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.Aisha preached to gatherings whose screams of exultation shook the stony face of the Cliff Lion, then wept and shivered in the privacy of her tent, in the comfort of her aunt's arms.Chaya judged and soothed, keeping peace among violent young men with old hatreds.Barak and Kemal assigned campgrounds and set the riders to exercise and competition; Karl swore and pleaded and bullied the growing horde into Bandari notions of sanitation, and almost wept with relief when half a dozen men and women with the twined-snake-and-staff emblem on the backs of their leather jackets rode in, their pack-train carrying camel-loads of medicines and tools.Barak pressed an ear to the ground."It's a big one," he said."I don't think it's traders, either.They're moving fast, and they're moving light.They wouldn't if they had yurts." He rose."Ama, it is an army they bring you.Are you ready to be a general once more?"If he had put his hand into her chest and squeezed her heart, it could not have hurt more."I am ready to receive them."She pulled her clothes straight and let the younger men and women put their camp in order.Kemal brought her the bags from his horse and camels."Sit against these, khatun.To be a prince, you must also look like one."Her back straight, her eyes dry, Chaya watched the riders approach, meet the scouts, deploy.Lightning's hearing had been right, of course.Dust billowed across the darkling hills, a mist of blood under Cat's Eye.Steel sparked within it, and the hooves were an endless thunder.Not a caravan, not even a raiding party, but a veritable army approached.Old Barak had trained her; she selected a section, counted, multiplied.And swallowed hard.I expected hundreds.Not this."Ihsan, tell me.Who bears a tamerlane's skull as a standard?"Kemal's blood-brother raised his eyebrows."Does it glitter?"Chaya nodded."So? The Gold Tamerlanes come from the east.They are a rich tribe, very fine fighters.The Citadel's hand lies heavy on them.Do any ride with them?""I see an ice-eagle, mounted on a spear as if in flight," Barak told him."Those are Kurds! I would not have thought they would hear this much or come this far to fight," Kemal said."They are mighty haters, my prince," Ihsan said."And the tribes who dwell in the cliffs by Dyer Base have reason to hate.We can expect more of them to join us as we near Nûrnen.""They are, I have heard, a blade that cuts both ways," Chaya said."They have no friends but the mountains."Aisha shook her head."All blades do.I wonder what my brother will do with my father's sword."With a snap of fabric as the wind caught them, the tribes' banners flared out.Tamerlanes, eagles, swords and stars danced on the wind, wreathed by lettering.God is great.In the name of Allah the merciful, the lovingkind.The warriors rode toward the oasis.They swept past Dagor's upright, lonely figure: he was a farmer, not worthy of notice when battle was at hand.Seeing seven people awaiting them, they screamed war cries.On either side, young men on the stocky, blood-red horses that were the steppes' pride broke from the army and rode in circles, pulling up sharply to make their horses rear in greeting.Steam from the hot springs wreathed up before the approaching riders.They looked like a mirage now: an endless army.What have I wrought? Chaya asked, and knew it for the wrong question.She had not wrought it, any more than she had wrought her brother's sword or her own.But here it was, hers to command—if she could.Her son had turned to face the south.With the Gold Tamerlanes in sight, he dared not lose his dignity by casting himself upon the ground to listen for hoofbeats."We will have other company soon."Since the Cat's Eye rose, the oasis had bubbled and seethed like the fumaroles that surrounded it.From campsites ringing the central area, cookfires reeked of meat and dung.The complaints of camels and the whinnies of high-bred uncut horses, too closely picketed together because of their numbers, rose above the shouts of men escaped from the constraints of their lives into the release, as they thought, of war.The farmers never stopped scuttling from fire to fire, backs bent, voices perpetually raised in pathetic whines.Without Dagor to lead them, they seemed no more than serfs of the tribes.Over Kemal's protests, Chaya sent him to see they were not robbed blind.An old man, his skullcap leathery with the sweat of T-years, flung himself before her."Food they demand, great khatun, but they will eat us bare! And then what will they do? What shall we do when they leave?"She flung him silver.It was not money the farmers needed, but a chance to recover from this curse in the form of too much trade.Money could not buy more than the land would yield; it would vanish like spring ice in bringing grain from elsewhere.The food that would have lasted until second harvest and on through winter was gone already.This growing army would have to keep moving, lest, like a fire, it burn itself to the ground and scorch forever any place where it remained too long."Like a plague of locusts in the old stories," Sannie muttered."Just so, Sannie-girl," Barak said, throwing an arm about her shoulders."But they're our locusts."Chaya's back ached as if claws of fire had raked it.She had spent the day greeting khans and heirs and notable warriors, in getting tribes and patronymics right, in joining men's hands and forcing them to at least temporary truce.That much was statecraft.That much she could do.The management of an army? She had plotted the downfall of Angband Base.She had ridden with one tribe, perhaps two.But men and weapons kept pouring in, more than even she had ever seen.She shut her eyes, hoping, for once, for the visions that plagued her.But they came when they would, not at her need.Perhaps, if she could rest.Aisha can lash them into frenzy.I can keep them from cutting each other's throats.The rest.The tumult around the waterholes had subsided.Truenight settled, freezing even in summer, and very dark.Nothing but starlight, one of the sister moons, and, to Sauron eyes, the diffuse heat-glow of the hot springs.Chaya sat in the opened flap of her domed tent nursing a mug of tea when Barak raised his head."Company coming," he announced."At truenight?""They must be very good.Or crazy," he replied."One of us had better watch for them, or the tribes will be sure it's bandits.""Make it two," said Barak.Chaya rose, groaning inwardly at the effort it took to make her movements look unforced."Let me come," said Karl bar Edgar [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]