Read Online Tyrant: Destroyer of Cities by Christian Cameron - Free Book Online Page A

while the Grass Cats had absorbed many of the former Standing Horses, and the current Standing Horse clan was a pale shadow of its former numbers although its new lord, Sindispharnax, was rebuilding. He had so few warriors that he might not have warranted a place in her council but he was a member of her household, one of her own knights, and he was already present. Besides, she wanted him to succeed in rebuilding what had once been the greatest of clans, after the Cruel Hands.
    To foreigners, the Horse People – the Sky People, as they called themselves – were a mass of faceless nomads with an alien, impenetrable, unchanging society. The Greek called them the Royal Scythians. But Melitta knew that they were as changeable as the sea, as different, tribe by tribe, as Athenians and Spartans.
    Tuarn of the Hungry Crows was next – small, dark-haired and bearing an uncanny resemblance to his totem animal, from his stooped shoulders to his beak of a nose. He took his wine with a good grace and his eyes twinkled.
    ‘I gather we have a border problem,’ he said.
    Scopasis stood stiffly by his side. ‘I explained,’ he said, like a man who fears that anything he does will prove to be wrong.
    Kontarus was last, lord of the Silent Wolves. He was old and bent, and his tanist, a tall, thin woman with remarkably red hair, stood at his arm, supporting him. He glanced around, refused the wine and grunted. ‘Saida,’ he said, pointing at the red-haired woman. His tone suggested that he was not pleased to be summoned.
    Melitta couldn’t decide whether Saida was haughty or merely nervous. She’d never been introduced. Melitta crossed the carpet to her and offered her hand to clasp. ‘Saida, I’m Melitta,’ she said with deliberate informality.
    ‘Yes,’ Saida said. ‘I know.’ She took the hand clasp as lightly as possible, as though Melitta’s touch held some disease.
    Melitta refused to act like a boy. ‘You are the daughter of Kontarus?’ she asked.
    ‘No relation at all,’ the woman replied with cold finality. ‘Not really your business.’
    Melitta wanted to roll her eyes. Rudeness like this was not acceptable. It had political overtones. ‘My dear,’ she said, switching to a Greek approach, ‘if you are not a relation of the lord of the Silent Wolves, then you can’t expect us to play twenty questions until we discover how he came to name you his heir. And it is, in fact, my business, as I am your lady – the lady of your clan and all the clans.’
    Saida didn’t quite meet her eyes. ‘As you say,’ she pronounced. ‘My relations are my business. I’m his heir. No one need know any more than that – lady .’
    Melitta shrugged and marked the woman for a later conversation. This sort of thing she knew how to handle. Uppity girls – no problem.
    ‘Lords of the horses, we have a problem,’ Melitta began. As quickly as possible, she outlined the story as told by the woman Astis, and then she sent for the woman to tell her own story.
    When she had told her story and gone again, leaning on the strong arm of Temerix the smith, Melitta looked around.
    ‘I would value your thoughts,’ she said, and was greeted by silence.
    Oh, how I miss Ataelus and Urvara , she thought. The two older leaders had supported her – and taught her a great deal. Even Geraint – the former lord of the Standing Horses, dead at Tanais River like his former rivals – had taught her, sometimes merely by the way he opposed her. Her new horse lords were as young as she was and, in some ways, even less trained.
    It was the Hungry Crow, Tuarn, who broke the silence. ‘We can’t fail to act,’ he said. When no one commented, he shrugged. ‘This is how the fighting with the Sauromatae started, back when Marthax was king. The rest of you are probably too young to remember, and the lady wasn’t among us. The Sauromatae were once strong allies, eh? But Upazan came to be their lord, and his young men pounded away at our eastern