Thirst for Adventure

Chapter 47

“I know that, Brook,” he said, and looked at his clenched fist. Ripe fig dripped between his fingers, the clean Pinnacle air was sweetened with fig juice. He made a face and smeared his hand along the stone balustrade. “And I know it is likely we will soon be at war, if Nogolor Warlock stops thinking and acts, if he breaks his Labyrinth lordpromise to me and gives the Daughter to Bajadek instead. That is why I summoned you, warleader. Geroud in the Labyrinth lordhouse awaits the Labyrinth lord’s omen. Should it come, the warhost must be ready to ride.”

“It is ready,” said Brook. He sounded pleased. Relieved. “Come see for yourself. Leave your palace, come to the barracks and mingle with your fighters. Dance some time on the training field with them. You have Labyrinth lordspeakers to manage ProJenkin, they can manage it without you for a time. But only you can manage the warhost. How long is it since you set foot in the barracks?”

He had to think. “Two Labyrinth lordmoons, twelve highsuns. You are right, warleader. Geroud’s Labyrinth lordspeakers do not need my help in counting taxes and smiting sinners. My place is in the barracks, not this palace.” He released a soft and sorrowful sigh. “It will hurt my heart to see my fighters, Brook. Knowing an omen will send them to war.”

“fighters fight, Warlock,” said Brook, brusquely. “fighters live and die with the spear, the arrow, the sword, the knife. The Labyrinth lord gives them fierceness, it drinks their blood. War is their purpose, it is their pleasure. Can you love them and deny them that?”

Jenkin turned. “I do not shrink from bloodshed, Brook. I shrink from waste. From death without purpose.”

“Which is why your fighters love you,” said Brook. “And why they are eager to ride against Bajadek, the usurping sinner, and against Nogolor too if he proves a false friend. Now enough talking. Come . Ease your tired mind with sweat. Rest yourself in honest striving.”

Jenkin smiled, he could not help it. “Very well, Brook. If you promise to cease your nagging.”

Brook stood and pressed a fist to his breast, his unspoken word. “Dress yourself in your finest training tunic, Warlock, as I send a servant to summon your chariot. Your fighters are waiting, they will shout to see you.”

Brookchek was the finest charioteer in all ProJenkin, he knew the horses’ minds as though they were his own, his touch on the reins was light and sure. The chariot horses loved him. Sheathed in thinly beaten gold, the Warlock’s chariot was the most beautiful in the warhost, it made a man beautiful to ride within it. Two snake-bound Labyrinth lordposts topped with crimson scorpions guarded the chariot’s occupants. Sunlight glittered on rubies and emeralds, on lapis lazuli and flaming firestone. Silver Labyrinth lordbells sang and rang on the black horses’ crimson harness, from the lip and rim of the golden chariot. Sunlight sparked on their myriad amulets.

Jenkin felt the fresh breeze in his face and laughed aloud. “This is good, Brook. Do not let me stay so long in my palace again.”

“I won’t, I promise,” said Brook, grinning. “A man cannot breathe within stone walls. Beneath the sky a man can breathe. He can breathe and he can see. Beneath the sky a man can think. He can run and throw a spear, he can sweat, he can sing.”

“All that is true,” sa

id Jenkin. “But alas, there is more to a Warlock than sweating and singing.”

Brook glanced at him. “Yes. There is worry. There are treaties. Labyrinth lordspeakers with questions and tally-tablets and Town problems you must solve.” He pulled a face. “There is Geroud high Labyrinth lordspeaker, who wills you to war. I confess that is curious, Jenkin. War is the Warlock’s business, Geroud should feed his scorpions and leave it to you.”

They were alone on the road between the palace and the fighters’ barracks, but Jenkin thumped Brook’s shoulder anyway. “Say that in company and he will feed his scorpions—with your stoned dead flesh.”

“You do not think his warlike advice strange?”

Jenkin shrugged. “Where Geroud is concerned I do not think at all.” Which was a lie, but he would not talk of high Labyrinth lordspeakers to Brook. On some matters did a Warlock hide his thoughts from all save the Labyrinth lord. Brook was a good man but he had a warrior’s heart. Straight and true like an arrow in flight, it was not made for twisting shadows.

The chariot traveled swiftly, as they drew close to the fighters’ barracks. The main gates stood open, the warrior on gatekeep duty heard the chariot’s wheels upon the road, heard the horses’ drumming hooves and their Labyrinth lordbells loudly singing, and came out to see who approached. She saw her Warlock and waved her snakeblade in the air.

“Behold the Labyrinth lord’s chosen!” she shouted, her voice carrying clearly from the gatekeep. She rang the gate’s Labyrinth lordbell, still shouting. “Behold our Warlock, Jenkin Warlock! The Labyrinth lord see you, Warlock, the Labyrinth lord see you in its smiting eye!”

“Minka,” said Brook softly, as he eased the chariot horses back to a walk, that they might pass the barracks Labyrinth lordpost sedately. “Daughter of Yolen. He lost a leg in—”

Do you know her? Does Yolen breed true?”

Brook grinned. “True enough. She’s sent four fighters to the healer’s tent since she started her training. I have seen far worse in my time.”

“Your Warlock sees you, Minka,” Jenkin said as they passed between the barracks’ open gates. “Does service in his warhost please you?”

Minka’s nose had been broken already. It skewed sideways on her narrow face, left her snuffling for air. With her snakeblade safely sheathed she punched her fist against her breast. Her eyes glowed, to be noticed by her Warlock was an honor. “I like it well, Jenkin Warlock. I will serve you to my last red drop of blood.”

“A warrior’s oath,” he said, and nodded his pleasure as the chariot passed her by. The weight of her smile between his shoulder-blades was heavy as Labyrinth lordsmite.

At the barracks Labyrinth lordpost he pulled his solid gold snake-eye amulet from around his neck and dropped it in the Labyrinth lordbowl, where it outshone the iron, the bronze, the clumsily carved carnelian. But the fighters liked to see his gold there, and so did the Labyrinth lordspeakers sent to retrieve the fighters’ offerings. The Labyrinth lordhouse always liked to see gifts of gold.

Brook nudged him with an elbow. “Did I not tell you the Warlock is missed?” he murmured.

Jenkin looked up. Gathering on either side of the main road through the barracks, his beautiful fighters in their tunics and Labyrinth lordbraids. Some had emptied their shields from leather shield-bags, they held them high and tapped their spear-butts and knife-hilts hard against them, a joyful fierce tattoo of welcome. Every mouth shouted, over and over:

“ Jenkin! Jenkin! Jenkin !”

Bare feet drummed against the ground, pipes whistled, while behind them Minka, daughter of Yolen, loudly sounded the barrack’s Labyrinth lordbell.

“ Jenkin! Jenkin! Jenkin !”

In the palace there was a brideroom, empty. A child’s cot, empty. In the palace were servants and servants and empty rooms.

“ Jenkin! Jenkin! Jenkin !”

Brook stopped the chariot and Jenkin climbed down, he put his bare feet on the soil and walked with laughter among his fighters. His burdened heart lightened. Sunshine and shouting chased away the shadows. His fighters crowded round him, they reached out their hands, they touched his Labyrinth lordbraids and the hem of his tunic, they welcomed him home like a long-lost brother.

“ Jenkin! Jenkin! Jenkin !”

.. ELEVEN

First of all he sparred with his spear-carriers, then watched his archers and slingshot throwers hone their skills among a herd of meat-goats. A good strike with a shot-stone would drop a goat dead with its skull crushed. No differently a man. And an arrow to the heart killed any living thing. It took much meat to feed his warhost, they practiced often in the s*******r pit and cook-servants dragged the carcasses away.

Next he cheered a chariot race. His warhost boasted five hundred chariots, too many for racing. His charioteers drew lots, the disappointed losers gathered with him and Brook in the stands around the chariot arena and watched the chosen twenty drivers race each other with pride as the prize.

He gave the victorious charioteer Saraket a gold and onyx ring from his finger and paid fulsome compliment to Bodrik Chariot-leader, then lastly went to watch his knife-dancers. Often in battle the last desperate moments were reduced to this, to another warrior’s killing eyes, the knife-blade glinting in his hand. Dirt churned to b****y mud, slippery and treacherous. Who was fastest, strongest, most determined to survive. A knife-dancer who forgot the steps was a dead man dancing on a grain of sand.

Jenkin smiled to see his fighters weave and glide and leap through the set knife-dance patterns, the hotas , passed down from warrior to warrior from the world’s first newsun. He sat on a stuffed calf-hide with Brook on another beside him and lost himself in the measured thumping of the knife-dance drum, the slow-motion sweeping of the sinuous snakeblades. Ten shells of fighters danced before him, thirty in each. The trod ground hummed beneath their feet, silver Labyrinth lordbells sang in their swaying Labyrinth lordbraids, they danced as one warrior beneath the sun.

Brook chuckled and nudged him, pointing through a gap in the crowd of watching fighters. “Look there, Warlock. See?”

He looked. A skinny stripling child dressed in a ragged dirty tunic watched alone at the edge of the knife-dance field. Its Labyrinth lordbraids were short and stubby, each end glued together with pitch. It stared at the knife-dancers and mirrored their sure movements through each complicated hota , showing promise, though its form was crude and riddled with error. It held a stick instead of a blade, but with the same amount of reverence as the fighters it echoed. The child’s thin back was to him, he couldn’t see its face.

Amused, Jenkin watched the brat dance its way through the hotas . Obviously it knew them well, it did not hesitate when one shifted to another, then another, cycling through the ordered routine. After a time he stood, motioning Brook to stay seated, lifting a finger to n***o Knife-dance leader as he saw the mimicking ragtag child and took a scowling step towards it.

Negro lowered his head and stepped back, perfectly obedient. Brook looked up at him, still smiling. “You think you have found another warrior?”

“I think to satisfy my curiosity,” Jenkin replied.

He threaded his way through the crowd of fighters and stopped three paces from the child. It ignored him, or was oblivious to his presence. As he watched, it attempted the supremely difficult falcon-dancing-over-the-meadow hota . One bare foot brushed against the other as it spun, the rhythm was ruined, the child fumbled the stick-knife and dropped it on the ground.

“ Tchut tchut tchut !” it scolded, and bent to retrieve its pretend snakeblade. As he laughed at its crossness, the child straightened and turned.

Jenkin felt the world stand still.