The Diamond Warriors. David Zindell
diamond brooch, said to be made of the finest Ice Mountain bluestars – haven’t we Valari always fought each other over diamonds?’
‘That we have,’ Lord Avijan said sadly. ‘But Meshians have never fought Meshians.’
‘And now Zenshar Tanu is dead – just two weeks ago on Moonday,’ Sar Jessu put in. ‘And so who can see a chance for peace?’
This was the second matrimonial matter that Lord Avijan had spoken of. Some years before, Sar Zenshar Tanu, Lord Tanu’s youngest nephew, had married Lord Tomavar’s niece, a headstrong young woman named Raya. During the Great Battle, Sar Zenshar had taken an arrow through his leg. Although the arrow had been successfully drawn and Raya had cared for him with great devotion, the wound had festered and had poisoned his blood. Sar Zenshar, to the horror of all, had taken a whole year rotting, withering and dying. After the funeral, as Zenshar had neither father nor brothers, Lord Tanu had taken charge of Raya and her children. But Raya had declared that she would not live under the command of a man who had become her uncle’s enemy. And so in the middle of the night, she put her children onto the backs of swift horses and fled through the Lake Country and the Sawash River Valley to Pushku, where Lord Tomavar had his estates. And so she had broken the final chain that linked the two families together.
‘The whole Tanu clan,’ Sar Jessu said, ‘is outraged over what they are calling the abduction of Zenshar’s children. They’ve put out the word to their smithies, and are refusing to sell swords to anyone who would follow Lord Tomavar.’
The best swords in the world, of course, have always been forged in Godhra, and every Meshian warrior aspires to wield one and invest it with his very soul.
‘And worse,’ Sar Jessu went on, ‘the Tanus have pressured the armorers not to sell to the Tomavar clan. The Tomavars have no diamond mines of their own, or so the Tomavars whine, and so how can they make their own armor?’
‘Diamonds, always diamonds,’ Lord Harsha muttered. ‘It’s been scarcely two years since we nearly went to war with the Ishkans over Mount Korukel’s diamond mines.’
‘But Valashu Elahad,’ Joshu Kadar said to him, ‘returned with the Lightstone and cooled the Ishkans’ blood!’
At this, Sar Shivalad and Sar Viku Aradam and other knights gazed at me as if they were looking for something within me. I felt the whole room practically roiling with strong passions: wonder, doubt, elation and dread.
Lord Avijan bowed his head to me, then said, ‘The Elahad did return, it’s true, but now that the Lord of Lies has regained the Lightstone, the Ishkans’ blood is rising again. Already they have taken a part of Anjo, and have defeated Taron in battle.’
And this, as he was too kind to say, had been the inevitable result of my failure in Tria to unite the Valari against Morjin.
But I must never, I told myself, fail again.
‘Pfahh – the Ishkans!’ Sar Vikan called out to Lord Avijan. ‘You think about them too much.’
‘King Hadaru,’ Lord Avijan reminded him, ‘remains a merciless man – and a cunning one.’
‘Yes, but he has been wounded, and some say the wound rots him to his death.’
‘Some do say that,’ Lord Avijan admitted. ‘But I would not hold my breath waiting for the Ishkan bear to die.’
The story he now told angered everyone, and saddened them, too, for it was only a continuation of the ancient tragedy of our people. After the conclave in Tria where I had slain Ravik Kirriland before thousands, the Valari kings had lost faith in me – and in themselves. Seeing no hope for peace, they had fallen back upon war. Old grievances had festered, and new ambitions fired their blood. In the course of only a few months, Athar had attacked Lagash, while King Waray of Taron had begun plotting against Ishka and King Hadaru. King Waray had tried to help the duchies and baronies of Anjo unite against Ishka – with the secret agenda of trying to make Anjo a client state and so strengthening Taron. But King Hadaru had sniffed out King Waray’s plans, and had marched the strongest army in the Nine Kingdoms into Taron. He defeated King Waray at the Battle of the Broken Tree, where a lance had pierced him. As punishment he had not only annexed part of Anjo but was now demanding that King Waray surrender up territory as well – either that or a huge weight of diamonds in blood payment for the warriors that King Hadaru had lost.
‘But has King Hadaru,’ I said to Lord Avijan, ‘made any move toward Mesh?’
‘Not yet,’ Lord Avijan said. ‘Surely he waits for us to weaken ourselves first.’
‘It is a pity,’ Sar Vikan said, ‘that we didn’t make war upon the Ishkans on the Raaswash. Then we might have weakened them.’
I felt many pairs of eyes searching for something in my eyes, weighing and testing. And I said to Sar Vikan, ‘No, that is not the war we must fight.’
‘But what of Waas, then?’ Lord Avijan asked me. ‘There bodes a war that we might not be able to avoid.’
I turned toward the hall’s eastern window, now dark and full of stars. In that direction only twenty-five miles away across the Culhadosh River lay Waas, where I had fought in my first battle at the Red Mountain. King Sandarkan, as Lord Avijan now told us, burned to avenge the defeat that my father had dealt him. He said that there were signs that King Sandarkan might be planning to lead the Waashians in an attack against Kaash.
‘If they do,’ Lord Harsha said, ‘we must aid them. It is a matter of honor.’
How could I disagree with him? King Talanu Solaru of Kaash was my uncle, and Kaash was Mesh’s ancient ally, and so how could ties of blood and honor be ignored?
‘We cannot march to Kaash’s aid,’ Lord Avijan said, ‘if we are busy fighting ourselves. Surely King Sandarkan is counting on this. Surely he will defeat the Kaashans, for they are too few, and then he will annex the Arjan Land and extract a promise from King Talanu that Kaash won’t come to our aid if Waas then attacks us.’
Joshu Kadar slapped his hand against his sword’s scabbard and said, ‘But we defeated Waas handily once, and can again!’
Lord Harsha sighed at this and said, ‘Little good that will do us, lad, for we’ll only weaken ourselves further, and then King Hadaru will surely lead the Ishkans here.’
‘Or else,’ Lord Avijan said, ‘Waas won’t attack alone but will ally with the Ishkans to put an end to Mesh once and for all.’
‘At least,’ Lord Sharad added, nodding his head at me, ‘that is our best assessment of matters as they now stand.’
For a few moments no one spoke, and the hall fell quiet. Everyone knew that, from more than one direction, Mesh faced the threat of defeat. And everyone looked to me to find a way to escape such a fate.
‘When you left Mesh last year,’ Lord Avijan said to me, ‘you could not have known how things would fall out. But you should not have left.’
I stood away from the table behind me to ease the stiffness in my legs. Then I looked out at the knights and warriors standing around me, and said, ‘My apologies, but I had to. There are things you don’t know about. But now you must be told.’
With everyone pressing in closer, I drew in a deep breath and wondered just how much I should divulge to them? I thought I might do best to conjure up some plan by which we Meshians might prevail against the more familiar enemies: the Ishkans and the Waashians, the Sarni tribes in their hordes of horse warriors – even ourselves. And so save ourselves. But I had vowed never to lie again, and more, to tell the truth so far as it could be told. Were my fellow warriors strong enough, I wondered, to hold the most terrible of truths within their hearts? In the end, either one trusted in men, or did not.
‘For thousands of years,’ I said to them, ‘Mesh has had enemies. And where necessary we defeated them – all except one. And his name is Morjin.’
‘But