He was calling up his men even as he dressed and armed himself.
“Up, up ye sleepy churls!” The hard toe of his soft buskin kicked surly Gerenna of Banavinbonro in Sarch — a man who had indeed been a herdsman ere he’d raped his sister, slain his father and then a militiaman, and fled over the course of a year across Sarch, Morcar, and most of northern Nevinia to join a lord worth following — the Lord of Dark Forest, crowned by his own hand.
“There’s gold to take and a pretty throat that wants cutting!” Maltar called. We ride! Jogu, you dark pig of Ig — up, up and into helm and saddle!”
They were soon up and a-saddle, a column of men grim enow to bring pause to a squadron of Escallan cavalry. As they left their camp, dawn turned the sky silver and pink shot through with orpiment streaks.
*
Winging low over the trees from the eastward, the hawk reached Maltar and his band. Maltar leading, they rode single file at a steady trot down a gloomy little trail that would intersect the main east-west one. The hawk passed over them, amid a chorus of frightened birdcalls, wheeled, dropped to land on Maltar’s mailed shoulder. The bandit grunted at the great bird’s weight, but said nothing. It gave him no sign of dissatisfaction, and Maltar assumed that their prey was but a short distance along the main trail. To others it was Forest Road; to Maltar and company, it was… the game trail.
They reached this path’s end, turned around the truly monumental crentree with its spider-web lacing of feathermoss, and emerged onto the Forest Road. Maltar glanced at the bird. It stared ahead as if in high anticipation. Maltar grinned.
The Lord of Dark Forest was not perturbed at being errand boy for this weird mage-bird; the chase and the slaying were his joy, the spoils pure dessert. And mayhap in this case there’d be a bit more of the sweet, an she were not too old and hideous… The hawk had indicated the unknown prey had gold and silver, and here were her tracks, indicating she possessed a horse and a mule as well. Maltar grinned anew.
They rode.
Around a bend in the wide trail they filed — and ahead was the camp of the intended victim! Ah, the innocent; the horse’s saddle and the mule’s pack lay aground whilst the beasts cropped grass, and there in plain sight lay the stupid darling, cloak-enveloped and sleeping movelessly.
“In and take her!”
The hawk’s claws clamped in between the links of Maltar’s mail, but the man had already clapped spurs to his mount. Too late to halt the charge of hungry, anticipation-driven men. With shrieked cries from an assortment of lands, the band spurred forward. They were nearly to the little camp when Maltar realised that certain yells were missing — Gerenna’s bass Sarchese roar, for one. Gerenna was ever rear-guard, when they rode thus.
Maltar glanced back to see that the last three horses bore empty saddles. Before he could speak, ear-ringed, vulture-nosed Seri of Port Tilonbi pitched screaming from his horse with an arrow in his back.
Without changing direction, the charge became a panicked rout. Across the camp the band galloped, knowing the fastest way out was straight ahead. Though he was in the lead, Maltar was swept along; nor was he able to halt the others until they were a good league past the camp.
“HOLD, ye snapping tail-down dogs!” he bellowed, reining in so that his big bay reared. Maltar wheeled him and waved his sword. “So the little bitch tricked us and can shoot! From Varban back — dismount and spread out! Vols, Hangman, Radev — a half-league down to Blasted Cren trail — ride swiftly and we can trap her between us! It’s only a WOMANNN! On on on — ye want our gold to escape us?”
The three went on; the six fanned and returned through the forest to the encampment. They saw no woman, and rangy Varban in his Bashan chain-coat soon showed them that the “sleeping woman” was merely a handsome black cloak draped over arranged branches. When a snarling Maltar ordered his men to move on, the hawk objected.
Grumbling, they searched the camp. They found naught to interest the grim bird, who could not tell them what he sought. Sotor and Chotor of far Aradot were working together as ever, when a flash of metal caught Chotor’s eye. Aye — there on the ground lay a fat leathern sack and, spilling from its mouth — gold! He sprang for it, but Sotor was ahead of him. The twins wrestled; Chotor gained the bag — and stared in horror at the rope attached to it. He tried desperately to fling himself away from the vast black shadow that fell over him amid a sound like windswept branches.
Maltar looked their way in time to see the falling saytree crush the twin axe-men from Aradot in Bemar. He rushed into the maze of leafy branches, not to see to his men, but to snatch the sack that had cost them their lives. In moments he was cursing in two languages. Despite the several gold coins of excellent Bashan mintage that had been scattered before its mouth, the sack contained only stones and clods.
“The slut’s cost me half my men! She’ll not escape — and then it will be the turn of that Drood-sent bird!”
But Maltar only muttered the words, for the fell hawk was there. With his remaining trio of men, the challenged Lord of Dark Forest pushed on with the three he’d sent to circle the intended prey they’d never seen.
The three lay in a little glade beside the side-trail.
Apparently having sighted her and charged into the glade, they had run afoul of the silken rope still stretched there, at the height of a mounted man’s neck. It had slain two of them, breaking their necks. Radev the Short had escaped that fate — but lay dead, with his sword in his hand. Yet blood smeared that blade, and a trail of dark splotches led into a clump of redbush.
“Yaaaahhhh!” That hillman’s warcry from Varban of the high country in Grey Lands, and he rushed the scarlet-berried bushes with his excellent Sinhorish sword carried low and deadly.
Varban’s booted left foot sprang the hidden twig-and-cord trigger that brought the sapling springing up to drive a sharpened, foot-long stake into his body. His awful cry of battle changing to a gurgling one of agony, Varban stood shuddering. Then he was silent, and fell backward off the dripping stake, nicely wedged into a daggered-out hole in the sapling.
With definite trepidation, two men exchanged looks. Then Alnick of far-coastal Shamash stalked past dead Varban. A stalking cutpurse and cat-thief had been Alnick, before he was caught and jailed and sent into some lord’s arena, where he had killed his man, and then his lord, and turned up here three years later. Now he followed the trail of blood, which led to a dead body.
“It’s a ra-a-a-a-a-abit!” he bellowed in an outraged tenor.
Of Maltar’s twelve, but Alnick and Barrenton of Lieden-town remained. Stating that he’d had enough of this bootless pursuit of a demonic phantom, long-maned Barrenton mounted and fled along the narrow trail his former companions had named Blasted Crentree. Almost soundlessly, the hawk winged after him.
It scarcely touched the man in the bluesteel helm as it passed, but it was a touch of death. Convulsions shook Barrenton. He toppled from his horse to lie quivering and jerking on the ground. Then he went motionless. The hawk returned to Maltar.
The Lord of Dark Forest flourished his sword with its silver-chased hilt. “Now, friend hawk,” he said, for he dared not attack one that slew with a touch, “it be surely time ye were doing your part! Do ye fly high now, and spy out our shadow-foe.”
To his and Alnick’s considerable relief, the winged fiend acquiesced.
The fell bird was hardly out of sight when there was a little rustle amid the bushes crowding the bases of a cluster of say-trees. Alnick glanced at Maltar, then paced forward in a weaponeer’s crouch to investigate. He returned promptly, nor did he speak of what he’d seen. No word came from his drooping sorrel moustache, and only a wet gurgling sound emerged from the new red mouth in his throat.
Staring at Maltar, Alnick fell prostrate as if in theistic adoration.
The shadow-foe stepped from behind the straight boles of the saytrees and strode callously over Alnick’s body in her advance on Maltar. Maltar stared. Aye, she was young. Her lithe, danc
egirl-shaped body bore no wounds save an occasional pink scratch, though her shirt of sheeny green silk was tom so that a brace of large firm breasts pushed half forth to draw his eyes. In her hand was a sword like a stick — a rapier, of all things. It was stained the scarlet of her burning hair, and her eyes seemed ablaze with green fire.
“Tell me, Butcher of Babies and Lord of Naught, will you make answer to a few little questions before I kill you?”
Maltar’s opaque black eyes roamed the lovely figure, but with the dispassionate interest of a farmer inspecting a pig on slaughter-day. Those exquisitely formed features, the rounded thighs crowding her snug short breeks, the full perfect breasts so displayed — all, he knew, comprised a death trap. The finest dozen cutthroats a man ever gathered from five nations lay in bloody proof. No doubt many a fool had failed to perceive the strength her beauty hid.
This time, it’s she who’s made the fatal underestimate!
From his great size, she must surely deem him slow. Oh aye, she was doubtless the swifter, with her whippy switch of a sword. At an opportune moment in the duel to come, though, he’d give her a brief demonstration of how fast a big man could move. With his hidden speed, his more than a foot’s advantage in reach and his far greater strength, Maltar was wholly confident.
“Surely,” he replied at last, “if ye’ll answer my few questions before I kill you, fiendish slut.”
“I am Tiana Highrider of Reme, Captain of Vixen, called Pirate Queen — by survivors. I do not split the skulls of children. So much for your questions. The hawk — is it a trained creature?”
“A demon, methinks; I know not whence it came. How did ye evade my men so easily?”
“Every bird cries and every animal in the forest hurries elsewhere at sight or scent of a hawk. Ye might as well beat a drum. It has not been long with you?”
“It has not. Ye have treasure, but ye carry it not. Where be it hid?”
“You attacked a camp with a pile of branches covered with a cloak, in the belief that I lay there. After such a disappointment, who would bother to thrust aside the branches? — My wealth lies beneath them. And I have no other queries, pig-faced murderer of children.”
“Why don’t ye just put by that steel switch and spread your legs like a good girl, and mayhap I’ll not kill ye so slowly.”
“That was your last question.”
They came together cautiously, eyeing, testing with tentative little thrusts and tight slashes, for each had respect for the other and must take measure. She was fast. The rapier sang like a mosquito and now and again he could actually see, for just an instant, her blade’s silver-grey wake in the air. Cautiously, Maltar began his attack. He kept his blade ever in good defensive position while he struck short, powerful blows. The flame-haired pirate dodged and parried easily, but the continued impacts were surely weakening her arm.
She’s no more accustomed to buckler than I, he thought, but only half as strong. He did not show her his smile of confidence; she was too dangerous for him to mock.
Steadily she gave ground — and then with a sideward dance into the glade’s centre, she launched her own attack. Now the silver-grey blur was constantly before his eyes. Steel rang on steel again and again as he parried an inordinately swift flurry of strokes. None breached his defence, but he was glad enow when she fell back, looking disconsolate — a trick! Leaping past him like a cat, she whirled and cut at his ankle. That hamstring stroke Maltar only just evaded, and was nigh skewered as he was off-balance. He caught the stroke, pushed strongly, and was recovered.
I was nearly slain! Maltar was not accustomed to such shocking possibilities. But now he allowed her to rain blows on his never-still defence in a series of wheep-clang sounds followed by the skirl of metal sliding off metal.
“Ho, that prance and cut-at-the-leg never failed you, hey? I am supposed to be down and helpless!”
She smiled, mocking. “A test of your speed, pig-breath. Deceptive for your size, isn’t it?”
By the Cud and that whore Theba — she had tricked him! Now she knew his swiftness. What a magnificent slut! What a shame; together they could own forest or sea and their coupling would be heard for leagues! And he must put death to such a woman — a woman worthy of me, by Theba’s nest!
She eased up; he attacked. Back and back across the sunlit glade he forced her, and it was not easy to keep his eyes off the jiggle and bounce of her half-displayed bosom. He had chosen time and location with care. The sun was to his back now, while he drove this astonishing woman toward a great spikebush, abristle with its long, curving thorns. To his right sprawled Radev’s corpse; she’d try to break past him on his left. One fast stroke and he’d make two of the wench. A shame; he’d not even be able to use the corpse. But… he dared do naught else. She was too good. Twelve dead men! His entire band. How did one even begin recruiting?
Careful, careful, the mind must not wander, nor the eyes. Give not away the plan; that tight arse nears the spikebush. Ah, she knows — she’s set to jump — now!
Tiana’s knees bent, straightened, and she jumped —
Maltar put all his body behind the leftward lunge. His blade keened with terrible force. It sheared through air only, and he had an instant to know that she had jumped in place, that his entire right side was exposed to her, his arm far to his left. He heard the ching of her slender point’s striking his mail just below his armpit, and he felt the blow.
The blade slid in. Maltar’s corpse pitched sidewise, trapping her blade and tearing it from her grasp. As Tiana knelt to recover it, a small bird squealed in fright. She flung herself aside. The diving hawk missed her by the breadth of three fingers. It slammed forward great wings, banked, shot upward, wheeled, dived.
Though the forest promised safety of a sort on either side, Tiana fled through the centre of the glade, toward the trail.
The hawk levelled. On only a slight downward course, it was rushing at great speed straight for the back of the fleeing woman’s head. There was a hideous cracking sound when it struck the silken rope still stretched across the glade. Tiana heard the leafy shiver of the tether-trees on either side, and the flutter. She whirled to see a mass of broken bones and feathers fall to earth. The flopping, broken creature underwent a writhing convulsion that was unnatural even in its dying.
As she watched, its shape changed. Hawk became man. The broken body was wrapped in black robes now splotched with scarlet. In agony, with blood pouring over his chin from his mouth, he forced out words with the will born of total malice.
“My curse on thee, meddling fool. Though I fail, my brothers will slay thee. Best accept that, lest thou share thy brother Bealost’s fate.”
The dying were-man fell silent. Before the horrified and vindictive Tiana could snatch Maltar’s sword and chop him to bits, his body shrivelled, dried. A little puff of smoke huffed up, and then fire sprang forth.
The body was consumed in seconds, with Tiana backing from intense heat. The grass of the glade was not so much as scorched.
*
On a table far to the north rest three little figurines in the shape of hawks. One is burning.
9 In the Tomb of Kings
The members of the ruling house of Nevinia attempt to extend their luxury beyond death. Near the capital, Calancia, at the edge of the Turbanis River, they have established the most beautiful and luxurious cemetery in the world. In vaults hundreds of feet beneath the earth the dead, buried with their most precious jewels, rest in rooms of marble and jade and lapis lazuli. The tomb is guarded by three squadrons of the Royal Guard, naturally the pick of the Army of Nevinia. Within the tomb, in front of the casket of King Nestor of old, rests the left arm of Derramal.
— the map of Lamarred
*
Tiana awoke in total darkness with the taste of defeat like ash in her mouth.
An attempt to raise a hand to her pain-throbbing head brought only a clinking sound and more discomfort. She was stretched on a cold stone floor, naked, arms b
ack over her head, legs obscenely wide apart, both wrists and ankles manacled to chains set in the chill floor. Her nose told her the place was filthy and had soaked up much blood and urine.
Despite the pain, her mind was clear. She recalled the disaster.
Early in King Zohar’s reign, the monarch had been embarrassed by a successful robbery of the royal graves. He had taken the strongest measures to prevent a recurrence of the desecration. Now the royal cemetery was guarded by both soldiers and ferocious dogs, the famed mastiffs of Sigilata in far northeast Bashan. The approach was limited to two bridges spanning an artificial lake… which was stocked with crebas, man-eating fish first imported from one of the many Kroll Islands. Thereafter attempts at theft had been rare. An unsuccessful thief who survived the immediate dangers received the harshest punishment devisable by the prodigiously fertile mind of Zohar’s charming queen.
Tiana based her plan on the simple fact that guard duty was dull. Once again she used the fact of her womanhood. Discovering which brothel sent girls to entertain the bored Dark Guards was not difficult, nor was bribing herself into the red-haired whore’s place. An amorous Dark Guardsman still wore his grin of desire when she hid his unconscious body in the bushes. Thus she won to the very door of the royal vault, where it seemed a simple matter to pick the lock and enter.
It was not. Instantly the tumblers were disturbed, there was the swish of a weight’s slipping within, followed by the clangor of an alarm bell. Perhaps she should have continued with her work and entered anyhow; instead, she spun and fled. Twice dogs overtook her. The first obligingly spitted himself on her needy sword. The second provoked a desperate fight at the edge of the lake, into which she was eventually able to hurl him, still alive. With the fish thus distracted, Tiana ran a few yards along the bank and plunged into the artificial lake. She swam across. She hadn’t succeeded, but at least she’d escaped to plot another try, she thought as she pulled herself out of the water. Then she had seen the pair of buskined feet, and the spear butt had come down on her head, hard.
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