Star of Cursrah by Clayton Emery

Author:Clayton Emery
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: General Interest
Published: 2010-12-31T05:00:00+00:00

10

The 383rd Anniversary of the Great

Arrival

"You'll be sorry now," growled Samira Amenstar to the cavalry captain. "Striking royalty comes at the cost of the offending hand… and then your head."

The lean, dark captain hammered her lips into a tight white line. After four hours' ride-and endless grumbled threats from Amenstar-the cavalry and their captives entered the hills northeast of Cursrah. Before them unfolded a city of tents. Foot soldiers and horse troopers marched and galloped hither and yon. Scores of slaves chopped, baked, and dished food onto long plank tables.

"What are they up to?" murmured Gheqet.

Tafir nodded to an open-air workshop. Dozens of slaves repaired and manufactured shovels, pickaxes, mattocks, and crowbars. Slave children wove rushes into baskets heaped up like winter apples.

"Hundreds of hand tools and baskets to carry dirt," the architect's apprentice said. "There must be some kind of excavation going on nearby."

"Make way. Prisoners for questioning," bellowed their escort.

Slaves and soldiers sidestepped. The camp was laid in neat military lines,

with Samir Pallaton's big square headquarters tent centermost. The cavalry patrol rode the three captives up to six spear-wielding guards. As they dismounted, Samira Amenstar took charge and marched into the tent as if she owned it. The cavalry captain trotted to keep up.

"Samir Pallaton!" shrilled Amenstar.

Everyone in the tent turned. Prince Pallaton and nine advisers studied parchment maps pegged to an easel. Servants hovered at the back of the big tent, and eight guards were posted about. All wore undyed linen tunics emblazoned with red ox heads.

Amenstar still wore her riding clothes of plum blouse and yellow trousers smudged with dust and campfire smoke. Her silver tiara and cornrowed hair were streaked with blood from a sliced ear. The young woman looked every inch a princess as her fury boiled over.

"This woman whipped me!" Star shrilled. A royal finger stabbed at the sweating cavalry captain, who stood at rigid attention. "As a princess of the blood, I demand she be punished with her life-flayed alive and her guts hurled to the jackals! She struck me, if you can believe it, with her filthy, common hands, knocked me off my horse, called me a bitch and a trull, and lashed me like some slacking dung shoveller. I have condemned her to be burned at the stake, and I order you, as a royal heir to a throne, to punish her immediately."

Placidly, Samir Pallaton waited until Star ran out of breath. Handsome and hirsute, stocky and swarthy, the prince wore a common uniform accented by leather cross-belts, shoulder wings, and the red ox head sigil stamped on a leather disk. On campaign, he wore matched short swords at each hip, a leather skullcap with red neck cloth, and the spitting cobra headband.

As Amenstar panted to a halt, Samir Pallaton waved forward his cavalry officer. Saluting, the dark, lithe woman trembled slightly.

The army's commander asked calmly, "Captain Chawal?"

"Your Majesty, these people, traveling without escort and in disguise, violated our border, refused to give their names when asked, then tried to flee.

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