Warlords Of Gaikon

Chapter 14

Blade stood in the first warrior's black square and stared out across the enormous Hu-board pattern that covered the entire floor of the huge chamber. The black and white squares gleamed in the light of the lamps swinging from the beams overhead. Behind him Lord Tsekuin sat on a chair cushioned with white silk. At the opposite corner of the board sat the Hongshu. Beside him Lord Geron lay on a litter. Lord Tsekuin had not wounded the second chancellor as seriously as it had been believed at first. But it would be several weeks more before he could walk about normally. The side of his face that was now swathed in bandages would be scarred for life.

Beside Lord Tsekuin sat Doifuzan. Other than the two players and their companions, the only people in the chamber were the five «pieces» of each player's hand. Blade had wondered why the Hongshu thought he would be safe facing a man whom he had disgraced and doomed.

«You may wonder that,» Doifuzan had said. «But not aloud. To even think of striking at the person of the Hongshu is an abomination. Were any of us to do that, the whole clan would be swept from the land. Castles and huts alike would burn, fields would be plowed up and sown with salt, men, women, children, warriors, and peasants-all would perish by fire or steel or slow torture. Do not speak the least word of rebellion against the person of the Hongshu.»

Blade saw the wisdom of that. It was not the time or place to point out that dead Hongshus execute no rebels. It was also not the time to ask what might be done against other enemies than the Hongshu himself. Blade was sure that Yezjaro and Doifuzan were already thinking about this. He was just as sure they would not welcome his questions about it.

Blade threw a brief glance at the Hongshu. He was on the small side, but he wore his hair tied higher than usual and sat very erect to conceal the fact. He looked lean and in fighting trim, although a full beard suggested something about his face that he preferred to conceal. His eyes moved continuously about the chamber. In another man this might have given the impression of restlessness. In this man it gave the impression of a ceaseless curiosity, a constant ferreting out of other people's secrets.

A formidable man, Blade suspected. Perhaps there was reason why even the Hongshu's enemies preferred his ironhanded rule to that of the present overeducated, weak-willed emperor.

But the politics of Gaikon meant nothing one way or the other in this chamber. Blade turned his eyes to the five dabuni of the Hongshu's hand. The man had certainly picked them for size. There wasn't one of them less than six feet tall or lighter than two hundred pounds. Their swords and spears were in proportion. But did they have skill to match their brawn?

All four of Blade's own comrades were at least competent fighters. Two carried spears, two carried swords. But Blade suspected he was going to wind up doing most of the fighting.

The sound of another of Gaikon's thousands of gongs broke into his thoughts. The Hongshu rose from his chair and stepped forward to stand beside his first warrior. Lord Tsekuin did the same with Blade. Lord Tsekuin bowed deeply; the Hongshu bowed much less deeply. The Hongshu stepped back and intoned in a surprisingly deep voice:

«We meet here in the master game of Hu. Such is the wish of Lord Tsekuin. Such wish is his right by the laws and customs of proper obedience, as established by the Hongshu Korlo in the fifty-fourth year of the power of this house. Let it be witnessed that this is his wish, and to it we consent.»

Lord Geron and Doifuzan spoke together. «It is witnessed.»

The Hongshu nodded slowly. «Then let the game commence.» He sat down again, while the gongs sounded again from above. Then he folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, waiting for Lord Tsekuin to declare the first move.

Even with only ten pieces on its forty-eight-square board, Hu was a complicated game. Each of the five pieces of each hand-first warrior, first and second swordsman, first and second spearman-had about thirty different moves. Some they could make at all times, others only under certain conditions. Blade remembered his remark when Yezjaro first summarized the rules and moves for him.

«It sounds like a long game.»

«It is. Two truly skilled players have been known to sit at a board for three days continuously, without food or sleep. A normal game can last six or seven hours.»

But this game would not last even a few hours, let alone several days. There would be no captures, only death, and the blood on the tiled squares would be entirely real.

The gongs died away. From behind him Blade heard the rustle of Lord Tsekuin's robes as he sat down. Then the man's voice rang out in the sudden silence of the chamber, loud enough to echo.

«Second spearman-Jufon move to square six-five.»

Both players devoted their first few moves to maneuvering their five pieces out toward the center of the board. The Hongshu seemed to prefer a more open formation, Lord Tsekuin a tight one. Blade suspected that was to make it easier for him to move into action against any of his five possible opponents. There were strategies in the regular game of Hu built around the first warrior in just that way. They made even more sense here.

After that came a quick series of another half-dozen moves, most of them unnecessarily intricate. When that was finished, the two clusters of warriors were almost exactly where they had started. Blade suspected the two players were trying to either impress or confuse each other with their skill at the more intricate moves of the game.

But both players were too experienced to let a show-off opponent's tricks bother them. When the sequence of moves was done, Blade shot a quick look behind him. Lord Tsekuin sat motionless in his chair, arms crossed on his chest, his face a mask as immobile as if it had been cast in bronze. Blade's respect for the doomed lord rose. Keeping that iron calm under the circumstances was admirable.

A long silent pause followed. The moment for the first blood was approaching. Blade knew that neither player was hesitating out of any fear of that moment. But now the price of a wrong move had suddenly risen. Now it could throw away a warrior of the hand, and perhaps the game.

It was the Hongshu's turn now. One of his swordsmen made a simple move out to the right. Simple-but it brought him to where one of Lord Tsekuin's spearmen could engage him by any of half a dozen moves.

The Hongshu had thrown out his challenge. Now the decision lay in Lord Tsekuin's hands. Blood now or later?

Lord Tsekuin rose to the challenge. He called out a move in clipped, cool tones. The spearman moved to engage. He was the youngest of the five dabuni in Tsekuin's hand. Could he have any chance against the Hongshu's swordsman?

His opponent was half again as large as the spearman and looked larger still. With a rasp of metal he drew his sword. The spearman's weapon rose into position and he dropped into fighting stance. The silence in the chamber deepened. The two opponents stood motionless, their weapons raised. From where Blade stood, he couldn't even see them breathe.

Suddenly the two frozen figures in the center of the chamber exploded in sound and movement. The swordsman's weapon swung wide, leaving him open to the spearman's thrust. The spearpoint flashed forward. The sword whipped back as fast as it had swung out. Steel point and steel blade crashed against each other with an echoing clang that filled the chamber. The spearpoint dropped down, the sword blade rose up. It flicked out toward the young spearman, but he seemed to twist aside at the last second. He stood as his opponent pulled his sword back and raised it again. Blade wondered why the young man didn't turn back to face his opponent.

Then the spearman's point dropped further, to rest against the floor. His fingers opened and the spear clattered to the floor. A moment later the spearman followed it. As he struck the floor and lay full length on it, blood began to gush from the wound in his side, under his armpit. Blade looked more closely. The gash went in halfway through the chest. Had it gone straight into the heart, with that single split second blow?

As if to answer Blade's question, the spearman gave a final convulsive jerk, gurgled, coughed, and lay still. Blood trickled out of his mouth to join the spreading pool on the tiles.

Blade took a tighter grip on his own spear. That was a quick kill even by Gaikon's deadly standards. It now seemed quite likely that the Hongshu's dabuni were as skilled as they were big.

The Hongshu wore a smug, arrogant grin. Blade risked another look behind him, at Lord Tsekuin and Doifuzan. Then he looked again. Both men had their eyes fixed on the Hongshu. As his grin broadened, they began to have trouble keeping their own faces straight. Blade swung his eyes back across the body on the floor to the triumphant Hongshu. Then the light dawned for him.

Lord Tsekuin had deliberately sacrificed the young spearman, who was after all the least important dabuno of his hand. He had cold-bloodedly sacrificed him to make the Hongshu overconfident, judging by the other man's expression, he had succeeded. And the young spearman had gone to his death with no regard for anything but his lord's orders, although he knew what was coming.

Blade suspected that there were two games being played today. There was the deadly master game of Hu here in the chamber. There was another, larger, deadlier game being played for far higher stakes all over Gaikon, of which this game of Hu might be only a part.

Blade clutched his spear so tightly in both hands that his knuckles stood out white. He managed to give a slight tremble to both his lower lip and his knees, and swallowed rapidly several times. He wanted to give the impression of a man suddenly realizing the deadly stakes of this game, and half-unnerved by his discovery. As he turned away from the two men behind him his eyes briefly met Doifuzan's. The old dabuno's lips flickered apart in a brief smile, one that the Hongshu would never see. Blade turned back to stare across the chamber at the enemy. The Hongshu was rubbing his hands on the knees of his white silk trousers, and the visible half of Lord Geron's face was split by a broad grin.

Good. They looked like men who would be half-blind with triumph and anticipation of an easy victory. Blade relaxed his grip on his spear and waited for Lord Tsekuin to announce his next move. He suspected it would bring him into the play.

He was wrong. Lord Tsekuin apparently decided it would help if he also acted like a man who had lost his self-control because of the death of the spearman. He indulged in a flurry of moves, simple and complex, varying them without any apparent pattern. He didn't pay much attention to the Hongshu's responses, either. Blade hoped Lord Tsekuin wouldn't carry the act too far. If the Hongshu decided to move in for a quick victory while Tsekuin was doing his imitation of a frightened, indecisive man, things could get very nasty very quickly.

The Hongshu didn't. But then he was obviously one of those men who savored watching his enemy sweat in fear before striking. Here he couldn't wait two weeks before striking, as he had done before. But he could wait a few minutes, and then a few minutes more-and then a few minutes beyond that.

The minutes added up until nearly an hour had passed since the spearman's death. The aimless maneuvering went on, neither side pushing their warriors into a fight. Blade threw occasional looks behind him. Had Lord Tsekuin really lost his head and his skill? He began to wonder. But each time he looked, Doifuzan met his eyes with a faint smile or nod.

The maneuvering went on for a few minutes more. But now it had a purpose. One move at a time, Lord Tsekuin was shifting Blade. Soon he would be within a single move of battle with any of the Hongshu's five dabuni.

The ruler of Gaikon was too filled with anticipation of his easy victory to notice what was happening. Blade made his last necessary move. The Hongshu shifted a spearman in a minor move that still left him within range of Blade. Blade deliberately dropped his spear to keep up the act of being nervous and panicky.

Then behind him Blade heard Lord Tsekuin's voice.

«Sha move to square four-seven.» Three quick steps and Blade was facing the Hongshu's second swordsman. To Blade it seemed the room had suddenly become even quieter than before.

In a regular bout, Blade would have started a slow circle around his opponent, forcing him to shift position, testing his footwork, perhaps trying to disorient him. But here the fighters had to stay within their squares. All they could do was freeze into their stances and hold position, weapons aloft and ready, eyes watching for the slightest sign of an attack.

Blade was determined to wait and give his opponent the first blow. It was a gamble, since he couldn't leave the square to avoid his enemy's sword. But it was only a small gamble. Blade knew how fast he was. The other man didn't.

A slight flickering of the swordsman's arm muscles was all the warning Blade had. The sword leaped high, ready to slash down at Blade's skull. Then it leaped sideways and came whistling at Blade's side-or where Blade's side should have been. But Blade recognized the stroke-a clumsy version of Yezjaro's own «flying bird cut.» The defense against it was something built into his reflexes by long hours of practice against the instructor.

Blade sprang back on legs like steel springs. The tip of the sword whistled by, inches from his stomach. The sword swung wide. Blade leaped in again, holding the spear out to his right in a vertical guard. The return cut with the sword crashed into the spear shaft. Again the clash of metal echoed through the chamber. As the sword leaped up again, Blade drove the spear downward. The sharp edge of the spearhead slashed down the second swordsman's left leg from knee to ankle. Flesh gaped open and blood sluiced down on to the floor.

The second swordsman let out a howl of surprise and pain and stared wide-eyed at Blade. He seemed bothered more by his opponent's unexpected skill than by his own wound. But he hadn't lost any courage. His sword whistled down again three times in rapid succession-left, right, right. But his aim was poor and his footwork slowed by the wound. Blade considered using the prongs on the spear to disarm the man the way he had disarmed Captain Jawai. But why bother? There was no need to put on a show here-just a well-done kill.

The sword rose again and seemed to hover edge-on in front of Blade. He raised the spear, holding it horizontally in front of him. The swordsman launched a cut at Blade's ribs. Blade sprang back, shifting to a one-handed grip on the spear. The massive muscles of his right arm snapped the spear horizontally forward, straight into the swordsman's throat. Flesh, blood vessels, windpipe parted as neatly as if Blade had swung a giant razor. Blade jerked the spear back. The swordsman stood for a moment, blood fountaining from his gaping neck, the life going out of his eyes. Then he fell, landing with a splat in the spreading pool of his own blood.

Blade pulled off his tunic, which had been spattered by the spraying blood of his opponent's death-wound. He wiped his bloody spearhead with it. Then he spread the tunic over the dead man's head, stepped back into the middle of his own square, and pounded his spearbutt three times on the floor.

It was the signal of victory. It was also the signal for a sudden flurry of murmuring and whispering. Blade was conscious that every eye in the room was fixed on him. Then the four survivors of the Hongshu's hand started looking at each other. Uncertainty was in their eyes.

Their master's voice slashed through the silence. «Why stand and gape, you fools? He who lies there did nothing worthy of a wise dabuno. He doomed himself by forgetting who had instructed his opponent. That was no true victory we saw. That was a fool's bungling suicide!»

The Hongshu's voice was loud and harsh. But Blade realized that he was trying to reassure himself more than his four dabuni. He was certainly not improving their spirits. Blade noticed sour looks on their faces, sour looks directed at their master.

Before the sour looks could turn into open rebellion, the Hongshu called out his move. Blade watched. Would he now send his first warrior or first swordsman forward against Blade?

Instead the first swordsman moved back and around, on to the flank of the first warrior. Blade was still within easy reach of both spearmen. Would Lord Tsekuin-?

Lord Tsekuin would. Blade found himself face-to-face with the opposing first spearman. He considered his next move.

The first two kills had been crude, at least by Gaikon's highest standards. How to make more of an impression with the next one? An impression not only on the Hongshu's mind, but also on the other three opposing dabuni?

Then Blade grinned. There was a standard technique in Gaikon spear-fighting. In the hands of the average dabuno, it was more spectacular than deadly. But Blade was not the average dabuno. His arms were stronger and his eyes and reflexes faster. He could make the «spectacle» turn deadly.

Blade stepped back, out of range of a quick thrust from his opponent. He raised the spear over his head, holding it horizontally in both hands. Then he began to whirl it, his hands shifting with steadily increasing speed. The spearman's eyes drifted up to the whirling spear. No doubt he knew perfectly well that such a whirling spear could not be stopped and thrust forward without giving more than enough warning to an opponent. So did the Hongshu. He could not keep a sneer off his face as he watched Blade's spear whirl and listened to the mounting hiss as it cut the air. If one of Lord Tsekuin's men was going to make a fool of himself this way, so much the better.

Once he had settled into a steady rhythm, Blade could keep a spear going like this for half an hour without thinking about it at all. He kept his eyes and mind focused on the spearman, with occasional glances at the Hongshu. He wanted to go on long enough to get everyone thinking he must be getting tired. Not long enough to really get tired, though. His one-shot kill might not come off. Years of single-combat experience told him to keep plenty of strength in reserve.

He whirled the spear faster. Now the hiss deepened into a drone, like a distant swarm of bees. He did not bother looking up. He knew that by this time the spear must be only a half-invisible blur above him, like a hummingbird's wings. Sweat began to trickle down his face and chest, and he felt the first twinges of strain in his, arm and wrist muscles. It wouldn't be long now.

Definitely it wouldn't be long now. The spearman was beginning to look speculatively at him and to shift his grip on his own weapon. Had he decided Blade was a madman, easily vulnerable? Time to change his mind, then.

Blade focused his attention on the spear for a moment. One, two, three, four more times around. Then his breath exploded out of him in a scream.

«Kiiiiy-a-a-ahhhhh!

The spear froze in midair. Before the spearman could blink an eye, Blade took the one step forward that brought him within thrusting range. The spearman's weapon jerked upward in a futile effort to guard. If the man had tried his own thrust, he might at least have taken Blade with him. As it was, his spear was still rising when Blade's spear drove downward. It drove into the spearman's belly just below the ribs, drove through the spine with a sharp crack, and burst out his back in a spray of blood. Blade jerked the spear free and stepped away as the spearman collapsed backward. When the last convulsion subsided, Blade again wiped his spear on the dead man's trousers and turned to face the Hongshu.

This hadn't been quite as spectacular a kill as he might have managed. He had trained himself until he could bring a spear to a stop and pick off a fly on the wall. But why risk missing? The one blow had been struck and the spearman was dead. The Hongshu wasn't particularly happy about it, either. One hand was tightly clutching the arm of his chair, until Blade wondered if the hard black wood would collapse into sawdust under the pressure. He also had the look of a man trying to keep the shock he felt off his face.

Lord Tsekuin and Doifuzan were also fighting to keep their faces expressionless. They looked as though they wanted to throw aside their dignity and applaud or embrace Blade-or both at once.

The three surviving dabuni of the Hongshu's hand weren't even trying to look calm. They had seen two of their comrades die under Blade's spear like rats in a dog's jaws. They couldn't avoid wondering who was next. Blade noticed the first warrior looking toward the Hongshu. His face showed a mixture of anticipation and fear. Blade guessed that this time it would be the Hongshu who forced the combat. Probably between the two first warriors.

Blade had guessed right. The Hongshu's first warrior was drawing his sword and raising it into position as he stepped forward. A simple move through four squares, and he stood in the square to Blade's right. Blade raised his spear and turned to face the man.

He was the largest of the Hongshu's outsized warriors, nearly six and a half feet tall. But there was no fat on his massive frame, only supple muscle. His feet moved with a delicacy and assurance that told Blade this man might be faster than he looked. Blade decided not to plan in advance any particular way of dealing with the first warrior. He would try a few exchanges first, to reveal the man's weaknesses, relying on his own speed to keep himself safe.

Blade almost wasn't fast enough. A sudden whuff, and the first warrior's sword split the air beside Blade's ear. A few inches closer, and it would have split his head as neatly as a grapefruit. Blade aimed a thrust at the man's thigh. The sword blocked the thrust, then smashed the spear aside with a blow that nearly tore it out of Blade's hands. If it had landed squarely instead of glancing, it would have chopped the spear in two.

This man definitely wasn't going to be as easy a victim as the first two. In fact, Blade wasn't even sure that the first warrior was going to be the victim at all. This was an opponent who could and would chop him in two if he slipped at all. Hope was written nakedly all over the Hongshu's face, and even the other two dabuni of the enemy's hand wore thin smiles.

The deadly dance went on. Blade soon realized that he couldn't tire this man out. He couldn't force him off-balance-the man handled his two hundred and fifty-plus pounds too well. He couldn't get through his guard with any thrust or stroke that wouldn't leave him dangerously vulnerable. Blade began to get the ugly feeling that this bout would go on and on and on, ending only when one man or the other got lucky.

That wasn't so good. Luck could work for either man. Obviously the two players knew that. Both the Hongshu and Lord Tsekuin wore identical expressions of frozen strain.

More exchanges of cuts and thrusts. Blade now had a small cut in one hip, his opponent an equally small one on his shoulder. Blade still couldn't see any pattern in his opponent's responses that would help him break through the man's guard. He was beginning to wonder if there was one.

Another deafening clang sounded as spear shaft met sword. The shock deflected Blade's spear upward, the point driving over the first warrior's head inches above his tightly bound hair. He didn't seem to notice it at all.

Blade licked dry lips and deliberately made his next thrust a high one, aiming over the head again. He almost aimed too high. The sword came through his open guard and nicked his ribs, and blood trickled again. But the first warrior didn't notice the direction of Blade's thrust.

A light dawned for Blade. The Hongshu's first warrior seemed to have trouble coping with attacks coming in above his eye level. Did he have vision trouble? Or was it just that he so seldom had to look up at anything that it didn't occur to him to look up, even in a fight? Blade didn't care. He knew he had a possible opening.

If he was right. If he was wrong-but he couldn't take more time to confirm his guess. Many more high thrusts, and the first warrior might become aware of his own weak point and extend his guard. Then it would be back to the endless dance, waiting for luck to turn for one fighter or the other.

Blade stepped back. He dropped into a crouch that made him look as though he was planning a thrust into the first warrior's groin. Then he leaped straight up, legs uncoiling in a single snap of powerful muscles. He soared upward like an Olympic high jumper, six feet clear of the floor. At the top of his leap his spear lunged out and down.

The first warrior had just started to raise his eyes and sword to follow Blade when Blade's spear drove down at him. It drove down into him almost vertically between the collarbone and the top rib, plunging through until it came out at the small of his back. With Blade's full descending weight behind it, the spear smashed the first warrior backward onto the floor hard enough to crush his skull. Then Blade let go of the spear and came down with both feet on the fallen man's chest and stomach. He heard more grisly noises as the first warrior's ribs and internal organs gave under the impact of Blade's two hundred and ten pounds.

Blade stepped off the body, pulled out his spear, and backed away into the center of his own square. He had never inflicted so many fatal injuries on one opponent in such a short time.

The Hongshu also looked as though he had lost a good deal of blood. His face had turned the same dirty off-white as the chamber walls, and the hand he raised was shaking slightly.

«Honorable Lord Tsekuin,» he called out. His voice was shaking slightly also. «Do you consent that I yield the victory to you at this time?»

Lord Tsekuin's reply rang out loud enough to raise echoes.

«I do not consent. Let the game continue to the end.»

The Hongshu's face turned even whiter. His hand no longer trembled. Instead it looked to Blade as though the man was having to fight an urge to draw his sword and fly at Blade or Lord Tsekuin. Nothing but fear of what he might unleash by sweeping away law and custom like that seemed to be holding him back.

Then the tension that might have flashed into violence and chaos passed. The Hongshu sighed visibly, crossed his arms on his chest, and nodded.

«Then let the game continue.»

It took only another fifteen or twenty minutes before the last two dabuni of the Hongshu's hand joined their comrades on the floor. Neither really had the nerve left to defend themselves, and Blade didn't feel particularly good about killing either one. He understood why Lord Tsekuin might want to rub the Hongshu's nose in his defeat. But it still seemed like an ugly and meaningless butchery.

Silence returned to the chamber as the last of the Hongshu's fighters gave his death rattle and lay still. Blade was conscious that the Hongshu's eyes were fixed on him more intently than before. Blade raised his spear in the formal salute and waited for the man to speak.

«Blade. It is known to you that your lord is doomed for his crime?»

«It is.»

«It is known to you that you will thenceforward be an uroi, a dabuno without a lord?»

«It is.»

«You are a man who came to Gaikon from a distant land. You have no home in Gaikon, save by the grace of a lord whom you serve. I offer you the chance to serve me, to become a dabuno sworn to the Hongshu and no other lord.»

Now Blade was conscious that Lord Tsekuin and Doifuzan were also staring intently at him. They seemed surprised. This hadn't been part of their plans. Blade smiled thinly. Obviously the Hongshu was trying to salvage «face,» if he could salvage nothing else from this shambles. It would take something away from Lord Tsekuin's last victory if he saw the man who had won it for him going over to the Hongshu.

But he wasn't going to see that. Blade knew that the moment he understood the Hongshu's offer. The man was too short-tempered, too treacherous, and too powerful to make a safe master.

Besides, Lord Tsekuin deserved more. Blade honestly couldn't say exactly how much loyalty he felt to the doomed man, doomed by his own folly. But he knew he felt enough to make it impossible for him to serve the Hongshu.

Blade made the deepest and most ceremonial bow. «Noble Hongshu, I must refuse.» He bowed again. As he straightened up, he saw Lord Tsekuin and Doifuzan exchange quick, startled glances.

The Hongshu's self-control snapped with an almost audible craaaak! He leaped to his feet and screeched, «Serpent and slime! If you will not serve me, then you will serve no one! Every lord in Gaikon will be ordered to refuse your oath, under pain of death-and not the honorable death of Lord Tsekuin either! They will die as rebels if they let you serve them. Try to live in Gaikon for a year or two with no man's hand reaching out to help you, Blade! Then you will come to me, begging on your knees to be allowed to serve me!»

Blade wrinkled up his face as though he smelled something. «Wait and see, noble Hongshu, before you count your victories. The victory counted beforehand may fly away the fastest. This you have seen today, I think.»

For a moment it looked as though the Hongshu might drop dead on the spot, or try to kill Blade. A deadly tension was in the air again. Then it passed. The Hongshu clapped his hands, gongs sounded from above, and servants came rushing in to carry away the bodies and Lord Geron on his stretcher.

When the door slid shut behind the Hongshu, Blade turned again to look at Lord Tsekuin and Doifuzan. They were alternately looking at him and at each other. Once more Blade had the impression that they were judging him for a part in some game that would go on outside this chamber-a game in which he would have a part whether he knew the rules or not.