The Swordbearer - Glen Cook

by Glen Cook

  The passage reached many of the rooms. Gathrid checked each and found it innocent. The hidden way ended in a cellar accessible both from the kitchen and an alley. The horizontal, hatchlike alley door was of rough, weathered lumber with wide gaps between time-shrunken boards. Through these Gathrid spotted a watcher on a nearby rooftop, crouched beside a pot-topped chimney.

  How to approach him? The detailed planning of the attack suggested that all exits would be watched.

  There had to be a way to trace the principal. Mulenex? Nieroda? Ahlert? Hildreth, trying to frame Mulenex? Or some local entrepreneur trying to obtain Daubendiek for his own use? Torun had an underworld replete with famous names.

  The watcher drifted away for a moment, pacing in boredom.

  Silent as a weasel, Gathrid slid into the alley. He took cover in a shadow out of view of the roof. He listened for evidence of a trap.

  “You’re becoming another Rogala,” Aarant chided good-naturedly. “It’s safe. The sorcery was likely bought.”

  A dog with an odd bark spoke from the far side of the inn. A cat yowled above Gathrid. A moment later a rope dropped and the watcher clambered down. He kept glancing around and muttering to himself as he stole to the cellar door. He grabbed a nearby keg, knocked its bung out, started splashing liquid around.

  Some sort of combustible, Gathrid realized. The assassins had been written off. The backup plan was to burn the inn with everyone inside. “That’s getting a little carried away,” he whispered. Aarant agreed.

  Gathrid sprinted toward the arsonist. The man just had time to look surprised.... Another ignorant hireling.

  Gathrid raced down the alley, into a side street, then round front, where he found another arsonist at work. A warning hooted from a rooftop. An arrow burred behind Gathrid’s head and thunked into the inn wall.

  So. Bowmen to prevent escapes through the windows. Very thorough.

  The arsonist ran like all the imps of Hell were after him. Gathrid chased him a few hundred yards, then doubled back. He hoped to pick up the director of the team.

  Luck ran with him. He crossed the trail of a vagrant who gave himself away by moving with too much speed and suspicion. He glared at every shadow. Gathrid narrowly avoided betraying himself.

  The man led him to a small, neat house guarded by dogs. The animals fled from him without a whimper. He listened at the one window revealing a light.

  The vagrant reported to an underworld chieftain whose name, Suftko, Gathrid had heard in faraway Kacalief. In Torun he was as powerful as any prince. Once the vagrant guaranteed his unnoted escape, he took the failure of his agents philosophically.

  A short time later the crime baron took to the streets. Four bodyguards accompanied him. He led Gathrid to a large church. There he met briefly with another man. The bodyguards made it impossible for Gathrid to eavesdrop. The meeting ended. Gathrid had to make a choice of pursuits.

  He chose the paymaster, reasoning that if another attack had been ordered it would find Rogala wakened and on guard.

  His man went on to another church, a tiny chapel hugging the skirts of Torun’s royal citadel. His stride was confident, his attitude bold. He was not concerned about being tailed.

  In the chapel he met an early rising monk.

  Who was no monk. Gathrid recognized him instantly. He was Bilgoraj’s King, Kimach Faulstich. The Kimach Faulstich he deemed responsible for Gudermuth’s destruction. “How did it go?” this make-believe monk asked.

  “Failed. The Swordbearer didn’t respond to the sleep spell.”

  “Damn!”

  “Suftko is willing to try again. For another fee.”

  “The man is greedy.”

  “He has his uses. He’ll keep trying till he succeeds, till you go broke or there’s a shortage of blades. He’s got pride. But he won’t risk his own people.”

  “Alfeld, there’s gold in the sacristy. I’ll send more down if it’s necessary. Just get it finished before noon tomorrow. That’s when we finalize the agreement.”

  “It went through, then?”

  The King fiddled with a chalice. “It did. Don’t ever forget. When Sartain is mine, Torun is yours.”

  “And the Contessa?”

  “Of course. I have no other use for Hildreth’s brat.”

  So, Gathrid thought. Kimach was plotting to usurp Emperor Elgar. Sartain was going to grow crowded with all the pretenders. And this cousin Alfeld was to receive the Bilgoraji crown for his part in the treachery. Meaning he had an eye on the Imperium himself. Elgar had no natural heir. He had declared Yedon Hildreth his successor. The Count’s claim would descend through his daughter, the Contessa Cuneo, Fiona Hildreth.

  “Is Suftko suspicious?”

  “No.” Alfeld snickered. “He’s convinced we’re working against Ahlert. He wouldn’t have helped otherwise.”

  “Patriotic blindness has its uses, too. Pay him. And don’t stint. Light a fire under him. I need those people dead.”

  Kimach turned to the altar, knelt. Alfeld fetched a sack from the sacristy, hurried into the night.

  Kraljevac was dead on target, Gathrid thought. He eased out from under the pew where he had hidden. There was a sellout in the script. Though Ahlert probably had other prospects, a great treachery could be smothered in its cradle here. And Gudermuth’s demise could be counterbalanced a caratweight.

  Kimach glanced up from his prayers as the blade fell. He died before he fully realized that he had placed his bet and lost.

  How very vulnerable they become when they get sneaky, Gathrid thought. Had Kimach remained faithful he would have been surrounded by so many bodyguards even Daubendiek could not have reached him. To play foul he had to venture out on his own, baring his neck....

  Gathrid swallowed Bilgoraj’s politics in one great, sticky, sour, disgusting lump.

  There would be hell to pay in the morning. He wished there were some way to make the Red Order look responsible.

  He ran into the street, toward the gangster’s home. He overtook Alfeld four blocks from his destination. The royal cousin was strolling along whistling. The sack he bore had, mysteriously, lightened by half. Gathrid cut him down and took what was left.

  Despite the cumulative gruesomeness of this night’s work, he chuckled. It was a sound as fell as any ever to issue from the mouth of Theis Rogala. He was changing. There were moments when he enjoyed his role.

  He was delighted with what he learned from the dead man. Neither Kimach nor Alfeld had been honest with his cohort. Kimach had used Alfeld so he would have a convenient scapegoat. He had had no intention of delivering the promised crown. Or the Con-tessa, whom he had earmarked for a favored son.

  Alfeld had had his separate arrangement with Gerdes Mulenex. It had promised him kingdom and Contessa in exchange for the life of his cousin.

  Gathrid’s loathing of politics grew stronger.

  There was Suftko yet. The gangster had tried murder, yet seemed clean by comparison. Maybe he could be manipulated.

  Again the dogs did not challenge the youth. He eased to Suftko’s door, gave the knock the pseudo-derelict had used.

  The guard within sensed trouble. He opened the door a crack, then shouted.

  Gathrid drove his blade through wood and flesh, withdrew it, hacked at the chain holding the door. As he entered, attacking in a whirlwind of steel, he realized that he had made a tactical blunder. The house was dark. He could not see his foes. They could see him silhouetted in the doorway.

  His weapon knew where they were though. In seconds it was over. Three lives had been devoured. Gathrid pushed on to a lighted room from which panic sounds came.

  He found another three men. One was Suftko, another was a bodyguard. The third was a renegade Brother. Gathrid slew the bodyguard and was closing with Suftko when the magnitude of his peril struck Aarant. “Behind you!”

  Once again he dodged the aim of a golden rod. A beam sliced furniture and scarred walls. Gathrid ducked and dove forward.

  Th
e sorcerer was nimble. His weapon was one the younger sword could not negate. It took all the youth’s borrowed skill to survive the next minute.

  The sorcerer died.

  “A Blue!” Gathrid said. “And owned by Mulenex.... “But no more. He had fled, had enlisted with Suftko. A man in Suftko’s business could find a thousand uses for a competent sorcerer.

  The man was overdue for death, Gathrid reflected. He had murdered Honsa Eldracher and betrayed Katich. No punishment was adequate....

  Suftko had been hiding him from both Yedon Hildreth and Mulenex, each of whom wanted him desperately.

  “Watch the other one,” Aarant whispered.

  Gathrid whirled. Suftko was opening the door as he had been fighting. “Stop right there! Or you’ll die.”

  The gangster turned, raised his hands. He was a small, hard man. Gathrid guessed him to be as shrewd and pragmatic as Hildreth or Ahlert. No doubt he was aware of the dead wizard’s entire history.

  “There’ll be hell to pay tomorrow. Unless somebody does one good cleanup job.”

  Suftko said nothing.

  “You’ve got one chance to buy your life.” Gathrid told the man the true story behind his hiring. “I want the trail covered. For both our sakes.”

  “All right. I don’t have much choice, do I?”

  “Not much. I’ll be back if you don’t deliver.”

  The hard little man nodded.

  “Good luck, then.” Gathrid went away admiring the gangster. The man had shown no fear.

  He returned to the inn before dawn more than tainted the eastern sky. The scullery help were about, but did not notice him slipping into the cellar. The body in the alley was absent. The fish in the Blackstun would feed well today.

  Rogala still snored. So did Gacioch. The corpses in their room had not been disturbed. Gathrid left them lie. He placed his weapon near Daubendiek and slipped into bed. The Sword moaned softly, evilly, jealously.

  “Be careful,” Aarant whispered.

  “I plan to.”

  He was adrift on the twilight edge of sleep when he suddenly realized that he had been away from Daubendiek for hours, and by miles. Well might the Sword be jealous. His hand stole toward the new blade. He yanked it back. Suppose?...

  There were always levels to Nieroda’s schemes. This might be one to seduce him away from the blade he hated, then leave him powerless. He lay back. “Tureck, mull that one over.”

  “I am already.”

  Gathrid bolted up again, horrified.

  He had slain no fewer than a dozen men that night, without qualm or question, and without being controlled. He could not deny responsibility.... The Swordbearer’s fate was closing in. He was becoming a man without remorse.

  Sleep was a long time coming. He could not stop poking a stick into the hornet’s nest of his conscience.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sartain

  Gathrid and Rogala hit the road again after just the one night in Torun. Kimach’s disappearance had stirred too much excitement and speculation. None of it was pleasant.

  The dwarf had less than usual to say. Gathrid tried to enjoy the passing countryside. He failed. He felt Rogala’s veiled, curious eyes too strongly.

  The youth had said nothing about his night’s work except to admit that he had forestalled the assassins. The dwarf, though, had seen the innkeeper’s terror that morning. He had heard the news, rumors and speculations in the streets. He had done his sums.

  And he was well aware that Daubendiek had done no slaying. He and the Great Sword were tools of Suchara. They knew one another well.

  West of Torun, Bilgoraj consisted of populous farm country inhabited by curious, reticent peasants. They had scores of questions for travelers, but few answers.

  The farms eventually gave way to timber land. The Blackstun River, which had meandered north from the capital, now swung back to parallel the high road. It joined the Ondr where Bilgoraj butted against tiny Fiefenbruch. “This country is smaller than Gudermuth,” Gathrid observed. “West of it lies the March of Armoneit, the easternmost of the principalities still liege to Anderle.”

  The dwarf grunted noncommittally. He was more interested in changes time had wrought since last he had passed this way.

  It was in the March, in the hills overlooking the ferry town of Avenevoli, that Yedon Hildreth had won his celebrated victory. The enemies of then were allies now. The father of the King of Fiefenbruch and Kimach Faulstich’s elder brother both had fallen on the Avenevoli slopes.

  The Ondr, swollen by a hundred tributaries, eventually debouched in the long reach of the Secrease Sound. Sartain stood on a vast island, causeway-connected with the mainland, that countless generations had expanded into a canal-riddled, almost self-supporting city-state. The island nearly blocked the wide, shallow Sound, and stretched dozens of miles toward the sea. The original dromedary-backed island had become lost in the expansion. One of its two humps boasted the Raftery, the other the Imperial Palace.

  “It’s doubled in size,” Rogala said. They were studying the sprawl from a promontory where once a mansion had stood. The dwarf had chased some memory to the scene and found it one with all his recollections of the former age. “Chrismer lived on Galen. That’s the eastern peak. Karkainen lived on Faron, where the Imperium now crouches like a whipped cur. The harbor isn’t what it used to be. Hundreds of ships came up from the sea every day, bearing treasures and emissaries from the world’s ends. Those proud hulls seem to have been replaced by drab fishing trawlers.”

  Gathrid glanced at Rogala, puzzled. Once again his companion had revealed an unexpected facet. He had never seemed the nostalgic sort.

  “Let’s go see what the barbarians have done with the Queen of the World. Raped her, belike.”

  Not so, they discovered. Not only Elgar, but the long parade of his predecessors, had been obsessed with preserving the shadow of the glory that had been. The carefully nurtured wealth of the diminuated Imperium had for centuries maintained and improved the Queen City.

  It began on the mainland shore. There, sturdy, intimidating fortilices, brooding amidst grain fields, shielded the approaches to the Causeway. There were a score of them all told. Each was manned by Guards Oldani, veteran soldiers proud in their service. They were not the pampered, King-making, fight-avoiding praetorians one might expect squirming like maggots in the corpse of a decadent Empire. For them Anderle remained real.

  The roads were paved, and scrupulously clean, as were the people upon them. But ghosts of worry occasionally slid across their scrubbed native faces. The grain fields flanking the roads were garden-perfect. The peasants working them were cheerful and friendly. The highborn did not scorn to answer their greetings, nor to pause to chat amiably.

  “Pride,” said Rogala. “That’s what you see. Pride not only in what Anderle was, but in what she is and might be again. Every man has his contribution to make.”

  And a little later, Rogala observed, “The germ is here. If fate stays its hand. If a genius appears among the merely competent Emperors who keep the dream alive, they might achieve their goal. They might see their new Imperium, their new Golden Age.” He sounded wistful.

  Gathrid was impressed by the obvious health of the people. In Torun, and even more so in Senturia, ill-health had been common.

  He was more impressed when they passed through the wide, tunnel-like portal of the Maurath. The Maurath was the last and greatest of the outer fortresses. It bestrode the head of the Causeway like a squatting colossus. It was not just a fortification. It contained all the Imperium’s war offices, and the headquarters of Yedon Hildreth and his Guards Oldani, who formed the backbone of the Imperial army.

  That one structure was half the size of the city of Katich. Twenty thousand men could quarter there comfortably in time of siege. The passage to the Causeway was a quarter-mile long.

  The Causeway itself was fifty yards wide and two miles long, stone, and divided into directional lanes which separated the various c
lasses of traffic for flow efficiency. As Gathrid and Rogala were obviously foreigners, a polite soldier cut them out of traffic and explained a few of Sartain’s ordinances. For example, they would be responsible for cleaning up after their animals. He pointed out orange containers, with tools racked beside them, which, he said, could be found everywhere.

  A wagon piled with containers, empty, passed inbound. Then another appeared, bound outward, presumably to the farms.

  “The cleaning crews are paid from fines levied on people who don’t clean up after themselves,” the soldier said. “Most of our block magistrates enjoy fining foreigners.”

  Rogala grumbled something uncomplimentary. After he and Gathrid asked a few questions, they moved on.

  “There’ve been a lot of changes,” the dwarf observed. “None of those fortresses were there before. Guess they built them because the Hattori and Oldani managed to force the Causeway back when. In the high days Sartain didn’t need defenses. All the fighting took place so far away it took half a year to reach it. The Causeway wasn’t half this wide, either.”

  “Looks like they’re building another one.” Several miles to their west a fleet of boats were busy around what looked like cofferdams. Huge dumps of stone and timber lay on either shore. On the mainland side workmen were laying the foundations of a second Maurath.

  “They need it.” The Causeway was crowded. Moreover, Sartain’s expansion seemed to have been in the direction of the new construction. Reaching the mainland from those extremities would require a long journey through crowded streets. The straits were dotted with ferries providing shortcuts, especially for produce and goods.

  Gathrid wished he could have come to Sartain as a tourist, not as Swordbearer. Already he had questions and curiosities enough to busy him for weeks, even without the worries and obligations of politics and war.

  “Even the Immortal Twins would be impressed,” Tureck Aarant observed. It was the first he had come forward since Gathrid and Theis had crossed the Ondr at Avenevoli. He had been locked away with his memories and his guilt.

  “Blame Grellner, not yourself,” Gathrid told him now.