by David Drake
Tadai and Royhas were rivals if not precisely enemies. Royhas had gained the initial advantage and forced Tadai out of the administration over a year ago, but as a result Tadai had been available to join the army as Garric’s chief civilian administrator. He’d spent quite a lot of time in close company with the prince, and it was obvious that he hoped to parlay that association into an advantage over the chancellor.
“We have reports for the region a hundred miles south of Valles,” said Master Baumo, a senior clerk in the tax office. “Preliminary reports, that is, and I must admit that these were surveys at three or four points only, not real coverage of the area.”
He licked his lips and scowled at the blotched parchment in his hands. It was a palimpsest, a sheet being reused after the original writing had been scraped off with a pumice stone. Apparently it hadn’t been erased as well as Baumo now wished.
“Still, the reports suggest smallholdings, scattered villages, and quite a good supply of timber for shipbuilding,” he finally continued.
“What bloody use is shipbuilding to us now?” Lord Zettin shouted. “By the Lady, man, use your—”
He caught himself and closed his mouth. Sharina glanced sidelong at the former admiral; his face was pale and his eyes were fixed on the far wall. He must’ve been aware that she—as well as everybody else in the room—was watching him, but only the jump of a muscle below his right eye proved that he wasn’t a statue.
“If what we just saw was a real scene and not a, an allegory …,” Garric said quietly. “Which we won’t know until Tenoctris is able to discuss the matter, of course. But if it was real and the Last are present in the numbers we saw, then they badly outnumber the whole royal army. Even if we could take the army to where the Last are appearing, in Shengy or wherever.”
“Well, they can’t get to us either then, can they?” said Lord Holhann, the commander of the Valles garrison, in a harsh voice. He’d been frightened by the wizardry and he was letting out that fear in the form of anger. “Let ’em have Shengy! It was never part of the kingdom except maybe in name. If we can’t reach them, then they can’t reach us either.”
Sharina glanced back to see if Cashel would speak. Seated as she was, she couldn’t see him for the lesser functionaries standing in the way; and anyway, she knew Cashel wasn’t the person to volunteer that sort of information to a group of educated people.
“What Lady Tenoctris said last night …,” Sharina said. There was no point in explaining that Tenoctris had spoken to Cashel and he’d passed the information on to her. “Is that the Last don’t need food in the sense we do. They won’t be stopped by the lack of supplies along the route from Shengy to the north and western isles, what’s now the settled rim of the continent. Though the sheer distance will delay them, of course.”
Half a dozen people began speaking, none to any point Sharina could make out. The door at the end of the room opened. Nobody seemed to notice except Sharina, who caught movement at the right corner of her eye and turned to focus on it.
A figure the height of an adolescent boy stepped between the pair of Blood Eagles in the doorway. Sharina blinked. The guards were shoulder-to-shoulder; there wasn’t space to walk or even to slide a napkin between them.
At first glimpse the figure seemed to be wearing a shirt and breeches of goatskin, but that was his own hide: he was a brown-furred aegipan, with hooves instead of feet and two tiny black horn buds peaking up from the tousled hair on his head. He carried a sheathed sword.
“Hey!” shouted Lord Attaper, shoving himself between Garric and the creature. “Keep him away from His Highness!”
“I am Shin,” said the aegipan in a musical tenor. “I am the emissary of the Yellow King.”
One of the Blood Eagles tried to grab Shin from behind. The aegipan moved slightly, and the guard’s hands closed on air. The other man drew his sword and cocked it back for a slash that would cut Shin in half.
Sharina had sprung to her feet. Even before her chair could topple to the floor, she seized the guard’s sword arm.
“Wait!” she cried. “Didn’t you hear? He said he’s from the Yellow King!”
“THE YELLOW KING’S a children’s story, a myth!” Attaper protested, his sword bare.
Sharina let go of the man she’d grabbed, but she continued to face the guards with her hands on her hips. They’d sooner have charged a phalanx of pikes than defied her.
“Gently, milord,” Garric said, touching the back of Attaper’s right hand to prevent an accident which the commander would deeply regret afterward. “So are aegipans, you know, but that doesn’t prevent this one from seeming to be real.”
He stepped past, which Attaper probably wouldn’t have allowed if he hadn’t been so taken aback by what was happening. There were guards outside the door who should’ve prevented any intrusion, let alone an intruder carrying a sword into the presence of Prince Garric….
“Panchant’s History of All Nature claims that aegipans inhabit the mountains of the Western Continent,” Liane said primly. She was close to Garric, moving so perfectly in step with him that he’d been aware of her only as a blur since his vision was tightly focused on the aegipan. “Of course, there’s no reputable evidence of a Western Continent and many geographers deny that one exists.”
The aegipan—Shin—was grinning. Seen face-on he looked almost human, but when he turned to dart glances around the hall, his long-jawed profile was that of a beast.
“The Yellow King has awakened,” he said. His voice seemed very full to come from so small a chest; but then, a bullfrog was louder still and a great deal smaller. “He’s sent me with an offer to save the men of this day—if you have a true champion among you.”
“Your Highness,” Attaper said, “please don’t stand so close to the creature, not while he’s got the sword.” Harshly he added to Shin, “You then, give me the sword. No one but the prince’s bodyguards go armed in his presence!”
“Take it and welcome, Lord Attaper,” Shin replied, holding the sword hilt-first toward him. His tongue lolled out. Garric couldn’t judge from the aegipan’s unfamiliar face whether there was as much mockery in his expression as there would’ve been in a man doing the same thing. “I have no business with arms. I’m only a messenger.”
Attaper snatched the sword away. A belt of heavy black leather was wrapped around the scabbard, but there wasn’t a dagger or other equipment to balance the blade’s weight on the wearer’s right side. Though the grip was as rough as shagreen, to Garric’s glance it seemed to be of the same dark gray metal as the cross guard and ball hilt.
“What sort of champion?” Sharina asked. Garric was amused at the way his sister’s clear tones cut through the babble. It’s as bad as the inn’s common room during the Sheep Fair, though the accents here are more cultured. “Do you mean a soldier?”
The Yellow King whom Rigal and other poets of the Old Kingdom described was certainly a myth. During the Yellow King’s blessed reign, men and women ate fruits that sprang from the soil without planting. There was no winter or blistering summer, only balmy days that mixed spring with early fall; all was peaceful and golden.
At the end of ten thousand years the Yellow King had departed, promising to return when mankind needed his help again. Before he left, he taught agriculture and writing that men might continue to exist and to record the Yellow King’s great deeds. From then till this day, the lot of mankind has been ever harsher, ever more miserable, and men would not be saved from that decline until the Yellow King returned.
So much was myth; Garric knew that as clearly as Attaper did. But there had been a government of men before the first recorded government. There were legends about the Yellow King on every island of the archipelago, even among the Serians and the swarthy folk of Shengy whose languages were nothing like those of the remainder of the Isles.
Perhaps those who’d ruled in the days before the climate changed had all called themselves the Yellow King; the confusion of title might�
��ve concealed the details of their succession. The geographer Stane had thought so. As for Garric personally, it seemed to him that Stane or others with other guesses might be right. Certainly some truth underlay a universal pattern of belief.
Besides, Garric wanted to believe; and if every word of Rigal’s myth was true and the Yellow King would return to save mankind in its greatest crisis—so much the better. He’d listen to Shin and hope.
Though the aegipan stood in place, his split-hoofed feet tapped a complex rhythm on the slate flooring. The tiny motions made his body seem to tremble, but there was nothing frightened in his hairy, grinning face.
“It’s up to the men of this day to pick the champion they send to the Yellow King,” Shin said. “The champion must surmount all the tests facing him, though, so it behooves you to choose well.”
He lifted his legs as though he were jumping, but his head didn’t move; the hooves clacked down together, hammering a period to his words. Had he made a visual pun?
Shin looked from Sharina to Garric. His brown eyes, as solid as chert, changed into caves that sank infinitely far into the earth. Garric felt himself stiffen; the ghost in his mind snatched at the hilt of his ghostly sword with a curse.
“So, Prince Garric?” the aegipan said. “Aren’t furry myths from the Western Continent permitted to make puns?”
“What sort of champion?” Garric said, repeating Sharina’s question in a tone of command. “What sort of tests will the Yellow King put to him?”
Shin sees my thoughts! And of course he did, but there was no point in saying that or worrying about it. Garric didn’t try to deceive the people he dealt with, except by the sort of softening that made human relationships possible. There were generally ways to refuse requests that didn’t involve saying, “No, you’re too stupid for that post,” or, “You’d turn the occasion into a disaster, you overbearing shrew.”
“The Yellow King will not test the champion, Prince,” said the aegipan, “but the way to the cave in which the Yellow King slept will be hard. Perhaps too hard for any human, eh?”
Shin’s long black tongue waggled in silent laughter. Garric felt his face harden, not at the mockery but because of the evasion.
Before he could speak, Shin continued, “The Yellow King sent the sword Lord Attaper holds for a test. Its blade is sharp enough to shave sunlight and so hard it cannot be dulled or broken. The one who takes it from its sheath is the champion whom you must send.”
“Done, by the Shepherd!” cried Attaper, one hand on the sword hilt and the other gripping the scabbard. His powerful forearms bulged. Nothing else moved.
Attaper’s face flashed through shock, then anger, and finally to a grim determination that an enemy would find more daunting than rage. His hands blotched with strain and the cords of his neck stood out … and still he could not draw the sword.
Carus threw his head back and laughed with the joy of a passionate man seeing his dreams answered unexpectedly. “The Sister take me if he hasn’t come for us, lad!” he chortled. “They’ll none of ’em see what you and I see, you know that!”
Garric had to keep his face still though he wanted to laugh along with his ancient ancestor. Attaper would think he was being mocked—
But it was nothing like that. Garric ruled because it was his duty, but nothing could make him comfortable as a king. He relished the times when the safety of the kingdom required him to be a man, as he’d shown when he defeated the Corl champion in single combat.
And Carus was right: the others in the room wouldn’t see it….
Attaper’s face was dark red. He swayed, and still the sword remained in its sheath. Suddenly he relaxed, bending slightly forward as he gasped for breath. His lips moved, but he couldn’t manage audible words; he continued to hold the sword.
There was a chorus of pointless chatter. Several military officers tried to take the sword from Attaper; he shrugged them off angrily.
“Milord?” said Cashel. “May I try?”
Surprised, Garric glanced toward the back corner of the room and saw what he should’ve expected: Tenoctris was upright with Liane close by her side holding the quarterstaff. Cashel wouldn’t have left his self-appointed post unless he were sure his presence was no longer necessary.
Attaper looked up, but the snarl in his eyes faded when he saw who’d spoken. It was no sign of inadequacy to own that Cashel or-Kenset was stronger than you were….
“Aye, you’re the man for it,” said Attaper in a ragged voice. He straightened and held the sword out to Cashel. Those closest, all but Garric himself, backed away.
The aegipan didn’t move either. He looked at Cashel and said, “Oh, a strong one, a very strong one.”
The words were true enough and the tone was respectful, but Garric heard laughter—or thought he did. Shin’s tongue waggled again. Yes, laughter beyond a doubt.
“Garric?” said Cashel, cocking an eyebrow at his friend.
“You’ll pull it out if it can be,” Garric said, feeling suddenly awkward. He didn’t want to embarrass his friends; but if he’d understood what the emissary meant and the others didn’t, then he was the right man, wasn’t he? The champion? “If there’s a trick, though, give it to me and I’ll try.”
“What sort of trick?” said Lord Holhann peevishly. He was talking toward a corner of the ceiling, apparently speaking simply to hear his own voice. “Is there a catch in the hilt, is that it?”
“All right,” said Cashel without concern. He wiped his left hand on his tunic and grasped the scabbard just below the cross guard; then he wiped his right hand the same way and closed it on the hilt. He began to pull.
The room was so nearly still that the guard muttering to his mate, “I seen him lift a whole shipping jar of—” boomed as though he were shouting. The Blood Eagles weren’t picked for their social skills, but even so the fellow shocked himself silent before Lord Attaper could deal with the intrusion.
Nothing moved. Like an ox trying to pull an old oak from the ground, Garric thought, and for a moment he wondered if Cashel would succeed after all. When they were growing up together he’d known his friend was strong, but how very strong Cashel was had become a continuing source of amazement in more recent times.
Still, nobody’d seen Garric the innkeeper’s son as a likely candidate for Lord of the Isles either.
Cashel gave up, blowing his breath out like a surfacing whale. He breathed in great sobs.
“My, you are a strong one,” Shin said, this time with no hint of mockery. “Are there many like you in the world of this time, Master Cashel?”
“There’s no one like Cashel,” Garric said harshly. Cashel bobbed the hilt toward him, still too wrung out to speak; he took it. “No one, Master Shin!”
Garric examined the sword. The rough metal hilt felt dry and only vaguely warm. The scabbard seemed an ordinary one of stamped tin decorated with a geometric pattern in black enamel. Presumably there were laths of poplar to stiffen the metal sheathing.
“A little room, if you will,” Garric said, gesturing the guards away from the door with a flick of his left index finger; they hopped aside with instant obedience. Garric strode forward, swinging the sword from left to right in a hissing upward slash.
The stroke was burdened with the weight of the scabbard as well as the blade, but Garric was a strong man and on his mettle today. The tip crushed through the leather-covered wooden door and the belly of the blade struck the stone pilaster supporting the transom.
Splinters and stone chips flew. A man cried out in surprise and Attaper snarled, “By the Sister!”
Garric drew back his arm. His hand tingled but it wasn’t numb, not yet. The ruins of the scabbard dangled from the blade. He’d sheared the tin and stripped much of it away with the wood splints.
The metal of the blade was the soft blue-gray of summer twilight. Its edge was a blackness too thin to have color; it was unmarked, even where it’d gouged deeply into the stone.
Garric looke
d at the grinning aegipan. The simplest way to remove the smashed scabbard would be to pull it off with his left hand, but sometimes a colorful demonstration is better than quiet practicality. He backhanded the blade against the other pilaster, flinging tin and bits of wood from another crash of powdered stone.
Breathing deeply, Garric turned to face his council. Guards in the outer hall called in alarm through the shattered door, but calming them could wait. Very deliberately he raised the gray-gleaming sword high over his head.
“People of this time!” said Shin, his voice golden and surprisingly loud. “You have found your champion!”
TEMPLE CAME AROUND from the back of the house with his shield slung behind him and, under his left arm, a bundle of poles trimmed from the white shadbush fringing the fields. Ilna turned on the stool where she was working. Before she could speak, the big man tossed the poles aside. With an odd sort of shrug he slipped the shield back into his grip and drew his sword, his eyes on the head of the valley.
By instinct Ilna glanced first at the pattern she was knotting rather than to what Temple had seen. Certain there was no danger she’d missed, she raised her eyes to the distant slope and saw Karpos coming toward them with ground-devouring strides that were just short of a lope.
His apparent haste didn’t mean there was a problem: that was the hunters’ regular pace when they weren’t stalking or adjusting themselves to Ilna’s shorter legs. Asion would be watching the back trail.
Temple slipped his sword back into its sheath. “I wasn’t expecting them to return by that direction,” he said softly. “They’ll have doubled back on our trail to mislead the Coerli if they notice that humans have observed them.”
“Yes,” Ilna said, resuming her work of knotting yarn to the frame of previously gathered poles. “Chances are the beasts won’t realize their camp’s been found. If they do, though, we don’t want to lead them straight here or they might wonder what was going on.”
She rolled and set beside her the section she’d completed, so that it wouldn’t affect her companions by accident. After a moment’s consideration, she chose three of the poles Temple had just brought and resumed her work.