Swords of the Horseclans

by Robert Adams

  Demetrios vainly tried to jerk his hand free of the crushing grip. “No!” he whimpered. “No, please, no. Oh, what have I done to you that you should so use me, my lord?”

  The look that then came into Pardos’ black eyes stung his captive far more than did the contemptuous slap dealt him. The Sea Lord’s voice became glacial. “You are what you are, you gutless thing of indeterminate sex. But what is far worse is that I, God help me, am of the same blood as you; and you make it obvious that our blood is tainted.”

  He might have said more, had not a hand grasped his shoulder and spun him about. Sergios had had to surrender sword and dirk and cuirass to gain admittance to the courtyard, but when he saw his sovran struck, mere lack of weapons could not hold him back. When he confronted the pirate, the eyes that glared from beneath his helmet’s rim were every bit as hard as Pardos’ own.

  “Dog and son of a dog!” he hissed in a low voice. “Has your house sunk so low that you forget who and what you are? We three are Ehleenoee — Kath’aróhs nobles. As such, we do not degrade ourselves, or one another, before barbarians!”

  Pardos looked honestly amazed at the interruption. But he snapped, “And who are you, my young cockerel, to instruct me in the manners of nobility?”

  Sergios bowed stiffly, though his eyes never left those of Lord Pardos. “Lord Sergios, Admiral of Kehnooryos Ehlahs, my lord.”

  Pardos nodded and his frown softened a little. “A fellow seaman, eh? And if my eyes don’t deceive me, a real man, as well. If you’re not this thing’s kind, why would you defend him?”

  Sergios heaved a deep sigh. “Because I must be true to my word, my lord. High Lord Demetrios is my sovran and, long ago, I swore to serve and protect him. Protect him, I will, my lord, to the last drop of my blood.”

  Without warning, Pardos’ muscular arm shot out to the side. All he said was “Sword.” A short, heavy one was slapped into his waiting palm.

  “Words lack intrinsic value without deeds to back them, Admiral Sergios,” said Pardos, stepping to the clear area before the large table and scuffing his boot soles on the tiles, the sword held casually at low guard. “Let us see some of that blood you’ve pledged this hunk of rotten offal.”

  Instinctively, Sergios’ hand went to his scabbard, but came away empty. “My lord, my weapons are at your gate and. . .”

  Pardos sneered. “To the last drop of your blood, eh? When you knew yourself to be unarmed and thought that fact would save you. Fagh! You’re as bad as your mistress, here.” He waved contemptuously at Demetrios.

  Sergios flushed and shook his head vigorously. “Your pardon, my lord, but you misunderstand. If your men will return my sword or loan me a weapon, even a dagger, I shall be at your pleasure.”

  “You’re at my pleasure, anyway, mainlander,” barked Pardos shortly. “As you are, you saw fit to insult me; as you are, you will fight me, by God. You get no weapons from my men!”

  The expression on Sergios’ handsome face never altered. He bowed his head slightly while his quick mind assessed his chances, finding them slim, indeed. His leather gambeson might turn a glancing blow and its knee-length skirt with its scales of silver-washed steel would hopefully protect his loins and thighs. His helm, though highly decorated, was honest steel, but his armbands were but brass. Surreptitiously, he glanced about, then quickly crouched and both arms shot out, one to grasp the broken blade of Demetrios’ sword, the other to jerk the heavy cape from the loose grip of the woman by the barrel.

  Rapidly, he whirled the cape tightly around his left hand and forearm. Then he assumed a knife-fighter’s stance, his knees slightly flexed, his left foot forward, his edgeless strip of steel at his right thigh.

  “I told you, you young cur,” shouted Pardos, “that you were to have no weapons! Drop the blade and the cape . . . now!”

  Sergios gave a tight smile. “I suggest that my lord see now if his deeds can give value to his words. You’ll take these poor weapons only from my corpse, you know.” Then his smile became mocking. “Or does my lord fear to face an armed man, eh? Take time for a cup of strong wine, my lord. Some say that it imparts courage. . . .”

  No serpent ever struck as quickly as did Pardos. Sergios managed to deflect most of the slash with his improvised shield and the flimsy armlet beneath it. Even so, the pirate’s blade drew blood. But even as he took the wound, Sergios rushed inside Pardos’ guard and the lights glinted on the blur of silvered-steel with which he lunged at the bare chest before him.

  At the last split second, Pardos leaped backward and parried the thrust, meaning to beat Sergios’ blade upward. But the first contact of sword to the inferior steel shattered poor Sergios’ inadequate armament like glass.

  Stamping and roaring, Pardos swung at the angle of Sergios’ neck and shoulder. The younger man’s duck saved his life. The sword struck the helmet, instead, denting the thick steel and sending it spinning through the air. The force of the blow hurled Sergios to the ground. Pardos hacked at his downed opponent again and again, but Sergios rolled from beneath the blows. Finally, he regained his footing and shrewdly kicked Pardos’ right wrist — already somewhat weakened by the repeated impacts of sword on stone. The pirate sword went clattering down the length of the courtyard.

  “Now, my lord,” Sergios said, grinning, wiping the back of his right hand across his brow, trying to keep the blood from his split scalp out of his eyes, “we two are a bit closer to evenly matched.”

  Pardos drew his dagger and slowly advanced. Sergios tried to bring up his left arm, but it hung limp and dripping; the slashed cape was now wet and heavy. With a snarl, Pardos leaped onto the weakened man and, even as they crashed to the tiles, he secured Sergios’ right wrist. Then he pressed the needle point of his dagger into the younger man’s throat. Blood welled up around the bluish steel.

  But he stayed his hand, saying, “You never had the ghost of a chance, Lord Admiral Sergios, and I think you knew it, yet you fought . . . and fought damned well. If you’ll but admit that you lied in naming me dog, then plead for your life — I’ll spare you.”

  As much as the hard-pressed steel would allow it, Sergios shook his bloody head. “Thank you, my lord, but I must refuse. Men of my House do not lie, nor do they beg.”

  “Nononono!” shrieked Demetrios, palms flat on his ashen cheeks. “He . . . he really means it, Sergios! He’ll kill you . . . and then, probably, me, too! I . . . I command you, tell him you lied, beg him for our life!”

  Sergios’ gaze shifted to the High Lord and his look was pitying. “Lord Demetrios, I am your sworn man, this you well know. I have forsaken friends and . . . and even my loved family in your service. Many of your commands have been distasteful; nonetheless, they were your commands and, God help me, I discharged my orders. But, my lord, only my body is sworn to you . . . not my soul, my honor.”

  Such was his pique at the words that Demetrios forgot everything — time, place . . . and circumstances, as well. He stamped his foot. “Pagh! Now you’re talking like that treacherous old fool of a father you had. We’d credited you as a civilized man, a man of intelligence, a realist. Without life, you fool, honor has no value, if it has any, anyway . . . which we doubt.”

  Sergios’ look of pity intensified and his voice, too, became pitying. “Poor my lord. In this, as in so many things, your mind has become twisted. To you, realism is cynicism; intelligence denotes but the word for a constant agreement with you; civilized is your term for a life devoted entirely to debauchery, senseless cruelty, and perversion.

  “To you, honor does not have value, for you lack any shred of it and, truly, you know not its meaning. My lord, your poor, sick mind has reversed the order of things; without honor, life has no value. To die here and now, with honor, under this brave lord’s blade, will be a quick and almost painless death. To live, with dishonor as you command me, would be death, too, but a slow and unbearable death.”

  His eyes locked again with Pardos’ and he smiled. “I am ready, my lord. You are
a far better man than the lord I served. It will be an honor to die under your hand. Let your stroke be hard and true.”

  “It will be both, Lord Sergios,” replied Pardos. “I derive no joy from the sufferings of brave men. You are truly a man of honor and all men should give credit to your house. Please, tell me its name, that I and my men may remember it and you in times to come.”

  “I have the honor to be the son of Alexandros of Pahpahspolis, formerly Strahteegohs of Strahteegohee of Kehnooryos Ehlahs.”

  Lord Pardos’ voice held a gravity bordering upon awe. “Your father was a man of far nobler and purer lineage than those he served. And I had heard that his son still served Basil’s son. When I learned what you are, I should have known who you are, Lord Sergios.

  “It is said that blood will tell. Your’s certainly has, and I’ll not bear the guilt of shedding more of the precious stuff. To butcher an unnatural swine is one thing; to murder a valiant man of high and ancient nobility is quite another.”

  He withdrew his dagger and stood up. Sergios, too, tried to rise, but fell back, groaning between clenched teeth. With hard face, Pardos strode purposefully toward Demetrios. At the sight of that bloody dagger’s approach, the High Lord’s bladder and knees failed him at the same time. Groveling in a spreading pool of his urine, he clasped his be-ringed hands and raised them beseechingly.

  “Oh, please . . . please!” he blubbered. “Please don’t kill me . . . we . . . I . . . you . . . you can have everything, everything! Here!” Frantically, he stripped off all the rest of his rings, fumbled them into one cupped palm, and extended them in Pardos’ direction.

  Coldly furious, the Sea Lord slapped the proferred hand, sending the costly baubles flying in all directions, and started to recommence his advance on his victim, only to find that some weight was impeding his leg. He looked down to find that Sergios’ unwounded right arm was wrapped about his booted ankle.

  A wide pool of blood marked the place where the young admiral had lain. And a broad, red trail showed the path along which he had dragged himself. Now that he had turned onto his belly, the jagged rent that one of Pardos’ blows had torn in the gambeson diagonally down from the left shoulder was very obvious. Through this dangerous wound, as well as those in his left arm and his scalp, his life was gradually oozing out. The only color left on his face were the streaks of gore from his head and from the place his teeth had met in his lower lip.

  But his eyes burned feverishly and his grip on Pardos’ leg, though weak, was dogged. And his voice, when he spoke, was surprisingly firm.

  “You’ll not slay him . . . my lord — not while yet I live.”

  “I promised to spare your life, noble Sergios,” Pardos answered gently, “not the life of this thing.”

  Sergios coughed and a shower of pink froth sprayed from his mouth. His voice weakened perceptibly. “My . . . life . . . pledged to . . . him. Cannot live in . . . honor . . . not pro . . . protect him.”

  “Brother.” Though urgent, Pardos’ voice was infinitely tender. “Your efforts are killing you. This man-shaped thing is not worth a life, especially a life such as yours.”

  “Lord Demetrios,” Sergios said, gasping, “far worse . . . you know. Still . . . my lord.”

  Pardos flung the dagger in the path of his sword. Spinning, he knelt and gently disengaged Sergios’ arm from his ankle.

  “Noble Sergios, your courage has purchased two lives this night. Much as I want his death, the life of so rare a man as you is too high a price.”

  Raising his head, the Sea Lord bellowed, “Zaileegh, Eegohr, Benáhree, Kohkeenoh-Djahn, to me!”

  With the aid of the four captains, Pardos had the fainting Sergios lifted and laid face-down on the hastily cleared large table. Under the directions of the red-haired Kahndees, a trio of women set about removing his gambeson, while two others bared his left arm and applied a tourniquet, and still another sponged his face with undiluted wine.

  Brusquely, Pardos issued orders.

  “Zaileegh, fetch me Master Gahmahl and his assistants. Tell him the nature of the injuries, that he may know what to bring, And emphasize that this man means much to me. And . . . just in case, you’d better bring Father Vokos, too.”

  “Kohkeenoh-Djahn, collect your crew and ready your ship. You sail at dawn to convey High Lord Demetrios back to his sty, along with any of his who wish to return. I promised I’d let him live, and live he will — but not here. Let him pollute some other realm. His ship and all she carries are mine; have it seen to. Bring his slaves to me and see how many of his ship’s crew you can recruit. Have Ngohnah talk to his bodyguard; spearmen like them are hard to find.”

  “Benáhree, have our fat guest stripped of the warrior’s garb his flesh profanes. Find him some women’s clothing. Then lodge Princess Perversia somewhere for the night — bearing in mind her predilection for dung, of course.”

  “Eegohr, with the good Father on the way, we’d better see about getting clothing on our ladies.”

  * * *

  The High Lord, clad in an old, torn shift, spent the remainder of the night in six inches of slime at the bottom of a recently abandoned cesspool. Before dawn he was dragged from his noisome prison and chivvied down to the harbor. There, with much rough horseplay, Zaileegh’s crew stripped him and hosed him down, dragged him aboard The Golden Dream, and threw him into a dank rope locker, where he was shortly joined by Captain Titos.

  In addition to her three sails, Captain Zaileegh’s ship mounted two banks of long sweeps on either board and, with a crew of over one hundred fifty, made good time — in wind or calm, twenty-four hours a day. Unlike Titos’ merchant-vessel, The Golden Dream had been built for speed and ease of handling. Furthermore, both of her masts could be unstepped and laid out to lessen win resistance when she was being propelled by oar power. All of these factors contributed to the fact that she reached the coastal swamps of Kehnooryos Ehlahs in only six days.

  Captain Zaileegh moored in a creek mouth until sundown. Then the ship was rowed up the wide, sluggish Blue River, reaching the all but deserted docks of Kehnooryos Ateenaha well before dawn. Their two passengers, securely bound and gagged, were dumped on the largest dock. Then the pirates beat their way back downriver.

  8

  Refilling her goblet and Alexandros’, Mara nodded, “When first Milo and I came here, there were rumors that Demetrios had tried to flee by sea, but that he had met with some misfortune and returned. He only discussed the episode if he was given no choice; even then he seldom told the same stories twice. Now I can understand why. Of course, he was then unaware that he was one of us, the Undying; he has become far more courageous since then.

  “So you, Lekos, are the grandson of that other Lekos. But what of your father, Sergios? How did he come to remain amongst the pi . . . people of the Sea Islands?”

  “Well, Mara, my father’s wounds were grave — he nearly died of them. His recuperation required many months, and during those months Lord Pardos and his wife came to add love to the respect they bore him. So, when once more he was able to walk and join his host at table, Pardos and Kahndees set about persuading him to stay. Nor was it difficult. When he heard that his father was dead, slain by Demetrios in a duel . . .”

  Mara shook her head. “It did not happen precisely in that way, but continue, Lekos.”

  “With my grandfather, the man who had extracted my father’s oath to devote his life to Basil’s son, dead by the hand of Basil’s son, Lord Pardos and Father Vokos — who knew more regarding the ancient customs and manners of the Ehleenoee than any man I have ever met — were able to convince my father that he was at last freed of his vow.”

  “It is true,” agreed Mara. “According to the old forms, the demise of the recipient of an oath frees him who made it of all obligation.”

  “But,” added Alexandros, “my father never felt free of all obligation, else I would not be in your palace, Mara.

  “When once more he could swing a sword and do spearwor
k and the wearing of armor failed to tire him, he grew restless and badgered Pardos until it was finally agreed that he might begin to earn his keep.

  “Mara, there are many of you mainlanders who say that we of the Sea Isles are barbarians. It is true, but only in the sense that precious few of us have much Ehleen blood, and most of that is highly diluted. And at the time of which I am speaking, Lord Pardos and my father were the only Kath’ahróhs in the realm.

  “Mara, our name for all who are not Sea Islanders is Pseheesteesohee — liars, in Merikanos. Our people never lie, not to teach other, nor do they steal from other Sea Islanders — not because of any fearsome punishment, but because either would be dishonorable. We are, needs must, a tightly knit and strongly interdependent society, and newcomers either learn to be honorable or they do not long survive.

  “Our only hereditary title is that of Sea Lord, and even a legitimate heir may be set aside should the Council of Captains find serious fault in him. A Sea Lord inherits only ownership of the Sea Isles, the structures on the various islands, the shipyard, docks, and his predecessor’s personal property. Captains may buy and sell ships — they own all of them — but everyone pays rent for their dwellings and storehouses to the Sea Lord, who also receives a small percentage of profitable voyages, exacts fees for the use of the shipyard and for harborage, and collects buyers’ taxes on exports from the merchants who come to trade with us.

  “Few of our men live long, Mara. Nine out of ten die before they are thirty. Because of this and because of the length of time a ship may be at sea, our women practice polyandry, and it has worked well over the years. Lord Pardos had suffered an injury in his youth that rendered him sterile, so he had my father wed Lady Kahndees. She bore him my two older half-brothers, but both were slain while I was yet a child.

  “Father accompanied other captains on many voyages, distinguishing himself in many ways. He had been in the Sea Isles for five years when, at the death of Captain Kleev during a sea fight, Kleev’s crew elected him their captain. He had made many friends, and when he brought Kleev’s ship back in, the Council unanimously confirmed his captaincy.