Empire Of Blood

Chapter 7

Blade and Haleen awoke as the gray light of early morning trickled through the holes in the tent. With tenderness this time rather than blazing, urgent passion, they made love. Then they lay in a warm, pleasant half-doze until they heard the sounds of the camp coming awake around them. Haleen pulled on her robe and slipped out of the tent, her face set in an expression of total innocence.

Blade lay quietly for a few minutes more, to give the impression that he was a heavy sleeper and a late riser, listening as he did so. He had learned never to miss a chance to hear people talking in their unguarded moments.

This time no one talked about anything more revealing than saddle galls on the horses and the rust on one of Tulu's dress spurs. Blade gave up, pulled on his clothes, and crawled out to join his hosts. After a breakfast of porridge and salted meat, they were on the march again.

They moved for three days through the grim border country. All of it was either bare, gray rock towering toward a chill blue sky or endless, gloomy forest penetrated only by a few wretched, twisting roads and trails. Blade watched Dzhai clinging to the reins of his horse with his good hand, wincing every time a rough patch of road sent pain stabbing through his broken arm.

Very few people ever came here. The area was thoroughly inhospitable to man or beast, and it was deliberately allowed to stay that way, by the orders of His Magnificence Kul-Nam, as a barrier to the Steppemen. The lack of fodder, the poor roads, and the even worse weather that prevailed for half the year kept this part of Saram's border as thoroughly guarded against the Steppemen as an army of fifty thousand men could have done. Once more Blade had to admit that Kul-Nam had a certain amount of sense as well as a great lust for blood.

Then why were Duke Boros and his party riding through this land?

The law of Saram was that every noble and freeman above a certain rank had to pay his respect to the Emperor at least once every three years. Boros and Tulu were on their way to pay their visit to the Emperor while he was in residence at one of his southern castles. They had started their journey late, and the only way to reach the Emperor in time was to take a short route through the border country. In spite of the roads and the danger of bandits or Steppemen, the route would save them several days' traveling, enough to bring them before the Emperor on time. That was worth almost any amount of risk and inconvenience. Appearing late before the Emperor carried severe penalties.

Blade wondered if there were any crime or error in the Empire of Saram that did not carry severe penalties. The more he heard, the more he doubted it, and the less he looked forward to his reception by His Sublime Magnificence Kul-Nam, Emperor of All Saram. It did not help Blade's mood to note that Boros and Tulu were almost as nervous as he was, and not concealing it nearly as well. They were of a House with a history stretching back several hundred years. He was a complete stranger, with nothing whatever except their good intentions to protect him from Saram's bloodthirsty laws and Kul-Nam's even more bloodthirsty whims.

More than once during the three days, Blade was half tempted to steal a horse and slip quietly off into the forest. He was not quite sure what he would do then. The Steppemen's ways sounded no more admirable and no more hospitable than the laws of the Empire. Perhaps the sensible thing to do would be to fade quietly away into the wilderness and live there like a hermit until the time came to return to Home Dimension.

Unfortunately, that would only make matters worse, as he discovered after talking with Haleen. She was horrified at the idea and begged him not to think of it.

«That would prove to all that you were a spy or something else just as bad.»

«Even to Duke Boros?»

«Even to him.»

«Then what would happen?»

«He would have to tell the Emperor at once. Kul-Nam would not be pleased. He would take Tulu as a hostage and send the duke out at the head of an army to scour the country for you. Hundreds of people would be killed or left homeless in the search.

«When they caught you, you would be castrated, blinded, flayed, then smeared with honey and tied across an anthill to have the flesh eaten from your bones. If you were not caught, Kul-Nam would execute Tulu in the same way. Boros would have to watch it, then be impaled alive. The House of Kudai would be abolished, all its slaves executed, all its freemen enslaved, all its wealth forfeited to the Imperial Treasury.»

Blade gave a long whistle of astonishment. «All because of accidentally befriending someone who might have been a spy?»

«Yes. That is the way of Emperor Kul-Nam. If you were to flee, you would be killing many people, as surely as if you took a sword and cut off their heads. My brother and I would certainly be among them. I beg you, think of us now as you did in the fight, and show this mercy that is so honored in England. Do not flee! Do not even speak of it as a joke!»

«I will not,» said Blade, and kissed her.

On the morning of the fourth day they rode out of the forested borderlands and onto the southern plains of the Empire. Here the land was flat and the roads straight and well maintained. The party swept along at fifty and sixty miles a day, starting at dawn and making camp only at twilight. They were heading north, toward the Emperor's current residence and toward the Silver Sea, which stretched a thousand miles toward the east.

This was also a land of broad fields of waving yellow grain and of walled towns. The party rode around the towns, close enough for Blade to notice that only those towns with Imperial garrisons had their walls defended. Sentries strode back and forth, carrying bows and muskets. Small cannon jutted from the tops of the towers and larger ones defended the gates. Mounted patrols swept the roads for miles around.

In the ungarrisoned towns, on the other hand, the walls rose unguarded, unarmed, and sometimes half crumbled into ruins. In none of the towns did Blade see anyone armed, except soldiers of the Emperor and handfuls of thuggish-looking types who seemed to be the local policemen.

As before, Haleen was able to help Blade make as much sense as possible of things in Saram. Blade found himself respecting her more and more as he got to know her better. She was only nineteen, born a slave and resigned to being one until she died. She could neither read nor write nor count without the help of her fingers and toes. But she had sharp eyes, a keen mind to understand what she saw, and clear words to explain what she understood.

«The Emperor does not trust anyone with weapons, except the nobles and those who serve them, the soldiers, and the constables. All others cannot even have spears or swords, let alone bows or muskets. All they can have is kitchen knives.»

«What about blacksmiths?»

«They all serve either the soldiers or the army. If they sell a single weapon to someone who cannot have it, they are killed. Melted iron is poured into their mouths, or-«

Blade held up a hand to stop her. He was no longer interested in catalogs of the ghastly punishments handed out to lawbreakers in Saram. What interested him was the military problem this law must create for the Empire.

«That means that towns without a garrison have no defense against the Steppemen except their walls.»

Haleen nodded. «That is true. Sometimes they do not even have their walls. You saw the walls that were falling down?»

«Yes. I couldn't understand why the people of the towns would let that happen.»

«Two years ago a town did rebuild its walls when they were falling down. Kul-Nam decided that the town was plotting against him. He had a dozen of the leading people tortured to make them confess that they were going to rebel.»

«They confessed, of course?» After a certain amount of torture, anyone would confess to anything. That was a basic fact of life Blade had learned years ago, long before he'd ever heard of Dimension X.

«Of course. The Emperor's army surrounded the town and stormed it. He even sent in the Corps of Eunuchs, who are the fiercest of all his soldiers. Everyone in the town was killed. Then it was burned. Kul-Nam does not trust the people of the towns.»

The Emperor was probably right. Unfortunately for Saram, that was his own damned fault! After the massacre, what else could he expect?

Blade knew by now that it was not only pointless but dangerous to say anything concerning a matter about which Kul-Nam had already made up whatever he used for a mind. Certainly His Magnificence had landed his Empire in a messy situation. Only a small fraction of the people of military age had weapons or any knowledge of how to use them. His army and the nobles' fighting men were spread very thin. Behind them was nothing-no reserve, no local-defense forces, nothing at all. The towns could not even delay the Steppemen by closing their gates and holding out until the Imperial army could move to rescue them!

It was a stupid situation. It was also a waste of time to worry about it. The thing to worry about for the time being was keeping his own head on his shoulders. If he could do that long enough, perhaps he might be able to do something for somebody else in Saram.