Free The Warrior Prophet by R. Scott Bakker Page B

also such sweet fruits.
    The old Empress turned to leave.
    “Will you not stay, Mother?” Xerius called, his voice thick. “Watch your son enjoy this gift of yours?”
    Istriya hesitated. “No, Xerius.”
    “But you will, Mother. The Emperor is difficult to please. You must instruct her.”
    There was a pause, filled only by the girl’s whimper.
    “But certainly, my son,” Istriya said at length, and walked grandly over to the couch. The rigid girl flinched when she grasped her hand and drew it down to Xerius’s scrotum. “Gently, child,” she cooed. “Shushh. No weeping …”
    Xerius groaned and arched into her, laughed when she chirped in pain. He gazed into his mother’s painted face suspended over the girl’s shoulder, whiter even than the porcelain, Galeoth skin, and he burned with that old, illicit thrill. He felt a child again, careless. All was as it should be. The Gods were auspicious indeed …
    “Tell me, Xerius,” his mother said huskily, “how was it that you discovered Skeaös?”

CHAPTER THREE
     
    ASGILIOCH
     
    The proposition “I am the centre” need never be uttered. It is the assumption upon which all certainty and all doubt turns.
    —AJENCIS, THE THIRD ANALYTIC OF MEN
     
     
See your enemies content and your lovers melancholy.
    —AINONI PROVERB
     

Early Summer, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, the fortress of Asgilioch
     
    For the first time in living memory, an earthquake struck the Unaras Spur and the Inûnara Highlands. Hundreds of miles away the great bustling markets of Gielgath fell silent as wares swung on their hooks and mortar chipped down shivering walls. Mules kicked, their eyes rolling in fear. Dogs howled.
    But in Asgilioch, the southern bulwark of the peoples of the Kyranae Plains since time immemorial, men were knocked to their knees, walls swayed like palm fronds, and the ancient citadel of Ruöm, which had survived the Kings of Shigek, the dragons of Tsurumah, and no less than three Fanim Jihads, collapsed in a mighty column of dust. As the survivors pulled bodies from the debris, they found themselves grieving the stone more than the flesh. “Hard-hearted Ruöm!” they cried out in disbelief. “The High Bull of Asgilioch has fallen!” For many in the Empire, Ruöm was a totem. Not since the days of Ingusharotep II, the ancient God-King of Shigek, had the citadel of Asgilioch been destroyed—the last time the South ever conquered the peoples of the Kyranae Plains.
    The first Men of the Tusk, a troop of hard-riding Galeoth horsemen under Coithus Saubon’s nephew, Athjeäri, arrived four days following. To their dismay, they found Asgilioch in partial ruin, and her battered garrison convinced of the Holy War’s doom. Nersei Proyas and his Conriyans arrived the day after, to be followed two days after that by Ikurei Conphas and his Imperial Columns, as well as the Shrial Knights under Incheiri Gotian. Where Proyas had taken the Sogian Way along the southern coast, then marched cross-country through the Inûnara Highlands, Conphas and Gotian had taken the so-called “Forbidden Road”—built by the Nansur to allow the quick deployment of their Columns between the Fanim and Scylvendi frontiers. Of those Great Names who struck through the heart of the province, Coithus Saubon and his Galeoth were the first to arrive—almost a full week after Conphas. Gothyelk and his Tydonni appeared shortly after, followed by Skaiyelt and his grim Thunyeri.
    Of the Ainoni nothing was known, save that from the outset their host, perhaps hampered by its ponderous size or by the Scarlet Spires and their vast baggage trains, had trouble making half the daily distance of the other contingents. So the greater portion of the Holy War made camp on the barren slopes beneath Asgilioch’s ramparts and waited, trading rumours and premonitions of disaster. To the sentries posted on Asgilioch’s walls, they looked like a migrating nation—like something from the Tusk.
    When it became apparent