Empire - 02 - Servant Of The Empire

by Raymond E. Feist

  Feeling danger like a breaking wave at his back, Kevin acted. He tripped, hard, on a rock and flung the contents of his water crock over the Lady and her officer. He followed up this clumsiness by crashing full length into the litter.

  His mistress's cry of surprise and outrage became smothered under his chest as he forced her down and back, deep into the cushions, safe behind the protection of his body as he flipped the litter on its side, turning it into a breastwork.

  His action came none too soon. Even as Kevin disentangled himself from the silk curtains, enemy arrows began to fall.

  They sang out of air, smacking through dirt and armour with an evil flat sound like the blows of punitive hands. Kenji was first to fall. He went down screaming orders, while arrows hammered and hammered the underside slats of the spilled litter, raised now before Mara like a barricade.

  'It's an ambush,' Kevin snarled in her ear, while she beat with her fists to try to tear from his embrace. 'Keep still.'

  An arrow whapped through a cushion and rammed a groove through the dirt. Mara saw and instantly went still. She listened, stricken, to the shouting as those warriors left alive to heed their dying officer's call to rally threw themselves in a heap on top of the litter, their bodies her living shield.

  The situation was desperate. The arrows crashed down in a rain, and the flimsy underpinnings of the litter bounced and splintered with the impact. Kevin tried to see out and caught a raking slash across his shoulder. He cursed, ducked back, and in a rush peeled off his slave's robe.

  Two of the warriors nearest Mara were dying, wounded as they dived to her defence. Now the cold hiss of shafts was replaced by the rattle of swordplay as ambushers charged from the forest in a wave and engaged the tatters of her guard still left standing.

  'Quick,' Kevin snapped. He held out his robe. 'Bundle my Lady in this. Her fancy clothes make too clear a target.' One of the bearers threw back a look of uncertainty.

  'Just do it!' Kevin shouted. 'Her honour is dust if she's dead.'

  More warriors charged from the cover of the wood. Mara's few survivors closed in a ragged ring around the litter; they were too few, a pitiful dyke against an avalanche of foes. Kevin abandoned further argument, for a swordsman charged out of the melee with lowered blade to take him in the back. Kevin snatched up a fallen weapon, and snapped off a length of curtain that he wrapped around his arm to serve as shield; then he spun at bay and prepared to kill until he died.

  * * *

  At home on the Acoma estate, Ayaki scowled blackly at Nacoya. His face turned red and his fists clenched, and she and two slaves and a nurse all prepared for a warrior-sized tantrum.

  'I won't wear that!' Ayaki shouted. 'It has orange, and that is the colour worn by Minwanabi.'

  Nacoya regarded the garment at hand, a silk robe fastened with shell buttons that might, with imagination, be called orange. The real reason behind the argument was that Ayaki preferred to wear no robe at all in the heat and humidity of high summer. That he was too well born to charge about naked as a slave child through the hallways made no impression on nine-year-old priorities.

  But Nacoya had years of experience at managing high-spirited Acoma children. She caught Ayaki's stiff shoulders and gave him a shake. 'Young warrior, you will wear the robes you are given, and deport yourself like the Lord you will be when you are grown. If you do less, you will spend the morning scrubbing dirty plates with the scullions.'

  Ayaki's eyes widened. 'You'd never dare! I'm not a servant or a slave!'

  'Then stop acting like one and dress like a noble.' Nacoya closed a puffed, arthritic hand over Ayaki's wrist and hauled him firmly across the chamber to the servant who waited with the robe. Even stiff and sore, she still had a grip like iron. Ayaki stopped struggling, shoved his bunched fist into a waiting sleeve, then stood scowling and rubbing at the red mark where the skin on his wrist had pulled.

  'Now the other hand,' Nacoya snapped. 'No more nonsense.'

  Ayaki's dark look lifted and he grinned. 'No more nonsense,' he agreed in one of his instant shifts of mood. He submitted his other hand to the servant, and presently the offending robe was settled over his shoulders. His smile widened until he showed his missing front teeth, and he deliberately reached up and jerked off the first shell button. 'The robe is all right,' he announced defiantly. 'But I will wear no orange!'

  'Demon!' Nacoya swore under her breath. She was definitely too tired to manhandle wilful little boys. She settled for smacking his cheek, which shocked him into a loud shriek of rage.

  The yell was loud enough to defeat thought, and the servants winced. The guards in the corridor were distracted and did not hear the soft footfall as a black-clothed figure leaped on silent feet through the screen.

  Suddenly the servant standing nearest reeled aside with a knife in his back.

  He fell without a cry. Even as the assassin's shadow sliced across the sunlight, the second servant toppled with a cut throat.

  Nacoya felt the thud as the corpse struck the wooden floor. Instinctively attuned to danger, she reached down and caught the Acoma heir, who still howled, and flung him headlong into the corner. He landed rolling amid bed mat and cushions still in morning disarray.

  The First Adviser called for the guards, but her voice was aged and weak. Her warning went unheard. Ayaki screamed now in blind rage, intent on disentangling himself from his bedclothes. Only Nacoya saw his peril, and the servants bleeding out their lives on the nursery floor.

  'Demon!' she said again, but this time to the black-clothed figure of the tong assassin. He had pulled another knife from his belt, and a cord looped the fingers of his left hand. His face was hidden behind a black gauze caul; his fists were gloved. Nothing showed but his eyes as he stalked to take his victim, the boy who was Mara's heir. Only Nacoya stood in his way. Already the knife rose for a throw to cut her down.

  'No!' Nacoya flung forward as the knife left his hand. She made a dive for his left wrist and the cord held ready for Ayaki's throat. The blade flashed over the First Adviser's head and thunked in the plaster wall.

  The assassin cursed and side-stepped. But Nacoya caught his garrotte. Her nails tore through thin leather, raked his knuckles like claws, and twisted in a deathgrip on the cord. 'You won't.' She again called for guards, but her thin voice was not equal to the task.

  The assassin wasted no time in wrestling. His eyes narrowed in contempt, and his right hand closed on a wooden handle and drew the next knife in line on his belt. He seemed perversely delighted as he drove the point deep between the old woman's ribs.

  Nacoya's lips curled back from her teeth with the pain. She hung on.

  'Die, old woman!' The assassin gave the knife a vicious twist.

  Nacoya shuddered. An agonized cry escaped her, but her hands tightened harder on the cord. 'He will not be killed in dishonour,' she wrung out.

  Behind her, Ayaki's cries died. He saw the knife in the wall above his head, and then the blood that snaked across the floorboards. One of the fallen servants still quivered in his death throes. Paralysed with terror, an orange shell button still clenched in one fist, Ayaki bit back a whimper. The assassin, he decided, must be Tasaio. With that realization, the courage that was his father's reasserted itself in force.

  'Attack!' he shouted. 'Attack!' And with his head filled with visions of warriors, he scrambled from his pillows and beat upon the intruder's thigh.

  The tong took no notice. He shoved the knife deeper into Nacoya. Blood ran hot over his hand, soaking his glove as he jerked his garrotte from her grip. She crumpled quickly, fell over into Ayaki, and pinned the boy under her dying weight.

  'The Good God's curse upon you,' she croaked hoarsely at the tong. Her strength inexorably ebbed. Ayaki wriggled free.

  The assassin grabbed at the boy and tripped. Nacoya had caught his ankle, but her life was fading fast. The assassin recovered instantly, stamped on her wrist, and yanked free.

  Across the chamber, through failing vision, the old
woman saw the guards had finally reacted. They charged through the nursery doorway, their armour shining unbearably in bright sunlight. With drawn swords they ran, bellowing battle cries, across the chamber toward the tong.

  Behind her, the assassin pounced. Little Ayaki howled wrathfully. Nacoya struggled to raise her cheek from a puddle of pooling blood. She could not see but only hear the scuffle of Ayaki's bare feet drumming on the floorboards. Her vision went dark, and her dying thought was recognition: the cord was still tangled in her fingers. She had done nothing more than force the assassin to use his knives . . . A boy who died honourably by the blade would still be dead.

  'Ayaki,' she murmured, and then, heartbrokenly, 'Mara . . .' as darkness took her.

  * * *

  Kevin lunged, thrust, and cleared his sword. An enemy fell screaming at his feet. He leaped over the thrashing, gut-wounded man, and met another. Somewhere in the fray he had picked up a foe's shield, and it had saved his life. He had taken another cut in his left shoulder, and a glancing slash across the ribs. His movements were hampered by the sting. Blood flowed over his bare skin and soaked soggily into his loincloth. Every movement hurt. The enemy swordsman exchanged three strokes with him before realizing he fought a slave. He snarled an oath and dodged past. Kevin stabbed him unceremoniously from behind.

  'Die for Tsurani honour,' the barbarian cried savagely. 'Gods, please, let the runts keep being stupid.'

  Let them keep underestimating his war skills, that Mara might stay alive.

  But there were too many. Enemies kept sallying from the trees. As Kevin whirled to stave off another attacker, he realized the Acoma were more than just surrounded. Their circle was breached. Foes charged through and started hacking at the bodies that lay across the litter which sheltered Mara.

  The Midkemian screamed like a banshee and ran a man through. He abandoned his blade in the corpse, snatched up another from the ground. In the same unbroken movement he kicked over the fallen litter. The wooden frame hammered down, driving enemy soldiers into a scattered rush back; then the litter thumped to a rest, with Mara and her shield of dying bodyguard fenced underneath.

  Kevin charged over the barrier. 'Back, you pig-licking dogs!' He added obscenities in Tsurani and hurtled over the wreckage.

  His blood-streaked, near-naked body and berserker's howl startled the lead ranks into hesitation. He landed on an arrow, felt the sting of its four-bladed head cut his heel, and cursed again in Yabon dialect. 'May Turakamu eat your heart for breakfast,' he ended, and then the swords came at him.

  He could not parry so many. Nor could he wonder if his use of the litter for a ram had injured Mara. He only understood he would die here and was not pleased with the prospect.

  A sword sliced his shin. He stumbled, fell, rolled. The air above his head became bisected by weapons driving to impale him. They narrowly bit earth; he felt the disturbed dirt strike his shoulders. He unlimbered his shield and rolled hard over again, bringing it upward in a vicious blow to the groin of a man who moved too slowly. Kevin's body wedged at last under the canted litter. His searching fingers encountered a fallen shield. He twisted, scraping against wood, and came up with the shield in front. His palms stung as enemy blows rained down, momentarily thwarted.

  'Gods, this can't last.' His curses now sounded suspiciously like crying. And the swords hammered his shield, incessantly. They split toughened needra hide and wood, and left him clutching splinters. Very far off, perhaps in the wood, he heard shouting and the clatter of more fighting. 'Damn them, damn them.' He loosed a bitter laugh. 'We're defeated, and still they want to butcher us.'

  * * *

  The sword sliced air with a whine and bit flesh. A black-haired head tumbled in a bouncing roll among the bedclothes.

  Still the Acoma guard kept yelling, and before the assassin fell, he had slashed the body three times. The corpse collapsed in a ruck of sodden fabric, and shuddered convulsively amid the cushions.

  Spattered with the blood of the tong, and crying in wild-eyed terror, Ayaki wormed out from under the corpse. A gash on his young neck bled freely, and he threw himself mindlessly against the wall in an attempt to escape from stark terror.

  'Fetch Keyoke,' cried the warrior with the dripping sword to the other who bent over the body of Nacoya. 'There may be other assassins!'

  The slap of running sandals sounded outside the screen as armed warriors rushed through the courtyard garden. Drawn by the disturbance, they saw the puddled blood and corpses through the screen, and almost instantly a second Strike Leader arrived, giving fast orders for a grounds search, while detailing six men to surround the Acoma heir.

  A moment later, Jican appeared, his composure vanishing as he saw the carnage on the nursery floor. He shoved his load of slates into the hands of the stupefied slave who followed him and, in atypical haste, threaded a path through a room suddenly filled with armed men. Beyond a wall of sticky cushions crouched the Acoma heir, pounding the wall with bruised fists and screaming, 'Minwanabi, Minwanabi, Minwanabi!'

  The warriors who gathered to help seemed unwilling to touch him.

  'Ayaki, come here, it's over,' Jican said firmly.

  The little one appeared not to hear. Mara's hadonra reached out anyway. He ignored the child's flinch from his touch, extracted the traumatized boy from the mess, and bundled him against robes that smelled like chalk instead of slaughter.

  'Let's get him out of here,' he instructed the nearest warrior. 'Get the healer. He's injured.' Looking at the motionless forms of Nacoya and the two nurses, he said, 'And somebody find out if he has a nurse left alive.'

  * * *

  The blows on the shield redoubled. Kevin yanked one hand away from the rim, an instant before losing a finger. He was dimly aware of a heave of movement in the bodies behind his hip, as one of the mortally injured warriors he leaned on thrust a dagger handle into his palm.

  'Defend our Lady,' croaked a voice. 'She's alive.'

  Kevin rejected the defeated realization that she could not remain so much longer. Naked and bleeding and half-crazed with battle fury, he accepted the blade, reached under the rim of the shield, and stabbed an enemy foot. The knife was promptly lost as the skewered enemy jerked with a scream of rage.

  'Happy dancing,' wished the barbarian, turned drunken with blood loss and adrenaline. He took a moment to notice that the blows on the shield had stopped.

  Hands in green-lacquered gauntlets caught the rim a moment later and strongly lifted the battered wreckage away. Kevin peered up, blinking against the sun. Through vision that danced with dizziness he made out an officer's plume and the face of the Acoma Force Commander.

  Relief overturned his sense of humour. 'Thank the gods you're here,' he said. 'We found ourselves in a sticky situation.'

  Lujan regarded Kevin's bloodied hands and the dripping gash on his forearm. 'Happy dancing?' he quoted, puzzled.

  'Later,' Kevin muttered. 'I'll explain everything later.'

  He turned awkwardly against the pain of his bleeding side, and cursed bilingually. He felt sick, and the sun was too bright.

  'Where is our Lady?' Lujan demanded, sharply now, and taut with worry.

  Kevin blinked bemusedly at the overturned litter. Acoma dead lay crushed like so many impaled beetles underneath.

  'Light of Heaven, not under there!' Lujan called another order that to Kevin's ears sounded like noise. Then many hands were reaching down and dragging his battered body out from under the splinters.

  'Don't,' Kevin protested weakly. 'I want to know if Mara . . .' Words were hard; the air burned his lungs.

  Still protesting, he was pushed supine on the ground, and darkness closed over his ears just before the shouts of amazed discovery from the warriors who righted the litter; they sorted the tangle of dead and injured and found a bloodstained, crumpled figure who was not conscious but had no wound beyond a purple bruise on her head.

  Mara was laid on the soft, dry moss by the spring. Surrounded by a hundred soldiers, h
er head pillowed in Lujan's lap, she roused as a rag that dripped icy water bathed the lump on her brow. 'Keyoke?' she murmured as her eyes first flickered open.

  'No,' her Force Commander answered gently. 'Lujan, mistress. But Keyoke was the one who sent me here. He thought you might run into trouble.'

  Mara stirred, faintly reproving. 'He's not your commander, but my Adviser for War.'

  Lujan stroked the hair from his mistress's face and gave her his most insolent smile. 'Old habits die hard. When my old commander says jump, I jump.'

  Mara shifted painfully. She seemed battered and sore in a hundred places. 'I should have listened.' Her eyes clouded. 'Kevin,' she said. 'Where is he?'

  Lujan inclined his head toward his field healer, who crouched over a second figure lying on the moss. 'He survived. In a loincloth, without armour, and with a hero's complement of wounds. Ayee, what a warrior that man is.'

  'Wounds!' Mara shoved up in distress, and Lujan required a surprising amount of strength to keep her quiet.

  'Lady, be still. He will live, though he'll have a pretty set of scars. He might limp, and he will be a long time regaining full use of his left hand. The muscles were badly slashed.'

  'Brave Kevin.' Mara's voice shook. 'He saved me. My foolishness almost killed him.'

  Her Force Commander touched her again, almost tenderly. 'It is a pity the man is a slave,' he commiserated. 'Such courage deserves only the highest honour.'

  The air suddenly hurt to breathe; Mara turned her face into Lujan's shoulder and shivered. Perhaps she wept, soundless in misery; if she did, the officer who comforted her would never expose her shame. Somehow he understood that her agony did not stem from her narrow escape in the glen alone. And his abiding love and devotion would never permit him to acknowledge his Lady had betrayed herself in a moment of public weakness. The surrounding soldiers quickly found tasks to occupy themselves, allowing Mara her moment of release.

  The Lady of the Acoma wept for Kevin, whose bold spirit had captured hers, and whose actions had finally made her understand beyond denial that he was not, and never would be, a slave.