Brothers of Earth

by C. J. Cherryh

  So saying he took up the sheathed blade and drew it, the holy light running up and down the length of it as it came forth in his hand. Etched in its shining surface was the lightning emblem of the house, seeming to flash to life in the darkness of the rhmei. In both hands he lifted the blade to the light and rose, lifted it heavenward and brought it down again, then recovered the sheath and made it fast in his belt.

  "It is done," he said to Kurt. "Have a care of me now, though your human soul has its doubts of such powers. Isthain last drank of human life, and she is an evil creature, hard to put to sleep once wakened. She is eldest of the Sulim in Nephane, and self-willed."

  Kurt nodded and answered nothing. Whatever the temper of the spirit that lived in the metal, he knew the one which lived in Kta t'Elas. Gentle Kta had prepared himself to kill and, in truth, he did not want to stand too near, or to find any friend in Kta's path.

  And when they came to the threshold where t'Nethim waited, Lhe t'Nethim bowed his face to the stone floor and let Kta pass the door before he would rise. When Kurt delayed to close the door of Elas and secure it, t'Nethim gathered himself up and crept out into the gathering dark, the look on his perspiring face that of a man who had indeed been brushed by something that sought his life.

  "He has prayed your safety," Kurt ventured to tell him.

  "Sometimes," said Lhe t'Nethim, "that is not enough. Go ahead, t'Morgan, but be careful of him. It is the dead of Elas who live in that thing. Mim my cousin-"

  He ceased with a shiver, and Kurt put the nemet superstition out of mind with a horror that Mini's name could be entangled in the bloody history of Isthain.

  He ran to overtake Kta, and knew that Lhe t'Nethim, at a safe distance, was still behind them.

  XXIII

  "There" said Ian t'Ilev, nodding at the iron gate of the Afen. "They have several archers stationed inside. We are

  bound to take a few arrows. You and Kurt must have most care: they will be directly facing you for a few moments."

  Kta studied the situation from the vantage point in the door of Irain. It was dark, and there were only ill-defined shapes to be seen, the wall and the Afen a hulking mass. "We cannot help that. Let us go. Now."

  Ian t'Ilev bowed shortly, then broke from cover, darting across the street.

  In an instant came a heart-stopping shriek, and from the main street poured a force of men bearing torches and weapons: the Indras-descended came in direct attack against the iron gate of the Afen, bearing a ram with them.

  White light illuminated the court of the Afen, blinding, and there was an answering Sufak ululation from inside the wall. The blows of the ram began to resound against the iron bars.

  Kurt and Kta held a moment, while men from Isulan poured around them. Then Kta broke forth and they followed him to the shadow of the wall. Scaling-poles went up.

  The first man took with him the line that would aid their descent on the other side. He gained the top and rolled over, the line jerking taut in the hands of those who secured it on the outside.

  The next man swarmed up to the top and then it was Kurt's turn. Floodlights swung over to them now, spotting them, arrows beginning to fly in their direction. One hissed over Kurt's head. He hooked a leg over the wall, flung himself over and slid for the bottom, stripping skin from his hands on the knotted line.

  The man behind him made it, but the next came plummeting to earth, knocking the other man to the ground. There was no time to help either. Kta landed on his feet beside him, broke the securing thong and ripped Isthain from its sheath. Kurt drew his own ypan as they ran, trying to dodge clear of the tracking floodlight.

  The wall of the Afen itself provided them shelter, and there they regrouped. Of the twenty-four who had begun, at least six were missing.

  T'Nethim was the last into shelter. They were nineteen.

  Kta gestured toward the door of the Afen itself, and they slipped along the wall toward it, the place where the Methi's guard had taken their stand. They knew those men but there was no mercy in the arrows which had already taken toll of them, and none in the plans they had laid. The door must be forced.

  With a crash of iron the wall-gate gave way and the Indras under Ian t'Ilev surged forward in a frontal assault on the door to the Afen, the Sufaki archers, standing and kneeling, firing as rapidly as they could. Kta's small force hit the bowmen from the flank, creating precious seconds of diversion. Isthain struck without mercy, and Kurt wielded his own blade with less skill but no less determination.

  The swordless archers gave up the bows at such unexpected short range and resorted to long daggers, but they had no chance against the ypai, cut down and overrushed. The charge of the Indras carried to the very door, over the bodies of the Methi's valiant guard, bringing the ram's metal-spiked weight to bear with slow and shattering force against the bronze-plated wood.

  From inside, over all the booming and shouting, came a brief piercing whine. Kurt knew it, froze inside, caught Kta by the shoulder and pulled him back, shouting for the others to drop, but few heard him.

  The Afen door dissolved in a sheet of flame and the ram and the men who wielded it were slag and ashes in the same instant. The Indras still standing were paralyzed with shock or they might have fled. There came the click and whine as the alien fieldpiece in the inner hall built up power for the next burst of fire.

  Kurt flung himself through the smoking doorway, to the wall inside and out of the line of fire. The gunners swung the barrel around on its tripod to aim at him against the wall and he dropped, sliding as it moved, the beam passing over his head with a crackle of energy and a breath of heat.

  The wall shattered, the support beams turning to ash in that instant. Kurt scrambled up now with a shout as wild as that of the Indras, several seconds his before the weapon could fire again.

  He took the gunner with a sweep of his blade, his ears hurting as the unmanned gun gathered force again, a wild scream of energy. A second man tried to turn it on the Indras who were pouring through the door.

  Kurt ran him through, ignoring the man who was thrusting a pike at his own side. The hot edge of metal raked his back and he fell, rolled for protection. The Sufaki above him was aiming the next thrust for his heart. Desperately he parried with his blade crosswise and deflected the point up. The iron head raked his shoulder and grated on the stone floor.

  In the next instant the Sufaki went down with Isthain through his ribs, and Kta paused amid the rush to give Kurt his hand and help him up.

  "Get back to safety," Kta advised him.

  "I am all right-No!" he cried as he saw the Indras preparing to topple the live gun to the flooring. He staggered to the weapon that still hummed with readiness and swung it to where the Indras were pressing forward against the next barred doorway, trying vainly to batter it with shoulders and blades. Behind him the shattered wall and dust and chips of stone sifting down from the ceiling warned how close the area was to collapse. There was need of caution. He controlled the mishandled weapon to a tighter, less powerful beam.

  "Have a care," Kta said. "I do not trust that thing."

  "Clear your men back," said Kurt, and Kta shouted at them. When they realized what he was about, they scrambled to obey.

  The doorway dissolved, the edges of the blasted wood charred and blackened, and Kurt powered down while the Indras surged forward again and opened the ruined doors.

  The inner Afen stood open to them now, the lower halls vacant of defenders. For a moment there was silence. There were the stairs leading up to the Methi's apartments, to the human section, which other weapons would guard.

  "She has given her weapons to the Sufaki," Kurt said. "There is no knowing what the situation is up there. We have to take the upper level. Help me. We need this weapon."

  "Here," said Ben t'Irain, a heavyset man who was house-friend to Elas. He took the thing on his broad shoulder and gestured for one of his cousins to take its base as Kurt kicked the tripod and collapsed it.

  "If we me
et trouble," Kurt told him, "drop to your knee and hold this end straight toward the target. Leave the rest to me."

  "I understand," said the man calmly, which was bravery for a nemet, much as they hated machines. Kurt gave the man a nod of respect and motioned the men to try the stairway.

  They went quickly and carefully now, ready for ambush at any turn. Kurt privately feared a mine, but that was something he did not tell them; they had no other way.

  The door at the top of the stairs was closed, as Kurt had known it must be. With Ben to steady the gun, he blasted the wood to cinders, etching the outline of the stone arch on the wall across the hall. The weapon started to gather power again, beginning that sinister whine, and Kurt let it, dangerous as it was to move it when charged. It had to be ready.

  They entered the hall leading to the human section of the Afen. There remained only the door of Djan's apartments.

  Kurt held up a hand signaling caution, for there must be opposition here as nowhere else.

  He waited. Kta caught his eye and looked impatient, out of breath as he was.

  With Djan to reckon with, underestimation could be fatal to all of them. "Ben," he said, "this may be worth your life and mine."

  "What will you?" Ben t'Irain asked him calmly enough, though he was panting from the exertion of the climb. Kurt nodded toward the door.

  T'Irain went with him and took up position, kneeling. Kurt threw the beam dead center, fired.

  The door ceased to exist. In the reeking opening was framed a heap of twisted metal, the shapes of two men in pale silhouette against the cindered wall beyond, where their bodies and the gun they had manned had absorbed the energy.

  A movement to the right drew Kurt's attention. There was a burst of light as he turned and Ben t'Irain gasped in pain and collapsed beneath the gun.

  T'Tefur. The Sufaki swung the pistol left at Kurt and Kurt dropped, the beam raking the wall where he had been. In that instant two of the Indras rushed the Sufaki leader, one shot down, and Kta, the other one, grazed by the bolt.

  Kta vaulted the table between them and Isthain swept m an invisible downstroke that cleaved the Sufaki's skull. The pistol discharged undirected and Kta staggered, raked across the leg as t'Tefur's dying hands caught at him and missed. Then Kta pulled himself erect and leaned on Isthain as he turned and looked back at the others. Kurt edged over to the whining gun and shut it down, then touched t'Irain's neck to find that there was no heartbeat. TTefur's first shot had been true.

  He gathered his shaking limbs under him and rose, leaning on the charred doorframe. The heat made him jerk back, and he staggered over to join Kta, past Ian t'Ilev's sprawled body, for he was the other man t'Tefur had shot down before dying.

  Kta had not moved. He still stood by t'Tefur, both his hands on Isthain's pommel. Then Kurt bent down and took the gun from Shan t'Tefur's dead fingers, with no sense of triumph in the action, no satisfaction in the name of Mim or the other dead the man had sent before him.

  It was a way of life they had killed, the last of a great house. He had died well. The Indras themselves were silent, Kta most of all.

  A small silken form burst from cover behind the couch and fled for the open door. T'Ranek stopped her, swept her struggling off her feet and set her down again.

  "It is the chan of the Methi," said Kta, for it was indeed the girl Pai t'Erefe, Sufaki, Djan's companion. Released, she fell sobbing to her knees, a small, shaken figure in that gathering of warlike men. She was also of the Afen, so when she had made the necessary obeisance to her conquerors, she sat back with her little back stiff and her head erect.

  "Where is the Methi?" Kta asked her, and Pai set her lips and would not answer. One of the men reached down and gripped her arm cruelly.

  "No," Kurt told him, and dropped to one knee, fronting Pai. "Pai, Pai, speak quickly. There is a chance she may live if you tell me."

  Pai's large eyes reckoned him, inside and out. "Do not harm her," she pleaded.

  "Where is she?"

  "The temple...." When he rose she sprang to her feet, holding him, compelling his attention. "My lord, t'Tefur wanted her greater weapons. She would not give them. She refused him. My lord Kurt, my lord, do not kill her."

  "The chan is probably lying," said t'Ranek, "to gain time for the Methi to prepare worse than this welcome."

  "I am not lying," Pai sobbed, gripping Kurt's arm shamelessly rather than be ignored. "Lord Kurt, you know her. I am not lying."

  "Come on." Kurt took her by the arm and looked at the rest of them, at Kta most particularly, whose face was pale and drawn with the shock of his wound. "Hold here," he told Kta. "I am going to the temple."

  "It is suicide," said Kta. "Kurt, you cannot enter there. Even we dare not come after her there, no Indras-"

  "Pai is Sufaki and I am human," said Kurt, "and no worse pollution there than Djan herself. Hold the Afen. You have won, if only you do not throw it away now."

  "Then take men with you," Kta pleaded with him, and when he ignored the plea: "Kurt, Elas wants you back."

  "I will remember it."

  He hurried Pai with him, past t'Irain's corpse at the door and down the hall to the inner stairs. He kept one hand on her arm and held the pistol in the other, forcing the chart along at a breathless pace.

  Pai sobbed, pattering along with small resisting steps, tripping hi her skirts on the stairs, though she tried to hold them with her free hand. He shook her as they came to the landing, not caring that he hurt.

  "If they reach her first," he said, "they will kill her, Pai. As you love her, move."

  And after that, Pai's slippered feet hurried with more sureness, and she had swallowed down her tears, for the brave little chan had not^ needed to trip so often. She hurried now under her own power.

  They came into the main hall, through the rest of the Indras, and men stared, but they did not challenge him; everyone knew Elas' human. Pai stared about her with fear-mad eyes, but he hastened her through, beneath the threatening ceiling at the main gate and to the outside, past the carnage that littered the entrance. Pai gave a startled gasp and stopped. He drew her past quickly, not much blaming the girl.

  The night wind touched them, cold and clean after the stench of burning flesh in the Afen. Across the floodlit courtyard rose the dark side of Haichema-tleke, and beneath it the wall and the small gate that led out into the temple courtyard.

  They raced across the lighted area, fearful of some last archer, and reached the gate out of breath.

  "You," Kurt told Pai, "had better be telling the truth."

  "I am," said Pai, and her large eyes widened, fixed over his shoulder. "Lord! Someone comes!"

  "Come," he said and, blasting the lock, shouldered the heavy gate open. "Hurry."

  The temple doors stood ajar, far up the steps past the three triangular pylons. The golden light of Nephane's hearthfire threw light over all the square and hazed the sky above the roof-opening.

  Kurt drew a deep breath and raced upward, dragging Pai with him, the girl stumbling now from exhaustion. He put his arm about her and half carried her, for he would not leave her alone to face whatever pursued them. Behind them he could hear shouting rise anew from the main gate, renewed resistance-cheers for victory-he did not pause to know.

  Within, the great hearthfire came in view, roaring up from its circular pit to the gelos, the aperture in the ceiling, the smoke boiling darkly up toward the black stones.

  Kurt kept his grip on Pai and entered cautiously, keeping near the wall, edging his way around it, surveying all the shadowed recesses. The fire's burning drowned his own footsteps and its glare hid whatever might lie directly across it The first he might know of Djan's presence could be a darting bolt of fire deadlier than the fire that burned for Phan.

  "Human."

  Pai shrieked even as he whirled, throwing her aside, and he held his finger still on the trigger. The aged priest, the one who had so nearly consigned him to die, stood in a side hall, staff in hand, and beh
ind him appeared other priests.

  Kurt backed away uneasily, darted a nervous glance further left, right again toward the fire.