Empire of the East

by Fred Saberhagen

  They were sheltered from missiles on a flat space big enough to sprawl on carelessly, while they gasped for breath. Somewhere, ten or twenty meters above them but out of sight, the lieutenant was bawling out a confusion of new orders.

  The reptile found them almost instantly. It hovered over the chasm on deft and leathery wings, screaming its loathing and alarm, carefully staying out farther than a sword might sweep. Charmian with a wide swing of her arm threw out a fist-sized rock; through luck or skill it caught a wing. The beast screamed and fell away, struggling in pain to stay in the air.

  But it had already screamed out their location to the men above.

  Chup stood up and drew his sword and waited for the men to come. From the renewed sounds of battle farther off, he soon picked out a closer sound, the scraping and sliding of sandalled feet on rock, too desperately concerned with footholds to be furtive.

  “Both sides!” Charmian cried out. A man was sliding down toward them on each side of their almost cavelike shelter. But each attacker had to think first of his own footing. Chup put the first one over easily before the man could do more than wave his arms for balance, then turned quickly enough to catch the other still at a disadvantage. This one, going over, dropped his sword and managed to catch himself by his hands. Only his fingers showed, clinging stubbornly to the ledge, until Charmian, screaming, pounded and shattered them with a rock.

  Chup sat down once more resting while he could. As Charmian knelt beside him, he said: “They’ll have a hard time getting at us here. So they may just wait us out.” He leaned out for a quick glance at the slope below them, it was worse than that above. “I don’t suppose you got out by this route the last time you were here.”

  “I—don’t know.” Somewhat to Chup’s surprise, she lost herself again for a time in silent thought. “I was only a child then. Twelve years old, perhaps. My father led us—” Her face turned up, wide-eyed with another shock of memory. “My sister and I. My sister. Carlotta. I have not thought of her from that day till this. Carlotta. I had forgotten that she ever lived!”

  “So. But how did you get out? Not down this cliff somehow?”

  “Wait. Let me think. How very strange, so many memories wiped out…she was six years younger than I. Now it comes back. My father took us both down the long spiral path. Into the demon chambers at the bottom. There…he pushed us both forward, so we fell, and he turned and ran away. I saw his flying robes, while Carlotta lay beside me, crying. Ah, yes. That would have been my father’s initiation, his pledging to the East. Ah, yes, I understand it now.”

  “What happened?”

  Almost calmly now, Charmian stared into the depth of time. “We lay there, frightened. And before we could get up, he came for us.”

  “He?”

  “Lord Zapranoth. For his initiation, our father, had to give us to the Demon-Lord.” Charmian’s eyes now turned on Chup, but still her mind was in the past. “Lord Zapranoth reached for us, and I jumped to my feet and took Carlotta and pushed her in front of me, and I cried out: ‘Take her! I am yours already. Already I serve the East’!” Charmian giggled, a pearly ripple of pure music, yet it made Chup draw back slightly. “I cried: ‘Now take Carlotta as my pledging!’ And Zapranoth stayed his hand, that had been reaching for us.” Charmian’s merriment faded suddenly. “And then he…laughed. That was a thing most horrible to hear. Then he put out his hand again, and stroked my h—”

  Breaking off with a little shriek, Charmian clutched at the golden hair, that hung disheveled before her eyes, as if it were some alien creature settled on her head. Then she recovered herself somewhat, brushed back her hair and let it go. “Yes, Zapranoth stroked my hair. And later, when Elslood tried to make a love-charm from it—” She stopped.

  “All Elslood’s magic was confounded and reversed,” Chup finished. “And he and every man who carried the charm was drawn to you by it. But never mind that now.” He put out his hand slowly, not quite far enough to touch the gold that he had handled with rough carelessness not long ago. He said: “Do you suppose, that on that day—the Demon-Lord—might have left his life in this?”

  The thought was no surprise to Charmian. “No, Chup. No. Hann examined my hair closely, when we were planning how best to use the charm, trying to find the source of its unusual power. Hann would have found a demon’s life if it were there. We could have made the Demon-Lord our servant.” She smiled. “No, Zapranoth would not have been fool enough to give his life into my keeping. He understood me far too well. When he had touched my hair, he said to me: ‘Go freely from this cave, and serve the East. It has great need of such as you.’ Yes. Now all the memories come back. My father was much amazed when I caught up with him. Much amazed to see me, and not entirely pleased. Oh, he looked back hopefully enough to see if my sister had also been released. She was the one he favored, truly cared for. But her the demon kept.

  “And I think my father also was made to forget what happened here; at least he never spoke of it, or of Carlotta—Chup, what is it?”

  He had got to his feet as if to face the enemy again, but he did not raise his weapon, only stayed down fixedly at Charmian. Without taking his eyes from her he sheathed his sword and gripped her hands and pulled her to her feet. She twisted as if expecting another blow. But he only held her fast, demanding: “Tell me this. What was his aspect, when you saw him then?”

  “Whose?”

  “Zapranoth’s.” Chup’s voice was not much louder than a whisper. “What did he look like then, what form did he take?” His eyes still bored relentlessly at her.

  “Why, the form of a tall man, a giant, in dark armor. It matters little what form a demon takes. I knew him today, even at a distance, because the feeling he brought with him, the sickness, was the same—”

  “Yes, yes!” He let her go. Caught by a powerful thought, he turned away, then turned right back. “You said that your sister was six years old, when the demon took her?”

  “I don’t know. About that, yes.”

  “And was she fair of face?”

  “Some thought so. Yes.”

  “That could be changed—a small thing for the Demon-Lord,” he murmured, staring past her into space. “What was the season of the year?”

  “Chup, I—what does it matter now?”

  “I tell you it does matter now!” He glared at Charmian again.

  She closed her eyes and lined her perfect forehead with a frown. “It must have been six years ago. I think—no, it was in spring. Six and a half years ago, to this very season. I do not think I can calculate it any more closely—”

  “Enough!” Chup slapped his hands together, rough triumph in his face and voice. “It must be so. It must be. The young fool said she came to them in springtime.”

  “What are you babbling of?” Charmain’s temper edged her voice. “How can this help us now?”

  “I don’t know yet. What happened to your sister?”

  Before Chup could finish the question there came a faint sound behind him and he had turned, sword drawn and ready. But the shape that dropped now to the narrow ledge was only a small brown furry creature, half the length of a sword from head to tail.

  “Chupchupchupchup.” Stretched as if in supplication on the ground, just outside of thrusting range, it opened a harmless-looking, flat-toothed mouth to make a noise between repeated gasps and hiccups. It took Chup a moment to understand this was a repetition of his name.

  “Chupchupchup, the High Lord Draffut bids you come.” The creature’s speech was almost one long word, like something memorized and all but meaningless to the speaker. A beast as small as this one could not have much intelligence.

  “I should come to the Lord Draffut?” Chup demanded. “Where? How?”

  “Chup come, Chup come. Tell man Chup, now he is hunted, the High Lord Draffut bids him come to sanc-tu-ar-y. Haste and tell man Chupchupchup.”

  “How am I to come to him? Where? Show me the way.”

  As if to show Chup how, the l
ittle four-footed animal spun around and bounded off, going up the side of the cliff again with ease, darting between rocks where a man could not easily have thrust an arm. Chup took one step, and then could only stare after it, hoping it might realize he could not follow.

  He turned to Charmian. “How do you reckon that? If it’s a trap, the bait’s being kept safely out of reach, so distant I can’t grab for it.”

  She shook her head, and seemed both envious and mystified. “It seems that you are genuinely offered sanctuary. I’ve heard that the small animals run the Beast-Lord’s errands now and then. Does Draffut know you as an enemy of demons? That might account for it.”

  Before he could reply there came again the whispery slide of men trying to get at them from both sides. Perhaps they had seen the little messenger run past, and feared their prey was plotting an escape. As before, Chup smote the foe upon his right before the man could get his weapons up. This time the man on the left side was impeded by Charmian’s falling at his feet. She had ducked for safety and lost her footing, and now she was clutching at her enemy’s ankles while he was forced to concentrate on Chup. Much good his concentration did him with his feet immobilized; Chup’s swordpoint tore him open and he toppled. Charmian let go his ankles quickly as his weight cleared the edge.

  Chup spun back purposefully to the man he had struck down upon his right. It was the lieutenant of the Guards whom they had duped into letting them pass; he now had dropped his weapons and clung with blood-slippery, failing fingers to the rock. Chup cautiously pulled him in from the brink and cut his throat. Charmian watched, at first without understanding, as Chup continued cutting through the neck, gorily separating head from body.

  When the collar of seamless-looking Old World metal was free, he wiped it clean on the lieutenant’s uniform and held it up. With two motions of his foot he sent the headless body into the abyss.

  By now she understood, or thought she did. Anger was in her voice, perhaps from envy or from fear of being left alone. “You are a fool. The valkyrie will take no unhurt man to the Lord Draffut. And none who does not wear the collar properly around his neck.”

  “You are not entirely right in that, my lady. I have talked with the soldiers. The valkyries will take a man whose collar is off. Provided he is so wounded that his head is severed from his trunk.”

  Now her face showed that she fully understood his plan. Her anger grew. “Not every dead man is brought to Lord Draffut’s domain in time to be restored, nor heals properly.”

  “Nor has a personal invitation from the High Lord Draffut. Listen, lady, I think you will not be worse off if I go. If more soldiers scramble down here, you may do as well with your eyelashes and sweet voice as I would with a sword. As things stand now, you can’t get out of here.”

  That was true; now she was listening.

  He pressed on. “Your situation may be greatly helped if I can go. What I was saying when the animal came is more important now than ever. What happened to your sister?”

  “The Lord of Demons took her, as I said. Devoured her, I suppose.”

  “You saw the tall black man do that?”

  “I…no. He laid his hand upon her, and her screams were quieted. I did not linger to see more.”

  With a quick movement Chup reversed his sword, and held the pommel of it out to Charmian. “Take this.”

  She stood in hesitation.

  Chup said: “If the Beast-Lord hates demons, as you say, I had better go to him, and quickly.”

  “Why?”

  “To tell him where to find the life of Zapranoth. Now take this and cut off my head.”

  Holding out the sword and waiting, Chup felt content. True, she might murder him good, or his plan might fail for other reasons. But since he had turned his back on Som and on the East, he felt like his own man again, and that feeling was enough; perhaps it was all that a man like him should try to get from life.

  He fought on now to win, to live, because that was his nature. But he was tired, and saw no future beyond this battle. Death in itself had never been a terror for him. If it came now—well, he was tired. Half a year of paralytic near-death he had endured, out of sheer pride, unwillingness to give in. Then, when as if by miracle, his strength and freedom had been returned to him, he had come near throwing them away again, to serve the East—and why? What power or treasure could they offer that was worth the price they asked?

  “Strike off my head,” he said to Charmian. “A valkyrie must be coming for this collar by now; there’d be one already here if they weren’t having a busy day.”

  She was still hesitating, fearing, hoping, thinking, desperately deciding what course was best for her own welfare. She reached out and took the sword, then asked him: “Where is the demon’s life concealed?”

  “Lady, I would not trust you with my beheading, save that you must see how it is in your own interest for me to reach Draffut with what I know. If we can kill or threaten Zapranoth, and tip the battle to the West, then you may sit here safely until Som is no longer dangerous. Unless, of course, you would rather bear the message; in which case I must cut off your—no. I thought not.”

  He turned and knelt down slowly, face toward the cliff. Charmian was at his right, holding the long blade point down on the ground. He said: “Now, about this little surgery I need…I suppose a single stroke would be too much to ask for. But more than two or three should not be needed, the blade is heavy and quite sharp.” Without turning to see her face, he added: “You are most beautiful, and most desirable by far, of all the women I have ever known.”

  From the corner of his eye he saw Charmian losing her hesitation, gathering resolve, straightening her thin wrists in a tight two-handed grip to lift the weapon’s weight. Chup studied the details of the rock wall straight before him.

  He had knelt down facing this way so that his head would not roll over—

  Enough of that. He was Chup. He would not even close his eyes.

  On its way, the sword sang thinly. His muscles cried for the signal to roll away, his nerves screamed that there was still time to dodge. His ruling mind held his neck stretched and motionless.

  IX

  Before the Citadel

  Out near the middle of the tableland that divided the forces of the East and West, in a part of the rough plateau that was shattered and split into a dozen peninsulas divided by abyssal crevices, the High Lord Zapranoth came bursting up into the morning air like some foul pall of smoke, from a huge chimney-opening in the ground. Rolf, turning from his work of grappling down great gasbags, looked up at Zapranoth and saw that which made him squint his eyes half shut and turn away—though he could not have said what it was about the smoke that was so terrible. Looking around him, he could see that only Gray, and Loford who now stood beside his brother, were able to face the demon with their heads raised and eyes wide open. They were standing in the rear of the invaders’ little line, near Rolf and the balloons. The smoky image of the technology-djinn was fluttering and darting to and fro above the gasbags, like some frantic bird confined in an invisible cage.

  Now Gray raised both his arms. Before the face of Zapranoth there appeared a haze or reflection of light gray, a screen as insubstantial as a rainbow, but as persistent. It stood steadily before the demon as he drifted gently nearer. Now it was possible for the soldiers of the West to look toward him—and toward the citadel, through whose open gate the Guard and its auxiliaries were pouring out, quick-march. Arrows began to fly both ways across the field. When the defenders of the citadel had finished a quick and practiced deployment in four ranks, Rolf estimated there might be nearly a thousand of them. He was too busy to give much time to pondering the odds, for the last balloons were landing now and he and his assistants had all they could do with work and dodging arrows. Each wore on his left arm a light shield woven of green limber branches; such shields were thought capable of squeezing and stopping piercing shafts that could bite through a coat of mail.

  “Sound the trumpet
once more!” Thomas now ordered with a shout. The Northman with the horn, his head now bandaged, turned back to face the pass—its thread of road still empty—and once more blasted out the signal.

  This time there came an answering horn, though it sounded dishearteningly far away.

  “There is our army coming, friends!” Thomas shouted in a great voice. “Let’s see if we can do the job before they get here!”

  As if the distant horn had been a signal for them too, the Guard swayed now in formation to the shouting of its officers, and as one man stepped forward to attack. At a range of a hundred and fifty meters there came from their rear ranks a volley of arrows.

  Rolf and those around him, finished at last with tying down balloons, took up their weapons and moved into their places for the fight. Some, holding shields, raised them to protect Gray and Loford. The two wizards still were standing motionless, and gazing steadfastly upon the ominous but also nearly motionless bulk of Zapranoth, high in the air above the middle of the field. Loford was swaying slightly on his feet; there was no other overt sign as yet of the struggle of invisible powers that had been joined.

  The horn from down below, within the pass, now sounded once more, noticeably closer; and again as if its signal had been meant for them, the Guard of Som the Dead began to run and came on in a yelling charge.

  The broken ground delayed them unequally, so that their lines were bent. Rolf, with bow in hand and arrows laid out before him on the ground, knelt in the middle of a line of archers. He took little time to aim, but loosed into the oncoming swarm of men in black, nocked and drew and loosed again. The air was thick with dust and missiles, and his targets moved confusingly, so it was difficult to tell what damage his own shots were doing. Certainly the ranks of black were thinning as they came. A steady droning sprang up in the air above, as the valkyries whirred industriously, in madly methodical calm they dipped into the fury of the fight below to lift the fallen warriors of Som and take them to the high place of Lord Draffut. Some machines flew through the image of the Demon-Lord, with no awareness shown on either side. It was as if each were unreal to the other, and only humans must know and deal with both.