The Bandit (Fall of the Swords Book 2)

by Scott Michael Decker

  “I'll leave it on, Lord.”

  The boy-medacor scanned the floor for traces of hemoglobin, reading chemical compositions with his talents. A drop here, a drop there, the trail was distinct enough to follow. His sense of direction good, he guessed where it led before they arrived.

  When they did arrive, he was too short to look through the hole. He saw the handle attached to stone. He guessed people were beyond the secret door, so he didn't open it. Quietly, he asked the Sergeant to look.

  “Now let's go, eh?” Healing Hand said, tugging the enraged Sergeant away. He knew what the man had seen.

  The nursery inside the offices of the Imperial Medacor.

  Lurking Hawk had finally exacted his revenge.

  “I deserve to lose my head,” the Sergeant said mournfully.

  “I hope you don't. The fault was the Lord Emperor's as well, eh? Didn't he order the Traitor confined to his own suite?”

  “Yes, but even so, someone, anyone, everyone should have thought of the secret passageways. We all know they're there!”

  Healing Hand nodded in the dark, retracing their route.

  When they reached Lurking Hawk's suite, the Lord Emperor Flying Arrow had arrived. His face was pale. Crimson rimmed his eyes. He clenched and unclenched his teeth, hollowing his cheeks. He had the Imperial Sword unsheathed, and it was dripping. Blood bespattered his robes. Seeing them, he motioned them to follow, retreating into the next room.

  Healing Hand and the Sergeant climbed from the passageway carefully.

  Sweating, Cloudy Sky looked frightened as they passed him.

  In the next room, the boy and the Sergeant knelt in blood and bowed to Flying Arrow. On the floor were the bodies of two warriors, both headless and disemboweled. No one else was present, the suite clear. Healing Hand guessed that the Emperor had ordered everyone out. Commanding the two guards at the bedroom door to fall on their knives, Flying Arrow had removed their heads while they had slit their bellies.

  “Lord Sergeant,” Flying Arrow said, “it would be an honor to assist you.”

  “I'd consider your help an honor far beyond my humble station, Lord Emperor Arrow. Since you offer, I accept. Thank you, Lord Emperor, for allowing this humble warrior to serve.” Opening his robes, the Sergeant drew a blade. Sweat dripped from his chin.

  Healing Hand swallowed. “Lord Emperor, please forgive me, I must object. This man isn't at fault for what happened. No one's at fault, Lord. I beg you to spare his life.” Bowing, he held it for a moment, then straightened.

  Flying Arrow looked at him with sympathy. “I can guess what you found in that passageway, Lord Hand. I've asked the Lord Sergeant to slit his belly not because of any fault, merely to silence those who know. We'd incur too much shame as an Empire if the manner of my son's death became public.”

  “Of course, you're right, Lord Emperor. May I suggest an alternative?”

  Flying Arrow nodded.

  “Erase the memory, Lord. He's a good man and deserves to live longer. Please, Lord.”

  Flying Arrow glanced at the Sergeant, who nodded vigorously. “All right, Little Lord. The Lord Illusion will have to erase the Lord Sky's memory as well. Lord Sergeant, report to the Sorcerer's office.”

  “Yes, Lord Emperor Arrow!” the Sergeant said, bowing deeply and leaving quickly.

  “What of you?” Flying Arrow asked. “You're too young for that. You'll need all of your mind for your duties as Imperial Medacor someday, eh? Serving my son the Lord Emperor?”

  “Yes, Lord. It is an honor that you consider me worthy of such esteem.” Healing Hand hoped he spoke with the proper decorum. “The Lady Matriarch Water has already instructed me in matters of extreme discretion, Lord Emperor Arrow. I treated her daughter Rippling Water and told no one what caused the affliction. I know the danger of even the smallest indiscretion, Lord Emperor.”

  Nodding, Flying Arrow examined his face. “Since this will be one of many secrets you'll keep, I'll let it remain. However, I want the Lord Sorcerer to teach you how to put your mind into compartments.”

  “Yes, Lord Emperor. Thank you, Lord, thank you very much,” Healing Hand said, relieved.

  “At a better time, we'll discuss further training for you, Little Lord. Ever think about becoming a psychological Wizard?”

  “Uh, I'd like that, Lord Emperor. It would be an honor.” He decided not to say that Bubbling Water had already asked him the same question.

  Smiling, Flying Arrow nodded.

  Healing Hand looked at the floor. When he looked up, tears streaked his face. “Lord Emperor, I'm sorry your son's dead.”

  His face crumpling, Flying Arrow began to cry.

  Standing, Healing Hand reached to reassure him, to commiserate.

  Spinning away, Flying Arrow turned to face the wall, his shoulders shaking violently, his sobs echoing in the room.

  Tears pouring down his face, Healing Hand returned to the bedroom to finish the post-mortem examination.

  Wanting to bring the dead infant boy back to life.

  Chapter 26

  The Northern Empire rose from its own ashes under two men: Scowling Tiger and Seeking Sword. The first, an Eastern expatriate, brought the bandits together, and the second, his origins the subject of intense historical debate, legitimized the new Northern Empire.

  We have only scant knowledge of Seeking Sword's youth. We do know that he succeeded Scowling Tiger in 9318, five years before the fall. The basis of Seeking Sword's sovereignty is unclear. Some sources say he was Lofty Lion's son, and other sources, Flying Arrow's. Still other sources say his father was Guarding Bear. In the words of an expression common to the period, “Infinite knows.”— The Fall of the Swords, by Keeping Track.

  * * *

  Staring at the knife, Melding Mind prepared to join the Infinite. The haft was a single chunk of emerald. Having passed from Wizard father to Wizard son for generations, the knife was old. Melding Mind reflected that that tradition would end when he plunged knife into belly.

  His own son!

  Scowling Tiger had often asked him to sire a child or two. Melding Mind had always been reluctant. The Tiger Raiders and all bandits in the empty northern lands faced a future obscure. The life of a bandit was without influence, face, or honor. Melding Mind wanted his progeny to grow up legitimate citizens of Empire—any Empire.

  As his son, Percipient Mind, had done.

  Knowing he'd never meet his son, Melding Mind contemplated the knife, the means of his passage onward. He felt so ashamed. Yawning again, he still felt drowsy after the long sleep induced by the Eastern Wizards.

  During the first moments of the siege, Flying Arrow had appeared to be leading the attack. Manufactured in the Eastern Empire, the fortress shields disabled themselves under the probe of the Eastern Imperial Sword. A moment before the awesome energy of the six Wizards put them all to sleep, Melding Mind had seen that his son Percipient Mind was emulating the signature of the Imperial Sword.

  His own son had penetrated an electrical shield. Not one, but thousands of electrical shields. An impossible feat. Thousands.

  His own son!

  A full battalion of Eastern Armed Forces had then poured into the fortress. If the Infinite hadn't sent an earthquake to stop them, they'd have slain all the bandits. In the attack, one hundred sixty-three Imperial warriors had died. The tiger had killed thirty Imperial warriors and one hundred thirty-three had died in the collapse of the central stairwell. The Infinite-sent earthquake had killed more warriors elsewhere. From the rubble of Burrow Garrison, the Empire had unearthed more than five hundred bodies.

  Imperial losses, though, were paltry compared to bandit losses. Thirty-two hundred fourteen bandits had died in less than an hour, slaughtered as they lay sleeping. A full twenty-four hours had passed before a single bandit awoke from the Wizard-induced sleep. Fortunately, the first bandit to wake had been a chemathon, and she'd begun to wake the others, converting their melatonin back to serotonin. Lacking this talent, the
tiger had been unable to help. As more bandits awoke, Scowling Tiger had ordered the bodies collected and the core emptied of rubble.

  Melding Mind had helped where he could. As the size of the tragedy unfolded, more and more bandits had come to him for treatment, unable to face the terrible reality. After twenty or so, Melding Mind had found he couldn't treat another, seeing their accusing glances and vilifying faces. Recognizing the pattern, he'd known that he was projecting these qualities onto his patients. The accusation and vilification were his own. He'd had to stop treating others so he could treat himself. “Physician, heal thyself,” one ancient philosopher had said.

  Melding Mind hadn't known how—and still didn't.

  His own son!

  Sighing, he contemplated an emerald-hafted knife.

  “Lord Mind.” In the ravine below him, carrying out yet another corpse, was Easing Comfort. He tossed the body like a sack of grain onto the stack in the ravine. From the northern entrance of the fortress, to the twin towers guarding the mouth a quarter-mile away, was a stack of bodies six to eight feet high. They'd nearly finished piling up the dead.

  “Lord Comfort,” Melding Mind replied.

  “May I join you, my friend?” Blond of hair and large of hand, Easing Comfort looked up at him through blue of eye.

  Indifferent, Melding Mind gestured him up.

  The Wizard-medacor jumped and levitated himself. Landing beside his colleague, Easing Comfort looked closely at Melding Mind, brown of hair, of eye, of skin. Sitting beside Melding Mind, Easing Comfort unsheathed a knife of his own. “I was serious, you know.”

  The Wizard frowned at him. “About … joining me?”

  The Wizard-medacor nodded. “In your journey onward, my friend.”

  “Eh? Has the Infinite addled your brains?”

  “No, Lord, not at all. I've also wanted to join the Infinite since the siege.”

  “Why?!” The other's mood moved Melding Mind profoundly. Of all the people he knew, none had a more pleasant disposition than Easing Comfort—or one more resilient. The Wizard-medacor never seemed unable to adjust.

  “For the same reason as you, my friend: I can't bear the shame.” Sighing, Easing Comfort spread his large hands beside his shoulders in an elaborate shrug.

  “What shame?!” Melding Mind replied. “You're shameless! You always have been!”

  Easing Comfort laughed easily. “No, my friend, I'm not talking about anything I've done. I recognized the signature of Percipient Mind in the attack. At first, I thought he was you.”

  Nodding, Melding Mind looked down at the knife. He felt it twisting in his gut.

  “I recognized another signature,” Easing Comfort added.

  The Wizard looked at his colleague. “That's right—I'd forgotten. The Wizard who put us to sleep, that was your son, wasn't it?”

  Nodding, Easing Comfort looked down at the knife.

  “If you wanted,” Melding Mind said, “you might feel proud that your son has such power and talent. He supplied most of the energy and focused it with incredible precision. I'd have thought he was using a talisman, but he wasn't. That was him doing most of the work. From what I saw, he could have put half the Tiger Raiders to sleep by himself.”

  “If I wanted,” Easing Comfort said tersely, contemplating knife.

  “Why don't you want to?” asked Melding Mind.

  “Why don't you?” Easing Comfort retorted.

  His own son! Melding Mind laughed and hung his hand on his friend's shoulder.

  Laughing also, Easing Comfort hugged the man. They shared so much, had so much in common.

  “Infinite blast you both!” said a gruff voice from below.

  “The Infinite's too late,” Melding Mind replied, still laughing. “Our sons have already blasted us. What do you want?”

  Scowling at them, Raging River turned to the man beside him. “Lord Tiger, I humbly beg permission to take the heads of these disrespectful curmudgeons who've insulted every one of our dead with their laughter.”

  “We all handle tragedy in different ways, Lord River,” Scowling Tiger replied. “Permission denied.” The bandit general looked up toward the Wizards, his daughter in his arms.

  The girl looked up and waved. “Bad smell!” Purring Tiger said, holding her nose. The tiger shook her head and snorted to clear her nostrils.

  “We've found all the bodies, Lords,” Scowling Tiger said. “Let's go.”

  The two men on the ridge descended, floating down into the ravine. Melding Mind murmured at his emerald-hafted knife, “Another time, eh?” Then he sheathed it.

  Raging River frowned at him. “You talk to that blade as I talk to my sword.”

  “We all have our idiosyncracies, Lord River.”

  Nodding, the old retainer turned to issue orders to the levithons coming out of the fortress.

  Melding Mind followed Scowling Tiger toward the mouth of ravine. The tops of twin towers caught the first light of day. He walked sadly along beside his friends, trying not to look at bodies they passed, trying not to shoulder the blame for their deaths.

  An act of the Infinite had brought his son to the northern border to help Guarding Bear besiege the Tiger Fortress. An act of the Infinite had interrupted that siege and destroyed Burrow Garrison at the same moment. “The Infinite giveth and the Infinite taketh away,” said the Book of the Infinite. Melding Mind had always thought the passage inane. He understood now why people so often quoted it.

  At the mouth of ravine, Scowling Tiger looked back.

  Melding Mind stepped past him, looking northward.

  Raging River, his voice echoing in the ravine, issued a loud, ringing order. The quarter-mile stack of bodies rose, a levithon lifting every ten feet along its length. The funeral procession began its journey north.

  His own son!

  * * *

  Four hours after sunrise, the procession halfway to its destination, the news reached them on the flow: One of the Arrow Twins had died in the night.

  Melding Mind felt no happiness at the Empire's misfortune. Their losing half their hope resonated with his own loss. Bowing his head, he walked north in silence, finally able to grieve.

  “What are you crying for?” Raging River raged at him.

  “Go to the Infinite,” Melding Mind said without rancor.

  Raging River drew and slashed but the Wizard easily stopped the blade.

  Scowling Tiger stopped and turned. “Put it away, Lord River.”

  Raging River looked at him murderously but sheathed his sword.

  “I forgive you this time, Lord,” the bandit general said gently. “We're all on edge, eh? You rage, he laughs, she curses, he cries. Our reactions all differ, Lord River. Leave it be, eh? If you have to, hack up a tree, but don't harm anyone except yourself.” Scowling Tiger stared the man down as the stack of bodies moved northward, inexorable.

  “Yes, Lord. Forgive me. I'm sorry. Perhaps you'll do me the honor of taking my head. I don't have any use for it.”

  Scowling Tiger smiled sadly. “I do. Let's go, my friend.”

  “Yes, Lord.” Raging River fell into step beside his liege lord. “I'm sorry, Lord Mind. The Infinite made me do it, eh?”

  Smiling, Melding Mind nodded and resumed walking beside the retainer with iron hair and iron anger. The Wizard began to meditate with the monotony of their progress, letting his pain flow with him, around him, through him.

  * * *

  When he next became aware of his surroundings, the sun told him hours had passed. Ahead, Scowling Tiger had stopped on a rise and was shaking his head. Then he walked down the other side.

  Melding Mind gained the crest.

  Beside the path stood Leaping Elk, Slithering Snake and an unknown woman, an infant child in her arms. An electrical shield enclosed the woman and child. Across the path from them stood Bucking Stag, his mate and a chief lieutenant. The Westerner watched Scowling Tiger—not his enemy across the road.

  Melding Mind raised his eyebrows. Bucki
ng Stag and Leaping Elk had been enemies for so long no one remembered the reason for their enmity. Yet here they were, together.

  As if on cue, all the bandits ahead bowed. Scowling Tiger and his contingent bowed back equally. They joined the procession without a word.

  Melding Mind slipped back into his trance.

  Other bandit leaders joined them along the way, the Wizard only peripherally aware of each. Dust clung to his face, sticky with evaporated tears.

  * * *

  Close to sunset they arrived.

  A trench gouged the meadow beside the road.

  The long line of bodies split into several segments, each segment as long as the trench. Without much ceremony, the levithons lowered each segment into it, parallel to each other. Bodies filled a trench just deep and wide enough to hold them all.

  From one end Melding Mind watched the levithons move tons of earth over the bodies, piling it up high above the level of the road.

  Burial wasn't the custom. They simply couldn't have burned so many bodies. Corpses would've rotted before they could have burned half of them. Burial was their only alternative.

  Tears poured anew from Melding Mind's eyes as they covered the mass grave over. Stone masons constructed a monument nearby, a simple arch over the road, on it a simple inscription: “Here lie 3214 bandits, killed by Empire in the Year of the Infinite, 9303.”

  The levithons finished as the sun's last rays streaked the western sky. Soon darkness descended upon a world already too dark.

  Melding Mind wept openly.

  His own son!

  * * *

  Under mournful stars, around a blazing fire, bandits gathered.

  The Medacor Easing Comfort looked around the group. They represented three different nationalities and fifteen of the largest bands. Forty-five, fifty people in all, he estimated.

  Before the siege, all had accepted invitations to come four days hence to the Tiger Fortress for a conference to unite bandit against Empire.

  Standing, the medacor walked around the fire, greeting everyone by name. Most of them knew him and trusted him. As chief medical officer of the Tiger Raiders, Easing Comfort was by extension the most well-known healer north of the Windy Mountains.