Kahless - Michael Jan Friedman [21]
Gowron’s eyes flashed with equal fire. But before he could answer, the emperor had turned on his heel and was headed for the exit.
Had it been anyone else, Kahless knew, the council leader would have rewarded his impertinence with a swift and violent death. But scroll or no scroll, he was still Kahless. Gowron didn’t dare try to kill him, no matter how great the insult.
What was more, Kahless had suffered the greater affront. The accuracy of his observations had been questioned, as if he were some drooling half-wit, or a doddering old warrior who had outlived his usefulness.
Gowron’s words stung him like pherza wasps as he threw open the doors and stalked back down the long corridor beyond.
Seeing his anger, the guards on either side of him looked away. A wise move on their part, he thought. He was in no mood for further impudence on the part of his inferiors.
Until recently, Kahless told himself, Gowron’s regime had benefited mightily from the emperor’s popularity.
Only now, as the controversy concerning the scroll reached new heights, did Gowron seem eager to disassociate himself from Kahless-to keep the clone at arm’s length.
Kahless’s mouth twisted into a silent snarl. Regardless of how Gowron had treated him, he could not let the Empire fall. And yet, he couldn’t very well face the threat of Lomakh and his conspirators alone.
He needed help. But from whom? Who could he enlist in his cause?
Not the clerics who created him. They were thinkers and philosophers, useless in a situation like this one. And there was no one else he could trust implicitly, within the council chamber or without.
No … wait. There was someone he could place his faith in.
Someone outside the empire …
The Heroic Age There was a village in the distance, the largest one they’d seen since Kahless and his men had fallen afoul of Molor’s power. The dark tower of its central keep danced in the heat waves that rose off the land, surrounded by equally dark walls.
A deep, slow-moving river irrigated the fields and the groves of fruit trees that radiated from the village like the spokes of a wheel. The wind brought the smell of the minnhor droppings commonly used as fertilizer. Swarms of blue-gray treehens scuttled across the land, screeching as they hunted for parasites.
Kahless used the back of his hand to rid his brow of perspiration. Removing his water bladder from his saddle, he untied the thong that held its neck closed, lifted, and drank. At least they’d had no shortage of water as they traveled north, away from Molor’s capital-and the river up ahead would provide them with even more.
He wished the same were true of their food supplies.
Their military provisions had run out long ago, and thanks to the famine the year before, it was almost impossible to find fresh game for the fire. As a result, they’d had to subsist on a diet of groundnuts and stringy yolok worms.
“I wouldn’t mind stopping here,” said Porus, the eldest of them. He’d been in Molor’s service longer than even Kahless himself, but he hadn’t liked their orders back in M’Riiah any better than the warchief had. “I’m weary of slinking around like a ptahk, and this place looks prosperous. I’ll wager they have plenty to eat, and then some.
Morath, who sat on Kahless’s right flank, nodded wi/lly. “I’ll wager you’re right. Their location on this broad old river must have helped them during the drought.” He bit his lip. “But we don’t dare stop here.”
“Why not?” asked a third warrior, a wiry, one-eyed man called Shurin. “What harm could it do to cajole some bread from the local baker? Or better yet, to swipe it while he’s not looking?”
Kahless shook his head slowly from side to side. “No,” he said, “Morath is right. Once the villagers get an idea we’re outlaws, they’ll report our whereabouts to the tyrant. And then a good meal will be the least of our problems.”
With that, he pulled on the reins and pointed his beast’s head toward a bend in the river. There were plent of trees and bushes there to conceal them while they filled their waterskins. As his men fell into line behind