CHAPTER FOUR

In a land so distant and so different that Shansi would have thought it belonged to a fairy tale, a fat youth took a fateful decision.
Jasti IV, Mo Wa of the Sei Empire and Va Rein of Boa-Isgaad, took early retirement.
Very early. He was just 22.
He had been called upon by his uncle, the Grand Marshall, to put the Mo Wa’s seal to yet another death warrant, but worse than seeing off brothers, sisters and cousins - almost every one of his close relations had been caught trying to get rid of him - this latest one would end the life of his childhood companion, best friend and lover, Attu.
Jasti did as he had to, and that night he made his decision. For five years he had attempted to rule the unruly Sei Empire, and it had made an old man of him. Everyone was against him. He thought of Attu. Not many years ago they had been inseparable, and since he had succeeded his father, Jasti had lavished palaces, provinces and treasures on him. He had loved Attu, and if he had not been Mo Wa, Attu would surely have loved him in return? Jasti seemed to have spent a lifetime putting the Mo Wa's seal to warrants for the execution of those who had fallen victim to the lust for power; it seemed there was no end to the killing, and he was determined to have no more of it.
His announcement the following day was greeted with disbelief, at first, and then astonishment. A pilgrimage to the Holy City of Crarne at this early stage of his life? How long, pray, did he intend to remain? For the rest of his life!
Jasti was adamant. His uncle the Grand Marshal would govern in his name.
The news was not broadcast and when, a month later the imperial procession left the palace in Nadim, the capital, and passed through the Golden Gates (not a speck of gold remained on them), it aroused little interest and less speculation. The proclamation that day had, after all, merely referred to a routine hunting expedition.
The road which the imperial party took had once been the greatest highway in the world. Built during the Chah Krastnyi dynasty, when the Sei Empire was at its mightiest, it was said to have taken 100,000 slaves 100 years to quarry, hew, transport and lay the marble slabs with which it was paved. But by the time Jasti made his historic journey to Crarne very little of the original stone remained; continual plundering had reduced long stretches to a dusty, rutted track.
Jasti's progress was slow anyway, but the state of the road caused long delays, and additionally, much of the country through which he had to pass was infested with bandits. Even with a military escort of 50 guards - the Grand Marshal had refused to release any more on the grounds that too large a number would have excited an unhealthy interest in the Mo Wa's departure from Nadim - the imperial party dared be on the move for only a few hours each day. By the time it reached the holy city, 23 days after leaving Nadim, armies were on the march and death by stealth stalked the night in the palaces and homelands of the great Sei Empire.

* * * *
The closing years of the reign of Jasti's enfeebled father, Tarki Gorin, had been marked by steadily growing disorder throughout the empire. Firm, vigorous, resolute action was called for from his successor, but the young Mo Wa had neither the energy nor the inclination to provide it, so that by the time he left his imperial palace for Crarne there was already widespread chaos.
A year later, the power struggle still far from resolved, there was no single authority in the empire that was capable of, or interested in protecting the empire's more remote possessions. And of these the Rahnese of Laifya were at once the richest and the most vulnerable.
Beyond the Futchung Mountains, and accessible only through the tortuous Na Pass, Laifya is a different world; a world green in summer with vineyards and forests, and golden in autumn with grain, and through this rich land flows, like an artery, the great River Stenovin along whose length the merchants of Laifya travel to do trade with the peoples of the mountains and plains to the north: the unpredictable Oshelx and Stachaxi; the placid Shewis, the Osarians and the distant Kraitians.
Liberated from the close attention of the empire, the numerous provinces which constitute the Rhanese of Laifya had become virtually autonomous states, their imperial governors making war and peace as they manoeuvred for advantage. But the Rahensee were in danger. Pushing towards their borders from the west were land-hungry, war-like tribes on the move from their arid and mountainous homelands in the interior. And in the east came ominous stirrings from Sair Jisenner, since time immemorial a pain in the side of the empire.
The closest Rhanese to Sair Jisenner is Eimond whose governor 'Rha' Rouell made a judicious marriage into one of the great Sairish families, and laid claim, as a result of it, to certain Sairish estates which Morvina’s powerful brother, the Lord Borden, considered to be his.
The dispute came to a head shortly after Sigmar's 19th birthday, and it was resolved when Borden, accompanied by his nephew and a sizable army, crossed the River Nontock into Eimond, defeated and killed Rah Rouell, and took his capital of Cheg-im-Gure.
Borden pronounced himself the new Rha of Eimond, and proceeded to plunder the Stenovin Valley's rich trade route. Sigmar was invariably at his side, and he was at his side the day Borden was thrown from his horse and broke his neck. Two days later he was dead.
He died without a male heir, and Sigmar impetuously declared himself to be his successor in Eimond, assuming the title of Rah. It was an illegal act, but no more so than anything else he and his uncle had done in Layfia, and if tongues wagged with shocked disapproval, he was ready to silence them. He marched on one neighbour after another, sharpening a military genius which few in Laifya could rival, and the only respite came - a brief one - when his father King Volkis died.

* * * *
Several months earlier there had occurred a seemingly minor event, but one which would have far-reaching consequences.
Among Sigmar's companions was the aristocratic Saminad whose father, the Lord Garapu, owned vast Sairish estates. Saminad and Sigmar quarrelled; Saminad was sent back in disgrace to the family estates, and had it not been for the death of Volkis he would no doubt have remained there.
As it was, Sigmar broke off from his marauding to return to the Sairish capital of Felewith for his father's funery rites, and while he was there he was visited by Garapu who implored him to take his distraught son back into his service. Sigmar, sharp enough to detect an opportunity when one arose, and wily enough to see how to exploit it, agreed, but only on condition that Garapu promote and defend the interests of his mother, the widowed Morvina whom he supposed would need allies now that her step-son Egmar was king.
Garapu agreed, and in doing so sealed Egmar's fate.
Returned to Laifya, Sigmar carried on from where he had left off. His enemies were riven by petty rivalries and mutual hostility, and victory succeeded victory. He looked invincible, and was invincible until several of the Rhanese settled their differences and formed an alliance against him.
Sigmar began to suffer his first defeats, and as his army was weakened, so he was forced to retreat, abandoning his conquests one by one, and with them his pretensions of being the Imperial Nwodek of Laifya.