Saber and Shadow

by S. M. Stirling

  Chapter XXIV

  Sammibo could hear the gate lieutenant’s nasal voice echoing down the entrance corridor of the Iron House long before the portals came in sight. There wasn’t much traffic here after sunset, and discipline enforced silence. For most, the staff officer thought. That youngker is making enough racket for himself and twenty other fools.

  “It’s obvious, little Rahlini; the great red cow doesn’t understand the high speech. She didn’t even look up after that last insult—graciously delivered as it was.”

  Sammibo softened his step as he paced past the faded stains around the side entrance, smiling. He caught Shkai’ra’s eye over the shoulder of the lieutenant and the hapless private who was a forced witness to his baiting of the outlander. Shkai’ra leaned at her ease against one of the doorposts, ignoring the light drizzle soaking her tunic; her back rested against time-blackened brass-strapped oak, towering four body-lengths above her. The gate under-officer turned to her again.

  “How long will you wait for the officer?” he said, in labored city patois. Under his breath he added: “Offspring of a sow and a shark,” in the formal tongue, but very softly; the foreigner’s passivity had made him bold, but there was something about the scarred hands thrust into her belt that contradicted it.

  Shkai’ra jerked her head slightly to indicate Sammibo and cleared her throat. “I see,” she said, in officer-class Fehinnan with a slight burr, “that you’re still using lapdogs and imbeciles for guard duty, Sam.”

  The lieutenant abruptly became a model soldier. “Ah, sir,” he began.

  “And still stuffing pikeshafts up their ass to make ’em stand straight,” the Kommanza continued.

  “So, do you take him out on the practice field, or shall I?” Sammibo said, with a gesture halfway between a salute and a wave.

  “Nia, pillow-soldier, he’s not worth the trouble. Vultures might puke on his shadow; I can’t be bothered.” She cast a wink at the private, who clutched her pike and stared solemnly ahead as bright spots appeared on her cheeks. The barracks would be amused tonight.

  Shkai’ra flipped a ball of hard rubber from her belt and began squeezing it, tossing it to the other hand every tenth contraction. Pushing past the rigid lieutenant, she leered and whispered—his braced attention quivered.

  Her grin faded as they entered the hall. Lanterns and reflectors barely touched the dimness; around them the great pile of stone and brick and glassbound concrete hunched in on itself, hugging its darkness. The Iron House was not the oldest building in Illizbuah; the foundations of the Sun Temple went back before the Godwar, before the world was changed and broken. But it was the only structure of its era that had not been rebuilt out of all recognition. Long years had passed since its builders piked cannibal bands back from the four-story walls; the crumbled concrete of another cycle had been dragged from ruins to make its mortar. It had always been a fortress; the smells of sweat, oil, polish, and musty stone made a cold aura.

  “You’re laughing in the shark’s mouth,” Sammibo said. “Insisting on giving it to the High Commander personally. She bears no overwhelming love for you.” All the while, they had been passing through the thickness of the outer wall At the first cross corridor of the warren, a guard detail fell in about them, fully armored.

  Shkai’ra shrugged. All that stood between her and a spearpoint between the shoulder blades was her appraisal of her opponent’s cast of mind. That, and luck. She made the gesture with her sword-hand out of habit, but uneasily. There had been too much luck about of late, both good and bad; the gods must be taking a close interest in this fight. Gods, or ...

  “You mean, she has the malice of a viper,” the Kommanza replied, snapping her attention back to the matter at hand.

  Sammibo winced and glanced around, the reflex of years on the fringes of the High Command. One of the guards had twitched; that might be a trick of the eye, and body language was difficult to pick out under a leather-and-fiberglass suit stretching from pate to foot. Sammibo decided that Smyna trusted him exactly as he did her.

  “She also ...” Shkai’ra let the comment trail away. Baiting the Fehinnan was amusing, but she had no desire to ruin him. “She gives me the money, she gets—” she tapped her belt “—this.”

  Sammibo stroked a satin-gloved finger down his mustache and adjusted the fine green linen of his dress tunic. “Well, at least let me hand the message to her,” he said unhappily. “No need to remind her of your presence more than necessary.”

  They paused at a colonnade to watch a group of mercenaries; from the equipment, Shkai’ra judged them to be the headquarters company of a Kaalyn light cavalry regiment. The fifty meters of air well above them was misty with the light rain, soaking the troops with javelins slung in hide buckets across their backs. A company of regular Fehinnan infantry watched, drawn up in what the manuals called an honor guard formation; the troops knew it as “suspicion guard.”

  “Hiring, I see,” she said. Silently, she extended a hand with the parchment.

  Sammibo took it with a sigh of relief, tucking it behind the sky-blue of his sash, under the tache of his broad-bladed infantry shortsword.

  “Don’t try to read it, Sammibo,” she said.

  “It’s eyes only.” He shrugged.

  “Sammibo, when they carry you to the pyre, you’ll pick the pallbearer’s pockets, just to see what’s there. But this was written by spookers.”

  There was a slight check in the staff officer’s stride before he said smoothly, “Duty forbids, in any case.”

  “But you would have tried.”

  “Well ... perhaps. Good intelligence is the heart of military science.”

  Toward the centrum of the fortress some effort had been made to modernize the interior: murals and colored marble floors clashed jarringly with door frames graven in demon faces. Incense fought with mold; guards stood at four-meter intervals, unmoving; the air had a greasy, cold soup chill. It was familiar from her days as a commander of irregulars. We Kommanz have a name for treachery, she thought. But we don’t have to look to our backs in battle. She made to spit on the flagstones, then reconsidered.

  They halted for a moment at the ancient, inner doors. There was a line of discoloration at about chest height, very faint, where the guard had made its last stand centuries ago, when the Maleficent’s troops had become the only hostile army ever to set foot in the Iron House. On either side sentries stood, statue-like; Shkai’ra watched with interest as a fly crawled across one’s face and over a motionless eyeball.

  Sammibo darted a glance at her as the door swung open, its twice man-height moving soundlessly on oil-wood bearings. She was too calm, he thought; but it was hard to be sure.

  The chamber within was vaulted, a wedge-shaped segment of a circle two tiers in from one of the outer towers. Soft indirect light came from panels in the roof. Shkai’ra noted the narrow decorative slits rimming the ceiling. More than decorative; she would have wagered an eye that there were winch-wound siege crossbows up there, covering every movement in the room.

  Smyna sat at on a low padded bench, overlooking the massive map table that was the centerpiece of the huge headquarters chamber. Around stood a clutch of staff officers and senior unit commanders, moving counters with long-handled rakes. Since her own people used a similar system, the Kommanza took in the dispositions with a glance.

  Odd, she thought. Most of the foot concentrated around the city. Easier to supply on navigable water, of course, but why not farther up the Iamz Valley, if they’re planning a campaign in the south?

  The commander of Fehinna’s capital garrison looked up with a slight, cool smile. Shkai’ra could feel Sammibo tensing at her side; she did not delude herself that he would lift a finger if the general ordered her cut down on the spot, but it might cause a little regret.

  Not that Smyna would. The Kommanza had never been a real threat to the General-Commander; nobody in her position could be. Chance had given her the opportunity to cause her some trouble and
embarrassment ...

  Smyna’s eyes staring from the mask of mud and blood as bright arterial blood pulsed from the leg wound, her fist stained red on the pressure point. Shkai’ra pushed aside the memory.

  No, Smyna would never grant her the dimity of ordering the sort of hasty execution others would; that would imply real fear and hence respect. It would be far more to her taste to see the outlander groveling for a minor scrap, ignore her with lordly disdain. And not even notice her sword. Grey eves met black for a moment, and then the westerner looked away, casually. It would not do to let Smyna see her lack of regret, and no Fehinnan aristocrat gained or held this much power by being a fool.

  The General-Commander turned to Sammibo, ignoring the barbarian commoner, raising a slim brow. Shkai’ra noted sardonically that for all her calm, she was the only one present wearing even partial harness-chain gorget and steel breast-and-back, part of the priceless suit that was one badge of her office.

  The staff officer wordlessly extended the parchment. Smyna waved it toward her chief aide, a stocky, bouncy figure hovering at her right.

  “Such trouble,” she said. “For a trifle.” She reached for a cup of chilled pomegranate juice on a tray held by the nearest soldier-servant. Her attention strayed from the map table to a file folder in her lap.

  Shkai’ra was acutely conscious of the staff officer standing with the message in hand; she could feel the sweat trickling down from her armpits over her flanks, chilling in the cool air that fans brought up from the basement, the dankness carving faintly through the incense. The dim, rich colors of the room seemed intolerably bright. Her breathing remained calm and even, and the grey eyes traveled casually across the room, noting the position of each human and object. Soldiers; she was a warrior, and the next few minutes would show the difference.

  The aide unfolded the parchment and read, casually at first. Then he stopped with a deep hoarse grunt, the sound a mailed cestus driving into the pit of his stomach might have brought forth.

  “Why?” he shouted, raw disbelief in his voice. “I was the only one you could trust—”

  He stumbled backward. Rage replaced fear on the heavy features, and his hand went to the hilt of his blade.

  Smyna had scooped the parchment from the floor. The cool, regular detachment of her features became very ugly as she scanned the short lines. The reflex that drove her into a fighting crouch saved her life as her aide’s sword skittered over her shoulder-piece and plowed across her upper arm in a blow that would have ended in her neckbones if she hadn’t moved.

  “So, Fehinna needs a General-Commander more ‘pious and reverent to the Servants of the Light,’” she said in a deadly whisper, as the long cavalry sword slid free in her good hand. The voice rose to an insane shriek. “Kill him!”

  The room tensed, but the expected bolt did not flash. The aide laughed and drove forward in a lunging thrust that she stopped only with a desperate twisting leap.

  “Did you forget who sets your guard?” he inquired nastily. There was a deep bass throb from the hidden gallery that ran around the council chamber, and a heavy bolt plowed chips from the floor inches from his foot. A moment later, there was a wet crunching sound, and an arm thrust limply through the slit. It hung, and dripped red slowly on the priceless carpets. Confused shouts and the clash of metal followed through the arrowslits.

  The staff officers had frozen at the clash of steel, immobilized by total incredulity. The field commanders were less hesitant and more used to sudden emergencies.

  Forming a knot, they backed toward the portals, raising a shout.

  “Treason!” they cried. “Guard, guard!”

  They had reckoned without the atmosphere of headquarters. Sudden disciplined action, here, suggested foreknowledge of the plot. The crossbows hummed.

  Prudently, Shkai’ra had dropped behind a wooden map chest, dragging Sammibo with her for additional cover. She grinned into features gone liquid with dazzlement; beyond him she saw one grey-haired staff officer doggedly crushing the throat of another with her map pointer, oblivious of the dress dagger buried in her midriff.

  “Such madness!” she laughed, the sudden shrill wild giggle of her folk. He shrank from the blaze of orgiastic pleasure in her face as she looked out over the scene. “Such chaos!”

  She suddenly grew calm. One of the dying field officers had swung the doors open, leaving a glistening trail as he slid down the mottled ebony. “I’m for the outside, Sammibo,” she said, in snarl. “Glitch godlet of fuckups be with you—this is his realm—and for the sake of some good times, hide under the table!”

  A darting rush brought her to where Smyna and her second-in-command dueled among the ruins of their hopes. She stooped, swept up the parchment, whirled, and ran for the door, the impetus of the back-kick she snapped at Smyna’s knee speeding her on her way. Deliberately, she did not draw steel; that would force potential obstacles to keep their blades for their opponents, when the sight of a bright edge out of the corner of their eve might have drawn a blow. She whirled through the fight in an almost dance, cleared the last half-dozen paces with a striding run, and dove headfirst through the open portals, confusing both the bolt-gunners behind and the halberdiers before. Landing on crossed forearms, she bounced to her feet and ran; no time now to pick directions, but it would be best to be on the expanding outside edge of the sphere of chaos she had exploded.

  Chapter XXV

  There was no problem blending with the crowd. Megan’s problem was moving against it; the Avenue of Triumphal Arrogance was blocked for two kilometers back from the square, and the mass of humans and vehicles moved in slow inchworm jerks. The subtropical sun beat down with a pitiless white light that threw the scanty shade black and knife-sharp at the edges. Megan could feel it soaking into her skin, as palpable as the sweat that stuck the tunic to her back and turned her loincloth to a sodden raw-chafing rag; body heat joined it; marble-faced concrete radiated its share back into the throng. The heavy smell of massed sweat was thick in the humid air, and hot white dust stirred by thousands of feet.

  She could feel hotter air puff up from her collar with every halting step. The press was worse than a theater or arena crowd in F’talezon, and these were aliens. Any close contact brought a slight overfall of emotion and thought, unshielded; there was the constant soft pressure of bodies and minds forcing their way into her own sphere of selfness. With an effort, she forced her attention on details—a small boy being berated for coming to the ceremony unwashed; someone nearby who had been eating strong onions.

  With a skill learned in the childpacks, she wriggled forward and nudged against the back of a knee. The man staggered. “Apologies,” she muttered, slipping past. “I stumbled.” A narrow space between two goldsmiths let her through; there were advantages to small size, whatever the big redhair thought. She imagined Shkai’ra in this oilpress, and her lips quirked slightly as she ran a wet hand over a slick forehead.

  She stopped again in a knot where two litters jostled for position. The way servants jostled and strove to out-shout each other, vainly; for all their curses and thumpings, the litters were jammed. Some of the crowd ahead were beginning to look and mutter, clutching resentfully at bruises. Even with meek clerks and law-fearing storekeepers, there were limits to what could be done with a hot, irritated Illizbuah mob.

  The litters were placed down with a thump, and one noble leaned out from the shade of her awning to talk to her neighbor. She looked maddeningly cool in a tunic of multicolored silk ribbons tacked together every handspan; even the lapdog that panted beside her heightened the contrast. Beside the fitter the bearers crouched, necks bent to keep their wooden fetters from pulling on galled throats.

  Megan glanced down. There were many things missed by simple failure to pay attention to what was underfoot; being closer to the ground than most, she was less prone to that error. The litters were nearly a meter on the pavement on their legs, most of that showing as an inviting black gap between stone and the undersi
de of the padded couch with the wayservants all ahead.

  The shade was welcome. Megan relaxed into the comparative coolness and watched the ankle’s-eye view of the crowd. There seemed to be too many here of equal rank for the shouts of “Way, way for the Brightness Iaasac’s-kin” to have much effect, however many upperservants flourished the ivory batons of their status.

  Most of the respectable part of Illizbuah was here; all those with guild or kin, and some of the less respectable as well. Shouts of “Stop, thief! She has my pouch!” rose above the dull surf-roar of the crowd. The sharp clear sound was a shock through that pounding of white noise; she thought warily that this would be the perfect place for an assassination, where no small betraying sound would be heard before the blade struck. The better thieves must be having a fine day of it. She suppressed the sudden crawling feeling along her spine. I’m going into the temple to slap the cobra on the nose, she thought irritably. What are a few assassins to that? Besides, they’ve had chances enough to slay me. Although that last was part bravado, she admitted to herself that she had been very lucky. Or ... had it been luck? A shrug: she would never know what Power had been at her side.

  Snatches of conversation drifted through the slats overhead. “The market for hides is booming, and we cannot get supplies.”

  “... but Kinmother!”

  “... a new sheersilk tunic from Chin for the next festival.”

  The gaaimun in the next litter leaned over, tugging pettishly at the fringe of his striped awning. Megan wrinkled her nose at a wave of too-sweet scent, and felt the boards creak above her head as the woman there shifted backward. Something we agree upon, at the least, the Zak thought.

  “Don’t you think it’s just a trifle too hot to really enjoy a Purification? One feels as if one’s burning oneself. Although this is supposed to be a particularly disgusting heretic.”