Kingmaker

CHAPTER 38

  The chaos of a battle raged below them.

  “Everyone’s moved,” Lujo commented breathily, and Butu, who could hardly tell an Akdren from a camel, looked more closely.

  A large force of Akdren densly packed sordenu defended the entrance. Cavalry lurked behind the lines of infantry. Suddenly, the ranks of sordenu opened, and the horsemen rushed out into the melee, kicking up whirlwinds of sand wherever they went. The mounted archers loosed arrows at the enemy sordenu without waiting for the dust to settle. Then a horn blew, and the Akdren sordenu ranks parted to let the cavalry fall back to prepare for the next skirmish.

  The Akdren fought a force of three armies, which Jani said were the Zhekara, Nukata and Nankek. The armies had many more cavalry, and used them to try to chase down the Akdren cavalry, except for two flanking platoons. Butu wondered what they were for when a horn sounded, and the near side of the attacking sordenu gave up a grudging retreat. Akdren sordenu pressed forward, creating a gap in their line, and another horn announced a cavalry charge, neatly nipping off the line.

  Thunder and sand announced the cavalry, but the ringing of steel on steel echoed loudest. The sordenu fought in close quarters. The cavalry’s dust obscured most of the melee from view, and from what little Butu could see, he considered it a mercy.

  A sword plunged into someone, who embraced it and smashed the hilt of his own blade into the other’s head. A man rose up behind another and chopped off his head in one great blow. Butu thought he could see the blood trailing from it as it flew. The cavalry were not immune. Many riderless horses raced into the desert, away from the battle, to die on their own. Sometimes one galloped out dragging a corpse.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Lujo said.

  Butu felt the same, but he said, “I thought the Nukata and Nankek hated each other.”

  “Pisor has forged new alliances,” Jani said solemnly. She pointed at another camp, a bit back, where sordenu lined up but didn’t join the fight yet. The Kadrak and Ahjea. “And when this battle ends, another will start.”

  “The Akdren must’ve said they have it,” Butu said. “We have to go down now.” Jani handed him his pack without comment, and Lujo led them down the side of the dune, angling slightly away from the battle but on as close to a direct line to the rock as possible.

  “The goal is to find Pisor,” Butu said as they jogged. “We need to get inside, locate it, and get out.” He took a deep breath. “Only one of us needs to get out.”

  “We’re all going to get out,” Jani said.

  “Since Jani can conceal herself, Lujo, we need to get the sword to her if possible.”

  “It’s not going to work like that,” Jani protested.

  “You know it’s the best way.”

  She did not respond, and as they topped another dune, nearly abreast of the fighting, Lujo said, “We don’t want anyone to know we’re Ahjea. We’ll have to lie, sneak, and break the Treaty to do that.”

  “That’s why we brought you,” Butu said, grinning. “You can change our pommels.”

  “Jani already has an Akdren pommel.”

  “We might need a Zhekara one before we’re through.”

  “Drop!” Butu ordered, and they did, Lujo drawing sand over them as a thundering cavalry maneuver came too close. The captain reared his horse and turned his men around back into the fray.

  “Over there,” Jani said, and they ran to some boulders. They stood in the shadow of the looming rock. The sand had ceased to be the fine, yellow stuff of the shanjin and was more of the beige, gravelly quality of Jasper’s roads. More and larger rocks were strewn about them. But no plants, yet, and Butu could sense nothing larger than an insect within a few hundred yards.

  Lujo fished out a waterskin and passed it around.

  “Jusep would give the sword to Aesh,” Jani said. “We can cut out the Ahjea and give it directly to the Kadrak, and we’ll be safe.”

  Butu gripped his sword. “Zhek might be with them. I’d rather get back to Jasper. If Jusep is king, he can handle the Kadrak.”

  “If the legends are true. If they’re not, the Kadrak would crush us.”

  “If they’re not, how soon will we know?” Lujo asked. “But maybe there’s more to think about.”

  They looked at him as he started talking, and Butu began to see what he meant.

  The kingmaker gained so much power it frightened kings and kluntras alike. This was why Dinal pi’Kanjea had killed his kingmaker, and died himself for it. A kingmaker and a king needed to understand each other, because their lives were tied together. When a king died, the kingmaker didn’t long outlive him, because the king protected his kingmaker from enemies. A new would-be king would rather choose his own kingmaker.

  “True or not, even if we make a king and promise to make Aesh later, Aesh might still kill us to get the sword back,” Lujo finished.

  “And the Ahjea are history,” Jani said. “We must bring the sword to Aesh, then.”

  “Fine,” Butu said. “If we can escape, we’ll head out to the Kadrak. Let’s go.”

  Not much farther on, Butu placed his foot on the first hard basalt. Lujo paused, gazing up their path, and Jani nudged him and pointed out a way for them to climb.

  “What are we looking for?” Lujo asked as Jani took the lead.

  “I think we need a cave,” she said. “A false entrance. Up here, no one will see us and we can rest and think.”

  The thunder had nearly died away completely, and Butu could feel no one nearby. The rock itself is a good cover, and since everyone is on the field, who would look out here? A couple of hours later, a black chasm appeared between two rocks, and after some testing, Jani lowered herself into the covered gully. Butu and Lujo followed to where it opened into a fairly sizable cavern.

  “Lujo,” Jani said, “can you feel the tunnel beneath us?”

  “It’s not quite beneath us,” he said. “But it’s close.”

  Butu raised an eyebrow. Of course, he admonished himself. Lujo can drag us through the rock. “The tunnel here is full of Akdren.”

  “There’s a side tunnel. An air shaft, I think. It’s useless to the Akdren so they’re not using it. That one is almost directly below us.”

  Jani grinned at both of them, and Butu caught some of her excitement.

  “When you’re ready, then,” he said. “I think we can rest here for a bit.”

  A cheer rose from outside, and they all met one another’s eyes. Butu closed his eyes, trying to feel so many people moving. The two large groups had separated.

  “I think Akdren held them off, and the other clans are retreating,” he said.

  “That’ll make things easier,” Jani said as Butu slouched near her. “They’ll be tired, most of the army will be outside rebuilding, and no one will be looking for a handful of intruders.”

  “Thieves,” Lujo corrected, and recounted a tale of how a desert thief kidnapped him and forced him to seek water and riches for many years.

  Butu let him talk. Lujo was trying to relax, and they would need him to be focused soon. Besides, they’d do well to let the Akdren get some rest and be more complacent.

  Lujo finally wound down. Jani passed him the waterskin, and they all stood.

  “There’s no turning back from here,” Lujo said. “If we go in, we have to find Pisor.”

  “There was no turning back when we left the others,” Butu replied.

  Jani and Lujo nodded, and Lujo laid his hands on the black stone of Urgaruna, which slowly melted away into a shallow cave and then a short tunnel and then a longer tunnel, sloping downward gently.

  Butu kept a watch on the entrance while he worked, and Jani watched Lujo. A patrol passed by above them, a squad of sordenu who watched the outlying sands more than the rock beneath their feet. A part of him thought he would feel so much safer with the rest of the squad nearby — Retus and his sling, Phedam with his knowledge of armies, Tirud and his secret information.

  Even Blay, despite his
lies. What did Jani say about familiarity? I’d rather be with people I know. He snorted then. If wishes were water, the shanjin would have its river back.

  A hand clasped his shoulder. Butu turned. Jani stood there.

  “It’s finished,” she said.

  “I wish the others were here,” Butu said. “Even Blay.”

  She nodded. “There’s safety in numbers, right? But like you said, maybe three can do what seven couldn’t.”

  Butu knew she was right. With one final glance over the ledge at the entrenched Akdren army, Butu followed Lujo and Jani out of the shanjin and into the rock.

  They traveled in darkness and stale air. Lujo sealed the entrance behind them to prevent any enemies from discovering their means of getting inside Urgaruna. Butu felt the weight of the stone around him, and for the first time in as long as he could remember, his vision was limited to the narrow pathway ahead of him.

  “What if we run out of good air before we reach a larger tunnel?” Butu asked nervously.

  “We’ll slowly fall asleep and die. Miners often bring children with them, and not just to help find ore. If there’s an accident, the children can usually get them out. ‘Stay calm and breathe slowly,’” he recited part of a chant, “‘Panic only hastens a miner’s death.’”

  “Have you ever seen a miner die?” Butu asked suddenly, trying not to pay attention to his queasy stomach and lightheadedness.

  Lujo didn’t answer right away. “Yes,” he said at last. “In peaceful times, even a soldier’s life is safer than a miner’s. As a child, I led more men to safety than I watched die, but I couldn’t always save them.”

  Butu had no response to this. The children in Jasper found water, polished and sharpened weapons and performed countless other chores made easier by magic. He supposed that these were essential to the survival of the adults in the town, but the adults never mentioned their importance to the children.

  The path was smooth, but Butu lost track of time without the sun to help them. He felt as though hours had passed before Lujo stopped them. A solid wall stood before them.

  “What’s this? I thought we were joined to another tunnel.”

  “I stopped it before the tunnel, so you could try to sense what was beyond it,” Lujo said. “Wouldn’t want any patrols to come up on us, right?”

  “Good thinking,” Butu said, fighting off panic.

  We’re sealed in a pocket of air. If Lujo’s magic fails us, we’ll die here.

  His breath quickened, and he desperately tried to sense if anyone was nearby.

  “I can’t feel anyone. I don’t know if my magic is working.”

  “Then we’ll have to chance it.” Lujo removed his hand from the wall, and Butu saw a fist-sized hole there connecting the bubble with a larger tunnel. To his right, Jani breathed a sigh of relief.

  The hole vanished briefly as Lujo pressed his face to it. After a moment, he withdrew.

  “Take a breath,” he told them. “The air out there isn’t great, but it’s better than in here.”