Sword Empire

by Robert Leader

  “How many?” Allor asked.

  “Four,” Antar said quietly.

  “Four out of twelve.” Laton threw up his hands in anguish.

  “For a military decision as vital as a major war, their code demands a nine to three vote in favour,” Antar reminded them.

  “So the fate of our world depends upon one Gheddan vote,” Laton said bitterly. “What madness have we brought upon ourselves?”

  No one answered him, and Kananda guessed that this breast-beating debate had already been held many times. Now the nemesis they had forged was imminent and there was nothing more to be said in self reproach. They could only face the inevitable.

  Allor spoke again. “How long before our escape ships can be ready?

  “Ten weeks,” Laton answered him. “Perhaps more. Perhaps less if we simply launch them untested.”

  Antar looked directly to Kananda. “Now you know our situation. I know Commander Zela has explained much to you, and we are being as honest as we can. We are building six escape ships that will be able to carry some of our people to your planet.”

  “There is no other refuge for us.” Allor was also looking directly at Kananda now and his voice was almost beseeching. “The third planet is the only other inhabitable planet in this solar system.”

  “I have seen my planet from space,” Kananda said quietly. “I think there must be many good places where your people could settle.”

  “Our ships will contain mostly children,” Laton explained. “There will only be enough adults to guide and teach them. Children are smaller and weigh less. The smaller they are, the more we can send. They will need a place of safety and protection.”

  “Then they will be welcome in Karakhor,” Kananda assured them. “I can speak in this for my father, Kara-Rashna, King of mighty Karakhor. But I must also be honest with you. My country also has its enemies. Your children will be safe with us, but only if we survive our war with Maghalla.”

  “We understand your situation,” Antar acknowledged. He looked to Zela and added, “I did spend several hours yesterday de-briefing your crew. I know that Karakhor is threatened by an alliance of enemies, and also that you encountered and drove off a Gheddan expedition from that city.”

  Kananda saw the opportunity to bring up the matter most urgent in his heart and said quickly, “The Gheddan ship that escaped from Karakhor carried off my sister, the Princess Maryam, First Princess of Karakhor. I am here to find her, and to take her home.” He paused, and then finished as forcefully as courtesy to his hosts would allow. “I can assure you that our father will prove more than grateful for the safe return of his beloved daughter. All of Karakhor will be the eternal friends of the people of Alpha.”

  Antar nodded slowly. “We detected the return of the Gheddan ship seven days before your own ship landed. The Gheddan vessel was a Mark Five Solar Cruiser. It landed at the Kaz-ar Spaceport near the City of Swords.”

  “The Gheddan ship we flushed from Karakhor was a Mark Five,” Zela confirmed.

  Laton put a hand gently on Kananda’s shoulder. “I am sorry,” he said with genuine regret. “If your sister is still alive and with the Gheddans, then she too will be in the City of Swords.”

  “Then I must go there,” Kananda said simply.

  “Ghedda is on another continent. We are divided by the Great Storm Ocean. It is not possible.”

  “I came here to find my sister,” Kananda repeated firmly. “I will find a way.”

  “But how?” Laton demanded.

  “I do not know,” Kananda conceded. “I hoped that the people of Alpha would help me. But even if I must do this alone, somehow I will find a way.”

  There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, and then Zela said calmly, “You will not be alone, Kananda. I will help you.”

  “And I,” Kyle spoke up impulsively.

  Laurya smiled at her lover and gripped his hand. “That means that I must come too.”

  There was another second of uncertain silence, and then Cadel sighed. “However you intend to get to Ghedda, you will need some kind of vehicle. So you will need an engineer.”

  “This is madness.” Laton stared at them all aghast, but mostly at his daughter. “Zela, you cannot do this. What hope have any of you to even survive on that barbaric continent for more than a few hours? You will all be killed long before you can hope to find Kananda’s sister.”

  Zela faced her father squarely. “Kananda’s sister was taken by the Sword Lord Raven,” she told him bluntly. “The same Raven who killed Lorin. The sword-butcher who slew my brother, your son! In helping Kananda, I may get the opportunity to kill Raven. If we can rescue his sister, we can ensure the safe welcome of our children in Karakhor. That gives me two very good reasons to go to Ghedda.”

  “It also gives me one very good reason to deny you any involvement in any rescue mission to Ghedda,” Antar cut in sharply. He moved toward her, no longer addressing the full assembly, his gaze locked with her own. “Commander, would you allow your personal desire for vengeance to come before the execution of your duty to Alpha?”

  Zela glared at him. Her eyes were angry and slowly she rose to her feet. She hesitated, and then just as slowly raised her palm in the Alphan salute. “You know that I would not.”

  Antar nodded and slightly relaxed. “I know, Zela. But I had to be sure.”

  He turned then to look at her three crew members. “I must commend all of you for your loyalty to your Commander, and for your willingness to follow her, even to Ghedda. But for what I have in mind, your presence would not be helpful.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Laton was on his feet looking anxious. “Antar, you cannot allow these young people to go alone into Ghedda.”

  Antar sighed. He had expected this opposition. He both understood and sympathized. He placed a hand on Laton’s shoulder. “Old friend, you know that I had two agents working in the City of Swords. Our long range sensory technology does have its limitations. It cannot tell us what is in the hearts and minds of the Council of Twelve. For that I need eyes and ears in the city itself.”

  Laton turned slowly, taking full notice of the blue-skinned woman who had so far sat cross-legged and silent at the end of the row of occupied seats. Antar’s words had helped to explain her presence. “You are Jayna?” he asked.

  The blue-skinned woman nodded in acknowledgement.

  “And the second agent?” Laton searched his memory unsuccessfully for a name.

  “My husband, Blane, was killed in the City of Swords,” Jayna said flatly. Any emotion she had over the matter was spent and her tone was matter-of-fact and cold.

  “I am sorry,” was all that Laton could think of to say, and he knew it was ineffectual.

  “It is thanks to Jayna that we have up-to-date information on the mood and the talk in the City of Swords.” Antar favoured the woman with a grateful smile. “We still need that continuing information, and Jayna is willing to return. However, she cannot go alone. Her route into the City of Swords is long and dangerous and requires the use of a rivercraft. Her cover also requires a protector. Blane was both a ground pilot and a good tavern fighter.”

  “I can pilot a rivercraft,” Zela said calmly.

  Antar nodded. “That will be one of your roles.” He looked to Kananda. “I am told that you are a useful swordsman. You will have two women to protect, and on Ghedda that means you will almost certainly have to prove your skill with a sword, perhaps also with your fists.”

  Kananda smiled briefly. “I was instructed by Jahan, Warmaster General of Karakhor. Many of my lessons were long and painful. You will not find my talent lacking.”

  “Then you must both understand your priorities. The first is to report back any information you can gather on the military intentions of Ghedda, and especially on any change in the power balance in the Council of Twelve. The second is to keep Jayna alive. She is more valuable than either of you. Third you are to find the Princess Maryam, and if possible, bring her back to Alp
ha when you return.”

  Kananda nodded grim acceptance, although in his mind he knew that whatever happened, Maryam would always be his first priority.

  Antar locked eyes with Zela again. “If the Sword Lord named Raven gets in the way of any of these three objectives, then you may kill him. But you will not seek him out in preference to your prime duties.”

  Zela scowled a little, but then she too nodded in acceptance of his conditions.

  Laton looked as though he was ready to argue further, but he was forestalled when Allor rose to his feet and asked pointedly, “Antar, how can you be so sure that we can trust this Gheddan woman?”

  Antar looked startled, and then surprised, and then he laughed. “You think Jayna is Gheddan?”

  Allor looked confused. “She wears Gheddan clothes. She has blue skin.”

  “Jayna is as Alphan as you and I,” Antar reassured him. “Leather clothes can be bought in many of our own more rural markets, and if we give her a few weeks the black hair dye and blue body dye will begin to fade. How do you think I can send Zela and Kananda into Ghedda if I cannot temporarily change the pigmentation of their skin?”

  Allor raised his hands in a gesture of defeat and sat down again. “I apologize,” he said graciously, addressing himself to Jayna.

  “This whole thing is still madness,” Laton insisted. “What good can fresh intelligence do for us? Ghedda will strike when they are ready. The exact timing is only academic.”

  “Good intelligence is never academic,” Antar countered. “We must live in hope, not ignorance.”

  Laton appealed to his daughter. “Zela, you do not have to do this.”

  “But I do, father,” she answered him gently. “Kananda has come all the way from his home planet to find his sister. I know that he would still accompany Jayna without me, and I cannot let him do that. I must go with them. Besides, Antar has said that they need someone who can pilot a rivercraft.”

  “We must have hundreds of pilots who can handle a rivercraft,” Laton said in exasperation. He saw from the set of Zela’s jaw that he was getting nowhere and switched his efforts to Jayna. “You said that your husband was killed on your last mission to Ghedda. Surely you can see that it is madness to go back. Do you want to be killed also?”

  Jayna stood up slowly. She was taller than the old man by a few inches, and she had the lean, hungry look of someone who knew what it meant to be hunted. In her eyes there was suddenly a dark sadness. She moved out from the row of seats until she faced the full assembly. She spoke to them all.

  “I return to Ghedda for one reason only. It is right that you should understand this. I have a child, a small daughter. She is only five years old. I believe our planet does face destruction, but Antar has promised me that in return for my continued service my daughter will have a place on one of the escape ships.”

  There was silence. A few feet shuffled uncomfortably. Then Allor reassured her, “You have my word also, and I know I can speak for us all. Whatever happens, Antar’s promise will be honoured. Your child will be on the first ship to escape from Dooma.”

  The matter seemed settled. Even Laton nodded in support of his colleague’s word. Then the old man looked again to Antar.

  “You hinted that my daughter must play two roles. What is the other?”

  Antar looked at Zela, and then said mysteriously, “Commander, can you dance?”

  Zela looked suddenly suspicious. “Yes,” she admitted cautiously. “I can dance.”

  At that point Jayna laughed, an unexpectedly merry sound.

  “I am sure you have all the usual social skills, Commander—but can you replace a dancing tree bear?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Maryam stood by the tall window that looked out onto the vast Space Corps barrack square below, and felt the cold fist of fear twisting more tightly in her stomach. On the far side of the square stood the great steel Sword of the empire. The cross piece of the massive hilt was more than four times the height of the tallest man, and the point of the blade soared half as high again as the mightiest temples of Karakhor. The blade had an evil silver gleam in the cold sunshine, but she was not looking across or up at that merciless symbol of power.

  A woman had been walking across the otherwise empty and snow-dappled square, but now she had stopped to stare back at the watching Hindu princess. She was tall with long, wild black hair, and savage, coal-black eyes. She wore a laced-up leather jerkin and leggings, the same clothes that Maryam herself now wore, the common garb of most Gheddan women. On her wrists were metal-studded leather wrist guards, and at her hip a long-bladed knife in its leather sheath. Her lips were painted green, a fashionable colour with the blue-skinned women, and she twisted them into a mocking sneer and deliberately spat toward the high window.

  “Who is that woman?” Maryam demanded with a flash of anger.

  Her question distracted Raven from his frustrated pacing around the room. In the three days since they had arrived in this soulless and depressing place, he had been like a caged cat, barely able to restrain his fury. She knew it was dangerous to provoke him, but her own feelings badly needed an outlet.

  He changed direction and came to stand beside her.

  “Her name is Sylve,” he said dispassionately. “She is nothing.”

  They were both visible in the window and Sylve glared up at them for another moment before flinging her head back haughtily and marching on. Raven’s iron grip on her arm turned Maryam away from the window.

  “She hates me,” Maryam said flatly. “Yesterday in the market, she spat at my feet. Just now she spat toward me again. Every time she sees me, she spits.” She glared at Raven as he looked into her accusing eyes. “But she is afraid of you. She was your woman.”

  “It is past. It is of no consequence,” Raven shrugged.

  “Not to you. But I think she would kill me if she gets the chance.”

  “Then do not give her any opportunity,” Raven said bluntly.

  Maryam glared at him and then jerked her arm free of his grip. In Karakhor, she would have stamped her foot, thrown something, or run to her mother, but Karakhor and Earth were both far behind her. In addition to learning his language, she had learned much of the rough ways of this planet, and she knew that such behaviour here would only provoke his laughter.

  She threw herself onto one of the long couches that, with a scattering of cushions and rugs, and one eating table, made up the room’s sparse furniture. Then she sat upright with her elbows propped on her knees and her chin cupped in her hands, feeling miserable. She was no longer sure that it had been such a good idea to follow him to this cold and hostile world. Far from cementing an alliance that would save Karakhor, it now seemed unlikely that she would ever see her homeworld again. As her doubts had multiplied, she had determined not to weep, but sometimes it was hard to keep her tears inside.

  There was also the growing uncertainty about Raven’s feelings toward her.

  He kept her by his side, but there was a coldness within him that had begun to frighten her. Only when they made love did it seem that he really needed her and at first she had matched his fierce passion with her own. Being the King’s first daughter had kept her virginal too long, and once unleashed, she had delighted in the rapture he had brought to her own swift-flowering womanhood. If sometimes he handled her too roughly, it still seemed a vast improvement over what she would have expected from her former flower-bearing, poem-writing courtiers.

  So she was swept between the dizzy heights of shame and shamelessness. But there were times when all that she really knew was that she could never go back to being the pampered and beloved little girl who had played so happily on Kara-Rashna’s royal knee. She had known the fond tolerance of her uncles and the teasing adoration of her brothers and their friends, but that was all left far behind her. She was Raven’s woman now, but she could not be certain that he would forever be her man. He was, perhaps, as true to her as any Gheddan could be, but how true was that? The woman, S
ylve, had been his partner once, but now she was abandoned. Would Raven eventually abandon her in her turn? What would become of her then in this harsh and cruel place?

  Since their arrival in the City of Swords, the questions and the doubts had piled up thick and fast. The first shock had been the cold discomfort of these spartan quarters, so far removed from the lost luxury of her rooms in Kara-Rashna’s palace. Second was the slow realization that Raven was perhaps not so high and important as he had first seemed. He was a Sword Lord, and commander of his ship and his crew, but that seemed to count for little here. They had been escorted to these rooms and simply left to their own devices. At first that had been enough, the opportunity to make wild and ferocious love as often as they wished, but then Raven had become frustrated with the delay and had begun his angry pacing.

  They were not exactly prisoners. Raven had walked with her around the square, and outside the barrack complex to show her the street markets. But he was awaiting the summons to make his formal mission report to the Council of Twelve, and he was reluctant to be absent for too long from his quarters. Now the lengthening delay was becoming menacing and irksome.

  “Why do they keep you waiting?” She finally snapped the question. It was the only one of the many which were troubling her that she dared to ask.

  Raven gave her a dark look. For a moment, she thought that he would ignore her, but then he sat down on the couch beside her, half turning to face her. “Call it empire politics,” he answered grimly. “Normally I would be asked to report within a day’s cycle on even a routine mission. The voyage to your planet was much more than that, a first exploration with possible future consequences for the empire. Receiving the full details of my report should be a Council priority. This delay means that something is wrong.”