The Bandit (Fall of the Swords Book 2)

by Scott Michael Decker

  “No, Lord, thank the Infinite.”

  “I have—during a skirmish with the Southern Empire in 9283, right after Snarling Jaguar succeeded his father. I gutted a panther from the Imperial Jaguar Menagerie, and the Lord Emperor didn't dare send another against me. No one else has fought an animal like this, and no fornicating feline's going to stop me from killing Scowling Tiger!”

  “Lord General, you're not even taking a shield!”

  Guarding Bear held only a knife and sword. “Exactly. Ever wonder why no one has ever defeated me? Just keep the warriors working. I'll remove the tiger.”

  “Yes, Lord.”

  Guarding Bear climbed the slope to the hole they'd molded in the side of the mountain. Through it, he entered the fortress, like the thousand other warriors who'd preceded him.

  The assault began so well. First, Spying Eagle disabled the shields. The five other Wizards helping, Healing Hand put ten thousand bandits to sleep. While Spying Eagle held the shields disabled, the other Wizards disconnected them from their power sources. The fortress girded with thousands of shields, disabling them took a few minutes. Healing Hand and Spying Eagle then retreated to Burrow, their tasks done. While chemathons molded a hole in mountainside, the other four Wizards poisoned the water and food supplies, destroyed the shields, melted the wiring, and crushed the machinery in the bowels of the mountain.

  Issuing from the northern entrance of the fortress was a long line of bandits. Just inside the entrance, other non-combatants were sleeping soundly. Guarding Bear ordered his warriors to leave alone the ones who'd already escaped but to kill any bandit inside the fortress.

  Then one Wizard noticed how fragile the central stairwell was. Scowling Tiger had probably weakened the long spiral staircase, in case he needed to destroy it. Guarding Bear ordered the Wizards to freeze the hooks that held the stairwell in place.

  Warriors poured into the hole and soon reported that the layout was different from the floor-plans the General had given them. As they ascended, killing sleeping bandits along the way, the warriors found that the bandits had completely redesigned the first three levels. The fourth showed signs of construction, as if the bandits had been changing the floor plan.

  Guarding Bear would've done the same.

  Soon the warriors reported that the central stairwell was the only way to ascend. Ah, Guarding Bear thought, so Scowling Tiger planned to demolish the stairwell, cutting off access to the upper levels of the fortress. The plan would've stopped any conventional siege instantly. The bandit general hadn't expected Guarding Bear's cabal of Wizards to disable the fortress shields.

  None of the unexpected developments stopped the siege.

  Neither will this Infinite-blasted tiger! Guarding Bear thought, fuming. He stepped over another bandit body, entering the core. Leaning out over the precipice, he looked upward as a screaming warrior plunged past him. He watched the man fall unimpeded into darkness. A long moment later, he heard a faint splash, then looked up.

  Far above, inside a long spiral, a striped head ducked back out of sight.

  Guarding Bear ascended at a run. At a third of the way up, he considered ordering the warriors to stop trying to kill the tiger. An unoccupied enemy will find some mischief to do, he thought, deciding against it.

  Warriors moved through the many corridors he passed, their blades bloody, pools everywhere. Guarding Bear fell heavily the first time he slipped. Cursing, he discarded his moccasins, knowing bare feet better on treacherous surfaces. He passed hundreds of bandit dead on the stairwell. Loping upward, Guarding Bear watched with dismay as body after body fell past him, casualties of clashes with the tiger.

  He wondered how the tiger had escaped the Wizard-induced sleep.

  Belatedly, he remembered that the menagerie animals could shut off their higher-order brain functions. Artificially grown and not necessary for neurological functioning, the frontal and pre-frontal lobes had unusually few connections with the remainder of the brain. The animals could decrease glucose consumption until the neurons still lived but couldn't fire. With these lobes shut off, the tiger's signature was undetectable. The animal looked like an animal.

  Guarding Bear had known and forgotten.

  Cursing his lapse, he reached the level below the tiger. He stopped to look.

  Sending another warrior onward to the Infinite, the tiger regarded the General with large yellow eyes. On the steps below, a group of warriors huddled together, their swords pointed at the cat.

  “You're dead, pussy!” Ordering warriors out of his way, Guarding Bear loped around the stairwell one last time.

  The tiger hissed and spat as he approached.

  Animal and man squared off. Guarding Bear crouched low, knife and sword nearly at his feet.

  The tiger growled.

  The man growled back.

  The tail twitched, twitched, twitched, and the tiger leaped.

  Throwing himself toward the wall, Guarding Bear slashed upward with sword. It met only air as she twisted in mid-leap to leave a shallow triple slash down his back. Screaming, he turned to face her on the stairs below. The fire of pain seared his back. Like fear, pain sharpened his senses. Crouching on a step near the inner edge of stairwell, she licked his blood off her claws. Each was as long as his knife. She hit him with a telekinetic burst. He deflected the beam back at her. She recoiled, her rear paw slipping off the edge. Into her face he thrust his sword. Blinking, she ducked and he was on her but she twisted to embrace him and his legs went around her waist to squeeze and he dropped the sword to grasp a foreleg and sank the knife home toward her throat but she knocked it out of his hand and slashed at his throat but he caught the foreleg and with his only weapon left he yanked both forelegs back over his shoulders and sank his teeth into the loose fur of her throat while she thrashed and tried to squirm from his grip but his travel-hardened legs held her body tight and his powerful arms kept her fore-claws away from his back and his head buried under her chin kept her from using her teeth and his talent deflected her multiple talents and they wrestled with each other but neither could gain an advantage.

  A tangle of fur and flesh tumbled down the stairwell.

  A rumble deeper and louder than any tiger echoed up from the bowels of the mountain.

  Suddenly, the animal writhed and almost threw off his grip but then they began to fall, the stairwell giving way beneath them.

  The Windy Mountains shook with the Infinite of an earthquake.

  Even as they plunged toward their deaths, Guarding Bear put his hands on the tiger's throat and squeezed.

  * * *

  “Push!” the Matriarch said.

  Bubbling Water held one knee, Shading Oak the other.

  On a stool at the foot of the bed sat Soothing Spirit, patiently.

  Flowering Pine gasped, expelling breath, then paced her breathing to the Matriarch Water's rhythmic count.

  “One, breathe, two, breathe, three, breathe…”

  After the tenth breath, another contraction began. The Consort bore down. Her face was a grimace of strain, her auburn hair dark with sweat, her skin red with exertion. The two Matriarchs held her knees up. Leaning forward over her distended abdomen, Flowering Pine pushed like the Infinite.

  “Good, Lady,” Soothing Spirit said. “I can see the fontanels. The baby looks properly positioned.” The Imperial Medacor hadn't been able to watch the fetuses during pregnancy. No one knew what the twins' positions were or even if the twins were healthy.

  When Flowering Pine's water had broken at midnight, Bubbling Water and Shading Oak had walked her to the castle infirmary. She'd begun to have the intense contractions of true labor.

  Flying Arrow had come down to look in on the mother of his children, but had soon excused himself, his face pale.

  Having the help of the two Matriarchs, the Imperial Medacor had ordered everyone else from the room. Both women were competent and experienced, having often helped their daughters bring forth life.

  Gasping a
gain, the Consort leaned back and paced her breathing to Bubbling Water's count.

  Sighing, Soothing Spirit applied more unguent to the rim of distended vulva, the salve containing a mild local anesthetic.

  The Consort's talent kept him even from relieving her pain.

  Childbirth was usually a simple process. With talent, Soothing Spirit could have drawn off the pain, strengthened the uterine muscles, dilated the cervix and even pushed the baby through the birth canal if necessary. By now, Flowering Pine would've already given birth to both twins.

  The help that he could give was meager. How will Flowering Pine bestow half her reserve upon each twin? Soothing Spirit wondered. The bestowal at birth awakened a child's talents. The thought of an Emperor with impaired talents scared Soothing Spirit. Flying Arrow was bad enough.

  He was grateful that she'd gone into labor so quickly after her water had broken. Some women didn't. With infection a danger, a medacor needed to increase the production of oxytocin in the mother's blood after a breach in the amniotic sac. The Imperial Medacor couldn't have induced labor because of the Consort's talent. Deliberately, Soothing Spirit didn't think of all the other hazards of childbirth. Such thoughts were a waste of worry.

  In one of the private rooms in the castle infirmary, the four of them struggled to bring the Heirs to the throne into the world.

  This birth is in the hands of the Infinite, Soothing Spirit thought.

  Under his feet, the floor shook mildly. “Temblor,” he said, frowning. With a shrug, the medacor turned his attention back to the Consort.

  * * *

  Inside the small, shielded cave near the cavern entrance, under the dimmed electrical lamplight, Fawning Elk pushed with everything she could give, physically and psychically. Finally, she felt something give. The baby slid from her. Labor had lasted an hour.

  The medacor lifted the newborn from between her legs, laying him in her arms. The umbilical cord snaked over her abdomen and down. “Everyone, please close your minds,” the medacor said.

  The infant struggled weakly. Laughing, tears running down her cheeks, Fawning Elk summoned her concentration. She felt the bestowal gather momentum inside her, such an instinctive part of birth that it was almost spontaneous. She needed only to supply the energy.

  Half her psychic reserve jumped into her newborn.

  Then, despite her physical and psychic enervation, Fawning Elk cleaned up her baby. With her trace chemathonic talent, she lifted amniotic fluids and the excrescences of birth from the child's skin. Clearing the nose, mouth and throat of mucus, she expanded the child's lungs with his first breath. The baby squalled on the exhalation.

  Only then did she sever the umbilicus and sear the nerveless stub with pyrokinesis. A post-partum contraction clenched her. She closed her eyes, feeling the placenta tear away from the endometrium. The afterbirth slid from her body. Her uterus contracted again, already trying to reduce itself to its pre-pregnancy size.

  She put the baby to her breast, the nipple between her fore and middle fingers. Colostrum distended the milk-glands. She'd get her milk after she'd nursed a few days. These first fluids passed along many of the mother's immunities. Guiding her baby's mouth toward the breast, she entered into psychic communion with her infant, instructing him. Pleasure filled her as the baby latched onto her breast and began to suckle.

  The medacor cleared away the last of afterbirth from her uterus, canal and vulva. Lifting her hips from the bed, he changed the sheets. To absorb further excretions, he wrapped her nether regions with a pad. He covered her to her breasts with a blanket, swaddling the child with a smaller cotton one. Taking the soiled linens to the birthing-room door, the medacor passed them to a band member, greeting Leaping Elk as he entered. The medacor and his assistants then left the room to give the woman and her mate time with the baby, the first moments precious, never to happen again.

  * * *

  Taking the medacor's stool, the Southerner sat beside the bed and looked on as mother gave child first succor.

  “He's beautiful, isn't he?” she said in the Southern tongue.

  The infant looked like a drowned rat, the fine, dark down plastered to the bruised, misshapen head. Leaping Elk nodded and smiled. He supposed all newborns looked beautiful to their mothers. He caressed her shoulder, noticing that her skin was cold. “Are you warm enough?” he asked.

  “Would you get me another blanket?”

  Nodding, he pulled one from the pile nearby, covering her.

  “Come here. Lay down beside me,” she told him.

  The bed was just wide enough. Snuggled up beside her, watching her breast-feed the boy, feeling the security she infused into her contact with her child, Leaping Elk felt at peace with himself and his world.

  Then the earthquake struck, hurling their world into darkness.

  Chapter 23

  I sat in the rubble and wondered. How the Infinite did I get myself into this situation? Remembering the thousand heads Scowling Tiger had sent to Emparia Castle, I thought, “That's the reason.”

  Then I had to be honest with myself. Although they were fellow citizens, I'd sent many of them into the fortress to spy. I told myself, perhaps I deserved the delivery. The Caven Hills rebellion, Howling Tiger's death, my mating the Matriarch Water, my brother's mating Fleeting Snow, the civil war. A thousand injuries and insults I'd inflicted upon Scowling Tiger, some intended, others not.

  Why was I buried alive in the Tiger Fortress? Was it truly Scowling Tiger's fault? Perhaps it was a hole I had dug on my own. Perhaps the fault was mine.—The Lectures of Guarding Bear, 9323 to 9335.

  * * *

  Thick rock dust clogged his throat. He coughed to clear it. Pebbles rattled in the dark. Sediment sifted down with a hiss. He saw nothing but black. Then he became aware of pain.

  Excruciating pain, the pain of shredded skin that felt like flame. Also the deeper, nauseating pain of broken bone. So terrible was the pain that his sight began to cloud, his stomach to heave. He willed himself to stay conscious and to find some escape from…

  Wherever he was.

  Where am I? How did I get here? What's my name? he wondered, weariness washing over him. “I'm Guarding Bear!” he shouted, as if that meant something.

  The noise brought a cascade of dirt down on him. Coughing, he spluttered to clear his throat. How did I get here? he wondered.

  The memory came upon him.

  He and the tiger had fought to a standstill when the earthquake had struck, collapsing the central stairwell inside the Tiger Fortress. Even as they'd fallen, he'd tried to choke the tiger. Something had struck his head and…

  Darkness.

  That's why my head feels wet, he thought, knowing it blood. Trying to reach the injury, Guarding Bear discovered that rock entombed him so tightly he could hardly move.

  Where else am I injured? he wondered, searching his body. His back, from the tiger's claws, he remembered, and his head. Neither, though, was the source of the deep nauseating pain. Where…

  His right leg. The pain was so excruciating it would steal his consciousness if he let it. Other than the injuries to his head, back and leg, he seemed whole. The tons of stairwell falling on top of him should have crushed him, as it probably had any warriors below him.

  Thank the Infinite I'm alive! he thought. Buried beneath thousands of tons of rubble deep in the heart of the fortress, a prison no human being would ever build. Or even think of building. Would I be better off dead?

  Panic began to rise inside him. He tried to calm himself. I have to concentrate on escaping from this place, he thought. If I focus on the futility of my situation, I'll die of despair. Panic can kill me as well.

  He tried to move his right leg.

  And screamed.

  The rock replied with showers of dust. His bladder squirted urine in pulses and his rectum pumped feces down his legs. Sweat pouring down his face, he coughed and gagged, waiting for the agony to subside. Tons of stone probably pinioned the leg. So perva
sive was the pain, he guessed that the leg had fractured in multiple places, perhaps shattered. If I have to, I'll cut it off, he thought, knowing that a medacor could grow him a new one. He realized he didn't even have a knife.

  At that, he went within, seeking sanctuary inside, no longer able to face the horrible reality of dying beneath tons of rock, unable to free himself. The only freedom now was with the Infinite. He'd probably have to starve to death to get there.

  Receding from reality, he left pain and panic behind. He resolved not to starve to death, to die trapped like a rat beneath tons of stone, slowly, in agony. Infinite embrace me! he thought. He began to slow his heart. His breathing became shallow. His thoughts grew peaceful and sluggish.

  His heart, breath and thought stopped.

  Then abruptly started again. Again he stopped them.

  Again they started. From the depths whence he'd retreated, he heard the faint call of another voice, as if from a distance.

  Blast, he thought, wanting death.

  The voice persisted.

  The owner of the voice must have restarted my heart. I want to die! he thought, swimming up through the depths toward the world of consciousness, of darkness, of pain, of panic.

  Reaching the waking world, he found that his panic had subsided. He felt pain, but also peace, contentment, completion.

  'Thank you for living, human,' a soft female voice said. Under the voice was unendurable pain, like his.

  'What do you want?' Guarding Bear asked, wondering who this was.

  'I want your help, human.'

  The tiger! he thought. 'Why did you reanimate me?'

  'I want your help, human,' she repeated.

  'I don't give my help to enemies,' Guarding Bear replied.

  'Not even to save your own life?'

  Through his haze of pain, he considered his life. Almost forty-six years old, he'd lived beyond the wildest dreams of his youth. No one had ever defeated him in battle or duel. Easterners had deified him before he was forty. Incalculably wealthy, he had two fine sons, an infant daughter and a wonderful mate. He realized that he had no further ambition than to be exactly who he was. What life did he have to save?