"Small barbarian, your father is raiding our borders. He sweeps our provinces with horsemen numbering in the thousands. Before them are villages and hamlets, after them are dead bodies. You are here as a guarantee for his faith in the pact. Explain, small barbarian, why we should not execute you right here and now."
"Sire, you must know by now that I am a fraud, I am not Xige Angha Khan's son. I am a sham, no more real than a palace maid wearing a princess' accouterments. He has three sons, each of them now a man grown and protected by their own private armies. He will think nothing of sending me to fly in the sky."
"This is evident. Yet, small barbarian, you must know that all great undertakings are best inaugurated with blood. I can think of nothing that will bring favor to our expedition than your own blood."
"Sire, it's obvious to see. In the annals, men sacrifice bulls to gain favor, so it's obvious that a sovereign like yourself must be able to sacrifice men. Yet, sire, allow me to note that in ages past, the righteous have always disdained animal sacrifice. Heaven disposes according to the morals of the rulers, and are not brought off by blood. In ancient times, Ximen…"
"You draw an analogy, small barbarian. Your tongue is as glib as the day I met you. Continue."
"Sire, I propose that you release me so that I may travel amongst the Serpi, enjoining the right and rejecting the wrong. Xige Angha Khan's crown rests uneasy on his brow. Of the great tribes of the steppe, the Jiebulu have always hated the Duolo for their own misfortunes. The nine desert families have always hated Xige Angha Khan's taxes. Sire, if you enoff me with a badge of office, these people will, through me, rise up and pay proper homage to your might once more."
Here another man throws his voice into the conversation. "The prince seeks to preserve his own skin. He is a singer. He is singing to live another day. Nothing more, nothing less. Thearch, this changes nothing. We ought to disregard him entirely and focus on arranging the depots for the army."
"Sir, since my grandfather's time, the forces of the plow and the forces of the bow have clashed nine times. Three times you won, each presaging internal unrest from the cost. Fortresses destroyed, necessitating vast amounts of corvee labour. And since corvee labourers can't grow grain, there were local famines, harming the people."
"How shameless! You raise the livelihoods of our people for what? So you can return to that cold hell, to perhaps one day raise a raiding party yourself!"
"And yet, sir, none of this is a denial."
The August Thearch raises a hand. "Enough."
No one said a word. The August Thearch considered his fingernails. "Small barbarian, be direct and precise. How many soldiers, how many treasures, should I spare for your mission? How much should I allow you to steal from the great state?"
"Sire, for soldiers, I wouldn't want any. All I ask are for enough porters and camels to carry a thousand bolts of brocade and a thousand silver taels."
"What a small amount! Well, your tongue is silver enough to make up the difference. Such a small mission… Nothing is wasted. If I kill you, Xige Angha won't care, and my armies won't either. Yet, small barbarian, because of the love I show to you and your people, you must take a squadron of fast cavalry with you! Grand Commandant, make the arrangements."
"Rushing waters and clouds, the crane dips his beak in the golden rivers. Flying a distance of ten thousand leagues, the faraway son returns home!"
"For a barbarian, you're hopelessly conventional," the captain of the Moth and Flower cavalry, a middle aged man named Hongchen Liyan told Atil. "I'd thought you'd mix it up with one of you Serpi people's long and boring ballads."
"I can't help it," Atil shrugged. They were riding on the northern road, all the way to the small kingdom of Moegan. There, the plan was the hop the border wall into the lands of the Serpi, dodging Xige Angha Khan's outriders. Well, Atil thought as he breathed in the countryside air, that was the Moth and Flower plan. He had a different one. "I only just learned the medium, after all."
Behind them snaked a convoy of three hundred or so souls. One hundred Moth and Flower cavalry, bearing their long lances but hardly a bow in sight, as well as two hundred odd servants, cooks, and cart drivers. A thousand taels of silver were extremely heavy, especially since you had to prepare for crooked border agents, so you added more. This convoy was as large as a horse herd, dim memories from Atil's childhood.
No issue, he told himself. I'm a lonely wanderer no more. Soon I'll return to the home of the Serpi people and myself… Ha, hark at him, separating himself from the Serpi people even in thought. "Can you speak Serpi?" Atil asked Hongchen Liyan. "You've mentioned the ballads."
"A little bit," the plowman said modestly. "I picked up a little in the army, and there was a passing fad for Serpi clothing, Serpi songs, ten years back."
Atil nodded. Then Hongchen Liyan rode back, and one of the Serpi soldiers took his place at Atil's side. Ayiz had a head full of fiery red hair when they entered Eternal Peace, and now his hair was dimming and greying. "Sir," he greeted the young prince. "Is the plan still in place?"
The young prince looked back. Hongchen Liyan had disappeared into the cloud of dust kicked up by the convoy. "Whyever not?"
"Well, you're a little bit friendly with that man, aren't you?"
"I'm friendly with everyone. No, the plan's still on. But hark, he speaks Serpi, just a little. So we have to be circumspect. How's your reading?"
"Of your script? Passing well."
"Excellent. Perfectly grand."
Atil breathed in deep. He felt guided. Heaven was with him. Fate had shone the way, and the inner god was pointing him forward. All he needed was the daring and the vim to execute the plan. But first, they had to be friends. "Ayiz, the next time we're at the market, go buy some wine. The strong stuff, and some water as well. Once we're out of Moegan, we're having a feast."
"Sir."
Moegan was a small and not at all very interesting country. Whatever unique characteristics the native inhabitants had in clothing, speech, architecture and governance was long ago replaced with a slavish adoration of the Moth and Flower, such that the object of the adoration was faintly embarrassed by their vigor. It was thus that Hongchen Liyan and the rest of the Moths and Flowers heroically managed to cross the entire country in under a mere week, where contact with officials was reduced to a minimum.
Their party partied across the land. Each night, wine was freely passed out and all would gather around a great fire, where spontaneous composing of poetry was the norm. All the noble officers thought it was a fine laugh, and the common salt were always game for anything involving the words 'free' and 'wine'. Military discipline only held for a week before it became slipshod. The jailers soon became wine friends with their mark.
Two weeks later, they were at the very edge of Moegan and the great steppe. It was night. The falling sun stained one edge of the sky in purple and orange. Bonfires burned. The Moths and the Flowers were, to a man, drunk.
The Serpi were sober.
The Serpi were armored and mounted.
"Sir, I request that you remain in the second rank," Ayiz said from behind Atil. The horn was a strange weight in his hand.
"Out of the question," Atil responded pleasantly. "They're all drunk. If I die here, then that means my luck has all run out and therefore no good for anything."
"Sir."
Ayiz retreated. Atil considered the camp. One hundred drunk cavalrymen, deprived of their mounts. He made a map in his mind. There were the enemies' tents, containing the wicker baskets carrying their panoply. There was the horse herd. Carve a path between them, and always stay close to your unit.
"Gentlemen," Atil said, "you are the most faithful of soldiers. Thank you for raising me."
There was a rattle of metal as the soldiers bowed on horseback.
He raised the horn and sounded the hunt. Now the Serpi soldiers followed his horse, first from a gentle canter to a trot to a full gallop, whooping and braying like dogs on the hunt. They charged into the camp just as the Moths and Flowers were waking up, wondering at the din. A unit of fifteen plus horsemen, arranged in a tight wedge was a strong argument to scatter to the four winds, and scatter they did, like starlings in flight.
Atil felt one man go under his hooves. He was certain that he stomped the man's lungs to nothing more than mulch. Another flung himself out of the way of his couched lance, only to be skewered by the lance of another.
Right here, right now, Atil felt immortal. Elevated into heaven. Atop his mount, encased in armor, he was words apart from mortal man, who it seemed existed only to be trampled, to be pierced, to be cut and ridden down. It was an intoxicating feeling, headier than any wine. Blood splattered into his eyes, dripped from seams in his helmet. They veered around the Moths and Flowers, who in their panic assumed the instincts of a herding animal. Cattle, rather than men. It was so easy to trample clean lanes of men through this mist. They were fading into the steppe, broken and worthless.
"Sir!" A tap against his shoulder. "Look that way!" Atil did what he was bade. He saw Hongchen Liyan and a corps of men, some with parts of their armor on, some without pants. Some were the servants, some were the soldiers, and all of them held long lances like pikes.
"Oathbreaker!" Hongchen Liyan brayed. "An entire race of traitors! You… you…. I won't be satisfied until I drink your blood and eat your flesh! Your mother is a dog!"
"That's rather called for," Atil judged. "Bows out, gentlemen. Let's riddle the bastard, collect the horses, and find Xige Angha Khan."
"Called for?" Jigei Tolma had to ask. He was breathing hard, but the old man had spirit and his health was still good.
"Well, we did just betray him in the grand style." Atil slung the lance over his shoulder and drew his bow from the quiver case. Fifteen men, each able to loose an arrow every ten seconds, riding in circles around a static formation. This did not end well. They looked like hedgehogs by the time they were done and the crows circling overhead. Eat well, he wished the birds, why ever not should we share the joy?
What was Atil thinking, as he did this terrible deed?
[]- Self Justification. It's a terrible thing he did. But he had to do it, you see, otherwise a Serpi soldier would have snuck into his tent and slit his throat.
[]- Glee and excitement! Why, he just pulled off the trick of the lifetime! It's the stuff of song! He's certain they'll be singing about it for years, and if they don't, he will.
[]- Nothing at all! It's a song, a story, a legend. It is not real, no more than reality is real. In any case, what's far more important is that he'll finally be home now.
