by Bunch, Chris
Then we were hit from the flank by line after line of elite infantry, to whom a man on a horse was an easy target, not a figure of terror. They ducked under our lances and went for our horses. Other soldiers were in front, holding firm, and our charge was broken, and all was a swirling whirlwind of stabbing, slashing, killing, dying men.
Ahead of me, not a hundred yards away, were huge, lavishly colored tents, flags floating over them. Here was the king, and I shouted to the Lancers to follow me, and we pushed on, foot by bloody foot.
Then the demons came from nowhere. They were horrible insects, scarabs perhaps, larger than a horse. But, terribly, they bore above their slashing mandibles the faces of men, and I gasped, recognizing, even through the bloody eyes of battle, one.
Myrus Le Balafre.
I heard someone else scream, as he knew another monster’s countenance, and then I saw Mercia Petre’s solemn face. I hope in the name of all the gods that these were just devices the azaz had summoned to terrify us, and he’d not been able to call the souls of these men back from the Wheel. I cannot believe Saionji would let anyone usurp her domain so.
One horror slashed at my horse, nearly severing its head, and it reared and sent me sprawling. I rolled to my feet, and the horror loomed over me, snapping with its scissorslike jaws, and I lunged, burying my sword in its body. It collapsed, snapping at the wound as I pulled my blade free, and howled, an eerie high screech, and green ichor sprayed me, and then it was motionless.
“They can be killed,” I shouted, and saw one rip Captain Balkh nearly in half as Curti sent an arrow into the center of its human face.
The azaz’s magic was almost as deadly for his own soldiers, striking as much terror into them as it did us, and they were yelling in panic and running. Another monster came, and Svalbard cut two legs from under it, drove his long sword through its carapace, and it, too, died.
Three men attacked, one armed with an ax, and I opened his guts for him, ducked the sword thrust of the second, and hacked his side open. The third screamed and ran.
There was no one close then except a pair of wounded, dying demons, and I ran for the flag-draped tents, hearing my breath rasp in my lungs, hardly realizing I was muttering that childish prayer to Tanis.
I saw a man standing in the doorway to a tent. He wore dark robes and held a strange wand, not solid as every other one I’d seen, but made of twisted silver, woven like tree branches.
The azaz.
Everything in the world vanished, and I was moving toward him, and all was very slow, very blurry. His wand moved, and a demon came from nowhere, and it had Alegria’s face. But I was beyond life, beyond caring, and my sword had come back for a thrust, when one of Curd’s arrows thudded into the demon’s body and it snapped at the shaft, and was gone.
Again the azaz’s wand moved, but I was closer, still not within sword striking distance. I think I was still running, but perhaps not.
My free hand, without my willing it, fumbled at my belt, and Yonge’s wedding gift, the silver dagger that had killed far more than its share, came out of its sheath, and I hurled it underhand. The blade turned lazily in midair, then took the azaz just under his ribs, and he contorted, screaming, and his scream filled my life, my world, with joy, and I thought I could hear Karjan laugh as well, from wherever Saionji had cast him. The wizard’s face was agonized, and my sword went into his open mouth and he was dead.
Again hope shot through me, and I turned.
“Now the king,” I bellowed, but there were only three men behind me. I saw Curti down with a spear through his thigh, not moving, and a scatter of dead or dying Lancers amid a welter of bodies.
But there was Bikaner, Svalbard, and another man, a Lancer I didn’t know. All were blood- and ichor-drenched, but all bore that same twisted death-giving, death-embracing smile I knew was on my own face.
I went for what must have been King Bairan’s tent, and there were two men, big men, bigger even than Svalbard, coming. I blocked the first’s slash, but the second man’s lunge cut me along the ribs.
Svalbard slashed, and the man’s head bounced free, then Svalbard turned to me, his expression that of a child, wondering why he hurt, what had struck him, and I saw he no longer had an arm, but a stub that sprayed blood.
He fell, and there was only Domina Bikaner and myself, and there were many men around us, and all wore the brown of Maisir.
Bikaner killed two more, and then an arrow grew from his chest, and he shouted and fell.
An instant later hot pain took me from behind, and I stumbled. But there was a Maisirian still alive in front of me, and just behind him I knew I would see King Bairan, and take him with me.
But my sword was far too heavy to lift, and the pain was fire roaring over me, and I stumbled, feeling another sword bite into my side.
Then there was nothing at all.
THIRTY
EXILE
I didn’t regain consciousness for several weeks, and by then the war was over. When I fell, most of our army had either been killed or was trying to surrender. Few officers, especially anyone with real authority, were permitted to live. All tribunes, all generals, died at Cambiaso.
All but two.
Cyrillos Linerges fought to the very last, until there were no more than a handful of his bodyguards around his standard. Then everyone was down. But when the Maisirians looked for the dead tribune, to loot his corpse, there was no Linerges to be found.
Later the story came that he’d somehow escaped the battlefield, made his way to the Latane River, and from there out of Numantia, to a foreign land, where he lives to this day. Good. There should be at least one of us able to tell of the demon king’s rise and fall.
Tenedos survived. I’d hit him harder than I’d thought, for when the Chare Brethren found and untied him, he was in deep shock, unable to remember any spells whatsoever. He didn’t return to normal until the battle was over and he was a prisoner. Why the first Maisirian to encounter his most hated enemy didn’t put him to the sword I’ll never know. But he was taken, and the War Magicians made sure he was kept from attempting any magic.
When I returned from my sweet dreams of death and nothingness, I found King Bairan standing over my bed.
He stared for a long time, saying nothing. I stared back.
He nodded once and was gone. That was the last I saw of him.
Surprisingly, the peace terms he dictated were extraordinarily liberal. What he’d vowed turned out to be true: He was content with his own kingdom, and wished nothing to do with Numantia. Not being a fool, however, he made sure we could never threaten him again.
He went to Nicias and visited the treasuries. His words were simple: “They are mine.” In addition, he levied penalties against every city and every province in the country, enough to bankrupt Numantia. There were few protests, especially after he said any argument and he’d loose his army with orders to make all Numantia as desolate as Urey.
He confirmed Barthou and Scopas as lawful rulers of Numantia, knowing neither had military ambitions, although he required them to make obeisance to him.
To make sure there’d be no threat from the north, he created a new title — guardian of the peace — and named the traitor Herne to the post, with orders to suppress any nationalist aggression and report frequently to Jarrah.
Herne was authorized to raise a unit as large as two Guard Corps, to be headquartered in Nicias. Of course there were more than enough bullies to fill its ranks who cared little about treason and wished legitimacy from a uniform.
King Bairan ordered that the Numantian Army was never to reform, on pain of immediate invasion. The largest forces permitted to bear arms, beside Herne’s Guardians, were local police forces and border patrols.
The Chare Brethren were also dissolved.
Bairan considered Tenedos’s sisters, decided they were no threat, and mercifully allowed them to return to their childhood home of Palmeras.
As for myself and the emperor:
The Emperor Tenedos was sent to an island not that many leagues distant from Palmeras.
I was sent many miles to the east, to a tiny islet a week’s sail from the Latane River’s mouth.
Escape was impossible, even if I’d wanted it, even if there’d been somewhere to go.
The Tovieti must have rejoiced — their two greatest enemies had been destroyed by another. But perhaps our destruction rendered them pointless, for I’ve heard nothing of the cult since.
Sullen time ground past — a year, then more. I recovered my strength, exercised, read, thought about the years with the Emperor Tenedos.
I wondered what would happen to me, assumed I’d either die in decent obscurity or, more likely, be assassinated at some appropriate time.
Then word came:
The emperor was dead. How he died, no one would or could tell me. I assume he was murdered, and so think my own death near.
I will welcome it, for I realize that, even though I intended nothing but good, I brought the greatest evil possible to my beloved country. Perhaps I made small recompense for my crimes when I stopped the emperor from his last, mad attempt to tear apart the world as he fell.
I felt and feel no guilt for what I did, no sense that I violated my oath, for isn’t it the duty of an officer to keep his ruler from destroying himself or his land?
Duty, honor flow both up and down.
The emperor never learned this, never knew it. But he was the emperor.
Sometimes I think woefully that it would have been better, easier, if I’d been an hour late, years and years ago, arriving at that battlefield in Sulem Pass. Would that we’d both died before we sacrificed Numantia on the altar of Maisir.
But then I would never have met Marán, never have known her love, or that of Amiel and Alegria.
I slowly realized one truth. It may be good to have lived, but it is better to have never lived at all.
Perhaps, when I finally come face-to-face with Saionji, I can beg a boon — for after all I sent uncounted thousands, perhaps millions, into her embrace — and she will free me from the Wheel.
But I’m being foolish, feeling childishly sorry for myself, and Saionji shall have other lives, other deaths, harsh punishment waiting.
So I continue with the drab life of a prisoner.
All I want is the embrace of my last friend.
Death.
THIRTY-ONE
THE MESSAGE
All has changed.
All is chaos.
This morning, I sighted a fast courier boat, the same one that had brought the news of the emperor’s death. This time there was no bunting, no banners.
The message it carried was even more shocking than the first.
Laish Tenedos is alive. Alive and free.
He’d prepared a clever spell or potion in his island prison that gave him the semblance of death, enough to fool chirurgeons and the sorcerers set to guard him.
His dying request was to be carried to his native island of Palmeras and his family permitted to hold funeral rites. This was granted, provided no stone was raised to his memory, no memorial built as a rallying point for malcontents.
Somehow the coffin vanished, and Tenedos reappeared in his native town, alive as ever.
At first no one believed it wasn’t a ghost, or an impostor. The Peace Guardian detachment on Palmeras sent soldiers and their most skilled wizard to investigate and end the nonsense.
The wizard died horribly, as did the soldiers.
The man claiming to be Tenedos vanished.
A week later, he reappeared on the mainland, in the capital of Hermonassa Province.
He cast certain spells, said certain words, and there was no more foolishness about him being an impostor.
Hermonassa revolted against Barthou and Scopas, and declared for Tenedos. Two Guard Corps were sent to Hermonassa, and they also mutinied and swore the old imperial oath to Tenedos.
No one on my prison isle knew what to make of it, but I noted with cold amusement that my warders began calling me sir.
The day passed in a haze of bewilderment and questions.
At nightfall I stood on the gray stone battlements, not feeling the cold wind and rain batter my face.
The emperor still lived.
I know he will summon me, whether to punish me or use me once more to retake his empire.
The oath I swore rings through my mind:
We Hold True.
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Text Copyright © 1998 by Chris Bunch
All rights reserved.
Published in association with Athans & Associates Creative Consulting
Cover image(s) © 123rf.com
Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
eISBN 10: 1-4405-5356-4
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-5356-1