“Now we’re even,” Bentfork gasped.
“We were never even,” Spasso choked. “You and your family are no better than animals!”
“Animals who know how to fight,” coughed Bentfork, reversing his knife in his right hand and spinning it aggressively. “Let’s finish this!”
“Gladly!” barked his foe, and lunged.
But while Bentfork was talking, he had gathered up his cloak in his left hand, behind his back. When he sprang at Spasso a moment later, feinting at the man’s stomach with his blade, he whirled the cloak around to try to recapture the deadly black prosthetic again in its folds. Spasso had twisted out of the way, however, and the angle Bentfork had attempted was all wrong. Instead of his right wrist, the end of the cloak whirled across Spasso’s face, neatly wrapping itself around his head from the back. Bentfork tried to adjust his attack, then, and let his opponent’s momentary distraction give him a chance to stand and prepare for another pass.
But Garvan Spasso was screaming in agony.
The ends of the cloak had been trailing through the caustic chemical on the floor, so that nearly the entire hem was soaked in the stuff – soaked and decomposing rapidly, under the powerful corrosive. But when he’d whipped the end of it into Spasso’s face it had hit him squarely across the left eye and cheek. That was the eye Spasso was clawing at, now. Bentfork felt a sense of relief when he realized that the battle was almost won.
The cloak was still entangled, despite Spasso’s frantic attempt to remove it. Bentfork gave a decisive tug and pulled the struggling foe to his knees, the chemicals splashing dangerously around them both. But that’s when the villain was finally able to free himself, his vicious blade shredding through the weakened fibers of the cloak, revealing a horrid burn on Spasso’s left cheek – a burn that included most of his left eye. Spasso never stopped screaming curses, but he seemed far less inclined to taunt than fight.
“My eye! Ghu damn you to hell for eternity, you got my blasted eye! I can’t see!”
he howled.
Bentfork’s own eyes were watering fiercely in the toxic fumes, and he glanced longingly at Spasso’s discarded mask. “That’s what you get for mixing chemicals inside the city limits without a permit, Spasso,” he spat. “Let’s get you back to a nice clean cell, and we can have Countess Dorothy—” He gave up his arrest speech when Spasso clearly wasn’t listening. He was crawling around on the floor, trying to find a purchase to stand on, his own men recoiling from his scarred face and horrific cries.
“Corporal, do you have any manacles?” Bentfork asked, as he put pressure on his bleeding abdominal wound with his left hand. “I think it would be best if he was chained when we brought him in.”
“Why not just finish him off now, Sir?” the man suggested. “No one would say a thing. Hell, I’ll buy you a pint of Lyran spirits, just to watch!”
“No, his justice belongs to the Princess, not me,” he said, coughing. “Besides, look at him,” he said, as Spasso continued to crawl like a beaten dog across the chamber, bumping into furniture. “There is no honor to be had in killing him like this.”
“It’s not always about honor, Sir,” the corporal suggested. “I mean, its justice, pure and simp—hey!” he shouted, his eyes opening wide with alarm. Bentfork turned back behind him, in time to see Spasso complete a surprisingly spry somersault through the chemical spill and end up near the door. The corporal moved to intercept him, and got a vicious slash across his face for his trouble. Bentfork leapt, and pinned Spasso’s shoulder against the stainless steel door with one hand, his knife at Spasso’s throat.
“You even blink,” he said, feeling disgusted when he saw the remains of Spasso’s left cheek and eye up close, fragments of his cloak still burning their way into his flesh. “You even blink, I will kill you.”
“Calm down, boy,” Spasso soothed, his voice a raspy wheeze in the chemical fog. He held his prosthetic straight up, his knife disappearing into it’s housing with a click. “No more knife play. Viking’s honor,” he added, with a rye laugh.
“Kill him, sir!” the wounded corporal urged. “Blazes! He’s opened up my cheek!”
“Oh, no,” Bentfork said, his knife digging into Spasso’s skin. “Bring back the blade!” Obligingly Spasso made it spring out again. Bentfork carefully pressed the tip against the stainless steel door and applied leverage against it until it snapped clean off. Then he toed the broken blade out of the way. “All right, he’s toothless now,” he sighed. “Let’s get back to the surface—”
“How about I go first?” Spasso asked gleefully, as the Golden Hand officer’s grip loosened. He raised the prosthetic again and Bentfork heard a click, then a pistol report, realizing tragically a moment too late that the switchblade wasn’t the only special item Spasso had built into his fake hand. Apparently there was a small caliber handgun built in as well. The bullet wasn’t aimed at him in particular, but the sparks from the shot instantly set the chemicals on fire, and the resulting explosion from the center of the room blew Bentfork against the far wall of the corridor.
He woke an hour later, as medics pumped blood into him and tried to patch up his burns and wounds enough to transport him. The corporal wasn’t so lucky, and neither were the prisoners. All had been caught in the blast, and the suddenly super-heated air had destroyed their lungs before the flames engulfed their bodies. Bentfork was the only survivor. Bentfork and Spasso. By the time the medics got there, the dishonored count had fled through the maze of half-ruined tunnels, destination unknown.
He was visited by Admiral Harkaman himself later that day in the hospital, once he was out of surgery. Bentfork went over the chase in excruciating detail, and made a point to mention the areas where he had made mistakes. Nogal was surprised that the Admiral didn’t seem concerned by them. Indeed, the man commended him for his bravery and initiative, and promoted him to Captain on the spot.
Bentfork appreciated the gesture, but he couldn’t help feel a sense of deep disappointment, and said so.
“Admiral, I had Spasso right there, literally in the palm of my hand, and the bastard got away!” he moaned.
“Of course, he’s left his left eye behind him,” Harkaman reminded him, “as well as the stink of failure. Don’t worry about it, son,” he soothed. “Spasso has a couple of decades worth of vile treachery to fall back on, and you’re a man of honor. I understand you might think of this as a failure, but I wouldn’t encourage it. He’s a slippery son-of-a-khoograh. Vengeful, too. And we did discover an unknown bunker of his, thanks to you and your quick thinking. If you hadn’t smoked him out, no telling how long he’d be skulking around down there, plotting mischief and ruin for Tanith. Those chemicals? They make cataclysmite.” Ounce for ounce, the explosive was far more powerful than other chemical explosives. It was used in construction and demolition, and of course had military applications, too.
“But why was he down there in the first place?” Bentfork asked. Harkaman shrugged.
“There’s not much left to go on, but I’m guessing that he’d figured out he’d lost the battle, and he was working on ‘Plan B’. If he couldn’t take the throne by force, then he’d go back to chicanery and terrorism. There were enough reagents in that bunker to make bombs big enough to blow up the Planetary Building, and I think that was his plan. We found microbooks of floor plans for there, the spaceport, and a couple of prominent residences – my own included. The men with him were mercenaries, and two of them were demolitions experts. He could have had that bomb made and ready to go, right under our feet, and blown the thing while the Council was in session. After that, maybe he thought he could come to power in the chaos. Or maybe he had some more off-world confederates who could stage a second invasion. Either way, you stopped him before he could turn defeat into victory, and for that the Realm owes you a debt of gratitude.”
That wasn’t much solace for Bentfork. Once the Admiral left, he made a silent vow to the gods as he recovered in the busy clinic, including Lucas an
d Valerie among them in the privacy of his thoughts, that he’d find Spasso again, wherever he was hiding, and kill him properly this time.
His honor demanded it.
Chapter Nine:
Verwoerd’s Pledge
“You can’t be serious,” Nikkolay Trask asked, three days after the fleet had returned and saved Tanith from an even longer, bloodier battle than they’d seen. “The Winter Ball can be postponed – rescheduled – cancelled, for all I care! We just survived a major battle—”
“Which is why we need this all the more,” the Princess said, as she finished feeding little Elaine and handed her off to Lady Ashley for a proper burping. “My lords and ladies, we’ve been through a number of shocks and traumas over the past thousand hours or so. We’ve been through a lot as a Realm. We need to grieve, we need to bury our dead, we need to tend to our wounded . . . and we need to restore normalcy to the Realm.”
She looked around the state conference room, which had come through the Battle of Rivington unscathed, at the beleaguered faces of her nobles and officers. Everyone had been doing double-duty since the battle struggling to recover quickly. Valerie had hated pulling the entire Council of the Realm together for this, but three days after the last shot was fired was as long as some matters could afford to wait.
“But . . . a fancy ball?” Baron Gorram, the shipwright asked, confused. “Pardon me, Highness, but that just seems a little frivolous at a time like this.”
“It would be, if we made light of it,” she agreed. “But that’s not what I intend. Remember, this ball was to benefit Space Vikings and their families who were killed or wounded in the line of duty in service to the Realm. It’s to help fund the construction of the new hospital and a few orphanages. It’s a noble enough goal – and right now thanks to Spasso we have plenty of new members of that unfortunate club.
“Originally Lucas and I were to hold a small court, pass out some rewards, maybe knight a few people, and that’s it. That was before. Now, I have a whole bunch of people to publicly thank and reward for their heroic service. People who were willing to die for me, my baby, my family, and this planet. It may seem frivolous, Baron Gorram, but I assure you it’s not. By holding the ball, even in an abbreviated form, we establish how important it is to recognize such courage and dedication. It’s good for morale. And right now, my lords and ladies, Tanith needs all the dedication that we can muster.”
“About that, I won’t argue,” Paytrik Morland, the Home Minister, agreed tiredly. He had yet to sleep since the end of the Battle of Tanith. “Don’t get me wrong, Highness, the people are thrilled with the news of Elaine’s return. But the fact that Spasso got away, as well as two warships—”
“Duke Paytrik, as you know I support Admiral Harkaman’s decision, on the field of combat, to deal with the enemy without placing his ship or his men in danger. In doing so the Warlord not only avoided further causalities and wasted resources, he also learned some valuable intelligence. While it’s true that it didn’t lead to securing Spasso, I found it helpful enough nonetheless. I will hear no more recriminations about the Warlord’s actions on this matter, is that understood? Duke Otto remains a trusted and valued counselor of the Realm.” There: she’d mentioned him as Admiral, Warlord, and Duke in one breath. That should remind them all just how important Harkaman was to her and the Realm. There had been some mutterings about the two Space Vikings getting away that she didn’t like, and hopefully this would put a stop to that.
Harkaman shrugged his massive shoulders. “I made a judgment call. And I might have been wrong . . . but I figured the most important thing was to get them out of the system and repair the Realm.”
“I understand your reasoning. I just hate to leave enemies at large, is all,” the Home Minister grumbled. “It’s untidy.”
“Neither do I,” agreed Valerie. “But it was expedient, and at the time it was the best idea to drive them away. From what the Warlord says, these Space Vikings were pre-paid mercenaries, not fanatically-devoted troops.”
“Far from it,” Morland conceded. “Only about half of the mercenary infantry were even properly trained, at that. Of course, that half gave me more than half of the battle, though.”
“They were an army of dogs,” condemned Colonel Festersan with a sneer of contempt. “Merthan hillmen. Poorly trained, poorly equipped, and woefully uninformed. Undisciplined. Poorly led. Nifflheim, our militia were better trained, if not better equipped, than those rabble!”
“For an army of dogs, they sure did a lot of damage,” the Prime Minister pointed out with a depressed sigh, gesturing out the wide armorglass window where columns of smoking debris still lined the horizon. Rivington still had a half-dozen smoldering piles where structures had caught fire during the battle or where debris was being burned. “We lost over twenty-five hundred troopers, and twice number that of civilians, and reports are still coming in. Countess Dorothy says that the field hospital is packed, still, even though she’s discharged most of the walking wounded. There were seventeen – no, nineteen refurbished buildings that were damaged or destroyed in the attack. This building was hit repeatedly. There was plenty of ship damage, worst of all the Gunloggi. And we’re repairing her at the Realm’s expense.”
“Spasso knew just where to hit us,” Valpry said, glumly.
“Spasso threw the dice – again – and got his head handed to him,” Harkaman countered. “His whole operation went to hell on him. Look at it from his perspective: he had this elaborate plan to lure us away by kidnapping the Princess. He took a chance that we wouldn’t leave much in the way of defense behind, and in truth I probably could have spared another ship for home guard—”
“If there is any blame to be laid, it is at my feet,” Valerie declared. “It was I who ordered the Warlord to dispatch every available ship to Mertha.”
Harkaman chuckled, seemingly untouched by the criticism. “Highness, that’s just the point: We were waiting on Spasso’s ransom demands from Hoth. Spasso’s local observers were waiting for us to get that message and go to wherever it was Spasso had planned on sending us, probably a wild giraffe-bird chase on some other forgotten world hundreds of light-years away, to keep us busy. That would have given his scheme plenty of time to work – if he could have gotten reinforcements down from orbit before we got back, he might have actually won, and been in a position of power before we could make our way back.
“But then our brave Golden Hand agents, with Duke Karffard’s help, discovered that Elaine was on Mertha,” he explained to the council. “When we got confirmation of that, and Her Highness deployed the fleet, Spasso’s agents probably thought that we’d gotten the news from Hoth and began their operation too soon. And when we got word about the assault – again, thanks to Sir Alexi of the Golden Hand – we were able to rush back here and intervene far before Spasso’s plot was ripe. We caught him off-guard. That and a much better-armed and enthusiastic backwoods militia than he had counted on scuttled his plans.”
“I take back all of my objections about arming the neobarbarian subjects,” Duke Valpry said, graciously. “Clearly, I’ve underestimated them – and the loyalty they bear to the Royal Family,” he added, inspiring a few chuckles around the room.
In fact, the cult of the Trasks had been doing brisk business since the second return of Spasso. By now nearly every village on the continent was familiar with the story of the wicked Garvan Spasso, the god-like intervention of Prince Lucas and the special divine favor apparently accorded their blue-eyed princess.
That was in large part thanks to Baron Bentfork, who was making sure the legend was spread – and who was seeing the lines at his shrine stretch across the city. As a result, when Spasso’s men had tried to raid Tradetown, not only had they found a much more vigorous defense than they had expected, their attempt to recover his lost arm from the Shrine of the Trasks had turned into a bloodbath. Women and children had joined in the chaotic mob that had ignored the submachine guns of the invaders and literally rip
ped them to shreds after overwhelming their combat cars by sheer numbers. The causalities had been profound – nearly three-hundred civilians had died in front of the shrine – but between the ferocity of the mob and the steadfast defense of the Tradetown guards and the Golden Hand officers standing vigil, not one of Spasso’s men had darkened the doorstep of the shrine.
“We were lucky,” Valerie admitted. “And well-prepared. And Spasso was unlucky, and ill-prepared. But that does not preclude another attack, for which I want to be better prepared. We know Spasso escaped, and we know he has confederates – although many less, now that his safe-house on Mertha has a pleasant radioactive glow.
“But Spasso is a snake, and losing an eye on top of a hand on Tanith, not to mention his reputation, his titles and his position, is only going to make him more dangerous. I expect him to strike at us again and again until we end him as a threat. As of now, the reward for Spasso’s head is doubled. And I want a thorough post-mortem of the attacks, and an analysis of improvements we can make to our defenses. Twice now Spasso has been able to get through our defensive grid and land. Twice he’s managed to get away without us intercepting him. We need to mend our fences, my lords and ladies, if we want to keep this rabid beast away.”
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