by Janet Morris
Niko almost told Crit then that he was here against the Riddler's orders, but Crit would find out in good time, and having his task force leader position him thus was a piece of good fortune.
Then Crit had to let Sauni bless him—the lightning bolts she'd commanded against the witch were the talk of the Stepsons' camp.
When she'd done with both of them, she turned to Niko, asking shyly, "And you, my lord, my love— won't you let the god sanctify your battle this portentous day?"
Looking at her, she seemed too wise, too grown up, as if the god were whispering in her ear. "Don't talk that way, not here. But bless me if you will, Sauni."
As she was finishing her ad hoc rite, drums beat and horns blared and Abakithis and his courtiers came in, monkeys and leopards on leashes parading before him.
All the obedient servants of the fat little emperor clapped their hands and whistled as the mis-manager of empire came mincing in.
Niko found his fists clenched, all his hatred of Rankans and his worst childhood memories coming to the fore.
He slid away from Sauni and took up a position where Critias had placed him as the emperor ascended his Lion Throne, a priest on either side.
Abakithis raised his jewel-heavy hands. Quiet descended. In a piping voice, the blond-haired monarch said, "Let the Festivities begin, O mighty heroes of the empire. All of you, gathered here to celebrate My Majesty and do homage to our nation, deserve a round of applause."
To one side, a priest began clapping and all the crowd, once prompted, joined in.
Then a cart drawn by two snow-white asses was led inside, piled high with trophies to be given to the winners.
But Niko wasn't paying attention to the prize wagon. He was counting Rankan soldiers, palace pretorians, peltasts, and whomever else stood between him and Abakithis.
By the time the applause had died, Niko had realized that his only chance was to rush Abakithis during a presentation—Sauni's would be the best. He could walk her to the dais and thus be close enough to leap on the emperor before anyone could stop him. He wasn't as nattily dressed as some, but his duty gear was good enough for what he had in mind.
He settled on that plan, locating Sauni in the crowd and smiling at her so she'd come to him and he could lead her up there later. He'd push her out of the way first thing; she wouldn't be hurt if the god truly loved her.
Normally, a Stepson facing certain death disposes of his possessions, his horses and his arms and armor, giving them to this good friend or that. But since Niko's partner was the Riddler, he'd let Tempus have it all—the sable stallion, his sorrel mare, her half-Trôs foal, and the quotidian arms he had left now that Randal had inherited his dream-forged panoply.
He was in a dreamy state, ordering his thoughts for death, when a hand came down hard upon his shoulder.
"Don't move, don't turn around," came a growl from behind him: Tempus had arrived.
"Crit needs me here, Commander."
"So he said. That's no excuse. We'll talk about this later."
Niko wanted to face the Riddler, say something about how honored he'd been to serve with Tempus, no matter how things looked right now, but he held firm, following his orders.
Then another order came. "And if you've got in mind what I think you do, forget it. It's all arranged, and you'll only muck the matter up."
Then the hand was gone and, out of the corner of Niko's eye, he saw a flash of leopardskin as, from behind the dais, the tenting slit and burst into flame, and from the far end of the assembly, a sound like hell heaving drowned out the presentation under way.
Before Niko's eyes, behind the Lion Throne, a warty arm and then an orange shock of hair catapulted through the flaming tenting as priests scattered to save themselves and soldiers, running the other way, toward Abakithis, careened into them and troops and priests went sprawling.
The asses brayed and bolted, scattering prizes everywhere.
The crowd surged back from the flames, then surged the other way, screaming, as from the tent's far end a grating sound like tortured metal drums resolved into a great chariot drawn by sable stallions spitting froth and driven by the fearsome lord of dreams.
Directly for the dais, Aŝkelon's chariot headed, its horses trampling soldiers with aplomb. Beside Aŝkelon was Cime, her scale-armor gleaming, a sword that seemed to flame and smoke in her hand.
Men of the Rankan pretorians attacked the horses and the chariot, only to fall back under Cime's onslaught and the pointing finger of the entelechy of dreams.
Niko, sensing something unplanned in this dual diversion, drew his own sword and leaped, catching Sauni around the waist in his left arm, toward the dais.
Everyone was screaming as the tent became a pavilion of flames and rushed to hack exits where they could. He threw Sauni roughly through one, and climbed the dais, where all was bodies, confusion, and the flash of swords.
He slew where he could, hacking a path through to Abakithis, and found that serendipity had put him next to Tempus, on the Riddler's right.
"Under the circumstances," he gritted, "you don't mind, I trust?" as he jabbed his shortsword up under a Rankan cuirass, piercing an unprotected bladder for a killing blow.
"Not unless we don't get them all—every soldier who sees us fighting against and not for them."
Tempus remarked as casually as if they were planning a war and not fighting one.
Someone landed on Niko's back and he knifed forward, throwing the man over and then slitting his throat as he landed atop a corpse, face up. "Good. It's nice to be on your right, Commander, for this."
And then there was no more time for talk, just fighting, as Rankans tried to defend their emperor.
Tempus led him over bodies and through the melee in time to see Abakithis himself, not cowering or struggling, but sitting, knees splayed, in the presentation bathtub, blinking like an owl.
And before him, beckoning, was Roxane, the Nisibisi witch. Behind Abakithis's silver tub, the gray-skinned fiend was munching someone newly dead, gore running from its jaws as it chuckled to itself. "Murder, murder! I'm so glad I came!"
Niko thought to strike out for the fiend, but Tempus realized what he had in mind and stopped him. "No. They're fighting for us."
"The witch?" Niko was astounded.
"You think you're the only one who can call on hellish aid?" Tempus grunted, his hand lashing out to cover the face of a Rankan soldier who was plainly fleeing unnatural adversaries, and push the man backward toward the fiend, who caught him.
Then, from behind, the chariot horses squealed and thundered so that Niko took a chance and looked around, and above, where the tent was disintegrating into chunks of fiery, falling death and the center pole was beginning to burn.
Nothing Niko had ever seen prepared him for the death that the hell-chariot was dealing among the Rankan host: its horses were covered with human blood and the chariot's wheels sparked fire and rolled over men and women indiscriminately.
From within it came a humming sound as Cime's sword swept to and fro and Aŝkelon looked nothing at all like the kind, compassionate dream lord from Niko's rest-place.
The sight of those two killing stopped Niko in his tracks, so that Tempus had to pull him out of the chariot's way as it thundered toward the dais and the horses climbed it.
Then, with the tent crashing about them in fragments and men screaming "Run! Run! Save yourselves!" Niko saw Aŝkelon vault down from his car and get between Roxane, who seemed to be delirius with ecstasy, toying with her prey, and Abakithis.
The little emperor was senseless, his soul already gone, his eyes all white, as undeads' usually were.
But the dream lord, it seemed, wanted the emperor for himself.
The witch launched herself at Aŝkelon and there was banshee howling that made every man still fighting turn and stare as the two of them, locked in immortal combat, rolled upon the dais, which cracked and smoked and then began to spin and spark and sink down into the earth.
&
nbsp; "Come on, Niko—Riddler! Move! This whole tent's going to come down on top of us any minute," bellowed Strat, come from nowhere. Crit grabbed Niko by the cuirass and threw him bodily through a burned-out hole.
He rolled upon the ground, and by the time he'd gained his knees, Tempus, Crit, and Strat came running out as the whole great tent settled, majestically flaming, to the ground.
"Where's Bashir? Sauni?" Niko demanded, yelling over the screams from the unfortunates caught under the burning celebration tent.
"Right here," Sync said laconically from behind him.
And there they were, Sauni sooty but unharmed, Bashir with some superficial wounds that said he'd done his share of fighting, with Kama alongside.
"Where's the chariot?" Kama demanded. The tent was too flat to contain that hell-wheeled chariot, or even standing horses. "And Aunt Cime? And the witch—were they really working with us on this?"
"Don't say that—to anyone, ever," Tempus snapped, cleaning his blade on his leopardskin mantle. "The witch was, yes, since Niko's word was at stake. But Aŝkelon and Cime…" Tempus put on his most innocent look and shrugged and if mystified, which made Strat roar with laughter and elbow Crit, who'd taken a wound in his arm and didn't appreciate the gesture.
Then, from behind Niko, Randal said, "If you'll allow a supposition or two from a lowly Stepson, Kama, I'll answer that."
"Go ahead, Randal," Sync said before Kama could reply.
"The Riddler sent me to tell Aŝkelon and the Rankan mageguild not to interfere—which meant, of course, they'd never stay out of it. You know how Hazards are…" Randal beamed. ""As for where they are now—don't worry. That was just a little hierarchic quarrel between archmages— Roxane overstepped herself, making an undead out of an emperor, no matter how bad an emperor he was."
"How can you be so sure, witchy-ears—that is, how can you be so sure, Randall" Strat amended, rubbing his big face with his hands. "That looked pretty serious to me."
"You'll see," Randal said mysteriously, and turned to Niko. "Stealth, are you sure you don't want this panoply back? I've got my kris; it's all I need. Take the sword, at least…"
So Niko took back the dream-forged sword that Randal held out, because one look at Randal's freckled face told him that it was a peacemaking gift between them, and Niko was feeling ready for a little peace, with his dead family at last avenged and his unit safe around him.
"But not the armor, Randal—you keep it. If we ever pair again, you'll need it."
The smile on Randal's face grew even broader, so that it seemed his jaw might crack.
As Niko buckled on the sword with its scabbard of raised demons and its thunderbolts, Bashir nodded approvingly, then said, "Don't look now, but here comes Theron with fresh troops, a clutch of priests, and too innocent an expression. We'd all better get our stories straight—no one expected this much carnage."
"Hrmph," Strat said to the war party generally as Bashir strode forth to greet his fellow priests and the new Lion of Empire. "If Theron didn't expect this sort of thing, he doesn't know the Riddler."
"That may be, but one thing's sure," Crit said, fingering his cynical smile. "The sooner we get the Stepsons and the 3rd together and ride out of here, the better. What say, Sync. Time to form the units up?"
"Time," Sync agreed, and then Niko and the rest were busy following their orders.
Sauni was left with the Riddler, watching Bashir and Theron greet each other like equals.
"Isn't it wonderful?" Sauni sighed. "We'll even have an embassy in Ranke, if things keep up like this. And temples of Enlil."
"Wonderful," Tempus said, as he went to join the man he'd put on Ranke's throne and the warlord of Free Nisibis to make sure that Sauni was right, and things would be as wonderful as now they seemed.
* 9 *
It wasn't as easy to get out of Ranke as Tempus had hoped it might be: affadavits had to be sworn, stories told that agreed in every particular, respects had to be paid to Abakithis's corpse.
But with Bashir and Sauni, priest and priestess of Enlil, Vashanka's brother god, affirming the tale that the witch and the dream lord went to war and Abakithis simply got caught in the middle and perished because his priests weren't holy enough to have protected him or foretold the dire event, it wasn't as difficult as it might have been.
Heads rolled among the Rankan hierarchy, true, but those heads were overdue for rolling, and most of the worst of Abakithis's incompetent brood had died in the combat or fried in the tent.
Theron was as good as his word, and by the time the Band, the 3rd, and Bashir's Successors rode north together, Tempus's two units were special forces in good standing with the Rankan empire once again.
And Bashir was the recognized ruler of Free Nisibis, a man who was welcome at Theron's court and who would soon have a flag of his own and embassies throughout the land. Even a modest trade in pulcis and a transshipping agreement had been worked out between the two monarchs which would enrich both.
The only shadow over all this good fortune, if there was one, was that Free Nisibis and Ranke were sworn to fight each others' battles, which meant fighting Mygdonia this summer, like as not.
But Bashir's men had been fighters so long that a summer of planting crops and listening to women chatter wasn't what any of them did best, so Bashir said that first night they encamped along the general's route, when the fires blazed and men relaxed with drink and drug and tales of individual heroics.
"You're welcome to defect to Free Nisibis, anytime, Riddler, and bring your Stepsons and your Commando with you," Bashir offered magnanimously. "As a matter of fact, since you're landholders of my country, then dual citizenship is surely yours—I'll just have to write a law decreeing it." Bashir stretched out in the firelight and crossed his legs.
"My thanks, Bashir. It's good to have a place to call home that isn't Ranke. But I think I'll rather miss the days when you'd put on your wolf-skin and slink through the night, howling."
"He'll howl again," Niko put in as he came back from escorting Sauni to bed: this kind of talk wasn't for women, except for Kama, who the Stepsons and the 3rd didn't think of as a woman—except for Crit, and perhaps the 3rd's colonel, Sync.
"As will we all," Tempus agreed. "Nothing lasts forever, especially peace and empires." Not when Roxane was abroad in the land with her Nisibisi power globe, Tempus thought but did not say.
Just then Tempus's daughter appeared, flushed in the torchlight, and since neither Crit nor Sync was present, Bashir wagered with Niko under his breath as to which had put the color in her cheeks.
"Tempus," Kama said, "there's a boy out at the perimeter, one we caught sneaking into camp. He says he knows you and he's got an urgent message."
"Does this boy have a name?" Tempus asked, suspicious.
"He wouldn't give it without persuasion, and the sentry thought he'd better ask before starting any of that. He said only that he's from Sanctuary and that the message is, too."
Strat groaned elaborately and got up on his knees. "Oh, please, Commander, please—anything but that! Don't send your poor fighters back to the empire's anus! I'll muck stables, take a wife— anything but that!"
Niko grinned his quick canny grin and teased: "But what about the vampire woman, your one true love, Strat? She's waiting for you down by the White Foal River, I'll bet, in one of Sanctuary's more commodious slums. She's surely never found another to replace you…"
"Sanctuary?" Sync quipped. "What's to be afraid of, Strat? Except your reputation—the Stepsons still in Sanctuary are the laughingstock of empire." That brought Strat up on his feet. "Sync, I've had about enough of your slurs upon our unit's good name. It's time we settled this, man to man, now that the 3rd can do without its leader if it has to, while you're recuperating."
"I didn't mean to offend. Where do you think that we got the idea you Stepsons were all pansies, impotent and vain? From the scuttlebutt, that's where, and what news has come up from Sanctuary, which, I admit, probably isn't t
rue, the way Sanctuary can't possibly be as bad as everybody says."
"Let's hope you don't find out how bad it is," Strat glowered, mollified to some extent but not entirely.
Tempus eyed Niko. "Stay here and stop any trouble from these two before it occurs, Stealth. Kama, take me to this boy."
As Tempus walked with his daughter through the soft cool night of a newborn spring, he broke a lengthy silence: "You did well in Ranke, daughter. Better than I'd hoped." He hadn't meant to call her that; he didn't like to think of her that way, or wonder who her mother was, or what she thought to gain from following him around.
But the way she said, "Thank you… father," he knew she was deeply pleased and deeply touched.
"Just don't call me that where the men can hear you," he warned. Then: "What do you plan to do? Stay on? Isn't it time you had a husband? Crit is—"
"That's over. Oh, he'd probably marry me if you asked him to, but I'm making my own way well enough. I want to be taken at face value, that's all, given the chance you'd give any manjack among your Stepsons. That's what everyone in the 3rd wants… not to be a second-class unit, loved less than the Stepsons no matter how we try to earn your respect."
"Is that it? What the 3rd wants?" He'd never thought of it that way—never really thought about the 3rd, beyond their history and their reputation as the hardest-fighting commandos in the empire. "They'll have their chance, then, and so will you."
"Is Niko going to marry that priestess… what's her name?"
"Sauni? She's wed to the god, Kama. He'll sniff around her until the child is born, then realize he's not responsible for it or her, and go on to other girls. Stealth's a Stepson—"
"Right, I know," Kama said bitterly. "To the death with honor, shoulder to shoulder, and no one gets closer to a Stepson than his partner."
Since it was Crit she was talking about, that Niko, Tempus let his silence answer.
And when at last they reached the perimeter station, a designated rock where a sentry detained a boy, he was glad to send Kama back to the campfire alone.
Then he said to Gayle, the sentry on duty, "I'll take care of this, Gayle. Go about your business."