Free Diamond Warriors by David Zindell Page A

Our horses' hooves drummed against it in a clacking, rhythmic pace, and we made good distance without too much work. Twenty-four miles it was from Lord Harsha's farm to Lord Avian's castle, straight through the heartland of what had once been my father's realm. And at nearly every house or field that we passed, men, women and children paused in their labors to watch us pound down the road.
    At the edge of a pear orchard, a hoary warrior raised his hand to point at my father's banner streaming in the breeze as he called out to his grandson: 'Look - the swan and stars of the Elahad!'
    He was too old and infirm to do more than wish us well, but we came across other warriors who wanted to take part in our expedition. Those who owned warhorses - and whom Lord Harsha or the other knights could vouch for - I asked to join us. By the time the sun began dropping toward the mountains behind us, we numbered thirty-three strong.
    About eight miles from Lord Avijan's castle, we turned onto a much narrower road leading north. This took us through a band of pasture with the Lake of the Ten Thousand Swans to our left and the steep slopes of Mount Eluru rising almost straight up to the right. In one place, only a strip of grass ten yards wide separated the sacred mountain's granite walls from the icy blue waters of the lake. Lord Avijan's ancestors had built the Avijan castle farther up through the pass in a cleft between two spurs of Mount Eluru's northern buttress. In all the world, I could think of few castles harder to reach or possessing such great natural defenses.
    We approached the castle up a very steep and rocky slope that would have daunted any attacking army. A shield wall fronted with a moat and protected by many high towers, surrounded the castle's yards and shops, with the great keep rising up like a stone block beneath the much greater mass of Mount Eluru behind it.
    Lord Avijan, followed by a retinue of twenty knights, met us on the drawbridge that, was lowered over black waters. He had decked himself out in full armor, and sat upon a huge gray stallion. His blue surcoat showed a golden boar. He was a tall man with a long, serious face that reminded me of a wolfhound. At twenty-six years of age, he was young to be a lord, but my father had found few men in Mesh so skilled at leading a great many knights in wild but well-organized charges of steel-clad horses.
    'Lord Elahad!' he called out to me in a strong, stately voice. 'Welcome home to Mesh - and to my home. My castle is yours for as long as you need it. And my warriors and knights are yours to command, for as you must have been told, they have taken oaths to me, and it is my command that they should support you in becoming king.'
    This, I thought, was Lord Avijan's way of apologizing for a thing that he had no need to apologize for. A proud and intelligent man with little vanity, he came from a long and honored line of warriors. His grandfather had married my great-grandfather's youngest sister, and so we counted ourselves as kin. This distant tie of blood, however, formed no basis for his claim on Mesh's throne. That came from his skill at arms, his coolness of head on the battlefield and his good judgment off it - and the way he inspired courage and loyalty in the men whom he led.
    'Thank you, Lord Avijan,' I told him. I nudged Altaru closer to him so that I could clasp his hand. 'But it is my wish that you release your warriors from their oaths. I would have them follow me, or not, according to their hearts. And then, if it is my fate to become king, they may make their oaths to me.'
    Lord Avijan bowed his head at this, and then so did the knights lined up in the tunnel of the tower behind him. They drew out their kalamas to salute me, then struck them against their shields in a great noise of steel against steel. And one of them - a knight I recognized as Tavish the Bold - cried out: 'You will become king, and we will follow you to the end of all battles, oaths or no