As the four approached the listening area, a tall, strongly built young warrior accosted Achikh.
“Achikh Runs-Away!” he said with false geniality. “I heard you’d come back. I am Barak, son of Jaghatai. You wouldn’t recognize me; I was still a boy when you left.” He looked for a moment at Nils and Hans and Baver, then back to Achikh. “I heard you’d taken up with foreigners, but found it hard to believe.’
Achikh said nothing, simply looked at the youth with hard eyes.
“What brought you so low,” Barak went on, “that you so abandoned your pride?”
Achikh replied, using a formal style of speaking. “You were right when you said I would not remember you. You are not someone whom a warrior of pride and family would remember. Your father I remember. Your family
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I remember. Your father and your family are worth remembering, but who are you, and what have you done? You are not simply young; you are callow. You have no wisdom. You speak freely but think little. The Mengetu Family must be embarrassed over you. If I cared to speak with one of the Mengetu family, it would be your father or one of your uncles, not a foolish boy.”
Barak, son of Jaghatai, had been blushing before Achikh was half done, but he’d made no move, because fighting was forbidden at the council grove. Now he began to challenge Achikh to go elsewhere and fight him, but a heavy hand gripped his arm from behind and spun him around.
“Boy! Shut your mouth! Go to the ger; I will speak to you later!”
Barak froze. “Yes, father,” he said, though to have his challenge cut short had almost broken his heart, after the provocation Achikh had given him. He hurried away, in his upset stumbling once over his own feet.
Jaghatai stared hard at Achikh, then gestured at Nils, Baver, and Hans. “A great council will be held here. On whose authority do you bring these foreigners? Even the emperor’s ambassador is not allowed.”
Achikh met the man’s hard glare coldly, and answered, still in formal mode. “Kaidu the chief invited them. Out of respect my brother the chief invited them. They are free men, not the creatures of some emperor. They were not sent by some foreign ruler to do his bidding. The big one is Nils of the Iron Hand, a great wizard and great warrior. You see his scars, or some of them. My bother the chief invited him, and with him his friends. With his own sword, Nils of the Iron Hand killed the emperor of the west in single combat. Cut off his head with a single stroke, though the emperor was a giant, far larger and stronger even than he. This fight was witnessed by many on both sides.
“But before that, as a naked captive, he was cast into an arena, a broad pit, to fight a lion, a large fierce beast. Naked and given only a borrowed sword with a weak
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blade, he fought the lion, which is a tiger without stripes. He fought and killed the lion, breaking his sword in its skull. This was before a great crowd, of which I was one.
“Then the emperor sent down his champion to kill Nils of the Iron Hand, sent his champion in armor to butcher him. Still naked, and with another borrowed sword, Nils of the Iron Hand killed the emperor’s champion. Again before a great crowd. I saw this too.
“Also, in private, he has proven his wizard skills to my brother, the chief. He has shown his wizardry to my brother the chief, and it was greater than any wizardry seen by him before. Thus my brother the chief invited Nils of the Iron Hand, and his close companions, to the council, as his guests.”
Jaghatai’s mouth had clamped shut early in this recitation, but when Achikh was done, he looked at the three and spoke. “Be welcome then,” he gritted, and turning, stalked away.
Along with Achikh, the three sat not in the front and center—which would be arrogant and offensive of foreigners—but not far from the front, either, nor too far to the side. Wherever they’d walked, eyes had been drawn to Nils because of his size and obvious strength. He wore his leather shirt now, but it had no sleeves.