already spent.’
‘Even if we win, come morning …’ Asayaga motioned to the other side of the wall and then drew a finger across his own throat. He paused, then shook his head. ‘To those at home, we are already lost,’ he continued, his voice barely a whisper.
‘We’re overdue. If word ever got back to the Warlord’s camp that we all died in a futile battle, there would be no honour in it for our clan. Our House will be blamed for the loss of this command. If months from now a rumour comes back of our bleached bones being found in this gods-cursed place, thirty miles or more from where we were suppose to be, someone will seek to cast blame.
‘It won’t matter to me, I’ll be dead, as will you. But it will matter to our house and clan. Sugama’s family …’ He shook his head. His face briefly showed disgust before his features resumed their passive expression. ‘The Minwanabi, they win either way. He comes back alive from this, he’s a hero. He disappears, they’ve got rid of a Tondora fool, but they’ll cast him as the hero and vilify us. Clan Shonshoni rises. The Minwanabi rise. We gain nothing for our own.’
Tasemu asked, ‘So then, you think the rumours from home are true: that the Minwanabi lord seeks to displace Almecho as Warlord?’
Asayaga let out a long, silent breath. ‘Almecho would not be the first Warlord to be removed by a more ambitious rival. And the Minwanabi lord keeps his cousin Tasaio out here in this miserable weather for a reason.’
‘But he’s second-in-command, Force Commander.’
‘That’s the brilliance. If we are victorious, he shares the glory. But if we fail, he replaces a powerful rival …’ Asayaga stopped, then chuckled. ‘Ever, we are Tsurani, Tasemu.’ He motioned around him and said, ‘We sit upon this wooden palisade, leaning against frozen stones, in this miserable cold, surrounded by enemies, hours away from almost certain death, on a world not our own, and what do we do? We discuss politics back home.’
‘The Great Game is the Empire, Force Commander.’
Asayaga’s demeanour turned suddenly stern. ‘And the Empire is on another world! No. We must find a way out of here. A suicidal fight for honour may make sense back home, might help the family or clan in the Great Game, but to look for such a fight here, I would have to be an imbecile.’
Tasemu looked over at him and smiled. There was, for Asayaga a flash of memory then, a memory of nearly ten years ago when both of them were young soldiers, filled with dreams of glory and honour, ready to believe all they had been taught of Tsurani rules of proper behaviour in war.
Then had come the word of the failed invasion against the Thuril Confederation, and the cessation of hostilities in the highlands to the east of the Empire. Few dared openly call it a defeat, but for the first since the abandonment of Thubar – the Lost Lands across the Sea of Blood centuries earlier – the Empire of Tsuranuanni had been thwarted in its expansion.
The Party for War had been in turmoil, and the coalition of the Blue Wheel Party and the Party for Progress had been on the rise; then had come the discovery of the Rift Gate and the passage to this world, rich in metals and inhabited by barbarians. The Warlord Almecho had seized the opportunity to mount an expedition to bolster his falling stock in the Great Council and the war banners had flown and the battle call had sounded.
Young men had bravely marched before the Emperor’s reviewing stand while drums and horns had sounded. The Light of Heaven himself had blessed the endeavour and Asayaga had felt certain a great victory would be swiftly coming. He was Force Commander of his House, but it was a minor house and in prestige he stood behind even a Patrol Leader of one of the Five Great Houses. But he would win glory, rise in importance, and bring honour to his House within his Clan.
War, however, had taught them something far different: reality.
Asayaga whispered, ‘We must gain a position where if we do kill their captain and the scout word will somehow get back that it was us, that it was our Clan that did such a deed ; that it was our sacrifice, otherwise Sugama’s family and Clan will create a different tale. Even at the cost of our entire company, to end the ravages of Hartraft’s Marauders would bring glory to our house. But only if the Kodeko are given the credit.’
‘Which would prove difficult with the Minwanabi relaying the word back to the home world,’ Tasemu observed.
‘A good reason, my friend,’ Asayaga added wryly, ‘to get us out of this alive. Then we can carry word home ourselves.’
‘Alliance with the Kingdom troops, captain?’ Tasemu asked. ‘By all the gods if word of that ever gets back it will be just as bad as if word never gets back. You will be denounced as a coward for not taking their heads when you had the chance, or it will be seen as tantamount to surrender.’ Tsurani soldiers didn’t surrender; on their homeworld it meant slavery and dishonour. Better to die with a sword in one’s hand than live a life of shame.
‘Are you so eager to die, Strike Leader Tasemu?’
Tasemu looked as if he had been gravely insulted.
Asayaga chuckled and gripped his shoulder. ‘We’re alike,’ he whispered, ‘we want to get out of this with heads still on our shoulders as well. A dead man serves his house for a very limited time.’
Tasemu smiled and laughed softly, shaking his head. His friend had played the old game, indirectly leading in one direction, but in fact seeking the answer he had just received. ‘True. I don’t appreciate someone like Sugama urging me to get myself killed for honour’s sake,’ he replied, rubbing the patch that covered his blind eye. ‘Given a choice, I’d rather defer such honours to him and lead a long life in obscurity.’ His smile faded. ‘But, he’s got more than one lad ready to pull a blade and use it on any pretence. Whatever you do, you’d better do it soon, Force Commander.’
Asayaga sighed. ‘Keep the watch.’
He slipped down the ladder and returned to the barracks. Though he would never admit it he was glad to have the errand, it would mean several minutes of warmth.
That was one thing about this damnable world he could never get used to. Of all the places to open a rift to, it had to be here, to a place where the water froze in the air. He resolved, as he had almost every night since the war had started, that the first thing he would do once it was over was to go home, find a sun-drenched beach on the Sea of Blood, and swim in the warm breakers, then lie on the sand, letting the heat soak into his weary bones. His family had a small home on the bluffs overlooking the ocean in Lash Province, near the city of Xula. He had not been there since entering training, but if he ever returned home, that is where he planned to travel first after seeing his younger brother.
As he reached the door to the barracks, he wondered if he would ever again experience the salt spray cutting through the hot dry winds, rich with the pungent, sweet aroma of jicanji blossoms, the brilliant orange flowers that bloomed on the floating kelp beyond the breakers for only a few days each year.
He pushed the door open and stepped in. The air was fetid with the stench of warm bodies and wet wool, boiling stew, stinking foot-wrappings and open wounds, banishing all memory of blossoms and salt spray. He cast a quick glance at the wounded lying in the corner. Osami, one of his youngest looked at him, trying to act stoic. He knelt down by the boy’s side.
‘Their robed one drew the arrow,’ the boy said.
‘I know.’
‘Why would he do such
