The Diamond Warriors. David Zindell

shall be yours.’

      As the infantry in our army outnumbered the cavalry by more than ten to one, it was a magnanimous offer.

      ‘Command your warriors to pledge to me,’ Lord Tomavar said again, ‘and we can bring an end to this conclave, here and now!’

      If Lord Tanu did as Lord Tomavar asked, then more than ten thousand of the nearly sixteen thousand warriors gathered around the square would stand for Lord Tomavar, and he would become king.

      ‘Val,’ Maram murmured at my shoulder, ‘do something, before it is too late!’

      Slightly behind Maram stood Daj, Estrella, Master Juwain, Liljana and Atara. And Kane, who growled out, ‘So, it’s a deal that this Tomavar would make!’

      As a tactic, Lord Tomavar’s offer to Lord Tanu was bold and brilliant, and I could feel Lord Tanu nearly burning to incline his head to Lord Tomavar. In the moment before he commanded his muscles to move and changed the future forever, I called out to him: ‘Lord Tanu – you have promised to release your warriors from their pledges so that they may stand for whom they will!’

      Lord Tanu, always a thoughtful man, regarded me deeply as the tension flowed down from his jaws into the rest of his compact body. For the moment, it seemed that he could not speak.

      ‘Lord Tanu,’ Lord Ramjay shouted out in his lord’s stead, ‘has made no such promise! He has said only that he agreed with you that the warriors should be released from their pledges. Well, perhaps they should be, if no solution other than war can decide who should be king. But Lord Tomavar has proposed an honorable way out of our troubles.’

      I heard murmurs of assent ripple up and down the lines of men behind Lord Tomavar and then pass even to Lord Tanu’s warriors, drawn up in their ranks ten deep. And then the fiery Sar Vikan, standing with the others in my escort, cried out: ‘You speak of honor, but Lord Tanu has said that the warriors should decide who will be king! By the lake, Lord Ramjay! In front of you and many who are gathered here, Lord Tanu said this thing!’

      ‘He did say it,’ Lord Ramjay agreed. ‘And it shall be the warriors who will choose our king. They have given their pledges of their own free will, and if Lord Tanu then asks them to stand for Lord Tomavar, that, in the end, is nothing but their will, and is the very essence of honor.’

      For a while, various knights and lords gathered in the square bandied words back and forth. And all the while Lord Tanu stared at me as I did him. I felt my heart pushing my blood through my veins up into my hot, hurting face. I felt Lord Tanu’s blood rushing through him, too. I did not want to think that Lord Tanu would equivocate and try to take Lord Ramjay’s ignoble way out of his promise to me. In the end, as my father had said, either one believed in men, or not.

      ‘Lord Tomavar!’ Lord Tanu finally said, turning to this great lord. ‘Your proposal is fitting, fair and indeed generous.’

      He paused to take in a breath of air as he looked up at the grinning Lord Tomavar. Lord Tanu’s face seemed to sour even more, if that were possible. Then he continued, ‘But it comes too late – I have indeed given my word to Lord Elahad that the warriors should be free choose our king.’

      ‘You have promised that,’ Lord Eldru said, glaring at Lord Ramjay.

      ‘And the warriors should choose you as king!’ Sar Shagarth said.

      ‘Lord Tanu for king!’ a hundred warriors standing behind Lord Tanu cried out all at once. ‘Lord Vishathar Tanu for king!’

      Lord Manamar Tanu, the father of Lord Tomavar’s abducted wife, cast Lord Tomavar a dark, angry look, and muttered, ‘Why should we, in any case, negotiate with a man who won’t even return a brooch to its rightful owner?’

      As a strategy, Lord Tomavar’s offer to Lord Tanu had been a poor one and had ultimately failed. It antagonized not only me and the men whom I led, but many of Lord Tanu’s followers as well. And worse, Lord Tomavar had betrayed his essential weakness: he sought Mesh’s kingship with such desperation that he was willing to stoop to bargaining like a merchant rather than relying on sound arguments and force of character to win the warriors.

      ‘All right then!’ Lord Tomavar shouted. ‘Do you think I have any cause to fear the judgment of the warriors? Let it be as you have said! Let them stand for a king, here and now!’

      Lord Tanu positioned himself like a ram before a furious bull. Even as Lord Tomavar’s face grew darker, hotter and angrier, Lord Tanu stared at him stubbornly as if he had ice in his veins.

      ‘We all can agree to that,’ Lord Tanu called out to Lord Tomavar. ‘Release your men from their pledges, that they can stand for whom they will!’

      But Lord Tomavar only shook his long, heavy head at this. ‘My men gave their pledges of their own will, and so they have already chosen who should be king.’

      ‘Yes, they chose – but in different circumstances. The times have changed.’

      ‘The times are as they have always been! And they demand a king, tested in many battles, loved and trusted, who can lead his warriors. To glory and victory!’

      As he said this, his warriors behind him let loose a great cheer – though it seemed not so great as Lord Tomavar might have wished.

      ‘We cannot,’ Lord Tanu said, ‘allow a king to be chosen this way, with two fifths of the warriors pledged to you, and everyone else standing free.’

      Lord Tomavar turned to glare at me then. And he shouted, ‘I won’t allow my warriors to stand for this one! They call Morjin the Lord of Lies, but Valashu Elahad deceives men into following him!’

      A dark fire leaped in Kane’s eyes at this, and my fearsome friend stepped forward as he grasped the hilt of his sword. And he snarled at Lord Tomavar: ‘Say it to my face, Gorvan Tomavar, that I am a man who has been deceived!’

      In horror of what might soon occur, both Master Juwain and Maram grasped one of Kane’s arms and eased him backward. Lord Tomavar tried to ignore the furious Kane. He continued staring down his long nose at me.

      ‘I won’t let my men stand for the Elahad,’ he reaffirmed. ‘Not this Elahad.’

      He whipped about to look at Manamar Tanu and bellowed: ‘And I won’t return the brooch! It belongs to Vareva, and my beloved wife is not dead!’

      ‘The Red Dragon,’ Lord Manamar said in a venomous voice, ‘took my daughter more than a year ago, and so we must assume that she is dead – or worse. Return the brooch, Lord Tomavar!’

      ‘You ask me to send diamonds to you,’ Lord Tomavar snapped, ‘when you command your smithies to cease shipments of diamond armor to us?’

      ‘It is not the same thing – return the brooch!’

      ‘You may have it,’ Lord Tomavar said, grasping the hilt of his sword, ‘when you pry it from my dead fingers!’

      ‘I should like nothing better!’ the small, deadly Lord Manamar said. His hand, too, locked onto his sword. ‘Tell me you are willing, and we shall settle this matter here!’

      Now it was Lord Tanu’s turn to cool things down. He grasped Lord Manamar’s arm and pulled his bellicose cousin a few paces back from Lord Tomavar. It might have been thought that Lord Tanu would want Lord Manamar to put his sword through Lord Tomavar’s neck, and so remove at least one contender to the throne. And Lord Tanu might