The Two of Swords, Volume 2

by K. J. Parker

  The armoured man was moving, a slow, irregular crawl, dragging himself along with his elbows. He stopped about ten yards from where Corason was sitting. He’d left a furrow behind him in the dust you could’ve sown artichokes in.

  Maybe it was the silence that made it seem so unreal. Corason sat staring for a long time, then nudged the mare into a slow walk. He looked down at the dead man, but didn’t stop. Part of him really didn’t want to see what was going on on the other side of the rise, but he knew he couldn’t stop and go back. He was being drawn, like filings by a magnet.

  As he reached the top and looked down, he remembered what it was that he’d forgotten.

  If the Great Smith had chosen to sell tickets to the battle, Corason knew he could never have afforded to be where he was: best seat in the house. Below him he could see the whole thing, the greatest show on earth, staged in a natural amphitheatre to delight the discerning student of history. The bigger, faster moving specks were cavalry—Senza Belot, ambushing the ambush; so obvious, he’d chosen practically the only square mile in the two empires where the plan could work, he must’ve set the whole thing up months ago, all leading up to this; the smaller specks, scurrying in terrified swarms, were the last concentration of the forces of the West, rounded up, chivvied and worried and funnelled into killing zones. Horse-archers were the key, of course; he must have got them from Blemya, or the savages in the southern desert who’d been giving the Blemyans a hard time; captured them, maybe, when he and Forza had cooperated for the one and only time.

  It wasn’t real, of course. It was a vision, hallucinations induced by concussion or possibly a prophetic insight, the sort that sages and ascetics came to this place to find. He knew it had to be something of the sort because there was no sound, not even his own heartbeat or the incessant nagging of the kites.

  And he knew exactly what it was that he’d noticed yesterday, when he was fooling with the mare’s stirrups. A maker’s mark on the girth: two crossed hammers over a horseshoe. Of course it was familiar, because he’d seen it so many times; because it was the mark of the Lagriana brothers, that well-respected and old-established family firm of saddlers and harness-makers whose workshop was just outside the main gate at Division and who worked exclusively for the higher echelons of the Lodge. She wasn’t a Western spy, or an Eastern spy pretending to be a Western spy; she didn’t work for either empire, of course not, neither of the Imperial governments employs women in any capacity that doesn’t consist of cooking or cleaning or folding laundry. Only the Lodge, enlightened, all-accepting, recognises that there are some important jobs that a woman can do just as well as a man, and sometimes better. Only the Lodge.

  He watched the battle; it would have been churlish not to, since he’d been granted the unique privilege of this vision. But his mind wasn’t on it. All he could think about was the terrifying, unbearably true fact that the Lodge had sent someone to spy on him, kick his ears out and leave him for dead in the wilderness. Which was impossible. It was an abomination so horrible he couldn’t stand it; he wanted to crawl into a hole and drag a rock over his head, get away from it where it couldn’t follow.

  Something was happening. He realised he hadn’t been following; like when you’re preoccupied and you read the words of a book without taking them in. Another mob of cavalry, a substantial one, had popped up out of nowhere and was driving a straight line down the middle of the battlefield, cutting it in half. No doubt Senza had his reasons, but they seemed to be getting in the way. He saw them collide with a much smaller unit; a mess; were any of Senza’s officers capable of making a mistake like that? Then the small unit was swept out of the way, squashed up against the side of the mountain; it stopped moving, like it was dead. Suddenly all the cavalry was pulling back, breaking on the newcomers like small, ineffectual waves against a breakwater, and Corason realised that the new arrivals weren’t part of Senza’s plan, or his army.

  That would be Forza Belot.

  It was a bit like that puzzle; where you stare at the silhouette of two wineglasses, and suddenly realise you’re looking at a human face. It was a trap all right, but not a trap for the Westerners. Whoever was commanding them (it couldn’t be Forza; he was dead) had sacrificed his entire infantry strength to spring it, but it was a deliberate trap and a deadly one. Senza’s cavalry was being rounded up, kettled and confined in surrounded circles or wedged up against sheer mountainsides; horse-archers, no armour, most of them didn’t bother carrying a weapon apart from the bow, and they were being ground like wheat.

  Whoever that man is, Corason thought, remind me never to play cards with him.

  To sacrifice a hundred thousand just to kill twenty thousand didn’t make sense. He looked for the Western infantry, but he could see no sign of them. They weren’t reforming or regrouping, or even running away. They just weren’t. Made no sense.

  To sacrifice a hundred thousand just to kill one man. Now that made sense.

  Something on the edge of his vision caught his attention. He looked round and saw a boy on a pony. He was young, and he wore his long hair in braids down his back; a loose-fitting white shirt with effeminate sleeves; and a bow.

  The boy looked at Corason for some time, frowning, as though he was a badly placed ornament that spoilt the symmetry. Then he nocked an arrow on his bowstring—no hurry, might as well have been practising at the range—drew smoothly and took careful aim.

  “It’s all right,” Corason said. “I’m not—”

  Then the boy shot him.

  Hope, Reversed

  The horse-archer, whose name was Chantat mi Chanso, considered the shot and figured he must have pulled it at the last moment; a snatch in the release, sending the arrow low right, into the fleshy part of the thigh rather than the heart. He was annoyed with himself. He’d have to watch that before it turned into a bad habit.

  The enemy had fallen off his horse—quite a pretty little mare, carried its head well, rounded nicely on to the bit; but too much trouble to lead back through the battle, and who was buying women’s horses these days, anyway? He considered shooting the man again, but he discovered he only had five arrows left. Slovenly, to leave a wounded target, but that really only applied to animals, not people. He wondered why a big man had been riding such a small horse, but it was none of his business.

  Talking of which—he really ought to be getting back, he knew. Down in the valley the big battle was slipping away without him. What did you do in the big battle, Daddy? Oh, I wandered off and shot stragglers, while your Uncle Garsio and your Uncle Razo captured the enemy standard, killed the emperor and looted his golden treasury. No, that wouldn’t do at all.

  He rode past the mare and over the brow of the hill, looking for his squadron. Last he’d seen of them they’d been out on the far east wing, cutting up Ironcoats. But they didn’t seem to be there any more. He looked again, more carefully; the Dream of Bright Water was easy to spot, because their dragon was the only one with a real gold head; it caught the sun and sparkled, you could always tell it was them. And now he couldn’t see it, and that was worrying.

  Best to get back down there and find them. He nudged Firebird into a gentle canter, keeping her over on the soft verge. He wondered how Garsio had got on; he’d been plugging away shooting Ironcoats from a standstill (did they count if you weren’t moving? They’d never actually clarified that point) but he’d soon have run out of arrows doing that, so he’d have had to go back to the packhorses for some more. Had they brought enough? Fifty sheaves had seemed plenty when they set out that morning, but who could have anticipated a day like this?

  Nothing to be seen on the road except dead Ironcoats. He glanced at the fletchings of the arrows that had killed them, but they were all reds and greens, no sign of the yellow and white of the Bright Water. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to go hurtling off after the men in the red cloaks. It’d be embarrassing if he couldn’t find the Bright Water and had to muck in with another squadron until they got back to the w
agons. And if you piggybacked on another squad, didn’t you have to pay for your arrows?

  Something caught his eye and he pulled Firebird up short. Under an overhanging rock beside the road he saw dead men and dead horses; no Vei, not Ironcoats. He jumped down, looped the reins round his wrist and came closer.

  It was horrible. At least fifty or sixty; he didn’t recognise any of them, but there was their dragon, crushed almost flat, its pole snapped. A whole squadron, near enough. None of them had been shot. They were cut about and stabbed, there was blood everywhere.

  One of them was looking at him.

  He wasn’t sure at first. Dead men with their eyes open can look so very intense; yes, you, I’m talking to you. But this one blinked. He let go of the reins and edged over, stepping over dead bodies. The man licked his lips and said, “I can’t feel my legs.”

  “I’m sorry,” Chanso said. “How can I help? I don’t know what to do.”

  The man just looked at him. He wasn’t cut up like the others, but the way he was lying wasn’t right at all. “Horse threw me,” the man said. “Think my back’s broken. I can’t move.”

  What Chanso really wanted to say was: I’m sorry, but don’t look at me like that, it’s not my fault. Two kites swooped down over his head, turned into the wind and pitched on the rocks above him. He looked at them; they looked back. In your own time, they were saying. We don’t want to hurry you, but we’ve got work to do. He waved his arm and yelled, but they didn’t move.

  “Please,” the man said.

  Please what, for crying out loud? Please lift me up and carry me back to the wagons, or please shoot me? “I’ll get help,” Chanso heard himself say; then he raced back to the horse, scrambled up on her back and got out as fast as he could.

  He followed the road, simply because it was better going than trying to pick a way through the stones. He’d gone a few hundred yards when he heard shouting. He reined in and looked round and saw horsemen coming at him from three sides. They were riding big, heavy horses. They were Ironshirts.

  Which made no sense, as the enemy had no cavalry in this battle, that was the whole point. But there they were; spearmen, therefore most likely the notorious Dragons’ Teeth lancers—don’t go tangling with them, sunshine, they eat little boys like you. He reached round for an arrow, realised just how stupid that would be, wrenched Firebird’s head right round and galloped back the way he’d just come.

  Was it just conceivably possible that while he’d been away, in the half-hour or so his back had been turned, some fool had contrived to lose the battle? Impossible. There weren’t any enemy left; we killed them all. Whoever these lunatics were, they couldn’t have anything to do with the real outcome of the day. That had been settled long ago. They could only be some purely local anomaly, a minor incident out on the edge of the main action. It would be stupid to get himself killed by an irrelevancy. He gave poor Firebird a vicious kick and felt her accelerate. Then he glanced over his shoulder. They were closer now; much closer. It was as though he could already feel them, cutting his skin. He flapped his legs wildly, hammering Firebird’s ribs, but she couldn’t go any faster.

  And then he was in the air, watching the road coming toward him. And then—

  “Wake up, for crying out loud.” There was a hand gripping his jaw, waggling it from side to side. He grabbed at its wrist and it let go. “You’re all right, you’re fine. All over. Time to go.”

  The man crouching over him was no Vei; too old to be on the raid, properly speaking, his hair was streaked with grey and his face was deeply lined. The pattern of fine scars on his forehead was Glorious Destiny. “What happened?”

  “Tell you later. Right now, we’ve got to go. Come on.”

  “Just a minute. What happened? Where’s my horse?”

  “Forget the bloody horse, we’ve got a spare. Come on, will you? Or we’ll leave you here for the shitehawks.”

  An arm clamped to his elbow yanked him upright; he tottered and caught his balance. He tried to pull away but the older man was much stronger, dragging him along with one hand, shoving him between the shoulders with the other, so that he had to go forward or fall over. He heard the sleeve of his shirt rip. Another voice called out, “Get a move on, will you? They’re turning.”

  “Oh, shit,” said the older man, and Chanso realised he was terrified. “Look, pick it up, can’t you? Or they’ll kill us all.”

  He was being hustled towards a line of boulders along the verge, where a rockfall had been cleared out of the road. As he got closer he could see men behind it, three, no, four, all no Vei, and, behind them, six horses. They were watching something behind him, as anxiously as heavy betters at a horse race. The strong man grabbed a handful of the back of his shirt and boosted him over the boulders.

  “Now can we get out of here?” pleaded one of the men angrily.

  A moment later, Chanso was on a horse—he wanted to explain, I’ve already got a horse, I don’t need one; then it occurred to him that maybe he didn’t any more. He twisted round to look for Firebird, but someone grabbed his reins and he had to catch a handful of mane to stay in the saddle as the stranger’s horse broke into a gallop. As soon as he was secure in his seat he craned his neck round and saw a grey line sweeping towards him. More of the terrible Ironshirt lancers. Fear flooded his mind, drowning everything else. He had no control over anything. He clung on tight, like a little boy.

  After a very long time, the pace slowed and eventually he came to a halt. He looked up, realised his face was wet with tears. The strong man threw him back his reins; he muffed the catch and had to gather them handspan by handspan.

  “I think they’ve given us up,” someone said. “Conselh, what do you reckon? Are they still following?”

  The strong man took another long look before answering. “I believe so,” he said. “Looks like they’ve found some other poor buggers to play with.” He swung one leg over his pommel and dropped lightly to the ground, then flopped in a heap, sliding his back down against a bank. “Don’t know about you boys but I’m about done. If you want to keep going, I’ll catch you up.”

  “The hell with that,” someone else said. Then he nodded at Chanso. The strong man sighed, nodded back. “Right,” he said. “What’s your name, son?”

  “Chanso. Chantat, Bright Water.”

  The strong man shrugged. “Can’t say I’ve heard of you. I’m Conselh, this is Trahidour, Folha, Verjan and Clar: we’re all Celquel, Glorious Destiny. Did you see us?”

  “What?”

  Folha, a skinny young man with a small chin and a huge Adam’s apple, grinned. “Guess he didn’t.”

  “Fine,” Conselh said. “Anyway, we were hiding, hoping those Ironshirts wouldn’t see us, and you led the fuckers straight at us. We used our last eight arrows fixing them; also, your horse, sorry about that, I never was much of a shot. Still, you can have that one, Dolor won’t be needing it any more, poor bugger.” He stopped. Something about Chanso’s face was confusing him. “You do know we lost the battle, don’t you?”

  “I—” He was all choked up and could barely speak. “No, I didn’t. I got drawn off, and—”

  A slight frown told him that Conselh didn’t want to know. “Well, we did. Buggered if I know how. One minute we were shooting Ironshirts like a pig hunt, next thing we knew there were Dragons’ Teeth right up us. They smeared us all over the hillside like cheese on bread. We’d used up all our arrows, so we were empty-handed, and those monster horses of theirs can outrun us easy. It’s like someone set it up like that, but it makes no sense. I mean, we killed thousands of them before the lancers showed.” He closed his eyes for a moment and leaned forward, as if he had stomach cramps.

  “Get a grip,” advised one of the others. “Time for all that later. Let’s get moving.”

  “No,” Conselh said. “We’re out of sight here: we stay put till those bastard Teeth have pulled back and then we move on. I don’t know what it takes to get it into your thick skull, but the
y’re faster than us.” He grinned. “My kid brother,” he said. “You’ll get used to him.” The man who’d been speaking shot Conselh a foul look, but he didn’t see it. “Now then,” Conselh went on, “time we started thinking. We need to get back to the wagons, that’s if the Teeth haven’t got there first—”

  “For crying out loud, Conselh,” Folha said. Conselh ignored him.

  “Now if the boys back at the wagons have got any sense,” he went on, “they won’t be where we left them, that’s for sure. You got any arrows?”

  Chanso reached round to his quiver and pulled them out. All of them were broken.

  “Figures,” Conselh said, after a long silence. “The way our luck’s going. Five bows, no arrows. Probably a good thing, saves us from thinking we could make a fight of it, which I don’t suppose we could, with those Teeth. Better off without.”

  “I don’t think they’re taking prisoners,” Verjan said; he was the short one, broad-chested, with a beard and no moustache.