by Ian Irvine
He roused as a pair of soldiers dragged him out of the tent. Several more soldiers waited there, with lanterns. He made a desperate attempt to get free but someone thrust a bright lantern into his face, dazzling him for a few seconds, and he was whacked over the head again. His hands were bound and he could smell blood, his own. There was no sign of Jackery. He must be dead, which meant no signal and no rescue.
“You’re so predictable,” said Libbens exultantly. “I knew you’d come back.”
His voice was hoarse, presumably from breathing the vapours from the gas grenadoes, and his normally red face was grey, but his eyes were alight as if he’d just won a great battle. In a way, he had. His rat cunning had beaten Rix and he was going to die.
The wake-up horns sounded; the sleeping troops groaned and stirred.
“It’s the middle of the bloody night,” a soldier said.
“Get up!” bellowed a sergeant. “Get up for the beheading of Lord Deadhand!”
That roused them. The guards dragged Rix down between the lines of bedrolls, punching him and prodding him with their spear butts. He eyed his troops as he went by and saw sympathy in many an eye, though they would not defy Libbens to help him. Common soldiers were trained to obey their officers’ orders instantly, and if one officer was a prisoner and another was giving the orders, he would be obeyed.
Rix was hauled into a large open area illuminated by lanterns on long poles. It was surrounded on all sides by yawning soldiers and more were streaming in all the time. A log was dragged into the centre and a big man with a long sword marched across the arena and stood by the log, waiting to cut Rix’s head off.
Ten feet away, on the other side of the log, Libbens could not contain his glee. Grasbee stood beside him, shivering, then went into a long coughing fit which ended in him spitting blood onto the grass. A guard stood by, supporting him. To either side were squads of armed men, thirty in each squad, Libbens’ personal guard.
Sixty guards in all, to make sure no one interfered. Rix looked for sympathetic faces among the troops, hoping against all common sense that he could sway them to help. It wasn’t going to happen—any soldier who came to his aid would die with him.
Rix’s guards dragged him to the centre of the circle and threw him to the ground.
“Pick him up and hold him,” said Libbens. “He didn’t learn from my last lesson.”
They held Rix’s arms while Libbens gave him another beating, then let him fall. Rix marvelled that any man could have so much dumb hatred in him, such unfeeling brutality.
The guards heaved Rix into position with his neck across the log. He had one tiny hope left but he had to act now. The flickering lanterns made moving pools of light and shadow that would help to conceal small movements. He prayed that everyone was watching his head, not his hands.
With the thumb of his dead hand, Rix flicked open the signet ring on his left middle finger to expose the half-inch blade mounted inside. He twisted his wrists, worked the blade down to his ropes and rubbed it back and forth. The razor-sharp blade would have cut through the ropes in a single pass, had he been able to exert enough pressure, but in this awkward position he had to saw at them.
“This is what happens to traitors,” Libbens announced, striding back and forth before the soldiers to Rix’s left and waving his arms in the air like a showman at a fair. “Gather round! Gather round, one and all, and see the scoundrel’s head come off.”
He went around to the other side and made a similar announcement. The soldiers stared at him in silence. Rix sawed harder.
“Get it done,” Libbens said to the executioner.
The ropes parted on the underside. Rix held them in place, awaiting his moment. He would only get one chance.
“Put your foot in the middle of his back,” the executioner said to one of the guards. “Keep your head well out of the way, otherwise I might be tempted to whack it off, just for practice.”
He sniggered. The guard’s comrades guffawed. The watching soldiers were silent.
“You,” the executioner said to the second man, “move out of the way or you’re liable to get a drenching. The infamous Lord Deadhand looks like he’ll pump a good few pints of blood.”
The left-hand guard moved back to the others. The fellow on Rix’s right put a boot in the middle of his back, though he was leaning so far away from the sword that there wasn’t much weight on it.
“Do it with a flourish,” said Libbens. “Then quarter the body, throw it to the dogs and hold his head up for everyone to see.”
He gestured to a group of horn players. They blew a ragged fanfare.
Now! thought Rix. Or never.
He gauged the best spot he could reach, swung his arm backwards and slashed the little blade diagonally across the guard’s thigh. The guard lurched away, blood pouring down his leg.
Rix rolled over a moment before the executioner’s sword buried itself in the log. It only took him a second to free it but by that time Rix had taken the guard’s sword. He swatted the guard across the head with it, rose and lunged and buried it in the executioner’s belly.
The executioner’s sword was longer and heavier, a better weapon by far. Rix caught it as it fell and swung it around over his head. He had to act fast; the guards were moving in.
“Kill him!” shouted Libbens, running backwards. He stumbled and fell, but scuttled away like a four-legged crab.
Several of the soldiers hooted and Rix took heart from it. The men did not like Libbens and few of them respected him. Could Rix sway enough of them to make a difference?
“I’m your commander, and I’m not alone,” he shouted, walking back and forth, swinging the greatsword to cover first one group of Libbens’ guards, then the other. “I have hundreds of loyal supporters here.”
It was a colossal bluff, but for a few seconds, the guards froze. Everyone was staring at him, wondering what he was going to do next.
“My men are all through the camp,” Rix added. “Anyone who raises a hand against me, or any of my troops, will die a mutineer’s death.”
Still no one moved and Rix knew what they were thinking. In a battle between rival commanders, common soldiers could only lose, and few would have the courage to move until they had a strong sign that they were on the winning side. It was a different matter for Libbens’ sixty guards. If he fell, so would they, and they could end this in seconds. But they knew Rix’s ferocious reputation—the first few men who attacked him would certainly die.
Rix kept moving, back and forth, swinging the sword. He met the eyes of those soldiers who had seemed sympathetic. He had to convince them to act.
“I’m your commanding officer,” he repeated, so loudly that it hurt his jaw. “I was publicly appointed by the chancellor. Take the traitor generals and their guards, and hold them. That’s an order!”
A small group of soldiers on the left stepped forward, then another group ahead. There were more than twenty… though not nearly enough to deal with sixty elite guards.
“Take Libbens and Grasbee!” he repeated, and ran at the nearest guards, swinging the executioner’s sword.
But whenever he cut a man down, two more took his place and, at the moment it became clear he could not win, more of the waverers would turn to Libbens’ side. Unless Rix could take him down first.
It wasn’t to be. Rix and his nine surviving men were soon surrounded. He was preparing to be cut to pieces when a score of riders galloped into the arena, led by Holm and Tonklin and, to Rix’s astonishment, Jackery. He must have got away after Rix had been knocked down.
“Kill him!” bellowed Libbens.
His guards surged forward. Defence was a hopeless strategy—Rix ran at them, swinging wildly, trying to dominate the guards with sheer size and ferocity, the way Grandys did in battle. And it worked; he cut three men down, several others scrambled out of the way, and he broke free.
“To me! To me!” Rix roared.
“Look out!” Holm yelled.
; A flying wedge of Libbens’ guards attacked from the left, hacking Rix’s men out of the way and aiming for him.
“Close ranks!” Rix yelled. “Hold them out!”
But there was only one way to finish this. He looked over the heads of his troops, identified the coarse red face of his enemy and fought his way towards Libbens so furiously that the soldiers guarding him broke and ran. Libbens matched Rix stroke for stroke. Rix cut him, then again. Libbens took a step backwards, looking around for help, but most of his guards were dead and the rest had seen that it was over.
“Help me, you mongrel dogs,” he gasped at the surrounding troops.
Not one man moved to his aid. He swung a wild blow at Rix, missed, then turned and fled. Rix sprang after him and dealt him a blow to the head with the flat of his sword. Libbens went down. There came a rousing cheer from the watching troops and Rix knew he had won. A few seconds later he saw that Jackery’s men had taken Grasbee as well, and his eight surviving guards.
“Put them down, Deadhand,” said Jackery. “They’ll only stir up more trouble, otherwise.”
“I’m trying them for mutiny. Quick justice is more than they deserve, but justice they will have nonetheless.”
He called the troops in closer, his own men in a small semicircle on the north, and the renegade army on the south side. Rix formed a jury of ten men, five from Libbens’ army and five from his own men, and read out the charges. Grasbee did not speak. He was still coughing and spitting blood. Libbens blustered in selfdefence but it did not avail him—the jury had already made up its mind.
“Ignominious death,” said the foreman.
Grasbee was forced to his knees and his neck stretched over the log. Rix signed to Jackery.
“Only you can end this, Lord,” said Jackery.
Rix grimaced. But then, he was commander. He hefted the executioner’s sword, aimed carefully and brought it down, thump. When the blood had reduced to a dribble, he had Libbens brought to the log, two yards down.
“This man is the ringleader of the mutiny,” Rix said to the deathly silent watchers. “When he dies, it ends.”
There was a dark stain down Libbens’ trouser front. “It wasn’t me,” he whined. “Grasbee and Krebb were behind it all.”
Rix gestured to the log.
Libbens was forced down next to Grasbee’s headless body, held in place and his thick neck pressed against the log. He looked right, at Grasbee’s bloody stump, then down at his severed head. Grasbee’s eyes seemed to be staring back at Libbens, accusing him.
“Any last words you wish conveyed to your family?” said Rix.
Libbens unleashed a torrent of abuse.
Rix listened to a minute of it, then raised the sword. Libbens broke off and tried to lift his head but he was securely held. A small green ant crawled across his cheek.
He was whimpering now. Time to put the swine out of his misery. Rix swung the sword down, thunk, all the way through skin, bone and gristle with surprisingly little resistance for such a heavy-set man, and two inches deep into the log. It was over.
He raised Libbens’ head high, so everyone in the army could see it. His eyes had already gone blank.
“The mutiny is over,” said Rix. He turned to the surviving men of Libbens’ guard. “You knew that the chancellor had appointed me commander, yet you supported the mutineers. You too should die as mutineers…
“But I’m prepared to accept that you were obeying orders you believed to be legitimate. I will suspend the sentence as long as you swear to me and my officers. But if you should transgress again, in any small way—the sentence will be carried out.”
They swore to him.
CHAPTER 24
Any minute now, Grandys was coming in to scan Tali’s head. But what did that mean, and how was he going to do it? She felt sure it was going to hurt.
She paced around the wrecked great hall of Bastion Barr, the unlikely prison where she had been held since being brought north with Lirriam and the injured Yulia after the battle at Reffering. Grandys had arrived yesterday, in a cold and savage rage that no amount of bloodshed could assuage.
Tali’s stomach muscles were clenched so tightly that they ached. She had to resist him and protect her secrets, though she was not sure how much longer she could hold out. Any defeat turned him into a brooding drunk, as liable to cut down an ally as an enemy, and she was his next target. He had told her so.
Though Grandys had broken Lirriam’s jaw, she had emerged the stronger and it was eating him alive. Not even his crushing victory over Lyf’s army, nor Grandys’ routing of the Pale with a single battalion, could make up for his growing fear of the stone Incarnate, that only a woman could wake.
Something was bothering him about Maloch as well. Lirriam kept making snide remarks about it, alluding to a confrontation where the sword had failed him and Lyf had emerged the victor, and questioning whether Grandys was still its true master. Every reference to that confrontation drove him into a fury.
Two days ago he had suffered another blow, one he took as a personal insult. Lyf had sacked and burned Grandys’ two greatest bulwarks, Castle Rebroff and Bastion Cowly. The attacks had sent Grandys racing north to avenge the insult but the enemy’s lead had been too great. They had fled down the far side of Lake Fumerous, to safety in Caulderon.
How Lirriam had laughed when Grandys brought the news. For the moment, he was stymied—he did not have the numbers to make an onslaught on Caulderon or attack Lyf’s army in Mulclast, and for some reason connected to the sword’s true master Grandys was saving Rix for “the endgame”, whatever that was.
In the meantime Grandys drank, brooded and indulged himself in acts of unspeakable violence against the remaining prisoners, though not even that could bring him solace.
Only a win could do that, and Tali was his intended victim. Was scanning a way of mind-reading? Her gift was still blocked and she did not know how to protect her secrets.
Tali circled around a heap of smashed furniture, reached the end of the great hall and turned back. For reasons unknown she had been imprisoned in the largest room in the fortress, but only after his troops had smashed and despoiled every sculpture, painting, mural and tapestry there, and most of the furniture. She had spent days locked in this ruin, and it worked on her mind in ways that a dungeon’s blank walls never could have. If Grandys won, this was a vision of the future.
A vision of hell.
And now he was coming. She could hear his heavy tread on the stairs two floors below. He moved with a deliberate, lumbering gait as if his lower limbs still remembered when they had been stone. One floor to go. Now he was thudding along the long hall. Let him not be drunk. No one could deal with Grandys in that state. Clever words only enraged him.
He approached the double doors. Tali stared at them, paralysed. Any second now they would burst open and slam back against the wall. Grandys entered a room as though he wanted to tear it down.
But this time the latch lifted and fell, and the door was eased open. He came through silently, wearing an enigmatic smile. He pointed to the chair at the end of the big hall table, the only two pieces of unbroken furniture here.
Tali sat.
Slender, sad-eyed Yulia followed him in, moving slowly and painfully. She had been badly injured in the battle at Reffering, Tali knew, and though Lirriam had healed her, Yulia did not look well.
She carried a wide roll of heavy mapmaker’s paper. Grandys gestured to the table and she unrolled it in front of Tali. The paper was blank. Was this part of the scanning process? How did it work? What would it show?
Grandys picked up the pieces of a broken chair, touched them with the flat of Maloch and they rejoined. He placed the chair in front of Tali. Yulia sat on it, facing her.
“What are you doing?” said Tali. Her voice had a tremor. She could not stop it.
Yulia opened her mouth to speak. Grandys scowled and she closed it again. She slipped a copper-coloured bracelet onto her left wrist and rotated
it a couple of times. A line of glyphs ran around it. Tali could not read them.
“Don’t move,” Grandys said to Tali.
Yulia reached out with her left hand. Her hands were beautiful, the fingers long, slender and tapering, the nails jewel-perfect black opals that shimmered with her every movement.
She curved her hand around the left side of Tali’s face, close but not touching. Now over the top of her head. Now down the right side of her face. Tali assumed Yulia was using some kind of magery and braced herself for pain or discomfort, but felt nothing.
Yulia rose from her chair, reached over and ran her hand down the back of Tali’s head, so close that it stirred her hair. Yulia sat again and traced her fingers down the centre of Tali’s face from hairline to chin.
Yulia was breathing heavily now, and the muscles that ran from her neck to her shoulders were taut. She turned to the table and set a handful of sharpened pencils beside the sheet of paper, their points aligned and sides parallel.
Taking a pencil from the middle, she inspected the point, put it back and took another. Now, again using her left hand and holding the paper steady with her right, she began to draw a huge skull, fully two feet long, in the top left corner of the paper.
Tali’s skull.
Yulia worked quickly but with an engraver’s skill, completing the front-on view of the skull in intricate detail in no more than ten minutes. She stood back, studying it from a distance, her lips pursed.
“Give it a face,” said Grandys.
Yulia took a fresh pencil and sketched Tali’s face and hair. The likeness was eerily good, almost life-like. Without looking at her, Yulia began a second drawing on the right. It showed the back of Tali’s skull. A third drawing depicted the left side of her head and a fourth, the right side. By the time Yulia completed the last line and stood back, the best part of an hour had passed.
Her face was blanched; she swayed on her feet. Furrows had formed on her brow and to either side of her mouth. She pressed her hands against her lower belly as if in pain, and closed her eyes.