then, for a few glorious minutes, everything around him burned red, and Tarkan saw the end of the world and laughed. Then it was dark and thousands of constellations, unknown even to the clearest prairie night, cast their light on the Rider and his horse. He rode like a madman in the new chill of the night, and his horse shared whatever it was that had possessed him, and the night became nothing but an endless rhythm, a rhythm that would either deliver them from the land or kill them.

The night was moonless, the ground beneath them was black and barren, and the stars were indifferent. Tarkan had stopped believing that he was moving at all when a star fell, and then another, and Tarkan yelled to the sky, standing in the stirrups and urging his mount faster. His throat tasted of blood, and he thought of his father the Rider, and all the stories he had never heard, and then he felt his father riding beside him. Another star fell, and a freezing wind ripped across the desert, and Tarkan called out again triumphantly, because he knew then that the desert would not kill him that night.

Whether it was minutes or hours before Tarkan saw the torches, he did not know. He thought at first that he was looking on a town, and that he had reached the edge of the flats. He realized that he was on a long decline, imperceptible without the visual reference of lights below him. As he rode forward, he saw that he was approaching a circle of torches. He did not rein his horse in until he was upon them. There were shouted words that meant nothing, flashes of steel, gleaming horns and distorted faces in torchlight. Tarkan slid, shaking, from the saddle and collapsed.

Only vaguely aware of what was happening, he was hauled to his feet, bound roughly, and tossed into the back of a wagon. A bit of water was poured into his mouth, but he choked and spit it up, and was given no more. Men were hewing the earth with axes and a dozen muted rhythms punctuated the silence of the desert. He was lying on rough rubble with sharp edges. He tried to turn himself to a comfortable position, but he could not find one. He gave up and was asleep a moment later.

Tarkan woke to a grey dawn, stiff and freezing and cut by the jagged rocks. More had been piled around him, and even on top of him. Men with axes dug up large chunks of the ground and loaded them into wagons, while armored soldiers in horned helmets watched. They were stocky, to a man, with flat faces and golden skin. The workers wore immense beards, bushy and black, while the soldiers were clean shaven. None of them paid him a bit of attention.

He could not see his horse. He turned his head as much as possible and the effort caused him considerable pain. There was a shout from one of the soldiers, and he worried that he had attracted their attention and that he would suffer for it. Instead, the workers stopped all at once, and piled into the back of another of the wagons. As the sun broke over the horizon, all of the wagons began to move. The wooden wheels bounced on the cracked terrain, and the rocks piled around Tarkan pierced and tore his flesh until he felt hot blood on his back. The rocks burned in his wounds and Tarkan closed his eyes and willed himself into unconsciousness.

The rocks around him were beginning to grow warm, though the sun was still low in the sky, when Tarkan opened his eyes again. They travelled now through hilly grassland, over which the wagon rattled and jostled even more, and Tarkan gritted his teeth hard to keep from calling out in pain. He saw mountains on the horizon— craggy, brooding, peaks whose snowy caps vanished in dark clouds. It seemed impossible to Tarkan that he might make it that far, as wretched as his condition was.

Eventually, the wagons slowed and stopped and men began to unload the rocks from around Tarkan and toss them onto a vast pile, and he was pressed less and less against the sharp edges beneath him, until he could sit up and look around. They had come into an encampment of round hide tents and strange hairy oxen and piles upon piles of grey rocks from the desert. Even as they uncovered him, his captors did not acknowledge him, aside from quick curious glances.

When most of the wagon's cargo had been unloaded, he was hauled to his feet by two of the horned soldiers and thrown off the wagon onto the ground. He was pulled to his feet once again, and marched between them through the encampment. A group of children watched with wide eyes and yelled at him as he passed. His mouth was filled with blood and his throat was too dry to swallow. They stopped outside a large tent and one of the soldiers went inside. After a moment, Tarkan was shoved into the tent and thrown to his knees.

They pressed Tarkan's face to the ground, which was piled thick with carpets. There was a fragrant smoke in the air, and Tarkan choked on it. There was a man seated in front of him, and colorful designs on the floor and ceiling, but otherwise Tarkan had seen nothing. Now he heard a calm, strong voice, and the soldiers took him by the arms and pulled him into a kneeling position.

He was in the company of a Dengali man of indeterminate age, kneeling on faded carpets embroidered with elaborate geometric designs. Hanging above the man's head was a grinning iron mask with immense blades for horns and dozens of wild braids of hair. The ceiling of the tent was covered in beads, deep blue and ivory, depicting the night sky and the constellations. All of Tarkan’s belongings were arrayed before the man, who scrutinized Tarkan with a frown.

The man spoke more words that Tarkan could not understand, and one of the soldiers left. A brazier between them let off a smoke that was nearly invisible, except for the distortions that it caused in the air. The man wore a simple yellow tunic and dozens of bracelets and necklaces in diverse styles, but mostly done in beads. He picked up the scroll case that the Shepherd had given to Tarkan, and Tarkan feared that he would break the seal, but instead he merely studied it.

The second soldier returned and placed an earthen bowl filled with water in front of Tarkan, along with an empty bowl and a coarse cloth. Tarkan looked at him, and he took a mouth full of water and spit it into the empty bowl, and then pressed the water into Tarkan's hands. Tarkan rinsed his mouth gratefully and spit out bloody water. The soldier dampened the cloth and handed it to Tarkan, and he wiped his face and the cloth came away streaked in blood and dust. Then he drank. The first sip was agonizing and he nearly choked again, but the second was easier, and soon he had drained the bowl. The soldier daubed a cool ointment on his blistering arms and face, and after it seared for a moment, the hot throbbing pain receded. He closed his eyes and trembled.

"You are not welcome here," said the man in the yellow tunic. The words in Imperial Standard were awkward on the man's tongue. Tarkan said nothing, but lowered his eyes to the carpet. Then the man said, "You are not a warrior."

It was a statement, not a question, and Tarkan was unsure of how to address the man, so he remained silent.

"You are a messenger," the man continued.

Here Tarkan raised his eyes, and the man narrowed his, but it was in scrutiny, not displeasure.

Tarkan said merely, "Yes," and lowered his eyes again.

"You are a fool to ride across the salt in the sun."

Tarkan said, "Yes," again, and thought that the man nearly smiled.

"You will live, and you will bear my message."

Tarkan nodded solemnly.

"Denegal will walk again among us..." When he uttered this name, the soldiers on either side of Tarkan pressed their foreheads to the ground and murmered reverent words. "...and his people will leave this land of salt and evil, and we will cast your people down. You will bear my message to your Emperor."

Tarkan looked at the burnished iron mask and its great horns and at the man who sat beneath it, addressing him with smoldering eyes.

"I will bear your message," Tarkan told him.

More words were spoken that Tarkan could not understand, and one of the soldiers gathered his belongings and brought them to him, all except a bag full of coins and scrip.

"Your horse belongs to the warrior who took you,” the man in yellow told him, “I will buy him back with your gold."

Tarkan was full of questions, but a tumult arose outside, and the soldiers raised him to his feet and took him out into the glaring sun. Mounted figures moved all around them, indistinct in the brilliant light, and he heard shouts in his own language.

"Unhand that man!"

As Tarkan's eyes adjusted, a cavalier in the uniform of an Imperial captain approached, helmetless in the heat, skin brown and weathered with sun. His captors did not appear to have understood the words, but they released him nonetheless. There was a full regiment of Imperial soldiers in the middle of the settlement, and bearded Dengali workers shoveled mounds of salt into wagons bearing an unfamiliar Imperial coat of arms.

The cavalier kicked the nearest Dengali soldier casually in the chest before dismounting. He looked Tarkan over and grew angry.

"Have they beaten you?"

The Dengalis shrank back slightly, and made no move for their axes.

"Sir, most of this harm came to me in the desert," Tarkan told him.

The captain shouted two words in a hoarse approximation of the Dengali language, and the two Dengali soldiers went back inside the tent.

"We have your horse, Rider, but he is yet unfit to ride. You may take my own. He is the best for miles around. I ask only that you commend Captain Staridge to the Shepherd and the Elder Generals."

"I thank you, sir." Tarkan said, bewildered.

“My horse is well laden with water and provisions. Ride, and we will mete out the appropriate punishments to these dogs."

Tarkan mounted the captain's horse and looked around him. He saw his horse, freshly groomed but still haggard from the desert, a short way off. The Shepherd's emblem, in dye on the horse's hindquarters, marked him as belonging to a Rider. Beside his horse, a Dengali soldier was on the ground. Two Imperial soldiers traded fierce kicks at the soft points in his armor, while others shouted encouragement from nearby. All around, workers and women and soldiers and children watched with unmasked hatred, but none intervened.

Captain Staridge pointed with his sword.

"You will come to a river after a day's ride. Turn toward the mountains, and you will come to the last keep of the Empire. Be alert in the hinterlands. The beasts there are fearsome, and the men are worse."

Tarkan rode from the settlement without a backward glance. Battered and exhausted as he was, he rode so hard that the sun was not yet near the horizon when he reached the river. He stripped and immersed himself in the cold, shallow, water. He drank his fill and then lay against the smooth pebbles and let the swift current keep his head afloat. He closed his eyes and thought of nothing. After a while, he emerged, shivering, from the stream. He lay naked in the sweet smelling grass, and it shielded him from the sun, and he slept.

Tarkan did not wake until dawn. Every movement was agony. He found that he could barely move his neck, or raise his arms. He was bruised all over his body. Wherever his arms and face were not scraped or cut, they were hot and red and peeling. He stretched gingerly. The morning was silent, aside from the running brook, and absolutely clear. Tarkan's mind was clear as well. As sore as he was, he felt refreshed after his first full night of sleep since leaving Merendir.

He would reach the hinterlands sometime this day, the sixth of his ride. Although he had far fewer miles ahead of him than he had already traversed, the remaining portion of his ride would be slower and more difficult. He would not be able to change horses after today, and he would have to find his own provisions. He would spend two nights in the mountains, if all went well. He had been taught that the ascent through the pass should be taken slowly, with plenty of stops for rest and water, or else the Rider and horse could become sick from the precipitous climb into thin air.

----

Tarkan's tale stopped here, at the edge of the Empire, when Corvyne laid a hand on his arm. A man had come into the Swan Feather Inn shortly after they had been seated. A familiar man. He had a cup of tea, and then left. Corvyne had been trying to place him ever since, and now he had. The man belonged to Mardis Dantley, and Corvyne had seen him on Lower Market, near Crowley's shop, before they had convened the Council. If the man had been following them, if he had followed them to Crowley's, followed them to the place of the ritual, then every person who had attended the Council would be revealed to the Hidden Guard. Corvyne set scrip worth a five weight worth in silver under his tea cup and rose, and the Rider rose with him, and they set back out into the city.

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