The Lantern of God

by John Dalmas

  Ressteto nodded and got to his feet. "It would indeed be an interesting contest," he said. Eltrienn looked at him, unsure about this, although Ressteto seemed confident enough. The man had conspicuously thick strong hands and wrists; probably he'd been taught smithing while still a growing boy. But he'd need more than strength.

  The chief got up then, and the others, and they went outside. "Saarho!" he called, and one of the warriors on guard there turned to him. "One of the outlanders wishes to wrestle. Will you oblige him?"

  The barbarian grinned and nodded. He wasn't built like a saarho. He wasn't especially large and was more slender than Ressteto, but sinewy, looking as if he'd be very quick and agile.

  Killed Many turned to the deputy factor. "And you still wish it?"

  Ressteto's smile was no grin, but it showed his satisfaction. "I wish it."

  "Then prepare yourselves."

  As Ressteto pulled off trousers and shirt, the barbarian removed his sword belt and leggings. When they were ready, Saarho wore only his loin cloth, Ressteto his codstrap. They faced each other a dozen feet apart, ready, examining each other. And with Ressteto stripped, it was clear that he had more than powerful hands and wrists. From the look of his muscular legs, buttocks, torso, he was a Dancer before Hrum, a gymnastic dancer. It wouldn't have surprised Eltrienn to learn he was one of the best wrestlers at Gardozzi Bay.

  Killed Many eyed the Hrummean appreciatively. "Ready—Begin!" he barked.

  The two men sidled toward each other, hands raised to grapple. Then they closed, feinting, gripping, heels moving to trip, tugging, pushing. Suddenly Ressteto seemed to fall toward Saarho, twisted, bent, and the barbarian was off the ground, feet arcing high as Ressteto pivoted him over his hip, holding wrist and upper arm, and cast him to the ground, keeping his grip on the wrist. They heard bone snap, and a suppressed cry of pain, little more than a grunt. Ressteto let go the arm, and the man rolled onto his side in agony.

  Killed Many pursed his lips, impressed, saying nothing for the moment. It was Bloody Sword who spoke, his throat tight with anger.

  "A warrior does not wrestle his enemy. He fights him with the blade. I challenge any of the cowardly outlanders to fight me with the sword, to the death."

  It was what Eltrienn had been waiting for.

  "Great Chief," said the centurion, "I prefer not to kill a warrior who has proven so valuable to you by his valor in war. But I am a warrior by choice and training, and if you say it is all right, I will accept the challenge of Bloody Sword."

  Killed Many didn't answer for a few beats, then nodded. "It is your right. The sword you wear is not as big as that my brother carries. Would you prefer to use another?"

  "This sword is like part of my body. My deadliest part. And when we are done, I will offer the chief my regret at having killed his brother who had fought so well for him in his conquests."

  For just a moment Bloody Sword's eyes lost their arrogant assurance, replaced, after a moment of uncertainty, with blood rage. Killed Many's face had gone grim. He looked the two over. The men were similar in height; Bloody Sword, broad and deep-chested, weighed the most.

  "Draw your weapons!" the Great Chief ordered. They did. "Ready—Begin!"

  Bloody Sword strode forward, arm partly extended, sword crossways. Eltrienn, instead of meeting him, circled to his own right, away from the barbarian's sword arm. He'd never seen a barbarian fight with the sword, and intended to feel the man out.

  Bloody Sword was having none of it. He pounced, slashing at the Hrummean, who jumped back, then darted forward, bent arm straightening, thrusting, blade tip slicing a pectoral muscle, glancing off the breastbone. The barbarian bellowed, swung backhanded, the move quicker than anticipated. Eltrienn leaned away, nearly hit, Bloody Sword's blade striking his own, but Eltrienn simply rotated his wrist and leaned forward again in a short thrust, then jumped back. And now blood flowed from the barbarian's left jaw and ear as he brought his sword back to guard; three inches lower and his throat would have been cut.

  Eltrienn's blade tip moved again in small circles, like the head of some poisonous snake preparing to strike, and Bloody Sword's reaction was exactly what he'd expected. The barbarian rushed at him, blade chopping, and Eltrienn jumped back, circling right again, sword slashing back-handed, striking the heavy left deltoid and finding bone. Bloody Sword recovered balance and guard position, bleeding freely but not stumbling as Eltrienn had hoped.

  The warrior paused then, brows knotted as if he analyzed his opponent. Eltrienn showed only his side, his blade tip circling again before the bleeding face.

  The barbarian moved suddenly, thrusting this time. It was an error. He could not hope to fight the Hrummean's style unpracticed; his best chance lay in his usual approach—violent strength. Eltrienn parried the heavy blade to his right, then his own long thrust penetrated below the short ribs, through abdominal wall, intestines, abdominal aorta, and he was away again, circling right.

  Bloody Sword's reaction was instinctive: Chop! Slash! At an opponent who wasn't there. He staggered, rapidly bleeding to death internally. Then the quick saber took him in the throat and he fell, dead as he hit the ground.

  The centurion did not exult. Turning to Killed Many, he lowered his sword tip to the ground. "My regrets, Great Chief. You have lost a brave and strong warrior."

  Killed Many gazed steadily at him for a long ten seconds, then down at his brother. Tears welled but did not overflow, and his voice confessed no grief. "It was as he wished, to die fighting," he said drily. "Sooner than he wished, no doubt, but by his own insistence. Now we must bury the warrior as befits one who fought so well against our brothers the Tchook and Aazhmili." He turned to the guards standing near. "Take him. Clean him. Dress him in his ceremonial robe. Put his headdress on his head."

  He looked back at the Hrummeans, their faces blurred through his tears. "You are invited to his funeral. It will be this evening. You owe no blood debt to me or to his wife and daughter, who will live in my lodge, and he has paid his."

  * * *

  That evening the body of Bloody Sword was laid on its funeral pyre, and the fire was kept burning far into the night. Beer was drunk, the weak sour beer that was a principal product of the grain field grown at every barbarian village.

  The next morning a warrior ceremony was held in the clearing in front of the warriors' lodge, and Eltrienn Cadriio was made "brother to the Kinnli Innjakot" for his warrior skill and his honorable deportment.

  When it was over and more sour beer drunk, Eltrienn asked Killed Many why he'd denied Bloody Sword permission to wrestle but had allowed him to fight with the sword.

  The Great Chief eyed him thoughtfully. "To refuse him permission to accept a challenge was a rebuke, which he had more than earned for repeatedly making problems. The greatest of which was ending the sword trade. But to make him retract his own challenge would be a major insult not lightly given.

  "Beyond that, if he'd wrestled the deputy factor and lost, he'd have hated your people beyond all sanity, and probably made further serious trouble. While if he'd won, you'd have lost very much face. It had been your man's challenge, and the worthiness of your people was already in question. It would then have been difficult for me to negotiate with you. I would have had to offer terms so poor that you would surely have refused them.

  "And yet I want more swords.

  "But if he beat you with the sword, I could have burned your body with high honors and negotiated with the others of your people, because you would have shown yourself no coward and restored your people's honor. While if you beat him . . . well, that is what happened."

  He shrugged. "Let us talk terms."

  They agreed quickly. The Innjoka tribe would trade a perpetual wood supply in return for 3,000 steel swords by the equinox, half of them by the second full face of Great Liilia, which was about six weeks away.

  Ressteto's brows rose at that for just a moment, but Killed Many wasn't looking at him. The attention of the barbarian wa
s on the centurion.

  When the negotiations were over, Eltrienn introduced Vessto to the Great Chief, calling his brother "a listener to Hrum." Then the Hrummeans accompanied the chief to watch his principal officers training a cadre in his new tactics, men who would return to their clans and train the warriors there.

  * * *

  Later, sitting in the factor's office at Agate Bay, Ressteto asked Eltrienn how he planned to deliver so many swords so soon.

  "Partly by not relying entirely on your uncle to make them. Before I left Theedalit, the amirr ordered that every smith in Hrumma who's a competent armorer was to start making swords. I'd worked with the royal armorer to provide a system, a sequence of actions, that would allow a smith to make swords faster than before." He shrugged. "Ettsio forfeited his monopoly when he abandoned it, and at any rate, it's important that the barbarians move before autumn, with as much strength as possible.

  "And if necessary, which it probably will be, the government will make up any deficit for the first 1,500 from government armories, replacing them out of new production. Leonessto authorized it."

  Ressteto nodded. With wealth, his uncle had grown arrogant and hard to get along with. His sons and nephews still were loyal, but they'd feel no indignation for him. And what could Ettsio say against Eltrienn, who'd avenged his murdered son?

  Although . . . "By what authority," he asked slowly, "did you promise the barbarians that they'd be taught to make steel?"

  "They'd soon learn anyway."

  Ressteto's eyebrows raised. "How?"

  "The least we can expect the barbarians to do is conquer the border duchies. If they get no farther than that, they'll get that far. And when they capture some Djezian smithies, they'll almost certainly think to take some smiths captive.

  "Besides," he added, grimly now, "we face a dangerous war—more dangerous than any since we last threw out the Gorrbian overlords. If we take no chances, our prospects of winning are poor."

  * * *

  On the assumption that Eltrienn could get an agreement, the schooner had brought men to start work in the woods and the sawmill, and at the charcoal kilns. These men now came ashore to work under Ressteto, the new factor. Their families, and more crews, would come later. With the new urgency for steel and swords, the need for charcoal had also become urgent. It would have priority.

  Then Eltrienn wrote a report and gave it to Danntis Deltibbio to take back to Hrumma. Eltrienn and Vessto would stay with the Great Chief as advisors in his preparations.

  Forty-Seven

  Having nothing to protect him from the nighttime chill, Tirros Hanorissio slept by day in the shade of cliff or rock, and hiked, often staggered, the beach at night. He ate dead fish he found, and several times over the days and nights lay ill from it for hours, waiting fruitlessly to die. His senses were dulled by hunger and hopelessness, and by the defeat of whatever psychotic compulsions drove him.

  At no time did he cease feeling sorry for himself, somehow wronged by others. But the emotion had no force, and he felt too defeated to plan revenge or even dream of it. He was incapable of planning anything, or of looking ahead at all except for the vague unexamined impulse to get out of Hrumma north to Djez Gorrbul. His progress was slow, partly from hunger and partly from self-pity, resting by day and traveling almost solely by night. He also rested much at night, sleeping readily if restlessly, to wake shaking with cold. He swam inlets and even the Firth of Theed, to avoid towns and fishing hamlets.

  An uncounted number of nights later he reached the Great North Firth, fifty miles long, and far too wide to swim across. Yet hiking round it seemed dangerous too. There was a sizeable town at its head, he knew, and fishing hamlets on its flanks, and in his mind, every man was watching for him.

  He slumped down on the beach and peered across the firth, the opposite headland beyond sight in the dawn. North from it, he'd heard, the shore in places rose sheer from the ocean, even at low tide, waves booming on spalled cliffs, slashing and foaming among basaltic fangs. It occurred to him to leave the shore and travel overland, but that seemed more dangerous than the sea. It even occurred to him to try swimming across the firth; drowning would be better than starvation or capture.

  Instead though, and by daylight now, he began to follow the shore along the firth, till on a tiny side inlet he came to a hut. In front of it, an old man sat mending a fishtrap. There was also a kienna, gray-muzzled and fat, but she merely raised her head and hissed, ceasing even that when the old man spoke sharply to her.

  The old fisherman assumed that Tirros was some mariner lost, and meanwhile Tirros's wits began to function. He'd fallen overboard from a coasting sloop, he said, several nights back. The old man fed him, lightly enough that he didn't get sick, then loaned him soap and razor and a small mirror, and left to tend his fishtraps, saying he'd be back in a couple of hours and row him up the firth to a village.

  When the old man returned, the "castaway sailor" met him at the door with a cutlass that had been hanging on a wall, and cut him down. The kienna was already murdered. Then Tirros left, wearing clean tunic and trousers—the shoes were too tight—with the old man's small cache of coins, the loaf and a half of bread he'd found, a head of cheese, and a large sausage too strongly spiced to spoil quickly, all stuffed into a sack. And a blanket in an oilskin bag. The cutlass rode on one hip and a fishknife on the other.

  By now Tirros was functioning well enough that he'd also thought to fill the old man's waterskin and take a half-full wine crock. Then he untied the rowboat and started rowing across the firth. Away from the firth's south wall was a southerly breeze brisk enough that Tirros stepped the little mast, no more than eight feet tall, and spread the small sail.

  He continued to travel mainly by night, occasionally visiting the mouth of some stream to refill his waterbag, hiding out on some small island or isolated beach through the day. If the wind was adverse—rarely was it lacking—he holed up till it blew right again, for he did not care to row.

  Little by little he moved northward toward the Gulf of Storms, across which lay Djez Gorrbul. He'd have to coast his long slow way around the gulf, of course, but he could do that.

  Forty-Eight

  The rikksha stopped at the main gate to the palace grounds. Brokols got out and paid the runner. Reeno was no longer with him. Someone, probably Allbarin he thought, had decided they needn't monitor him any longer, and the way things stood now he no longer needed a bodyguard, although his home was still guarded.

  The gate guard saluted him casually through, and he walked up the paved drive to the palace. A houseman had been waiting for him at the door, and led him through the building to a sitting room where he was met by the amirr, his wife and daughter. The namirrna hadn't been continued on the grenades project after all, but been given a different job. She rode east out of Theedalit each morning and worked cultivating plots of medicinal herb that would be processed and shipped to Kammenak for poultices, to be used on wounds when the war started. To Brokols she looked—not tired, really, but less lively than usual.

  Smiling, the amirr stood at once, stepped forward and shook Brokols' hand. "It won't be long," he said, "before we can dispense with having you met at the door and conducted to us. But as the namirrna's fiance, you understand . . ." He gestured. "Sit! Sit down! What news do you have of your project?"

  "All good," he said, then addressed himself more to Juliassa than her parents. "Yesterday we tested cast iron grenade casings from the Theed Valley Ironworks. Two, actually: one for throwing by hand and a larger one for ballistas. They're serrated, and blow apart into ugly fragments with quite adequate penetration. And this morning we finished the tests of Amaadio's fuse designs. The fuses were the most worrisome aspect of the whole project."

  "How so?" It was the amirr that asked.

  "The imperial army uses a fuse that explodes the grenade five seconds after the head is turned a quarter turn. But it would take us too long to develop and manufacture them here, so we've settled for im
pact fuses; the grenade explodes when it strikes. Which could make them dangerous to transport over rough mountain roads. We've settled for a design in which the fuse is not fully armed until the grenade is ready to be used. It's not entirely safe—the fuses won't be installed at all until they get to Kammnalit—but I'm not afraid to handle them myself."

  The amirr looked unhappy. "Cast iron cases? I thought you'd meant to use ceramics. We're making a lot of demands on our ironworks these days."

  Brokols nodded. "I understand. Reeno's been quite reluctant to go with iron, but with the ceramic casings, the fragments didn't penetrate enough."

  A houseman had come in while Brokols was finishing. "I believe supper is ready," the amirr said, and got up to lead them into the summer dining room. "If iron it must be," he went on, "then iron it must be. The price of iron is getting much too high, and the prices of things made of it, but it seems we have little choice."

  Brokols thought the amirr's concern was overblown. This society used enough iron that obviously it had a significant capacity to make it. And he didn't know about the arming of the barbarians. It wasn't public knowledge, and there hadn't been any particular reason to tell him.