Also Vilkata tried to formulate some way to pursue or entrap Mark, who, on leaving the city a few days ago, had evidently taken with him from his special armory no other weapon besides the Sword of Healing. Karel and other converts had amply confirmed that fact.
The idea of a massive hostage-taking was beginning to grow in Vilkata’s thoughts. Whatever problems might be about to confront him, having a few thousand hostages on hand would be a good idea.
He snapped out decisive orders to get the process started. Let a thousand or more of the city’s people, without any particular selection, be rounded up, disarmed, and herded into the palace complex. Converts good for nothing else would do perfectly well as hostages, and would be as fanatically eager to assume that role as any other.
* * *
The elder magician Karel, with all a convert’s eagerness to be of help, had volunteered to be Vilkata’s counselor, and appeared with an offer to send a treacherous message to Prince Mark.
Vilkata, raising an eyebrow in approval, listened judiciously.
Kristin’s uncle was eager to do all he could for his new lord. “The best tactic, Master, might be to persuade the Prince that I, Karel, have not been converted after all.”
“You think you could convince him?”
“I think the tactic worth considering. If we can thus get Mark, and my dear niece—ultimately for their own good, of course—”
“Of course.”
“To give up this foolish and unequal struggle.”
Vilkata had grave doubts that any such plan could work. But he asked the old wizard to work out the details.
When informed of the plan to take hostages, Karel was not so enthusiastic. But, in his converted opinion, if people refused to see the light, they really deserved no better than a miserable death. Of course it was too bad about the children; but their fate could hardly be blamed upon the glorious Dark King, who never did anything wrong.
* * *
The Dark King, having now ordered repeated searches of the palace and its grounds, believed that his recent opponent in the armory had been no one but the young Princeling, Stephen. That puppy had gotten away with two of the most dangerous Swords.
Karel offered firm assurances that the stripling would never be able to carry such a double burden of magic very far.
* * *
Then, quite unexpectedly, the wizards’ conversation was interrupted. One of the Dark King’s new human slaves, still strongly under the Mindsword’s lingering influence, came running in with word that Arridu was clamoring to be admitted to Vilkata’s presence. The great demon was announcing his intention to give the Dark King a great gift.
* * *
Vilkata, having had no report from the monster demon for several hours, had begun to fear that Arridu had gone the way of Akbar, had become a victim of Shieldbreaker in the Tasavaltan Princeling’s hands.
In a moment the gigantic fiend, in the guise of a black-clad warrior, was entering his Master’s presence, one hand outstretched and far from empty. Arridu was making a present to his beloved Master of a sheathed and belted Sword, its power for the moment safely muffled.
One glance at the black hilt showed Vilkata that the weapon being put into his hands was no less than Shieldbreaker itself.
The Dark King cried out with joy, with near-disbelief at his own good fortune.
The loyal one, the great demon Arridu, stood back in silence. Quickly recovering from the Mindsword’s influence, he might already be starting to have second thoughts about the wisdom of turning over this Sword—but those thoughts came at least a minute too late.
Vilkata waved the Sword of Force, and roared with triumphant laughter.
Chapter Ten
The news of the attack on Sarykam reached Princess Kristin and Prince Mark in the sleeping village of Voronina just before sunrise. These first disjointed signals of the horror arrived in confused and fragmentary form, borne in the small brains and uncertain speech of two half-intelligent bird-messengers, the only creatures of their kind who had succeeded in escaping the demons’ onslaught on the palace.
Actually it was Ben of Purkinje, sleeping in his blanket-roll under the stars, who was first awakened by the beastmaster; and it was Ben, huge and ugly Ben, who then, grumbling and blaspheming all the gods that he could think of, came bringing the unwelcome tidings on to Mark and Kristin, in the yeoman’s cottage where the royal couple were being housed during their visit.
* * *
Prince Mark was jarred out of some dream that was very strange, skirting a strange borderland between beauty and ugliness, by a knocking on the yeoman’s door. Mark was in general a lighter sleeper than his wife, or any member of the farmer’s family.
Working himself out from under the light cover, and then from under the outflung right arm of his sleeping wife, Mark, a tall, strong man now forty years of age, stood beside the bed and reached for some clothing. He had made his way downstairs and was listening to the news before anyone else in the house was properly awake.
He had had time to hear Ben’s message before blond Kristin, four years younger than her husband but looking younger still, followed Mark downstairs with a blanket wrapped around her, to join her husband where he was standing with Ben and the beastmaster in the morning twilight at the front door of the little house.
Kristin stood beside the three men listening carefully, grasping swiftly many of the implications of what was being said, herself having little to say at first. Shortly after she arrived, the farmer himself, next to be awakened, came to stand with his extraordinary visitors, listening too, holding a flaring brand from the hearth that gave at least uncertain light.
None of those who listened had much to say at first. The news of the attack came as a ghastly shock to all who heard it. Could there be any possibility of a mistake?
“Where are the birds now?” the Princess presently asked. “I want to hear directly from them whatever they can tell me.”
“Yes, let’s see them,” Mark agreed.
Ben bowed lightly, a graceful gesture in so huge a man, and turned and led the way across the darkness of the farmyard. Mark and Kristin followed him to where a lantern was burning in the barn. Here the beastmaster had established himself with his little squadron of messengers. Bird-eyes glowed down in pairs from the high loft.
The two feathered creatures who had just arrived with the black news from Sarykam were of the species of giant night-flying owls. One of these messengers had arrived wounded and with its feathers scorched—ominous confirmation of the ghastly news. The uninjured owl had been flying half a kilometer from the city when the attack came; the other had somehow managed against all odds to make its escape from the ravaged aeries and blunder its way through the cloudy night to Voronina.
This bird, the smaller of the pair, speaking in its halting, half-intelligent small voice, could give few actual details of the attack. But it reported the presence in Sarykam of many demons, which strongly tended to confirm Mark’s and Kristin’s immediate suspicion that the Dark King was involved.
The Princess, listening, sighed and said: “Well, let us rouse our squad of soldiers.”
But there was no need, most of the men had been sleeping outdoors near the barn and were already stirring. A small military guard, some fifteen or twenty mounted troops under the command of a captain, had accompanied the Prince and Princess on what had been expected to be a relatively uneventful trip.
In fact, at least half of the small village now seemed to be awake. Perhaps, the Princess suggested to her farmer-host, everyone should be awakened, since all had a right to know the situation.
The commanding officer of the small military squad, Captain Miyagi, came up to find Prince and Princess scanning the lightening skies, concerned about a possible attack on the village by demons or flying reptiles.
The Master of Beasts was also part of the military detachment who had come out from the capital. Fortunately, as a routine measure, he had brought along a complemen
t of messenger-birds, intended to keep the royal couple in touch with all the relatively far-flung portions of their realm.
Now the Prince and Princess gave the beastmaster explicit orders. He saluted and moved briskly away.
Kristin looked at Mark. “Stephen,” she said. All her concern and hope were audible in the one word.
Ben was standing by, muttering words of counsel when requested. At the same time he was privately and intensely worried about his family left back in the city, though he acknowledged that by his own choice he’d seen neither wife nor daughter for some months.
* * *
Following a night of violence and terror unprecedented in Sarykam, the early stages of a summer’s dawn, heralded by the traditional signs of cockcrow, fresh dew, and a changing sky, were now overtaking the normally bustling outskirts of the city.
This morn was unusually quiet for an area so populous and ordinarily so filled with activity. At the moment the main road approaching the capital from the west carried almost no traffic. Conspicuous was a single rider, mounted on a large, magnificent riding-beast. This animal was bearing the rider’s considerable weight toward the city at a brisk pace, even after laboring under the same burden through most of the night.
This close to the city the road was broad and smoothly paved, and a recent shower had left the pavement wet. The rider sniffed the heavy, smoky air and seemed to grant the morning his approval. He was a bulky, gray-haired man in his early sixties. His powerfully built body, scarred by a hundred fights, was wrapped in a gray cape, which in the eyes of naive observers would have identified him as a pilgrim. A more accurate reading would have been that he preferred just now to be anonymous.
The Moon, a waning crescent with horns aimed approximately toward the zenith, hung in the eastern sky, where it had just emerged from behind a tatter of cloud. A morning star was visible as well, Venus, to the east beyond the city and above the sea, a planet so round and lustrous that many people seeing it on that morning took it as an omen. The weary rider had little faith in omens, as a rule. But something in which he did have faith rode at his side in a long sheath, under his gray cape. Half-consciously he touched the black hilt with a large hand, as if to make sure it was still there.
When he had come within half a kilometer of the city walls, the traveler reined in his mount slightly, slowing his progress the better to observe a certain gray-clad man on foot who was carrying what looked like garden tools, notably a shovel, over his shoulder. This fellow was plodding along, coming from the direction of the main gate, and evidently bound for the loop of road that would take him to the coastal highway heading south. On becoming aware of the mounted man’s inspection, the man on foot returned his glance and waved, without breaking stride, as if to some fellow pilgrim.
The mounted traveler waved back, without really giving the gesture any thought. Then he faced east and urged his riding-beast forward once more.
As the bulky man on his strong mount entered the area of practically continuous settlement just outside the city walls, he took note of half a dozen columns of smoke, each of a steady thickness, all together far in excess of what might have been expected from morning kitchens or other common activities. These smoke-plumes, ascending from unseen sources within the walls, blended at high altitude into a sooty cloud smeared by the morning breeze all across the lightening eastern sky. The sight suggested to the traveler that in the city several buildings, perhaps a great many, must be burning. Indeed, the volume of smoke suggested that no one in Sarykam was making much of an effort to put the fires out.
The traveler was not particularly worried that the whole city ahead of him was going to go up in flames. For one thing, there had been the recent rain to wet things down. For another, he was familiar with Sarykam, and recalled that most of the buildings inside the walls were constructed of stone and tile. A third and more fundamental reason for the traveler’s equanimity was that he personally did not really care whether or not the city and everyone in it might be burned to cinders.
Steadily he pushed on, approaching the main inland gate of the Tasavaltan capital.
Just before he reached that tall portal the visitor turned once more, frowning, to look after that other supposed pilgrim—there had been something odd about that man and his tools—but the road behind was empty now.
With a shrug the mounted man proceeded about his business.
* * * * * *
When the mounted traveler’s methodical pace had brought him right up to the main gate where the high road went through the walls, he paused again to look the situation over. The gate, as a rule alertly guarded, now stood wide open, and there were no lookouts visible on the high city walls. These were ominous signs, even on such a superficially peaceful morning as this.
Even as the traveler sat in his saddle watching, there emerged from the gate a very young man wearing only a nightshirt, tall and thin to the point of fragility, looking both distressed and dazed. Blood that seemed to have run down from a recent untended scalp injury was drying on his forehead. This youth came wandering out of the open gate and along the high road for a couple of dozen paces, then off the road into an adjoining ditch. There he stood, staring at nothing, pulling thoughtfully at his lower lip like a scholar trying to remember the answers to a test. When the mounted traveler hailed him, the tall youth did not respond.
Well, thought the man in the saddle to himself, I certainly cannot say that I have not been warned.
But he had business here. He was not about to be turned back by warnings so indirect and impersonal as these.
Again the mounted traveler moved on slowly. By listening carefully he could hear, coming from somewhere inside the gate, a distant roaring, as of a crowd or mob, acting at least roughly in unison. The traveler’s riding-beast, which seemed to be listening too, pawed the stones of the road and snorted.
Taking into account the several indications he had now been given, the observer decided that something in Sarykam was seriously amiss. He felt no great surprise at the discovery.
And now, even as the visitor watched from his saddle, he observed a new banner, of gold and black, being hoisted on the watchtower beside the gate, replacing the accustomed blue and green of Tasavalta. The latter banner was now hurled rudely to the ground by soldiers—if they were soldiers—of ragtag appearance, at least half out of uniform.
The observer thought the new emblem’s stripes were somewhat uneven, as if the flag had been hastily sewn together. And looking in through the open gate he was able to catch a glimpse of another such flag going up on the tallest mast of the towering palace, well in beyond the walls.
The rider nodded; it was a brisk and private gesture of satisfaction, that of a man having a prediction confirmed. In the hues of the new banner he recognized the livery colors of the Dark King.
Whenever the traveler’s gray cape moved aside a little on the left, the sword at his waist once more became visible. Harder to make out was the fact that this was no ordinary weapon, but a Sword, the Sword of Chance.
Before definitely deciding on his next move he partially drew Coinspinner and consulted the Sword, making the pommel point one way and then another, observing a vibration in the blade and feeling it through the black hilt.
Then briskly he dug heels into the ribs of his tired mount, and once more confidently rode forward, straight in through the main gate.
As the journeying rider entered the city the indications became even more obvious that here remarkable and violent events had very recently taken place.
At frequent intervals Coinspinner’s wearer guardedly drew, or half-drew, the weapon. Each time the Sword cleared enough of the sheath to allow the owner to feel the surge of magical power, indicating to him which turning he should take next. The course thus mapped by Coinspinner was about as straight as the streets would allow, and took him in the direction of the palace.
From time to time during the intervals when he was not actually consulting the Sword, its owner repeate
dly looked down at the black hilt, or felt for it to make sure that it was still there. Each time he was reassured; but with the Sword of Chance, one could never be really certain from one moment to the next where in the world it was going to be.
Coinspinner, uniquely among the Twelve, had always been fundamentally its own master. Following its usual pattern of moving itself about mysteriously, magically, the Sword of Chance had some months ago come into the hands of the adventurer Baron Amintor.
Having ample experience with the Swords, enough to trust their powers implicitly when Fate granted him the privilege of doing so, Amintor had been overjoyed at his good fortune. He had wasted no mental effort or energy trying to account for such a blessing, but had followed Coinspinner enthusiastically.
Firm in his expectation that Coinspinner would continue to provide good luck, Amintor now continued to follow the Sword’s guidance through the maze of streets. It was leading him in the general direction of the palace.
The sky over Sarykam had changed again, getting past the stage of dawn, assuming now the colorless glow of very early daylight. The sun was still obscured in fog, somewhere above the eastern sea. The streets of the capital were quiet at the moment, but the visitor decided that this hush must have been a very recent development. A brace of dead bodies lying unattended in the middle of the thoroughfare testified with silent eloquence to an exciting night just past.
The traveler was not one to be dismayed by a few dead bodies; no stranger, he, to either war or civil tumult. And at present he felt comfortably well armed. Alertly he allowed his Sword to guide him forward. His riding-beast, also a veteran campaigner, pricked up its ears as it stepped past the bodies, but the animal betrayed no great excitement either.
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