The Bandit (Fall of the Swords Book 2)

by Scott Michael Decker

  'Oh,' the Wizard's mouth formed without sound.

  “With the Lord Eagle's help, Lord Hand, how many do you think you could put to sleep?” Guarding Bear asked.

  “I'd guess with two more of him, I could knock out everyone inside the Tiger Fortress,” the boy said flippantly, grinning at his own joke.

  “I'll requisition four more Wizards to help you. Part of the Lord Eagle's attention will be on the fortress shields. Sound about right, Lords?”

  The medacor and the Wizard looked at each other, then at the General.

  “You're not serious, are you?” Spying Eagle asked.

  “That's madness!” Healing Hand said, giggling.

  Guarding Bear neither smiled nor frowned. “I can't do it without either of you, Lords. The Tiger Fortress has never fallen to siege with its shields intact. I don't have anyone inside to sabotage the shields for me. Lord Hand, you're the one with all the raw power. Lord Eagle, I need you to disable the fortress shields.”

  The blond boy and the brown man looked at each other, then entered into a long communion.

  Guarding Bear waited placidly, listening to the edges of their exchange, pleasantly mystified by their instant familiarity and affinity.

  “We don't have to kill anyone, do we, Lord Bear?” Healing Hand asked eventually.

  “No, Lords, not if you don't want to.”

  The two of them again linked minds.

  A few minutes later, Spying Eagle said, “We'll do it, Lord General.”

  At last, Guarding Bear smiled.

  Chapter 14

  How did the Northern Emperor Lofty Lion rise from the dead? In 9288, the Eastern Emperor Flying Arrow killed every captured Northerner in front of Lofty Lion. Unable to endure the slaughter, the former Northern Emperor died in the dungeons of Emparia Castle. Then, in 9318, on the banks of the River Placid, Lofty Lion tried to assassinate Flying Arrow. Did the Infinite resurrect Lofty Lion? Did someone impersonate him? Was Lofty Lion's death merely propaganda?

  History suggests the latter. With the death of Lurking Hawk, the last Northerner, in 9303, all hope died of finding the lost Northern Heir Sword. How, if Lofty Lion had died, did Seeking Sword find the missing Sword? No one except a true northerner would've kept its location hidden for over thirty years. Therefore, Lofty Lion must not have died at all.—The Fall of the Swords, by Keeping Track.

  * * *

  The fate of Empires hangs in the balance, Flying Arrow thought ruefully, lamenting the need for his own unfolding deceit. He wished he didn't have to bring Exploding Illusion with him, not wanting even the newly-invested Sorcerer along.

  The two men descended the long spiral stairwell toward the catacombs beneath Emparia Castle, their moccasins whispering on stone. They lit their way with electrical lamps. The hand-held units emitted just enough light that they didn't grope in the dark for each step. Any more light would alert others through gaps between granite blocks. The poorly maintained masonry indicated the age of the stairwell.

  Earlier that evening, Flying Arrow had questioned the Traitor about the night of Guarding Bear's repatriation.

  * * *

  Guards wearing portable electrical shields lined both sides of the corridor. Approaching the doorway of the converted suite, Flying Arrow heard laughter in the Wizard's odd inflection. He'd grown accustomed to the Northerner's accent, Lurking Hawk having learned the Eastern language after the fall of the Northern Empire. Now, from inside a prison, that same accented voice was laughing when it should have been, if anything, crying.

  That morning, over the objections of nearly everyone, Flying Arrow ordered the former Sorcerer's suite turned into a cell, instead of imprisoning the Traitor in the castle dungeons. Flying Arrow replaced the staff of servants with warriors. Their instructions were to fetch whatever Lurking Hawk requested, within reason, but not to let him leave or to allow him out of sight for a single moment. They inspected the suite for weapons and talismans. After removing the weapons—they found no talismans—they moved the Traitor from the castle infirmary to the ransacked suite. Only the trusted warrior-servants, the Imperial Medacor, and the Emperor could enter. Lurking Hawk was a beaten man, pitiably abject in his loss of status and power. Flying Arrow saw no reason to humiliate him further.

  Confining Lurking Hawk to the same rooms he'd occupied for fourteen years bothered Flying Arrow, but he didn't know why.

  The Emperor strode between the guards and into the suite.

  On the floor was Lurking Hawk, supine and spread-eagle as if he'd fallen from a great height, laughing uncontrollably, insanely.

  “Lord Emperor Arrow,” said a Captain, bowing.

  Flying Arrow nodded, not averting his gaze from the Wizard. “What's wrong with him, Lord Captain?”

  “The Lord Wizard has done this off and on throughout the day, Lord Emperor,” the Captain replied.

  Flying Arrow kicked the man to get his attention. “Get up, Lord Hawk.”

  “Eh? Oh, it's you, ha ha ha, oh, me, ha ha ha, uh, forgive me, Lord.” Lurking Hawk climbed slowly to his feet. Bandages still wrapped his hands and feet. The bandages kept him from using new flesh so recently regrown onto fingers and toes. The Wizard made an obeisance insolent for its ostentation.

  Flying Arrow nodded, unoffended. “I want to speak with you alone.”

  “Oh, Lord? Well, that'll be quite a feat. These new servants are so slavish I can't even eliminate in privacy, ha ha ha, ho ho ho. Unless you ordered them never to leave me by myself, eh?”

  “I did,” Flying Arrow replied.

  “Well, problem solved, eh? That was easy, ha ha ha, oh, ho ho ho. What did you want to talk to me about, Lord, oh, oh, oh…?”

  Flying Arrow inspected Lurking Hawk's face for signs of insanity. Although unqualified to make such a diagnosis, the Emperor had seen symptoms in other people.

  In Lurking Hawk's eyes was a vacancy of spirit. Otherwise, the expression was one of mirth, a grin of knowing complicity. Seizures of laughter shook him. Lurking Hawk glanced at something over Flying Arrow's shoulder, then at the floor, then at the wall, then at his face, then at a chair, then at the wall. His gaze never remained on an object for more than a moment. He looked like nothing more than a man condemned—and grappling with it badly.

  “Go into the bedroom and make yourself comfortable as far away from the door as you can,” Flying Arrow ordered.

  Lurking Hawk obeyed with insane hilarity.

  “Give me a portable shield,” Flying Arrow told a guard. “Leave us in privacy, but check on us every three minutes by knocking on the door, eh?”

  Setting the shield to enclose only him, he entered. Closing the door behind him, Flying Arrow stood with his back to it and looked around, having never seen where the Wizard slept.

  Spare, simple furniture occupied a room without decoration. The room hinted no one lived there. It might have been a storage room for the bed and chair.

  Odd, the Emperor thought.

  “What did you say to Lofty Lion?” he asked, his voice low.

  “Who? Ho ho ho, he he he, oh, Lord Infinite, save me from stupidity, ignorance, and the likes of this bumbling Emperor, her her her, ho ho ho, he he he—”

  “The Wizard Spying Eagle has transferred to Emparia Castle, Lord Hawk. I'll use all tools of statecraft necessary to find out what you said or did to Lofty Lion.”

  “Tools of statecraft, eh he he he, ho ho ho. You vomit statecraft like half-digested food, fumbling foolish Lord Emperor Arrow, ow ow ow, ho ho ho—”

  “Where's the Heir Sword?”

  “Why, I don't know, Lord Emperor, never have, ha ha ha…”

  This time, Flying Arrow didn't interrupt Lurking Hawk's laughter, which this time ceased abruptly. For a moment the two men regarded each other silently.

  “I can make your remaining days easy or hard, Lord Hawk. Which will it be?”

  “Oh, I'd much prefer my remaining days to be hard. Can't fornicate enough, eh, ha ha ha. At least, I have life in my liquids, ha ha
ha. When the inseminator finished, I took a turn, ha ha ha, ho ho ho.”

  Flying Arrow knew Lurking Hawk goaded him. The guard knocked discreetly. The Emperor cracked the door, nodded at the man, then closed it again. “If you want it that way, Lord Hawk, I don't object. Since I don't know what you did or said to Lofty Lion, I'll have to kill him. Better to prevent a treachery than to wonder if he'll perpetrate one, eh?”

  “Oh oh oh, uh, indeed, Lord Emperor, indeed. He's the only one who knows where the Heir Sword is, he he he, ha ha ha—”

  “Has he known all this time?!”

  “Of course, Lord. You don't think he'd trust me after my father's criminal acts, do you?”

  The lack of laughter alarmed Flying Arrow. He didn't know whether to believe the last statement and nothing else previous, or vice versa.

  “Oh, Lord, I forgot all about, ho ho ho, that matter we discussed several days ago. I meant to ask, he he he, if you uh, ho ho ho, devised a plan to stop strife between your twin sons, ho ho ho.”

  “I haven't given it any thought,” Flying Arrow lied.

  “Well, ha ha ha, just wondered, Lord, ho ho ho, uh, just want the best for you and yours, oh oh oh, the best of the worst, ha ha…”

  Sighing, Flying Arrow opened the door to leave.

  “… ha ha, I appreciate your letting me remain here, Lord, ho ho ho,” the Wizard said. “I know you could easily throw me in the, ha ha ha, dungeons, ha ha ha, ho ho ho, ha ha ha…”

  Flying Arrow kept walking, leaving Lurking Hawk to his laughter. Like an evil spirit, it followed him into the corridor, echoing insanely in his mind throughout the afternoon and evening.

  * * *

  Only as he descended to the catacombs with Exploding Illusion did the haunting heckle of Lurking Hawk cease to hound him.

  The interminable stairwell led the two men downward.

  Their clothing black and insulated for the cold, they finally reached the base of the stairwell. The dank corridor smelled of mildew and decay.

  “This way,” Flying Arrow said, speaking for the first time since they'd entered the stairwell high in Emparia Castle.

  They passed several corridor intersections, the endless warrens laid out in a grid. The tunnels were mostly straight, unlike the convoluted corridors in the castle above them. The scrape and slap of moccasin the only sounds, they walked northward through catacombs claustrophobic, their heads bent forward under the low ceilings. Centuries of accretion littered the floor, some of it brought in by rodents, some by infrequent floods when the river ran high, some by occasional passersby such as themselves.

  “Lofty Lion must be ancient by now, Lord Emperor,” Exploding Illusion said, the chance of someone overhearing them nonexistent.

  “He was ancient when I took the Sword from him fifteen years ago,” Flying Arrow replied. “He must be ninety now.”

  The Sorcerer grunted.

  The tunnel deposited them on the banks of the river before they knew it'd ended. Flying Arrow shut off the lantern, hoping no one had seen the light. The opening looked like a drainage culvert. Several spilled their contents into the river during the season of rain. To the south and west of them, between the river and the castle, was the ecological preserve. To the east was empty, snowy river bank, the high levees rising behind them to protect the houses beyond.

  “I hope the disabler still works.” Flying Arrow looked across the water, the snow-covered levee across the river plainly visible in the moonlight.

  “Indeed, Lord. How long ago did the Traitor implant Lofty Lion?”

  “Fourteen years. Of course, I don't know if Lurking Hawk followed my instructions to have the disabler work without his being present. A risk I had to take.”

  Exploding Illusion nodded.

  “Prepare yourself for crossing.”

  The two men secured their waterproof packs in case the levitation failed or something disrupted it. Levitating objects was simple and without the hazards of levitating human beings. Freight had no talent to interfere with the levithon. Consciously or not, people often created enough of a disruption in the psychic flow to make long levitated journeys impossible. During the short river crossing, either of their talents might upset the delicate balance between gravity and the opposing force of levitation. Hence, the two men prepared for a dunking.

  The diamond pulsating softly, Flying Arrow concentrated. Slowly, they rose a foot off the bank. The turbulent flow a quiescent monster beneath them, they moved out over the water. During spring runoff, the River Placid was a frothing torrent. The river drained the length of the southern Windy Mountains as well as the plains south of the river. Long ago, their ancestors had recognized the alluvial wealth carried down the river during spring. Sunken at intervals in the riverbed, transverse to the flow, stone retaining walls collected the alluvium. Each year just before the season of sowing, kinathons dredged up the wealth and sold it to farmers. They left every other trench undisturbed to preserve the river's fragile ecology.

  Flying Arrow lowered them to the northern bank, relieved that a swim hadn't interrupted the crossing. The soft, pulsing glow of the diamond died as he sheathed the Sword and looked to the west.

  The two men began to walk along the snow-layered bank, despite the easier travel on the levee crest.

  “You've prepared the implant as instructed?” Flying Arrow asked.

  “Yes, Lord Emperor,” Exploding Illusion replied, his breath puffing from his mouth. “Instead of changing the innate attitude, the implant will set up a counter unpleasantness whenever he tries to vilify you or the Eastern Empire. He won't be able to utter a single word against you. I think it'll be adequate.”

  “What's the counter unpleasantness?”

  “He'll feel nauseous, Lord.”

  Flying Arrow chuckled, stepping over a snag washed up by the river, smelling an odor of rot and corruption. How could anything rot in freezing temperatures? he wondered.

  Exploding Illusion followed at a pace.

  Flying Arrow looked back to say something, then abruptly bumped into—

  Lofty Lion said, “Watch where you're going, oaf!”

  Flying Arrow drew a deep breath to rebuke and fetor filled his lungs. Stumbling away, he vomited, frantically snorting to clear the stench from his nostrils. While he regained his composure, Flying Arrow reflected that if the former Emperor's own smell didn't nauseate him, neither would an implant.

  The Emperor stood, glancing at the Sorcerer. “Did I imagine that?”

  “No, Lord Emperor,” Exploding Illusion replied, looking puzzled.

  Flying Arrow nodded, wondering how the former Emperor had suddenly appeared in front of them. He looked closely at Lofty Lion.

  The former Emperor had little hair left. What remained was an unkempt crown tufting the flaky, mottled scalp. Spit spilled down a protruding jaw, the mouth containing only two rotten stubs. The neck was a pillar roped with wrinkle, supporting a sagging jowl. Crimped posture suggested spinal fusion. A bulbous larynx distended the throat. Mucus dripped from a nostril, wiped away with a crusted sleeve. Loose skin folds hung below cheekbones collapsed. Glistening, jaundiced eyes peered from beneath a lupine brow. Trembling hands clutched a polished staff. Liver-spotted skin stretched across protuberant vein and gnarled knuckle.

  Lofty Lion appeared to have aged forty years in fifteen.

  “Infinite be with you, Lord Emperor Lion,” Flying Arrow said.

  “Put it in your back passage,” the old man replied.

  “I wish to be civil about this, Lord Lion.”

  “ 'Civil,' eh? You weren't very 'civil' when you killed every last one of my people.”

  “No, I wasn't. I regret that I did something so barbaric, Lord. Forgive me my contemptible behavior.”

  “Euphemisms won't minimize your depravity and apologies won't absolve you. The Infinite will hand down your judgment, however—not me.”

  “Yes, Lord Lion. The Infinite will probably reincarnate me as a tapeworm in some dog's back passage, eh
?”

  “Too good a fate for you,” Lofty Lion replied. “What do you want?”

  “I have a task to entrust to you, Lord Lion.”

  “Ha! You wouldn't trust me with your excrement. You know I'd find some way to desecrate it.”

  “You would. For this task, I have no one else on whom to rely, Lord. You've no doubt heard that my Consort is pregnant.”

  “I have. That idiot Traitor came north a few days ago to tell me what I already knew from the flow.”

  “Oh? Why did he do that?”

  “Why does a traitor do anything? Only he betrayed me too many times. I shouldn't have ever invested him to the position of Sorcerer, not with his diseased and iniquitous lineage.”

  “What did he say to you?”

  “The Traitor tried to tell me that the time for our vengeance upon you had come. I wanted no part of it.”

  “He tried to persuade you to do something?”

  “I didn't give him the chance. I left before he told me what he wanted. So you finally turned your face from him, eh?”

  “Yes, Lord Lion, but his undoing was his own doing.”

  “What did you expect from a traitor?”

  “Treachery,” Flying Arrow replied, shrugging. “Anyway, Lord Lion, you've no doubt heard that my Consort is expecting twins.”

  “Did you silence the fornicator?”

  “Eh? What?”

  Lofty Lion glanced toward the sky, shaking his head. “With your meager knowledge of statecraft, it surprises me you've kept the throne this long. If you insist, I'll explain in detail so it doesn't befuddle you. Since your quiver is empty, the Consort must have cuckolded you. You'd better silence the fornicator so he doesn't, at some later time—”

  “I've silenced the fornicator.” Flying Arrow dominated his impulse to silence Lofty Lion.

  “Well, good. I'm happy to see that the Infinite's given you more than a modicum of brains. What about the bastards?”

  The Emperor sighed, asking the Infinite for patience. “You remember Scratching Jaguar's difficulties, eh?”

  “Ah, I see. Don't want two heirs, eh? I wouldn't either. What's your problem? Just kill one of them. You don't have any scruples anyway. If you'd kill a half-million Northerners, killing one Easterner won't cause you a moment of insomnia.”