Demon King

by Bunch, Chris

  I waited for a few moments, then left by the same door. I was very contemplative. Prince Reufern was a better man than I’d thought, and I reminded myself to not be so quick to judge. Perhaps the emperor hadn’t been completely wrong in making him prince regent.

  We rode out in groups of threes and fours, in mid-afternoon. The civilians left first, then the soldiers, wearing dark civilian garb, our weapons hidden. It was a squally, chill day, perfect for our purposes. We met on an agreed hilltop five miles beyond the city. When dusk came, and travelers grew fewer, we clattered down to the highway, and rode for Lanvirn.

  • • •

  Five of us sprawled on a muddy hilltop, staring down at Lanvirn: Captain Lasta, Sinait, Kutulu, Karjan, and I. The rest of my raiders were hidden in a rickety barn behind us. It was not long after dawn. We’d ridden all night, stopping briefly for a meal from the iron rations in our saddlebags and one small flask of wine. Seer Sinait had improved our meal by casting a small spell over the flasks to heat them, so there was some warmth in our bodies when we rode on.

  Lanvirn, like Polycittara, had sprawled beyond its walls. The fortress itself was a rectangle, with four-sided towers at the corners of the seventy-five-foot-tall keep and one on either side of the main gate. A small river had been diverted from its course for a moat around three walls, and there was a swamp to the rear. The Amboinas had built beyond the gates as their farms and ranches prospered, and a clutter of outbuildings had grown around the central structure, on the far side of the three-arched fixed bridge that bestrode the moat. There were peasants working here and there in the mucky fields, and wagons creaking along the narrow dirt roads. Unless this was all an elaborate deception, Jalon Amboina didn’t know we were coming.

  We took it in turn to examine what lay below. The rear of the castle was one large donjon, and a flag flew over it, suggesting the Amboinas were in residence.

  Sinait hesitantly suggested she could attempt a small seeking spell, but would rather not, for fear of alerting Jalon. I agreed — we’d find him by brute force.

  First, we had to enter the fortress. It would’ve been possible for one or two to scale the outer wall, and we’d brought grapnel and rope, but we were after more than the family silver. I had an idea. I beckoned Captain Lasta to crawl over and pointed to where I thought Lanvirn might be vulnerable.

  “Chancy,” he whispered. “Very chancy. I assume we’d wait for someone to open our way?”

  “Just so.”

  “Mmm. Four — no six men,” he mused. “Put the rest of us … where, back in one of those sheds? The closest one to the moat?”

  “No,” I said. “That one over there. Let’s not get too close to the moat.”

  “Chancy indeed,” he said. “But I have nothing better.”

  We looked at each other, shrugged, and the plan was set.

  • • •

  A thin moon had risen, obscured by scudding clouds, when seven of us slid from the byre toward the moat. We were Svalbard, who carried bonds, gags, and blindfolds for the magician; an equally large bruiser named Elfric, who was one of Kutulu’s men; two archers, both from the Red Lancers (Manych and a longtime comrade and possibly the best bowman I’ve ever known, Lance-Major Curti); Kutulu; myself; and my shadow, Karjan.

  All of us except the archers carried swords, but we’d slung their sheaths across our backs. We’d need them after we made entrance to Lanvirn, but not before. I hoped. Our main weapons were long daggers and padded rolls of sand to quietly silence anyone we encountered. Karjan and I carried four-inch lead pigs, which could be held in the fist to improve a blow’s quality, or thrown, as I’d done when I killed the Kallian landgrave Elias Malebranche. The archers’ bowstrings were silenced with tassels.

  There was no one about, nor were there sentries outside the barred gate of the castle, but lights gleamed from the tower on each side of the bridge, so watch was being kept from a more comfortable spot than a sentry-go.

  We moved slowly, crouching, so many dark huddles in the night, until we reached the moat. River-fed, it wasn’t the foul swamp most are, but it was deathly cold. I went first and had gone but a half dozen steps when the bottom dropped away and I was swimming. The current tried to sweep me under the bridge, but I kicked hard and made it to the first arch, where I was held by the current. Six heads bobbed toward me and we clung to the rough stonework.

  We went from arch to arch, until we were against the dank stone walls of the fortress. Three slipped under the arch to the far side of the bridge, three others stayed with me. There was a slight ledge just underwater I hadn’t been able to see, so we were able to sit.

  I took steel tent pegs from my belt pouch and tapped them into crevices in the wall, using a lead ingot for a hammer. Svalbard gave me a hoist up, and I pounded in more, until we had crude steps to just below the parapet. I heard a clink or two and the scuffle of boots against stone, and knew Kutulu and his two fellows had done as I had.

  Then we waited. I spent the time numbly trying to decide which was colder, the sodden part of me above the waist in the chill breeze, or what was still underwater. I guess we sat for an hour, maybe two, although it could have been several lifetimes.

  Over the soft rustle of the river I heard horses’ hooves. The stones of the bridge rang to iron horseshoes as riders approached the gatehouse. There were at least half a dozen, too many for us to overpower. A shout came, a challenge was answered. Harness creaked, and men muttered, then the great gate boomed open, and the riders entered Lanvirn. The gate closed, and there was no sound but the plash of the waters.

  More time passed, and we heard more horsemen approaching, and it sounded like two, no more than three, riders. I clambered up the pegs. Karjan, then Svalbard were behind me. Again the challenge came and was answered. The shout hadn’t died into the night before I rolled across the parapet, dagger in hand.

  There were three of them. One still bestrode his horse; the other two had dismounted. They had their backs to me, but heard my boots. One turned, gaping in surprise, and my dagger’s hilt thudded against his ribs, point sticking out a handspan beyond his back. The second’s mouth was open, but a sandbag took him, and he was down. The mounted man’s horse reared, someone grabbed the rider’s leg, and tore him from the saddle, and Elfric dropped across him as he went down. I saw his dagger go up, then down, three times in the dimness, and the gate was opening. Svalbard grabbed the gate in two hands and pulled hard, yanking the astonished guard behind it out onto the bridge. Karjan dropped him with a sandbag, and we were inside Lanvirn.

  The Red Lancers came out of the darkness across the bridge, Seer Sinait in their midst, and were with us in the courtyard. There was a winding staircase into one of the towers, and boots thudded as another sentry came down. Curti had an arrow drawn, and as the man came into the open his bow thwacked and a war arrow went through the man’s throat clean and clattered against the stone.

  Svalbard and Elfric ran up the steps. They were gone a handful of minutes, then came back. Svalbard shook his head and held his palms flat. No one else was on guard.

  I marveled at the arrogance of Amboina. He had such confidence in his craft he felt untraceable, as if no one would, could, find him.

  “Kutulu,” I asked. “Should you be in command?”

  “No,” the spymaster whispered. “I want him taken by military law. He’ll have less right of appeal then.”

  I half-admired a man who could think of such legal niceties in these circumstances.

  “Seer,” I said, “do you detect any traps?”

  “I do not,” and her voice was worried. “Either this Amboina is a far greater wizard than I thought, and can produce undetectable spells, or else he’s unbelievably complacent.”

  “Let’s see which,” I said, and motioned my men forward. We ran along the wall, large rats scurrying, toward the double doors that were the entrance to the donjon. They were heavy wood with iron cross-bracing, and could have stood against a sizable ram. But they were unlocked
and unguarded, and we drew our swords and burst through them.

  The great hall could have kept harvest home for several hundreds, but there were only a dozen men and women inside, sitting at the remains of a late supper, with an equal number of servants.

  At the head of the table was a man I instantly recognized, although I’d never seen him before. Jalon Amboina was his father’s image. His face was that of a brooding dreamer, a poet.

  Beside him sat a young girl I supposed to be his sister, whose name Hami told Kutulu was Cymea, at the most fourteen. They were richly dressed, as were their guests.

  “Jalon Amboina,” I shouted. “I have the emperor’s warrant!”

  A serving maid screeched and threw a tureen at Karjan, and he knocked her spinning. I drew my sword and ran around the table. The man sitting at the foot came up, and I smashed his temple with the iron pig in my left hand, and he sprawled across his dinner partner’s lap.

  Kutulu was beside me, and a man pushed his chair into his path, waving an eating knife. Kutulu’s loaded glove thudded into his face, and he fell motionless across his dinner plate.

  The gray-haired man next to Amboina’s sister came out of his chair, unsheathing a slender sword. I lunged at him, and he parried, then cut. I smashed his sword aside, and ungentlemanly of me, kicked him in the stomach, then spitted him.

  But he’d given Jalon Amboina a few seconds, and that was all the magician needed. There were ten yards between us, and in that space grew a shadow, then the form of that monstrous warrior I’d fought in the tower in Polycittara. This time it had a sword in each hand, and its fire-eyes glittered.

  It cut at me, and I blocked its swing, and the shock sent my sword spinning away. I dropped to the flagstones as the creature slashed over my head. I scrabbled for my blade, got it in my hand, and back-rolled to my feet.

  Behind his creation, Jalon Amboina was backing toward stairs at the rear of the hall. I heard him muttering his spells, and his monster attacked once more.

  From nowhere an arrow sprouted from Amboina’s eye, and his head snapped back with the impact. He tottered, then fell. The demon howled in agony, a matching arrow buried in its eye socket.

  Cymea Amboina screamed and threw herself on her brother’s body, and Amboina’s monstrous defender vanished as if it’d never been.

  “No one moves,” Kutulu shouted. “You are all arrested, by the order of the emperor Laish Tenedos, on the charges of murder and high treason!”

  There were squawks and shouts, and one man reached for a sword and was clubbed down by Elfric.

  I paid no mind to them, nor to the servitors who poured into the hall, then stood indecisively, stunned by their master’s death.

  All I could see was the sprawled body of Jalon Amboina, gore soaking the skirts of his sister as she cradled his corpse and keened wordlessly.

  FIVE

  REVENGE

  Jalon Amboina’s body, trussed to a blood-hardened gelding, jounced along just behind me. His face, with the gaping wound where an eye had been, was open to sight, as were his trussed hands and feet. Also, a crude gag had been stuffed in his mouth as if he yet lived, and Legate Balkh assigned to watch the corpse closely.

  This was at the instructions of Seer Sinait. She’d attempted a minor casting after we’d secured Lanvirn, and announced Amboina’s spells were still in place — her magic had no effect, and she, as the emperor had, could still sense a dark force hanging over the land.

  “This makes no sense at all,” she said. “He’s dead, so his magic should have vanished with him. Unless he was a far greater magician than I thought, with legendary powers. If that’s the case, I want to know if that corpse suddenly shows signs of reviving.”

  We had seven prisoners — the survivors of the dinner party, including Jalon’s sister. She was fourteen, and would be a raving beauty when grown. But it was most unlikely she’d see another birthday, nor would a long life be probable for the others who were at that table. Perhaps they were just friends discussing plans for the spring planting. But I doubted imperial justice, as administered by Prince Reufern and overseen by the emperor, would show anyone the slightest mercy, and I refused to think of what would happen to Cymea at the hands of Ygerne and Kutulu’s other torturers.

  I’d freed Amboina’s servants, even those who’d fought us. Kutulu had argued, but I told him, flatly, it would be a poor servant who refused to defend his master, even if he was a traitor.

  Our casualties had been very light — one Lancer with a broken arm, and two of Kutulu’s men with cuts.

  Kutulu rode amid the prisoners, carefully examining them, trying to see who should be questioned first, and who would be the first to break. Cymea looked at him once, a cold stare from green eyes, and somehow I knew she’d die without giving him satisfaction.

  Strangely, I felt no sense of victory, as I should have, but I ascribed my gloom to the gray rain-dripping weather around us. I stopped my brooding by starting an argument with Karjan, telling him he was promoted lance-major, and this time, by the sword of Isa, he’d keep his rank slashes or I’d send him back to the Lancers. He merely grumbled, instead of becoming enraged. Perhaps the wretched day was affecting him, as well.

  • • •

  Prince Reufern said he’d hold a public tribunal in two days and show the citizens of Kallio how swiftly the Emperor Tenedos dealt with those who wished him harm.

  “I’d like to suggest otherwise,” Kutulu said, in his calm, emotionless voice.

  “Why? I want to see these swine done away with as quickly as possible,” the prince said, and then a slow, not pleasant, smile came. “My apologies, Warden. I wasn’t thinking. There may be others in this conspiracy. In fact, I’m sure of it.”

  “I’m sure of nothing, Your Majesty, which is why I wish to question the prisoners closely.”

  “You have my full permission,” Reufern said. “Any methods you choose are acceptable. Even if we … lose some of these traitors in the process, there’ll be no recriminations.”

  “None will die,” Kutulu said. “I won’t let them.”

  My skin crawled.

  “Your Majesty,” I asked. “What of Landgrave Amboina? Has he returned yet?”

  “No. But when he does, he’ll go straight into the dungeon with the others,” the prince said. “I’m chagrined that I allowed that smooth-tongued rascal into my graces.” He shook his head. “I thought I’d encountered every sort of villain when I was a trader. But someone like Amboina, who could lie, and lie, and lie, as he did — never! I suppose he’ll try to convince me that he wasn’t aware of what his son was doing, or was under some sort of a spell.

  “But I promise you, Damastes and Warden Kutulu, he’ll suffer the same fate as the others. I’m not sure what method of execution I’ll choose. But it will be one that will make every Kallian for ten generations shudder at the tale of how these dogs died!”

  • • •

  “Now I feel like a total ass,” Marán complained. “I fill myself full of worries, seduce you before you leave as if I were never going to see you again, and you come prancing back with all of the evildoers in a sack.”

  “At least the seducing part wasn’t a waste.”

  “You’re nothing but six-and-a-half feet of lust, you know that?”

  “I’m not quite that big,” I said, waggling my eyebrows like a sex-crazed maniac.

  “Big enough,” she said. Her mood changed. “Damastes, could we try again to have a child?”

  Marán had been pregnant with our child when we married, but had a miscarriage not long afterward. We both wanted children and had consulted seers and chirurgeons. The last, and most expensive, told us he doubted if we’d ever be able to have any. He thought the stillborn infant had taken with him Marán’s ability to carry a child.

  I was disappointed, but not destroyed. Since I was born to be a warrior and assumed I’d most likely die in service, I’d always thought that the family line would be continued through my sisters.


  But it was terribly important to Marán. I wondered if her father and brothers were at her to produce an heir, but it was a subject I stayed well clear of. In any event she told me she didn’t believe what the sorcerer had said, and how often they were wrong about other things, and refused to give up.

  “Of course we can,” I said. “Right now?”

  “No, silly. I meant … you know what I meant. I’ve consulted with the seer, and she thinks the next few days might be ideal for conception.”

  “Hmph,” I hmphed. “Next you’ll have her in the bedchamber, suggesting in what manner we should be making love.”

  “That,” Marán said, “is something I’m already quite familiar with.” She echoed my eyebrow waggling. “Just wait until you come to bed tonight.”

  • • •

  Seer Sinait straightened, shaking her head. The mercury pool was gray, featureless. “Still nothing,” she said. “And I can feel being blocked when I reach out.”

  I’d had no luck with the Bowl spell at all, and thought I might be able to contact the emperor if a proper magician said the words.

  “So who is stopping us?”

  “I don’t know. Who … what … Maybe it’s just the placement of the stars,” she said.

  I knew she didn’t believe that for an instant.

  • • •

  As dusk approached, I decided to attend guard mount. I’d ordered Domina Bikaner to double the watch, since Molise Amboina should be arriving momentarily, and I wished no slip ups. The officer of the watch was Bikaner’s adjutant, Restenneth, and the domina and I were standing behind the formation, half-listening to the comfortingly familiar commands, when trumpets from the main castle blared.

  “That’ll be Amboina coming back now, and we’ll be needin’ to make sure he doesn’t get a chance to run,” Bikaner said. “Captain! Prepare the guard to receive a prisoner!”

  “Sir!”

  I went out of our keep, across the castle’s huge center courtyard to the open gates, and looked down into the city. Two castle buglers stood on either side of me, about to play another fanfare. But instead of seeing Prince Reufern’s escort and the landgrave, I saw a huge mass of soldiers, wearing Numantian uniforms, marching in orderly formation toward us. There must have been a thousand of them, a regiment and more. The emperor must have decided we needed further reinforcement and ordered another unit to Kallio, although I wondered how he’d been able to move soldiery in such a short time.