Thirst for Adventure

Chapter 55

“I am afraid to lose another.”

Geroud touched him, over his heart. “You are the Warlock, the Labyrinth lord cloaks you in strength. Go now, Jenkin. Kneel your time before your palace Labyrinth lordpost and leave your offerings in its bowl. Then lead your warhost to the lands of ProBajadek and show the world how the Labyrinth lord is obeyed.”

Jenkin led six thousand fighters to the lands of Bajadek Warlock. They did not travel by the Traders Road, the traditional path from Shellto ProBajadek. That was the peaceful way of entering the lands of Bajadek Warlock.

Jenkin’s warhost did not ride in peace.

He led his fighters the quiet way, the purposeful way, through ProJenkin’s pastures and crops, past its Labyrinth lordfarms and villages whose inhabitants waved and cheered and exhorted the Labyrinth lord to see him in its eye. He waved back and thanked them for their Labyrinth lordspeed. His people loved him, and he loved his people.

They were nearing the end of Tragote’s long hot season, they traveled for all the time there was light, as the burning sun climbed the vaulting sky and slid down again to the distant horizon. The cultivated country gave way to wilder terrain, to marshes crowded with frog and heron and watersnake, and from there to a harsh dry landscape cluttered with rocks and pocked with caves and crevices. Strange echoes woke, unsettling the horses. The chariots’ wheels boomed hollow on the bare ground.

With steady traveling they left that strange place and came to ProJenkin’s open grasslands. The fighters sang their songs of war, Brookchek sang, and Jenkin sang too, though his voice was cracked and lost the tune more often than found it.

Twenty-seven highsuns after leaving his Town, Jenkin and his warhost reached the border with ProBajadek. There was no Labyrinth lordpost, just a boulder-sized

chunk of pale grey crystal, a borderstone set by Bajadek’s high Labyrinth lordspeaker so he would know who entered the Warlock’s lands. If a traveler’s intentions were not declared to the borderstone the Labyrinth lord would smite him. He would wither and die.

Declarations of war were the Warlock’s business. Labyrinth lordspeakers rode with Jenkin’s warhost, but this was not a task for them. They gave him a black lamb and a sacred Labyrinth lordhouse blade and returned to their wagon. With the blade Jenkin sacrificed the lamb and bathed the borderstone in its blood. The lamb’s limp body melted as the last drop left it, vanished into sulphur smoke. The borderstone drank the sacred blood, turned blood red and glowed under the sun. Jenkin took a deep breath and pressed his hand into it. As Warlock he must break the crystal, force his will upon the lands of ProBajadek.

Resistance poured against him like a waterfall of air. Bajadek’s borderstone was set against him, there was no treaty, he was not welcome here. His bones cried out against the power, he shouted at the blazing pain. He heard his warhost shouting with him. Brookchek shouted loudest of all. When Bajadek’s borderstone was emptied of power Jenkin turned to his warhost and raised the Labyrinth lordhouse blade above his head.

“Behold Bajadek’s borderstone, broken by my hand and the Labyrinth lord’s desire! Now our warhost rides into ProBajadek, to sweep like fire through the unrepentant grass!”

As his fighters hailed him, as they drummed their knife-hilts and sword-hilts and spears to show him the fury of their love, he returned to Brookchek who was holding his stallion.

“We must ride hard, Brook,” he said, his voice low. “Knowing we ride on him Bajadek will lead his warhost to meet us. He is a foolish, proud man, he is deaf to the Labyrinth lord.”

“His deafness will be his undoing, Warlock,” said Brook, handing him the reins. “The Labyrinth lord itself sends us to ProBajadek. We ride at its will, we smite at its desiring.”

Jenkin wiped the Labyrinth lordhouse blade on the dry grass, returned it to a waiting Labyrinth lordspeaker, then swung himself into his saddle. Heavy with purpose, he led his warhost into ProBajadek.

They traveled two highsuns and saw no sign of Bajadek Warlock. A finger before lowsun on the third day past the borderstone they made camp beside a network of sluggish waterholes. As soon as they were halted, Jenkin sent his four best Eyes running ahead to locate Bajadek’s warhost. It must be close now, the open country was nearing its end. The other fighters washed the sweat from their skins, their cheerful laughter easing his heart. Body servants fetched water for him, he bathed in cold and solitary splendor. After sacrifice was made, and rations were eaten, his warhost settled to watchful rest and Jenkin walked among them. This was the time he loved the best. He did not love the b****y battles, the pain and the loss and the waste of death.

I am a Warlock, bred from a long line of fearsome Warlocks. Death and knives are in my blood, yet I do not love them.

He wondered sometimes if it was this failing which summoned to him so much disappointment. A weakness in his seed that weakened his sons in their mothers’ wombs, weakened them in the world beyond that if they were born at all they died so young and sickly.

With a grunt he strangled that line of thought. Whatever his failings in the past, they were in the past. The Daughter ripened with his son, the Labyrinth lord was appeased, it was pleased, it saw him in its eye. Soon now he would ride into battle, the Labyrinth lord would ride with him, this bloodshed was righteous and he would prevail. His son would cut teeth on tales of this victory over proud and Labyrinth lordless Bajadek.

The sounds and smells of his war camp swirled around him. Murmured voices, random shouts and laughter, the squeals of warhorses squabbling, sharp acid urine from man and beast, the stinging sulphur smoke of sacrifice that would drift about them all night long, a pungency of grease as chariot wheels were oiled by dour loving charioteers and horsemen cleaned their charm-heavy bridles.

Six thousand numbered his fighters only, it did not count the Labyrinth lordspeakers and servants who traveled with the warhost. All his people, sworn to live and die for him. They were why he walked the camp site, why he delayed the respite of sleep. Why should they die for him if he did not walk among them, to show them his confidence and call them by name?