The Gilded Chain

by Dave Duncan

  It rolled in the sea of blood it had already lost. But still it was not dead. Leaping backward from its attack, he slashed and hacked, blood sticky on his hand, the lantern light winking uncertainly. He cut off the monster’s head. The body reared up, front paws clawing at him. He swung mightily, and cut it in two. The halves flailed helplessly, while the head was still snapping. It couldn’t move, though, so he left it and went racing up the stairs.

  In the distance, the great bell began to toll, the signal he had arranged. At the first landing, he could hear tumult along the corridor in both directions—men cursing, women screaming—but he had to keep going upward, heading for the King. The dog-thing had attacked him on sight, so while the attack might be aimed at the King, everyone was vulnerable.

  Halfway up the second flight of stairs, he heard claws following him. Ignoring them, he reached the top and sprinted along the passage. Lights flickered and flashed ahead of him, showing men and monsters fighting. There were bodies on the ground—men with their throats torn out, fragments of dog still thrashing and snapping. But the men were winning and now more of them were emerging from the doorways.

  “Silence!” he bellowed. “Blades stay with the King.” That was inevitable, of course. “Knights, go and hunt down the rest. Clear the palace!”

  Close on his heels came a pack of monsters, streaming out of the darkness with eyes glowing in the light of the lanterns. Sheepdogs, mastiffs, bulldogs, wolfhounds, terriers, cuddly lapdogs—so they had been. Now many were teetering on hind legs and most of them were man-sized or even bigger, with slavering nightmare jaws. But there were twenty or more men in the press of defenders, so he squirmed through them until he reached the first door. He rapped the agreed signal—three, two, one.

  Locks clattered and the door opened a slit. Terrified eyes peered out at him, and then he was allowed in. The doorkeeper was Falcon, the one with the upturned nose he had first met years ago, while returning Wolfbiter’s sword to Ironhall. Now Falcon was one of the officers, although more because of his sword skills than the quality of his judgment. He slammed the door again and locked it, but by then his leader was already running through the warren of the royal suite.

  He passed four dead dogs in pieces and two dead men before he reached the bedchamber. The bed curtains were ripped and torn down, revealing a girl sitting there with covers up to her chin. She was so high on the heaped mattresses that he could see her over the heads of the men standing in a ring around the bed, and he registered her ashen face and wide-stretched eyes and bloodless lips. She looked as though she wanted to scream and could not find air.

  At the foot of the bed stood the King in a purple robe, with his scanty hair all awry, steadying his hands on the hilt of an upright broadsword. His expression suggested that somebody was going to die to pay for this, probably several somebodies. All around him stood Blades and knights. There were four dismembered dogs on the floor, the pieces still thrashing. Big dogs. Huge dogs, they had been. And a whole lot of blood. The air was foul with the stench of blood and offal. The expensive rugs would be ruined.

  Muffled tolling of the bell and distant screaming—but in the room, sudden silence.

  “You should not appear before us improperly dressed, Commander.” The King was more shaken than he wanted to show, but obviously in control of himself. Starting to enjoy himself, in fact, the fat bastard.

  “Anyone hurt in here?”

  “Nothing serious,” said Dreadnought, who had succeeded Snake as deputy commander. He had blood all over his arms and in his sand-colored beard. There was a makeshift bandage on his left wrist. “We lost a couple out there, though.”

  “I saw them.” Durendal made a fast count. Thirty or so. If that wasn’t enough, he couldn’t imagine what would be. The King, thank all spirits, was not given to sleeping with dogs. His last queen had been, though—four or five at a time—but she was gone. Lucky!

  He said, “They’re not just coming here, sire. They seem to be attacking anyone. I think we can keep you secure, but I’m afraid we have casualties elsewhere.”

  To confirm his remark, a chorus of deep baying had almost drowned out the tolling of the bell. It sounded like a choir of thousands.

  The King’s dawning smile shriveled away. “Has anyone any idea of how many dogs there are in the palace?”

  “Not as many as there were,” Fairtrue growled.

  “You must have them hunted down, Commander!”

  “I’ve arranged for that, sire.”

  Before Durendal could comment further, the nearest window collapsed in a shower of glass and lead and wood. The thing that came in through the drapes was roughly dog shaped, but as big as a bull. It had six-inch canines and claws almost as long. As four men converged on it, another window crashed.

  Durendal jumped for the King and manhandled him toward the corner of the room. Ambrose was big. He instinctively resisted, dropping the broadsword to fight off this assault, but Durendal had more muscle and a binding to aid him. He thrust his sovereign bodily into the garderobe, slamming the door.

  The King tried to open it. Durendal threw all his weight against it. “Stay there until I tell you to come out!”

  The first monster was a heap on the floor, methodically hacked to pieces. The second was now being given the same treatment, but not before it had crushed a man’s head in its jaws. Who had that been? There were four windows in the room. He began organizing precautionary defense at the other two. If the hound things could climb three stories up the side of the palace, the outer walls were not going to keep them from invading the grounds. How many dogs were there in Grandon? What was the range of this conjuration? How huge were they going to become?

  How many windows led into the royal suite? “Flint! See to the next room!”

  Another monstrosity started to come in the first window. Fairtrue hacked off a taloned paw and it toppled back and vanished into the darkness with a long, discordant howl, cut off abruptly as it met the rose garden far below.

  “Nice one,” Durendal said. He ran over to look out. He caught a brief glimpse of the palace with innumerable windows flickering lights and what seemed to be scores of enormous ants scrambling upward. Then a huge set of slavering fangs opened in front of him. He jumped back and rammed Harvest into the jaws.

  He heard more windows shattering and a door going down in the distance, suggesting that all the defenders in the corridor were dead or wounded. It was going to be a long night. He snapped orders, setting guards on each window, with backups to spell them off and clear away the debris so that the fighters had room. The King had emerged from the closet, but just far enough to reach the bed and catch hold of the girl, who had fainted. He dragged her to him and carried her into the garderobe. He came out again, scowling at Durendal.

  “I’ll stay here. If they get close, I’ll even hide inside.”

  To his own astonishment, Durendal laughed. “If they get close, I’ll join you!”

  Several voices shouted at once, “Leave room for me!”

  Bloody flesh was making the floor slippery. The stench of eviscerated dog was appalling. Monsters fought their way in through the windows almost on one another’s tails, but the Blades had their measure now—hack at the muzzles to cut away the deadly jaws, chop off the legs. The flesh still writhed, but it could do no harm.

  Men began screaming out in the dressing room. Flint and his helpers fought a determined rear action, retreating back into the bedchamber before the ghoulish attackers. Soon the doorway was almost blocked by corpses.

  Durendal had begun to feel better, though. His initial impression had been wrong—the sheer weight of this attack showed that it must be directed at the King. There could not be enough dogs in all Chivial to put so many into every window in the palace. Unless they started tearing their way through the stonework he could hold this room. Blades protecting their ward would fight for days before they dropped dead, and he did not think the hounds’ attack could match that defense. Everyone in the room
now was soaked in blood. Young Ebony was sure to lose that crushed arm and was weeping on the bed, being tended by Sailor.

  It was going to be butchery, but nothing worse than that. Just a very long night.

  10

  Lunch in Durendal’s quarters the next day was a boisterous celebration. Snake was there, and so were a score of old friends from the past—Felix who was Keeper of Brimiarde Castle; Quinn, now Master of Rapiers at Ironhall; Hoare who was father of four—his wife produced them in pairs—and many more. It was a school reunion. Parsewood, on his knees, was lecturing the solemn Andy on what a great man his father was. Scrimpnel jiggled Natrina on his lap, and the little minx was playing up atrociously. Kate, the only woman present, was being hailed as the heroine of the hour. Nonsense, she said, every White Sister in the palace had pealed like thunder; it hadn’t been detecting the conjuration that was the problem, it had been doing something about it. She beamed proudly at her husband and nagged the footmen to distribute the wine faster.

  From cellar to turrets, Greymere reeked of dog guts. Flesh was being carried out in barrows. Thoughts of the death toll lurked just below the gaiety, but the Blades had won the most dramatic victory in their entire history. Every success must have a price, and in warfare it was often the price that measured the victory—a dozen members of the order had died to write this epic in the annals.

  Brock, who had ambitions to be master of rituals at Ironhall one day, was pontificating on how the thing could have been done in apparent defiance of the rule that spirituality could only be applied with an octogram. Enchanted dog food, he opined, with much more confidence than conviction. Audience response was moving from scathing to outright hostile when the Chancellor walked in. Everyone who had found a seat stood up; those already upright bowed.

  “No, no, no!” Montpurse pulled off his chain of office and thrust it at Kate. “Hide that in the laundry bin!” He pecked her cheek. “I’m not here officially. I just want to be one of the gang again, like old times. Franklin, you young scoundrel, what’s this I hear about you and the ambassador’s daughter…?” He began working his way through the overcrowded room, greeting everyone by name without hesitation. Kate hung the chain around her neck for safekeeping and headed for a mirror.

  “How is the big man?” asked Hoare when his turn came.

  “Preening,” Montpurse said with a cautious smile. “Accepting congratulations from all the peers of the realm. Don’t anyone mention garderobes for the next ten years.”

  “Congratulations to you also,” Durendal said, fighting his way through with a glass of wine. “This ought to put paid to our mutual unfriend!”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, taxing the orders was his idea, wasn’t it?”

  Montpurse sipped his wine. A ripple of silence flowed out from him until he was the focus of every eye. He had never been one of the gang—even at Ironhall he had always been a chief.

  “Not so simple, I’m afraid,” he said quietly. “Whom do you think Parliament will blame?”

  The room erupted in protest. Durendal felt a touch and turned to see the worried face of Hawkney, one of the new juniors.

  “The King wants you, Leader.”

  Montpurse smiled thinly at Durendal and said, “Good luck.”

  What did that mean?

  The King was in his dressing room, which alone among the rooms in his suite had escaped assault in the night. Feet had tracked bloodstains across the rugs, but there were no other signs of damage, and the rugs, but there were no other signs of damage, and the stench was bearable. He was busily complicating the efforts of his valet to undress him.

  Royal toilets were frequently public occasions, but this one was as private as could be, with only old Scofflaw, the valet, and a single Blade by the door—Flint, who was discreet. His commander did not post gossips to such intimate attendance on the King.

  Durendal bowed when the royal head appeared from inside an undershirt.

  “I owe you my life again, Commander.”

  “My duty, sire. And my pleasure, too.”

  If the King had been preening earlier, he wasn’t preening now. He scowled as he stepped out of his britches. “What’s the latest toll?”

  “Much the same—twenty dead, seventeen mutilated, a couple of dozen bitten less seriously. About half those were civilians, the rest swordsmen. Six of the dead were women, sire, which—”

  “And where did all those swordsmen come from?”

  “The Blades? Oh—you mean the knights?”

  “You flaming well know I mean the knights!” Ambrose said with a sort of wry menace. He was amused, though. “Hurry up, man, I’m freezing to death.” That was to Scofflaw.

  “Well, from all over, sire. Starkmoor, a lot of them. From the length and breadth of Chivial. They were all very glad to have a chance to serve again….”

  “But it was you who thought to summon them and have them standing by. I was wrong; you were right.” The King sighed. “Give me your sword.”

  Durendal felt a jolt of alarm. “Sire, if you are planning what I think you are, I must respectfully point out that the danger has not yet—”

  The King held out his hand. “I have kept you bound too long, my friend. How old are you now?”

  “Thirty-five, sire.” Thirty-six in a few days. “But I’m still—”

  “And how old is the next oldest Blade in my Guard?”

  “Four or five years younger, I suppose.” Nearer ten. Panic! A Blade released from his binding was a lost soul. “Sire, I beg you to remember that reading the inquisitors made. If I’m not bound then you can’t trust—”

  “Readings are camel drippings!” the King boomed cheerfully. He seemed quite unaware that he was wearing only his underwear and exposing a belly that would have filled a wheelbarrow. “Bound or unbound, I trust you before anyone in the realm. Now give me your sword and kneel!”

  Many times Durandal had watched Blades whining and pleading when faced with this terrible moment. He had always promised himself that he would not be such a fool when his own end came. Nevertheless his shaking fingers took a shamefully long time to remove his ruff, open his doublet, unbutton his shirt, and expose his shoulders. He knelt before the king. The sword that had bound him touched his flesh—right, then left…

  “Arise, Sir Durendal, knight in our Loyal and Ancient Order.”

  There was no peal of thunder, no sense of change, and yet now the burden must be gone. No longer need he worry night and day about defending his ward. Perhaps it would take a few days for that realization to sink in. What was he going to do with the rest of his life? He could leave court! Kate would dance on the ceiling. Aha! He could kill Kromman!

  He should have known that something dramatic would happen right after he went back to Ironhall. It always did.

  Smiling, the King held Harvest out to the side. Flint came forward to take it, carefully avoiding Durendal’s eye.

  “Baron Roland, as I recall?”

  “I suppose so, sire.” Strange—it still felt like a loss.

  “Your— Blast you!” That remark was directed at old Scofflaw, who had seen an opportunity to leap forward and plunge a garment over the royal head. Ambrose reluctantly put his arms through the armholes. “Your recommendation for your successor, Lord Roland? Dreadnought?”

  Durendal glanced toward the door, where Flint now stood again. The King frowned and gestured for the Blade to leave, which he did, taking Harvest with him. The door closed. That left Scofflaw, but he never spoke to anyone except perhaps the King. He was older than Ironhall, probably half-witted, a bent and desiccated husk of a man. Junior Blades and younger courtiers told terrible Scofflaw jokes. (What has four legs and steams? Scofflaw ironing the King’s britches.) Scofflaw did not count.

  “Bandit, sire.” Dreadnought was twenty-eight, much too old.

  “Bandit?” The King frowned. “Which one is he?” Once he had known every Blade in his guard personally. “Not that corset, you blockhead!
It pinches. The old one.”

  “The one with the eyebrows, sire. He never enters the Cup contest, but he’s the best man by far. They’ll follow him into a furnace.”

  The King shrugged. “Send him up, then.”

  “I may tell him that you asked for him?”

  A chuckle. “If you wish, my lord.”

  With half his buttons still undone, Durendal started to bow.

  “Wait. I’m not finished.” The King gasped in agony, but that was merely the corset being tightened. “Pull, fool, pull! You expect me to go out looking like a butter churn? Tighter!” He groaned. “Find Chancellor Montpurse for me.”

  Someone tipped another bathtub of icy water over Durendal. “Your Majesty?”

  “And bring me his chain.”

  “Sire! But—”

  “No buts. It’s for his own good. If I don’t do this, Parliament will impeach him.”

  Sick at heart, Durendal muttered, “As Your Majesty commands.” The rank injustice of it burned like ice in his belly. All this uproar was Kromman’s fault, not Montpurse’s. He began to bow again.

  “Wait,” the King said again. “We’ll settle this now. I have every confidence that you will be an excellent chancellor. It brings an automatic earldom at the next investiture.”

  “Me? Me? You’re joking…er, Your Majesty. I’m a pigsticker, not a statesman, sire!” The floor rocked under his feet.

  Trailing Scofflaw on the end of his corset strings, the King stumped over to tower above Durendal. “Would you recommend I appoint Kromman?”

  Oh, bastard! Couldn’t he at least have found a more honorable argument than that? “Sire, I am not capable. I am only a swordsman. But Kromman is a liar and a killer and a human slug. Your Majesty cannot possibly be serious about—”

  “No, I am not. Now kneel and kiss my hand and then go and get that chain.”

  Bugger! Gross, fat, conniving bugger! Unbound or not, Durendal could not refuse his sovereign. He knelt as Baron Roland to kiss the King’s hand and rose as first minister of Chivial.