Thirst for Adventure

Chapter 57

Newsun came swiftly, staining the sky scarlet. With sober anticipation the fighters gathered to witness sacrifice. The white lamb died with grace, in silence. Wyngra Labyrinth lordspeaker, appointed to the warhost by Geroud himself, captured its blood in a golden chalice and gave it to Jenkin to drink. Then he scooped out the lamb’s eyes and burned them to ash with a purple Labyrinth lordstone. The ash he sifted through his fingers, drifted it onto the silver omen-plate. n***d and squatting, amulets the size of fists dangling from thongs around his neck, his wrists, his waist, he lowered his eyelids and read the ashes’ drifted patterns.

“ Here is the sign of the scorpion ,” said Wyngra, rasping. His gnarled fingers traced the omens in the air. “ Here is its raised tail, here are its pincers. Here lie the bodies of the vanquished, woe to the misguided and the tricked. Ride triumphant to battle, Jenkin Warlock. The Labyrinth lord sees you in its eye, it hungers for the blood of the disobedient and the greedy .”

Jenkin raised his snakeblade high, it flashed in the first light, red as blood. His belly churned with fresh hot lamb’s blood. Blood stained his lips and smeared the snake on his leather breastplate.

“The omens favor us! We ride for the Labyrinth lord!”

“We ride for the Labyrinth lord!” his fighters shouted. “We ride for Jenkin, Warlock of ProJenkin, Town of cities in the Labyrinth lord’s land of Tragote!”

As Wyngra wrapped the lamb’s body for later eating, Jenkin turned to Brookchek. “Gather the skill-leaders. I will speak to them before we ride.”

They stood before him grim and glorious, the skill-leaders of his warhost: n***o, Antokoi, Bodrik and Dokoy. He praised them for their training and their leadership, he thanked them for their service and the blood they would spill. He promised to honor their bodies if they should fall.

“The Labyrinth lord sees you,” he told them, fist pressed against his heart. “The Labyrinth lord sees you in its eye, and I see you also.”

They departed to rally their fighters, and in private he took his leave of Brookchek. They would fight together in the battle but that was no time for thanks or farewell.

Brook embraced him. “You are my Warlock, you are my brother and my friend,” he whispered. “If I fall today, believe I fall willingly for you and the Labyrinth lord.”

“No Warlock was served as I am served by you, Brook,” he replied, and held him so hard he heard ribs creak. His voice was soft, and almost lost in the rabbling noise of the warhost gathering itself for war. Tears pricked his eyes, he let them fall. “The Labyrinth lord see you in its eye, my friend, my brother. I will see you when the war is won.”

After that the talking was over. Jenkin mounted his stallion, he rode it to the head of his warhost and led them to war.

The warhosts of Shelland ProBajadek faced each other on the Plain of Drokar. Jenkin rode out alone, to meet with Bajadek in solitary council halfway between their gathered fighters. It was an honored custom, no danger attached to such a meeting. A Warlock who killed in solitary council was demonstruck and sent to hell, his sons put to death by his own people, his bloodline washed from history in blood.

“Kneel to me, Bajadek Warlock,” said Jenkin curtly. “Confess your wickedness and accept the Labyrinth lord’s smiting of your flesh alone. Your obedient fighters should not die for their Warlock’s sin.”

Bajadek sneered. He had only one eye, the other lost in a skirmish with Takona Warlock when he inherited his father’s lands. He was squat and brutal, he wielded his two unloved sons like a double-bladed knife, to cut and wound and m**m the Warlock who sired no living sons to follow him.

“What sin? What wickedness? I am a Warlock, what I want, I take. That is the way of things, do you deny it?”

“Not even a Warlock can take what the Labyrinth lord has given to another. Nogolor Warlock received my mercy. You can receive it also, for your fighters’ sakes.”

“Nogolor Warlock is old,” replied Bajadek, scornful. “Old men are like wheat, they bend in the wind. I am stone, I am timber, my bones grow in the ground. You cannot bend me, Jenkin Warlock. I will kill you before highsun and take your lands and your people. Your water seed has sired no offspring, your spear is blunt. Your day is done.”

Jenkin kept his face cold. In Shellhis son was ripening. “The Labyrinth lord turned away from Grakilon high Labyrinth lordspeaker, the scorpions killed him for defying its desire. Nogolor Warlock was spared, he gave to me his Labyrinth lordpromised Daughter. Even now my son grows in her belly, the Labyrinth lord sees me, Bajadek. I live in its eye. Repent, Warlock. We will make a treaty. I would not spill your blood for the pleasure of watching you bleed.”

“Then you are a fool, Jenkin,” Bajadek whispered. “Bleeding you is a pleasure long longed for. Look not for mercy from Bajadek Warlock. It is a word he never was taught.”

Jenkin sat for a moment, watching Bajadek gallop back to his warhost. If the Warlock had bowed his head, had kneeled on the ground, had admitted his mischief, he would have asked the Labyrinth lord to let battle end before it began.

Clearly, Labyrinth lord, that is not your desire. Blood you desire, and blood you shall have.

.. FIFTEEN

Bajadek sent out his chariots first, a foolish move of arrogant bravado. He hoped to terrify his enemy’s warhost, to break their ranks and send them fleeing. His hope was wasted. Not even Bajadek’s thundering chariots could break the will of Jenkin’s warhost. Jenkin countered with mounted archers and slingshotters on foot, and with running spearmen who could strike a charioteer and his horses before they reached their enemy’s front line. Not all were struck down, some of Bajadek’s chariots breached his defenses. He heard his fighters and their horses screaming, he heard the crunch of bone and the tearing of flesh, smelled the first rank flooding of their blood.

He closed his ears and hardened his heart, he was fighting for the Labyrinth lord and his own smirched honor. They died for him willingly, they died for the Labyrinth lord.

I will honor your bodies, I will burn them to ash, I will sing your names in the Labyrinth lordhouse of ProJenkin.

His own chariots, Jenkin held back at each flank. Brookchek led them, he would know the right time to set them free and drive Bajadek’s fighters into disarray and death.