Demon King

by Bunch, Chris

  I was peering through the growing dimness, trying to see what device was on the banners so I could name the unit, when I heard a shout. It was Seer Sinait, running hard toward me, robes hiked up. “No!” she shouted. “They’re not ours! They’re Kallians!”

  I blinked, looked again. She was wrong — I could see the men’s uniforms distinctly. Their officers, in full dress, marched in front, to the steady thud of a half dozen drummers. Music wailed, and I recognized the tune, a standard marching song. I was about to reprove the seer for her unfamiliarity with the army, but she seized my arm.

  “Rub your eyes hard,” she ordered, “till they water!” I hesitated, then obeyed. She moved a finger across my forehead, I suppose tracing some symbol, then began chanting:

  “Look well

  Look hard

  See truth

  See what is

  See beyond

  Beyond the veil

  See the truth

  Look well …”

  My vision blurred, then blinked clear. Instead of Numantian troops, a mass of Kallians now swarmed toward us. They were townsmen, artisans, peasants, nobility, armed with everything from spades to spears and swords. They were even organized into rough formations. On either side of this mob were men in armor, men with conventional weapons. The hidden conspirators Kutulu so feared had chosen this moment for their great rising!

  Instead of music playing, they were chanting:

  “Death to the Numantians

  Death to their servants

  Kill them all

  Kill them all

  Kill them all.”

  At their head, holding a spear high, was Landgrave Molise Amboina, shouting more loudly than anyone. On the spear was a small banner, which I recognized from the civil war — Chardin Sher’s old flag!

  “Close the gates,” I shouted, and ran toward the huge windlass. One bugler stood, bewildered, the other followed. “Sinait,” I shouted. “Get the Lancers out!”

  She pelted back across the courtyard, into our keep, shouting for Domina Bikaner.

  I put all my strength onto the windlass, and slowly, reluctantly, it creaked into motion. “Come on, man!” I ordered the bugler, and he threw his weight onto another stout wooden bar, then shouted in agony as an arrow buried itself in his side. He clawed at it, screaming, and thrashed down. I pulled my sword and hewed at the arm-thick cable, but I was too late, and the attackers were pouring into the castle. A spear clattered on the cobbles beside me, then another, and I ran for the Lancers’ keep.

  A man waving a bill broke from the mob and raced toward me. I turned suddenly and knelt, both hands bracing my sword, and he spitted himself on the blade. I kicked him free and ducked as another spear flew past.

  “Take him!” the landgrave shouted. “That’s their damned tribune!” I ran harder, through the gates into our own keep. Behind me came the mob, howling for blood. Bewildered men and women poured out of doorways into the courtyard like ants when hot water’s poured down their hill.

  I sheathed my sword, grabbed a bow from a downed archer, and slung his quiver over my shoulder. I nocked a shaft, scanned the onrushing crowd, saw someone in richly worked half-armor, aimed carefully, and he screeched and convulsed, my shaft half-buried in his groin. Other bows twanged and arrows hummed, and spears arced toward the Kallians. Men and women were hit, and went down, some lying motionless, some writhing, screaming. But their screams seemed to add fire to our attackers. I saw Amboina, shot at him, missed. By the time I found another arrow, he’d disappeared into the throng. I saw a big man shouting orders and killed him instead.

  Outside the entrance to our keep, in the main courtyard, other soldiers were coming into action, some armored, some with no more than a sword and shield. I saw Prince Reufern, easily distinguishable in a red tunic, a long sword in hand, rush out of a doorway, flanked by a dozen or more soldiers. He plunged forward, into the fray, and I saw his sword rise and fall.

  The Kallians slammed into us, and there was no time for anything except killing the man who was trying to kill you. A man swung a flail, and I lashed him across the eyes with my bow, crouched, and body-blocked him into two others. That gave me a chance to draw my sword, and I sent one down, then saw another man drive a pitchfork at me. I shrank back, just as that peasant gasped and whirled, and Kutulu pulled a long dagger from his back. Kutulu was bleeding heavily from a slash along his ribs.

  He shouted something to me, and a dirty-faced woman clubbed him to his knees. She pulled a butcher knife from her leather belt and was about to finish the warden when my sword took her head off. She fell on Kutulu, who went down and stayed there.

  There were too many of them, pouring like the tide into the castle. I heard the shout. “Back. Back and re-form.” The voice was Bikaner’s, and other officers echoed the command. I parried a spear thrust, killed the spearman, grabbed Kutulu by the jacket, and dragged him backward into our keep. Three Kallians saw my helplessness, but Karjan and another Lancer came from nowhere and took them down.

  “Stand clear,” came a cry, and I heard the grating of iron plates and the huge portcullis dropped, spear points impaling an enormous woman swinging a pruning hook. Just behind the portcullis the iron-barred gates slid to, and it was quiet. But only for a moment, until the wails and shouts of our wounded rose. From outside came answering howls of rage.

  Bikaner brushed blood from a gash across his forehead without knowing he’d done it. His breath came in gasps, and his sword was red to the hilt. “There’s windows into th’ courtyard,” he began. “We’ll put archers in ‘em, drive th’ bastards back from our gates. We’ll reinforce th’ gates with timber balks, and — ”

  “No,” I said sharply. “They think they’ve got us pinned. They’ll finish the others in the castle and then lay siege to us.”

  Bikaner thought, then nodded jerkily. “Aye. That’s what they’ll do.”

  “So we’ll not do what they want, Domina. Drag the wounded out of the way and form the men for a charge. Right now. On foot, open ranks, Lancers in the lead, Hussars to follow. Make sure the men in the front ranks are wearing at least breastplates. And I want the buglers. All of ‘em!”

  “Yessir.”

  Other officers had gathered around. “You heard what I said,” I ordered. “Make it so!” They, too, ran off.

  There was no time to treat the wounded now. I saw Kutulu among them, lying motionless, and hoped that slut hadn’t killed him. We’d been hit hard. There must’ve been thirty or forty men motionless, more who were wounded. But some were forcing themselves to their feet, and into the battle lines. Now the merciless discipline of the frontier regiments was paying off, denying men the right to moan or die.

  I saw Marán at a balcony. She wore dark leather trousers and a vest, and held a small crossbow we’d used for target shooting. Beside her was one of her maids. She saw me looking up, waved, and pointed. I saw a Kallian sprawled faceup, with one of the weapon’s foot-long shafts in his throat. Good! The Agramóntes may have been harsh, but they’d won their lands with courage and the sword, and their blood ran true in my wife.

  Seer Sinait found me. “Now we know,” she said.

  We did. The magic that created the grand illusion of Kallians appearing to be Numantian soldiers had been cast by a master magician. It was now clear both Amboinas were wizards and the boy had been a mask for the older man’s skills. There had been no leavings from the dead Mikael Yanthlus to cloud the emperor’s and Sinait’s powers, but a living master sage working in our own camp.

  If we died this day, he would be able to continue his masquerade, claiming to be utterly loyal to the throne. Such reliability, when the emperor moved against the rebels, would place him close to Tenedos, and that would complete his plan.

  It was a cunning scheme, indeed, and, if Landgrave Amboina were able to gain the emperor’s confidence, the Kallians would need no support from outside. Far more than our lives was at stake here — the emperor and all Numantia was at risk!

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nbsp; “We surely do,” I said. “Can you cast a spell against him?”

  “I have two ready,” she said. “But I’m afraid his powers are greater than mine. I’d prefer to wait and see if I can’t produce a counterspell once I feel him out.”

  “As and when you decide. Magic isn’t my province.”

  The soldiers had regrouped, and I ran to their front. “Lancers! Hussars! They fooled us once and think they’ve got us trapped. But now it’s our turn to determine who’s on which side of the trap.

  “Soldiers,” I cried to the men on the gate pulleys. “Lift the barriers! Buglers! The attack!”

  The main courtyard was a scramble of madness. Inside the buildings shouts and screams of battle continued, but the mob outside were already rewarding themselves. A dozen were rolling barrels out of one of the stronghold’s wineshops, and several of the casks were upended and smashed open. There were screaming women, clothes torn away, men holding them down as they ripped at their own garments. Kallians scurried around with every sort of loot.

  They saw us then, a thousand strong, shouting defiance louder than our trumpets. There was a great wail of surprise and fear, and we smashed into them. Swords, axes, rose and fell, and arrows spat into the throng. Some fought, some ran, and again the courtyard was a boil of killing and slaughter. Kallians inside the buildings burst out, some trying to flee, more ready to fight on, and we obliged them. I shouted orders, and the Hussars broke away from the hand-to-hand melee and circled behind the mob — and we had them.

  I heard something, a deep musical tone, except it reverberated through my very bones. The air shimmered and Molise Amboina grew from nothingness, rising full fifty feet against the sky. His hair and beard were wild, disheveled. There were bloodstains on his face, and his hands clawed into talons. He was no longer the smooth nobleman, but a murderous, deadly seer, a greater demon than any he could raise. His words in an unknown tongue boomed against the walls, and I thought the stones themselves might burst.

  Arrows whipped toward and through him, but he paid no mind, as his hands moved back and forth, up and down, arms curling sinuously, and the onrushing mob were no longer human, but transformed into slithering, hissing serpents. They moved toward us, a tide of green, brown, and black. Amboina was sending the same spell against us used to destroy the justice column. I slashed one serpent in two, and it became a blood-soaked corpse, but there were dozens, hundreds, more. Some of us were fighting, but others were hesitating, about to flee. Men were down, serpents’ fangs buried in their flesh. The Kallians hissed in glee and rushed us.

  Wind roared, and I glanced back, my guts clenching, knowing Amboina had sent a second spell to complete our destruction. There was another huge figure in the courtyard, as tall as Amboina. But this one, I realized, was quite familiar.

  When I was a boy, in my jungled province of Cimabue, we had a village rat catcher, since we were frequently troubled with the pests, particularly when the rains came and they sought shelter in the farmers’ huts or even in the buildings of my family’s estates. The rat catcher knew a few simple spells to drive the rats mad with fear and make them rush into the nearest water and drown themselves. Adults thought him not quite right, and perhaps it was so. But to children, he was a sort of hero. He always treated us as if we were equals, and delighted in taking us into the jungle, where he’d tell us to sit and be silent while he whistled. We never knew what sort of creature would come. Sometimes it would be a sambar, once it was a crocodile from the nearby stream, sometimes a family of voles, or a flight of birds would circle and land amid us, as if they were our friends. He told us never to touch them, for man’s scent would make them outcasts to their brothers and sisters, but we should watch, and learn how they behaved, for we were all animals together, and who knew but the soul of a gentle marmot could be one of us, sent back from the Wheel to pay penance for evil in a previous life.

  The rat catcher was my apparition. But none of us saw the same man, I found later. One saw a nursemaid, who chased away nightmares, another a shopkeeper who’d run off a dog that terrified him as a babe. Karjan said it was a peasant from the small holding next to his family’s, who’d rushed into a pasture and saved him from an angry bull.

  My rat catcher picked up one snake, which grew to be ten feet long. As he did, he seemed to pick up all the snakes. He lifted the long snake close, examined it as it hissed and twisted in his hand, then cast it away. But the reptile never landed; it vanished, with the others, and the cobblestones were bare.

  Amboina roared in rage, hands moving differently as he chanted a spell. I felt weakness in my guts and heard the crash of great winds. The rat catcher stumbled back and put out a hand to steady himself. He winced as an invisible blow struck. He staggered, and I heard Lancers moan — we were doomed.

  But the rat catcher straightened, and spoke, and when he spoke it was in Seer Sinait’s soft voice:

  “O little man

  Full of hate

  You have no law

  You have no good

  Is there one

  Who speaks for you?”

  The rat catcher paused, as if listening, though I heard nothing. Then he went on:

  “A dying voice

  A dead voice

  That is the past

  There is none

  O man so small

  I ask Aharhel

  But there is none

  Not Varum

  Not Shahriya

  Not Jacini

  Not Elyot

  Not Water

  Not Fire

  Not Earth

  Not Air

  There is no one

  No one but She

  I must not name Her

  She will welcome you

  She will shelter you

  She will let you come to her

  She will return you to the Wheel.”

  The rat catcher picked up Landgrave Molise Amboina between thumb and forefinger, and the magician was suddenly his normal size. Sinait’s apparition held the Kallian close, examining him curiously, as if looking at an insect of an unknown species. Amboina cursed and flailed, but couldn’t escape. The rat catcher cast him away. But Amboina didn’t vanish; he whirled through the air and smashed on the cobblestones, his body exploding like a burst melon.

  The Kallians held for a frozen moment, then a moan of despair went through them.

  “On them,” I bellowed. “Charge!”

  My Numantians attacked. Only a handful of the Kallians tried to fight, and then mainly when they were trapped. Mostly they ran, clawing, overrunning one another looking for safety. We killed and we killed, and then, at last, there was no one left to kill.

  I stood in a room I’d never been in before, somewhere deep in the castle, over the body of a man who’d tried to fight me with a saber he had no idea how to use, and I did not know how I’d gotten there. I made sure the man was dead, then found my way back into the central courtyard.

  Captain Lasta, of my guard, came over and saluted. “We’ve secured the castle.”

  “Good,” I said. “Now we must find Prince Reufern.”

  Lasta began to say something but stopped himself. “Come with me, sir.”

  • • •

  Prince Reufern’s body sprawled outside the entrance to his throne room. A sword lay not far from his hand and ringed around him were the corpses of five Kallians. Sinait and Domina Bikaner were beside me.

  “He died bravely and well for a merchant,” the domina said.

  “He died well,” I corrected. But words after this catastrophe were meaningless.

  • • •

  “Very well,” the emperor said. His voice was calm, his face quiet as he stared up from the Seeing Bowl. “You will continue as Prince Regent in his place.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Whether more could, or should, have been done to preserve my brother’s life is a matter for future times. I shall be sending full and complete orders, along with the necessary troops to enforce them.
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  “But here are three immediate tasks: You said the Amboina child, along with the others you captured when you killed the traitorous bastard’s son, escaped in the chaos. I want all of them found and executed. I’ll determine the manner and will send it with Kutulu’s replacement. He will live, I assume?”

  “So Seer Sinait has told me. He’s still delirious from the blow to his head, but he’ll return to normal in time. And the spell on his knife wound is already working.”

  “Take no chances with him,” the emperor said. “The moment Kutulu can travel, I want him returned to Nicias. He’ll have the best seers in the land to make sure his recovery is full and rapid.

  “Now, to return to these miserable Kallians. They hurt me deeply, and they must realize what they’ve done. I want your drum patrols to ride out once more. They’ll be reinforced with infantry elements I’ll be dispatching within a few days. I want two leaders in every hamlet, every village executed. If they cannot be found, or if the Kallians will not surrender them to you, twenty men and women are to be killed in their stead and the village put to the torch.

  “My final order is for Polycittara, where the snakes had their lair. Polycittara will cease to exist. Its name will be stricken from all records. I shall dispatch special units of masons in time to tear stone from stone and sow the land itself with salt.

  “As for its citizens, they are to be decimated. One in every ten — man, woman, child — is to be killed. The manner of their death does not matter. All others are to be sold as slaves. No family is to be left intact. Those once known as Polycittarans will be scattered to the corners of my kingdom, their names, their homeland forgotten.