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Date Posted: 14:53:20 03/12/00 Sun
Author: Belamore
Subject: East Canaday-Day 4 Mayan El Tankan

East Canaday-Day 4 Mayan El Tankan

Mayan El Tankan, high warlord of all the Tancan horde stood outside his
tent, warming his hands by the bonfire. His tent was in the center of a
ring of tents that housed his stolen treasures, concubines and slaves;
his generals and personal body guard of 500 scimitar warriors and the
Blood Guard, elite of the Longaxe chosen. The Longaxe were muted and
neutered guards of his slave women and guardians of his treasures.
Their only purpose in life was to serve, obey and protect warlord
Tankan.

With the kindly old face of an old grandfather, Mayan favored a thick
mustache that joined thicker side-burns. Curly, black-bluish locks of
hair surrounded his perfectly round head which was bald on the top and
he kept his chin free of whiskers by candle waxing the hairs off. His
grey hair was dyed black with a blueberry juice
dye. Underneath his four bear robes he was an iron-bodied man of
intense strength and animated, nervous stamina.

From the well chosen position on the center hill of three hills, bared
of trees, he could view his armies to the left and to the right and
those below him in the center of his lines. Behind him in the conquered
villages and from the Ringular Castle he could the shrieking cries of
tortured and murdered victims of Shockran Tenn's 50,000 mercenaries who
had recently joined El Tankan's armyE.

The twenty-foot bonfires all along the front had burned down to 4 foot
flames of comfort. Mayan sat down in the throne he had taken from Baron
Ringular's Castle. The heads of Ringular's two sons, mounted in
agonizing death mask rested on the left and the right of the high backed
leather chair. Mayan kicked a thigh bone into the fire and watched it
burn along with the bones of the sport from the night before. The air
was filled with the smell of burnt hair and flesh, of wood and cloths,
of chicken and spoiled meat.

Tankan patted the sleeping hand of General Tine, the commander of his
20,000 Light Cavalry. General Tine was spent and snoring loudly and
smelled of sour wine and carnage.

"Jo Tine is a sleepy boy." Tankan patted the sleeping general's hand
again as he slept in the chair at his right.

General Frunken laughed harder than the joke as he fondled a young,
petrified captive on his lap at Tankan's left. The young girl stroked
Frunken's beard and picked at lice-nits for her master. She was
bleeding from lashes on her back and from bruises on her face. Tears
had long ago tried and streaked in dirt trails down her cheeks.

General Arboyle, commanded the 20,000 man army of second line troops and
he controlled the one hundred catapults. Arboyle's eyes drooped in
Hangdog swelling as he drank from a lead cup of bitter wine. His face
carried burn scars and the scars of many battles. The left side of his
head was bald and barren and burned; the right side a braid of ten
strands hung two feet down his round shoulder. He wore stolen chain
mail over leather tunic and stolen boots that were too tight and on the
wrong feet. He belched and watched Frunken toy with the girl, but he
could hardly keep his eyes open.

Shockran Tenn and nine of his men stood apart from the others on the
hill crest looking down over the thousands of slaves building bridges
over the deep gorge that separated the Tancan army from the walls of
Canaday.

Shockran kicked a rock over the edge in anger and stomped over to
Tankan. His knee-high leather boots raising dust and ashes, his long
leather cape over one shoulder flapped. He was barechested and
barelegged wearing tight leather shorts with a broad belt that carried a
circle of 12 double edged, 18 inch throwing knives. He carried two
swords crossed at his back. His hair was shark-black and long. A scar
crossed his handsome face from left eye to right neck.

"They stall! I say kill a score from each work party and the others
will work twice as fast!" He scowled at Tankan. His hungry, pitiless
blue eyes glowing in the firelight with impatience. To his left and to
his right he watched with aggravation at thousands more, working tired
and beaten, building scaffolding and ladders, braiding ropes for
grappling hooks and gather every manner of projectile and loading them
into wagons. Shockran picked caked and dried blood from his chest and
pulled at a loose, decayed incisor and plucked it from his mouth and
spit blood into the fire. "We must make them work faster! The longer
we wait, the stronger Canaday grows." Shockran spit again and again.

"Patience, Shockran." Tankan pointed over his shoulder and listened to
the screams, the shouting, the laughter echoing through the night.
"Your men have not had their fill of death and rape and frolic yet. Let
them pleasure themselves. They fought well. We have time. Play with
your booty and count your loot. These things take time.' Tankan
pinched the bottom of the girl on Frunken's lap. "Enjoy yourself. Life
is short." Tankan stood and stretched and passed horrendous gas that
flamed from being too close to the fire. "Whoa!" He moved away from
the fire. "That could have killed a lesser man." He looked into
Shockran's eyes. "Let the slaves work. If you hadn't killed all the
young, strong ones off we would have been finished by now. The old men
and women and children don't last long as it is. Don't kill any more or
my men will have to tire themselves and build these things. Relax. Go
pleasure yourself...if your men have saved any for you."

"Yes, Shockran." General Arboyle spoke up. "And when your men are done
with the young ones, don't kill them! Especially the fair-haired. They
bring a great price from over the eastern oceans.

Tankan walked with Shockran. "I am glad you joined me. I promise. You
shall have first treasure down the Aquarian Canals instead of second
treasure. We shall be the first armies in history to breach the great
wall of Canaday. Think of the glory. Now rest, my comrade. Tomorrow
we will move the wagons across the gorge and bring the catapults within
range. Then we shall topple the walls and storm them.
Plus we need time for General Torz to take Drice and Kancore to take
Tampion Sound. Be patient my eager young friend. All is won."

Shockran scoffed away toward the villages with his men without a word.

"We shall have trouble with that one." General Frunken pulled his young
captive toward his tent.

"Aye...perhaps. But his army will make good fodder to weaken the
Canaday garrisons. Then our men shall attack in relentless waves
against a weakened enemy. It is good he joined us." Tankan spit out a
sour mouthful of wine. "Send your wench to bring me a bottle of the
wine from the Ringular cache. I thirst for good wine and your slave.
Go find another."

"Yes, Lord Tankan."

"Good man." Tankan yawned and went into his tent.

...

Inside the tent, Shay El Bayodi sat barefoot as always, cross-legged.
The whites of his blind eyes glistened from the firelight. Tankan
shuddered from the sight of Shay's eyes. He peed into the fire.

The two dark women brushed Shay El Bayodi's long cotton white hair in
long, loving strokes from his crown to his waist. The black rope hung
loose at his boney pale white shoulders and Warlune, the seeing eye tiger
purred as low thunder as Shay scratched behind the giant cat's ears.
Walune licked at his 20 inch saber-fangs and studied every move that
Tankan made.

Tankan looked the cat in the eyes and broke eye contact first. "You
have fed your...kitten...I trust?" He flopped onto his cushions in a
collapse of ease, startling Warlune who glared now at Tankan.

Shay eased the cat to calm with soft strokes. "He is too tough and
stringy, old girl. Easy." Shay said in his sand-whisper voice. The
cat purred and rubbed her massive head against the old sorcerer's knee.

Tankan's two shitzu dogs, Moo Moo and Boo Boo, gained courage from
Tankan's presense and pranced over to Warlune, nipping and yipping in
frenzied irritating lunges at Warlune's paws and huge tail. Warlune
yawned, sucking the flames from the fire toward her enormous open jaws.
She flicked her colossal tail and toppled both pups. Then scurried back
to the cushions and buried themselves.

"Moo Moo, Boo Boo, behave yourselves." Tankan rubbed their exposed
bellies sending their hind legs into a furious pedaling. The dogs were
white-furred but matted and filthy black. "What see you, wizard of this
dragon we encountered this morning. Is he a threat?"

"Ah...Tri-arcanoth." Shay dismissed his attendants and they snuggled
beneath the blankets beside him. Warlune studied their movement. "A
magificent creature...but the last of his kind. With him dies an era of
mystery and lore of ages long ago. A pity these creatures had to be
hunted and hounded into extinction. This is why I did not kill this one
today. He is no threat as long as I am here. But the mighty
Tri-Arcanoth could fell 500 soldiers in one fiery pass. On the ground
he could destroy an army in one hour of sand."

"Next time, you will kill him." Tankan watched the trembling slave girl
enter with the Ringular wine. "I have no sentiment for a dead species."

"As you wish."

Tankan watched the girl kneel beside him. She opened the wine and
poured, her hands shaking. Tanken took the cup and held her wrists and
forced her to drink. She fought but swallowed hard. Tankan released
her and she ran from the tent, only to be brought back in by the Longaxe
sentries.

"Let her go." He tossed the wine bottle at her. It smashed against her
head. "She will be dead in half an hour. Amateurs. Everyone wants to
kill me. Am I not a likable fellow?"

The girl ran from the guards. The guards returned to their posts.

"The dragon surprised me today." Shay spoke, as if in a room alone,
thinking out loud. Arcanoth dragons are not war dragons. They are
territorial defenders and family men." Shay smiled. "They do not join
or follow humans or kill for sport. They carry vendettas and seek
savage vengeance but they do not make war. They defend their
homeland...which the Canadays took from them and hunted them down and
killed them off for sport and as a right of passage for knighthood-"

"Enough of dragons...how see you of the battles?"

"This is the time of the Tancan. But I warn you again. Wait for the
Lake Tampion to freeze over in mid-winter. Do not attack before then."

"This time you are wrong, old seer. I am strongest now. Canaday is
weakest now. If I wait, the armies of the west coast will reinforce the
wall and the momentum gone. Besides, I hate winter campaigns. I always
end up in a cold tent while my enemies huddle by the cozy fires inside
their snug fortresses and towns...and I face rebellion and frozen
soldiers. That is why the only other warlord to join was Shackran Tenn.
The others did not believe I could reach Lake Tampion and Cree and be at
the wall of Canaday by summer's end. When I take Canaday and Drice and
Tampion and secure the Aquarian canals the 20 Lords of Tancan will
join under me and I shall command the largest single, united army in
history...I shall conquer the world."

"Not if you do not wait for winter. Have I been wrong yet?"

"No...but this time, old friend, I am right." Tankan laughed. "It is
bound to happen. You, wrong for the first time and me, right for the
first time in seven wars against the Canaday." He laughed hard. "This
time, you are mistaken, Shay. This time you have made a mistake."

"Perhaps." Shay scratched Walune's solid neck and jingled the 13 bells
dangling from the silver links. "Perhaps my mistake was joining the
wrong side." He said low enough so that Tanka did not hear.

...continued.

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