A Sword for Kregen

Chapter Three

“Hold fast!” My bellow ripped into the air. The bows of the Sword Watch, lifted, arrows nocked, drawn back, poised. Those sinewy fingers did not release the pull on the bowstrings by a fraction.

“There he goes!” shouted Cleitar, furious.

We could all see the bowman who had loosed at me clambering up the outside staircase of a half-ruined building across the canal. He wore a drab gray half-cape, and his legs were bare. He carried the long Lohvian bow in his left hand, and the quiver over his shoulder was stuffed with shafts. Like the arrow that still quivered in the wood by my head, each one was fletched with feathers of somber purple.

“A damned stikitche!” raved Cleitar. “Majister — you allow him to escape. Let us-”

“Lower your bows.”

The archers in the detachment of the Sword Watch obeyed.

Targon the Tapster, his face scowling, his brilliance of uniform which lent him, like them all, a barbaric magnificence, aflame under the suns, heeled his zorca across.

“Assassins, majister. They should be put down-”

These officers of the Sword Watch had not always been fighting men. I think it true to say their military experience had all been gained in contact with me. We had fought together in clearing Vallia. Cleitar the Standard, a big bulky man with bitterness in his soul, had been Cleitar the Smith until the Iron Riders had sundered him forever from his family and home. Targon the Tapster and Naghan ti Lodkwara had met over the matter of strayed or stolen ponshos. Now they formed a body of close comrades I came to value more and more as the seasons and the campaigns passed over.

“You are right. But that stikitche, had he wished to assassinate me, would not have missed. Bring me the shaft.”

The arrow was brought and I unwrapped the letter attached.

The message was addressed: “Dray Prescot, Emperor of Vallia.” The salutation, in the correct grammatical form, read: “Llahal-pattu. Majister.”

I sighed and looked quickly down for the signature.

The scrawl, in a different hand from the body of the letter, was just decipherable. It read: “Nath Trerhagen, Aleygyn.”

This assassin and I had met before, just the once. He was Nath Trerhagen, the Aleygyn, Hyr Stikitche, Pallan of the Stikitche Khand of Vondium.

This brought up painful memories of Barty Vessler and so looking at the writing I forced unwelcome thoughts away and concentrated on the here and now. Nath the Knife, the chief assassin was called. He wanted to meet me. There was an important matter that had come up. The phraseology was all in the mock legal, written by his pet lawyer he kept tucked up in some lair in Drak’s City, the Old City of Vondium, where, so far, the writ of the emperor’s law did not run.

“We should go in there and burn the place out,” quoth Larghos Manifer, a Vondian who had been newly recruited into the Sword Watch. His round face fairly bristled. His words met with general approval.

“Yet the people of Drak’s City held out the longest against the damned Hamalese,” I pointed out.

“They could fight all the imps of Sicce from there, majister.” Larghos Manifer, because he had been born in Vondium the Proud City, and knew what he knew, held a natural resentment against Drak’s City. “For one who is not a thief or a forger or a stikitche or an Opaz-forsaken criminal of one-kind or another it is death to venture in.”

“Nath the Knife wishes to meet me in the shadow of the Gate of Skulls. That, I think, indicates a willingness to come forward. We are, in theory, on neutral ground there.”

So, later on that morning and before we were due to return to eat, we wended our way through the crowded streets toward the moldering pile of old houses clustered behind the old walls that was the site of the very first settlements here, long before Vondium became the capital of Vallia. Targon, Naghan and Cleitar sidled their zorcas close to one another and after a brief conversation, Naghan went haring off. I had a shrewd suspicion about where he was going and what he was up to, and when we rode quietly up to the Gate of Skulls my guess was confirmed. The usual hectic activity around and through the gate was stilled. The striped awnings over stalls had been taken down. People kept away. The space this side of the gate and the Kyro of Lost Souls beyond were deserted. In a double line ranked two hundred paces back from the gate waited the Sword Watch. This was the handiwork of Naghan and the others. Bowman and lancer alternating, the men sat their zorcas silently. The scarlet and yellow, the gleaming helmets, the feathers, the brilliance of weapons, all made a fine show. I rather fancied Nath the Knife might have a similar if less splendidly outfitted array on his side of the wall.

And — he had Bowmen of Loh among his scurvy lot. My men were armed with the compound reflex bow of Vallia, a flat trajectory weapon of great power but not a patch on the great Lohvian longbow. As a matter of interest as I waited for the chief assassin I made a cursory count of the Sword Watch. I was astonished. There were better than five hundred of them. This was news to me. The rascally members of my original Choice Band, with whom I had campaigned and caroused and fought over Vallia, had been busy recruiting. Well, that could be looked into. Now, Nath the Knife made his presence known.

Four hefty fellows walked into the shadows under the Gate of Skulls carrying a heavy lenken table. This they placed down at the midway point between the inner and outer portals. They were followed by four more who carried a carved chair of fascinating design, a chair that breathed authority, a chair that, by Krun, was as like a throne as made no difference.

In the shadows beyond table and chair waited a line of men, indistinct, true; but the long jut of the bows in their fists was not to be mistaken. A bugle pealed.

“They make a mockery of it, majister,” growled Cleitar. He gripped the pole of my personal flag, Old Superb, and he scowled upon the Gate of Skulls. On my other side Ortyg the Tresh upheld the new union flag of Vallia. Close to hand Volodu the Lungs, leathery and thirsty, waited with his silver trumpet resting on his knee. At my back, as always, rode Korero the Shield, that splendid Kildoi with the four arms and tailhand, his golden beard glinting in the light of the suns, his white teeth just visible as his half-smile at the panorama before us matched my own feelings.

The Sword Watch had been reorganized. Now they were clearly arranged in order, the companies each with its own trumpeter and standard and commander. Those commanders I recognized from many a long day’s campaigning. The small body of men who had appointed themselves as my personal bodyguard -

which at the time I had deplored but acceded to at the sense of urgency these men shared — waited close. There were Magin, Wando the Squint, Uthnior Chavonthjid, Nath the Doorn and his boon comrade Nath the Xanko. There were, of course, Targon the Tapster, Naghan ti Lodkwara and Dorgo the Clis, his scar livid along his face.

As we waited for the ponderous arrival of Nath the Knife, Hyr Stikitche, what intrigued me was the apparent lack of a leader of the Sword Watch. Clearly those men I have named ran things. When they gave an order the zorcamen jumped. And they appeared to work together, with a consensus, each one supporting the next. I hoped that state of affairs resulted from the time we had spent campaigning together. There was no mistaking the smooth way things got done in the Emperor’s Sword Watch. The strange fancy struck me, as we sat our zorcas and waited, that we were arrayed as we would be when we waited in battle for the outcome, so as to go hurtling down to defeat or victory. With the flags waving in the slight breeze, with the trumpets ready to peal the calls, with the weapons bright and our uniforms immaculate, we looked just as we looked in battle. We were the emperor’s personal reserve, a powerful striking force under his hand. I may say it was most odd, by Vox, to remember that I was that emperor.

Just as a stir made itself apparent in the shadows of the Gate of Skulls I was thinking that the quicker Drak got home from Faol the better.

Alone, walking steadily and without haste, Nath Trerhagen, the Aleygyn, made his way to the table and passed around it and so sat himself down in that throne-like chair. I smiled.

“The impudent rast!” said Cleitar.

“It is clear,” offered Naghan ti Lodkwara. “He will sit. And there is no chair for you, majister.”

“Let me shaft the wretch!” suggested Dorgo the Clis.

He would have done so, instanter. But I nodded to the line of bowmen in the shadows.

“They are Bowmen of Loh. Each one would feather four of you before you could reach them. Hold fast!”

I rode out a half a dozen paces before my men and turned and lifted in the stirrups and faced them.

“I ride alone. Not one of you moves. My life is forfeit.” Then, to ram the order home, I said quietly to Volodu the Lungs, “Blow the Stand, Volodu.”

The silver trumpet with the significant dents was raised to those leathery lips. Grumbleknees turned again and walked sedately across the open dusty space toward the Gate of Skulls. His single spiral horn caught the mingled light of the suns and glittered. So it was and all unplanned, that the Emperor of Vallia rode toward this meeting with the pealing silver trumpet notes playing about his ears.

The villains of Drak’s City would not know what the call portended. They would probably think it was some kind of pompous fanfare that was sounded whenever the emperor rode out or did anything at all or even wished to blow his nose. I rode on, and I felt the amusement strong in me at the conceit. There was one thing of which I was pretty sure. I was not going to stand up while this stikitche lolled on his throne.

“By the Black Chunkrah!” I said to myself. “Nath the Knife must think again.”

No personal vanity was involved. This was a matter of policy and, of course, of will. Nath the Knife wore ordinary Vallian clothes, that is to say, the buff tunic, breeches and tall black boots. On his breast the badge of the three purple feather was pinned with a golden clasp. His face was covered by a dulled steel mask. When he spoke his voice was like breaking iron.

“Majister.”

I looked down on him from the back of the zorca. I debated. Then, carefully, I said, “Aleygyn.”

The steel mask moved as he nodded, as though under the steel he smiled, satisfied.

“Dismount, emperor, so that we may talk.”

“You might have killed me before this. I do not think you wish to talk without reason. Spit it out, Nath the Knife. There is much work to be done in Vondium these days.”

He sat up straighter. The power he wielded within the Old City was commensurate with the power I wielded in Vondium.

“There is a matter of bokkertu to be decided.”

“Once before you said that. You asked me to pay you gold so that I would not be a kitchew.” A kitchew, the target for assassination, usually has a very brief allotment left of life. But that matter had been settled with the death of the stikitche paid to do the job. That, I had thought, was finalized. Nath the Knife moved his hand. “No. It is not that.” He paused. There was about him a strange air of indecisiveness and I wished I could see his face beneath the mask so as to weigh him up better. “No. We had a bad time of it when those rasts of Hamalese captured Vondium.”

I said, “I heard how you held out in Drak’s City. You deserve congratulations for that. It has been in my mind to offer you masons and brickies, carpenters, so that you may rebuild and clean away some of the destruction.”

His head went up. “You are serious?”

It is damned hard to read a man wearing a mask.

“Yes. Perfectly serious.”

There seemed little point in adding that I wanted some of the mess in Drak’s City cleared up so as to lessen the risk of infection to the rest of the City. They policed themselves in the Old City; but I did not think they were too well-served by needlemen and once an epidemic got hold we would all be in trouble.

“You are not as other emperors-”

“No, by Vox!”

“And would you find men willing to enter here? Would not their tools be stolen, their throats cut?”

“Under proper safeguards and assurances, men would come in here and rebuild.”

“Because you told them to?”

I wondered what he was getting at.

“Not because I told them to. Because they understand the reasons. Anyway, I would pay them — pay them well — for the work will not be pleasant.”

“I think, Dray Prescot, they would do it for you.”

“They are not slaves. We do not have slaves anymore.”

Sitting the zorca, feeling the old itch down my back, darkly aware of that line of bowmen, I was all the time ready to get my foolish head down and make a run for it. But the trick of remaining mounted had given me just a little back of a hold on the situation. Nath the Knife waved his hand again. He wore gauntleted leather gloves; but a ring glowed in ronil fire upon his finger outside the glove. He came straight to the point, now, putting it to me.

“We have received a contract for you, emperor. Do not ask from whom, for that is our affair, in honor. I run perilously close to breaking the stikitche honor in this. But we stikitches remember the Hamalese and the aragorn and the flutsmen. We were cruelly oppressed. We rose when you and your armies broke into the city. Aye! We of Drak’s City hung many a damned Hamalese by his heels. We have seen what you have wrought in Vondium.” He pushed a paper that lay on the table. “The contract calls for immediate execution and the price is exceedingly large.”

I took a breath.

“And you wish me to pay you the price?”

Before he could answer, I went on: “You will recall what I told you when that was mentioned before-”

“No, emperor! By Jhalak! I know you to be a stiff-necked tapo; but will you not listen?”

I nodded and he went on speaking, and, I thought with a twinge of amusement, a little huffily. It seemed he could hardly understand just what he was saying, or why he was doing what he did. But he ploughed on, natheless.

The gist of it was that the folk of Drak’s City felt it would be to their advantage if I was alive and running Vondium. In this I fancied they did not put a great deal of store by the considerable army now at the disposal of the government. Their confidence in their own tumbledown city had been shaken by their defeat and enslavement by the Hamalese. What the chief assassin told me, quite simply, was that they intended to repudiate the contract, they would not accept it, and they wanted me to know. But-

“There is a chance that the client will bring in stikitches from outside Vondium. We frown on that; but it is known. I assure you, emperor, on the honor of a Hyr-Stikitche, that we will prevent that if it is in our power.”

What was odd about that was not the talk of assassins’ honor, which is just as real to them as any form of honor code to any other group of people, but the suggestion that in stikitche matters the khand of Vondium might not have the power to do what it willed.

“You have my thanks, Aleygyn. Vallia is sundered and torn, and our enemies press in on us from all sides. I think it is a task laid on all of us to resume peaceful ways. But that will not be possible until these invaders have been driven away-”

He did not so much surprise me as reveal that he, too, was a Vallian.

“Until they are all buried six feet deep and sent to rot in the Ice Floes of Sicce!”

“Agreed.” I chanced a shaft. “There are many fine young men in Drak’s City, men who have proved they can fight. They would be welcomed in the ranks of the new Vallian Army.”

The eyes within the slits of the mask glittered on me. The suns were shifting around and that mingled opaz radiance crept under the arch of the Gate and drove back the shadows.

“I will talk to the Presidio,” he said, whereat I smiled. The folk of Drak’s City aped Vondium and the whole of Vallia in holding their own Presidio, their governing body. It was a charming conceit. “There are men here who would form regiments that would show you soft townsfolk how to fight.”

“I await them in the ranks.”

“Not,” he said, a tang in his voice, “in the Phalanx.”

“No, I agree. As light infantry, skirmishers.”

“We have paktuns here-”

“I do not employ mercenaries. Many paktuns have become Vallian citizens. We are a people’s army. You are Vallians. Your young men will be paid the same as any other Vallians in our ranks.”

He digested that. And then we spoke of the practical side of the matter for a time until I felt I was getting altogether too chummy with a damned assassin, even if he was mindful of the welfare of the country. I twitched Grumbleknees’ reins.

“I bid you Remberee, Aleygyn. I shall send a Pallan to talk with you about the rebuilding I promised. I am serious. As serious as I hope you are in sending men to join the army. The quicker Vallia is back to her old peaceful ways the better. Remberee.”

“Remberee, Dray Prescot.”

But the old warrior did not stand up to say good-bye.