Kingdom Of Royth

CHAPTER 17

With the King resolved to move against Indhios, it became possible to send orders instead of merely advice to all the people Blade had previously alerted. Pelthros, to his credit, did not resent Blade's having jumped the gun. In fact, when he heard what Blade had done, he delivered several fulsome sentences declaring Blade's wits to be as sound as his arm and appointed him a High Constable of Royth.

This made Blade the equivalent of a general and made it possible for him to go right on giving orders, which he did. Fortunately, most of the people to whom he gave them did not resent his sudden promotion. They respected him, even though they might have second thoughts about King Pelthros.

Putting three Brigades plus the Royal Guard on the alert meant twenty thousand regular soldiers available for whatever was needed. This, Pelthros decided, included cordoning off the whole city and conducting a house-by-house search for weapons. Inevitably, this meant confiscating an immense quantity of swords, cutlasses, daggers, pikes, and rusty armor from thousands of peaceable citizens. This in turn led to incidents, some of them fatal to one or both sides. And of course, riots then broke out, and by nightfall a good part of the soldiers were patrolling the streets, keeping High Royth calm, rather than marching out of the city toward the camp of the Ninth Brigade.

Blade was not entirely surprised that the King's zeal for action outstripped his judgment about what action should be taken, but he was entirely unhappy about it. As the sunset turned the range of hills beyond the city purple, and the smoke spiraling up from burning houses in the waterfront district obscured the seascape, Blade sat with Larina on a high balcony of the palace and toyed with his gold cup and silver tableware. An ample meal-roast chicken stuffed with chestnuts and raisins, venison pastries, fresh bread, fruit, and bottles of wine-covered a black marble table between them. Blade had not eaten anything substantial since the night before and should have been demolishing the meal at a great rate. But the uncertainty that still dominated the situation was knotting his stomach and making it impossible for him to eat and barely possible for him to sit still.

Finally, he could sit no longer; he drained his wine cup and stood up. «King Pelthros has done one wise thing so far in this crisis. He has made me a High Constable» His voice was bitter, so bitter that Larina neither smiled nor threw back a witty remark. «I am going to take advantage of that.» He began to stride back and forth, even less able to remain motionless now that he was planning, talking in a low voice.

«The key to the whole situation is still Indhios. The conspiracy will live until we take off its head by taking off his. And the most likely place for Indhios is the camp of the Ninth Brigade. That camp hasn't been taken. It hasn't been attacked. It hasn't been besieged or even properly patrolled! The local troops and the Guard are all too busy fighting some poor wretch of a shopkeeper over his grandfather's halberd! We don't even know that the Ninth Brigade isn't marching on High Royth at this very moment! If it is, there's nothing to stop it but a few cavalry patrols. And once it's through the gates and over the walls, the citizens that Pelthros' damned foolish orders have alienated will join it, and we'll finally have the popular uprising we couldn't have had otherwise!» He was so furious at Pelthros' obstinate folly that he let his voice rise almost to a shout.

With an effort he controlled himself. «A small force of picked men, disguised and heavily armed, might be able to make it into the camp and kill or capture Indhios. After that, I doubt if the Brigade's officers will move on their own. They'll probably try to make terms. If Pelthros has any sense, he'll at least cashier them all.»

Larina smiled knowingly. «And you will be leading this small force? I might have guessed it.»

Blade shrugged. «As I said, I'm a High Constable of Royth. I should be able to find arms and horses for fifty men without anybody asking stupid questions. Could you call two of your guards, Larina? I would like to send messages to Captain Tralthos and Brora.»

No matter how many orders a general gives, it still takes a certain amount of time to pick fifty good fighting men, equip them, and brief them for a complex and dangerous mission where any one of fifty things could go disastrously wrong. Although Blade did his best, he could not be in six places at once. It was nearly midnight before he led his force out of High Royth. They passed out through the West Gate, the same one he had passed through from the other direction as a chained prisoner only a few months before, and moved out on the Royal South Road at a canter.

When they were safely clear of the rich men's villas and scattered farms that clung to the fringes of the city, they turned sharply back to the west. Although the road narrowed almost to a trail, they kept on without slackening their speed. The raid was a desperate project at best; it would be simple suicide in daylight. By the road they were using, the camp was no more than three hours' ride west of High Royth, which should with luck give them two full hours of darkness for their work.

Blade's estimate was close enough. The chimes in the camp's shrine to Myonra, the war god, were chiming the third hour as they stopped their horses just in sight of the camp but beyond the ranges of its sentries. The turncoat soldiers were apparently concentrating entirely on defending their camp and not bothering to send out patrols, even foot ones, to cover the surrounding roads. This was a mistake, and Blade intended to take full advantage of it.

The light of the moon and the torches in the camp made it fully visible. It was a rectangle two hundred yards by three hundred, with rammed-earth walls eight feet high surmounted by a row of wooden palisades rising another five feet and sliced through all along their length by arrow slits. Inside, the tents were arrayed in smaller rectangles, each company with its own defined space, and in the center bulked the larger, permanent buildings. A whitewashed shrine, a red-painted hospital, the black squat arsenal and forge, with clangings and smoke floating up from inside it, the green-painted storehouses. In the very center was a small, square building whose gilded ornamentation blazed in the light reflected from numerous torches burning inside it and also those carried by the cordon of sentries around it. That cordon of sentries meant only one thing to Blade-someone or something important was inside that building. And there could be only one person that important in the camp-Indhios. He turned to Brora and grinned savagely.

«Ready.»

Brora nodded and pulled out a black hood and a length of rope. In a few moments Blade and Tralthos were hooded and bound with knots that would instantly slip apart the moment they exerted a little force. Then one of Brora's own men bound and hooded him, one of Tralthos' sergeants took the lead, and the whole cavalcade clattered down the hill, making as much noise as possible with hoofbeats and jangling equipment and whoops of joy.

Inside the hood, Blade could only judge their progress from the sounds that came to his ears. He heard the sentries challenge and an explosion of trumpet calls as the guard was called out, and the sergeant's voice replying gleefully:

«We have some prisoners that Indhios might be interested in seeing.»

There was a moment's silence. Blade found himself holding his breath.

«The count is asleep,» replied the guard cautiously. Blade now found himself having to fight to keep from triumphantly shouting a war cry.

«I don't think he'll mind being awakened for these three,» said the sergeant with a laugh. «Remove the masks.»

Blade found himself in the middle of a sea of half-dressed soldiers holding torches and lanterns, all staring at him and the other «prisoners» as if they were some prodigious monsters. He tried to look fearful and uncertain. He hoped his expression didn't show the red blood lust that was filling him at the anticipation of finally coming to grips with Indhios.

The guard commander returned. «The count will see you with the prisoners. Your men can dismount and stable their horses with us.»

Blade waited to see if the sergeant would come through with the cover story prepared as an answer to just that question. «Thank you, but no. We have our own base some miles from here, and our own women and wine waiting there. But you will be welcome to our hospitality there soon. The disturbances in Royth will be making many a wealthy man pack up and head for the country, and the pickings should be rich.» The sergeant had the expression, of a man almost licking his lips in anticipation of plunder.

«Very well. Come with me.» They followed the guard through the gate of the camp. Half a dozen of the troop stayed with the three «prisoners,» leading their horses at a walk up the main street of the camp, while the rest milled around by the gate. They approached the gilt-encrusted budding, its torches seeming even brighter at close range. The sentries drew back to let the horsemen ride up to the door, then turned and snapped to attention as Indhios came out.

He wore a plum-colored robe with black fur trim and a gold chain around his neck, none of the rich attire doing anything to diminish his grossness. The fat hands that came up in a gesture of childish delight at the sight of Blade were covered with rings that winked in the light.

«Ah, the pirate Blahyd. This meeting will be most interesting, though I fear profitable only for myself. I shall have to tell Alixa that you are here. I am sure the poor creature will want to see you, although whether you will find much pleasure in seeing her, as she is now. .»

There being no good reason for further delay and no hope of controlling himself much longer, Blade moved. His wrists flew apart, jerking the ropes clear, and he vaulted out of the saddle straight onto Indhios. The Chancellor weighed more than Blade, but he crashed to the ground under the attack. Before the Chancellor could regain his breath or draw any of his weapons, Blade grabbed the greasy beard and hair and hammered the massive skull hard against the ground until the man stopped struggling.

Now the sentries reacted, swarming in toward the men on the ground, and found the mounted men spurring their mounts forward and bringing their swords out, to form a wall of horses and flashing steel around Blade and his prisoner. Tralthos slashed the astounded guard commander out of his saddle, jumped to the ground, and helped Blade heave the massive form of the Chancellor over the vacant saddle and tie him in place.

By this time the other soldiers in the camp were joining in the circle forming around the horsemen. They were just in time to be hit in the rear by a massed charge of the rest of the raiders. Every man in the force except for half a dozen holding the gate came riding in, swords swinging, to scatter the soldiers in all directions or drive them forward onto the equally busy swords of the men around Blade.

But they could not leave just yet. Blade laid about him furiously for a few moments, cutting a swathe in the men driven back toward him, then grabbed the count by the beard and thrust a torch toward his face. The piggish eyes opened.

«Where is Alixa?»

«I-«The count winced and closed his eyes against the glare and the heat.

«Where?»

«The-the back room. You-«

But Blade had already dashed the torch to the ground and charged into the house, chopping down one soldier who tried to bar his way so much by reflex that he hardly noticed the man falling and writhing on the floor. He spotted a door leading to what must be the back, tested it, found it locked. He stepped back a pace, seized the count's chair, a massive thing suitable for a massive man, and hurled it like a catapult stone against the door. Lock and hinges both screeched apart and the door fell with a crash.

Alixa stumbled out. Her eyes were blank and staring, her hair tangled and hanging down her back, and she wore only a greasy and blood-specked white shift. She was not a small woman, but Blade scooped her up under one massive arm as though she were a child and left the building at a run. He flung her over his horse as easily as he would a basket of fruit, vaulted into the saddle, and pulled her against him as he bellowed:

«All right, everybody. Time to move out!»

A few hardy souls tried to form an infantry line across the main street of the camp, but the full weight of the fifty charging horsemen swept over them and left them lying motionless or writhing on the trampled and blood-smeared earth. The troop charged out into the darkness, swung left to get onto the Royal West Road, and settled down to put as much distance between them and the camp as possible in as short a time as possible.

Whether because they were too stunned or simply because they had no cavalry to spare, the Ninth Brigade did not pursue the raiders. The first sign of military activity Blade and his men met, in fact, was just after dawn when they rode back into the suburbs of High Royth and met a troop of the Guard Cavalry. The captain of the troop was a trifle skeptical of Blade's story until he saw who was riding trussed like a slaughtered deer across the back of a horse in the middle of the band following Blade. After that, he grinned broadly and waved them on. Blade rode into the city with a great confidence in the good sense of the soldiers of Royth, whatever he might think of their King.

They had to interrupt Pelthros at breakfast to present Indhios, a breakfast he was eating with the countess on the very balcony where she and Blade had dined the evening before. Pelthros, Blade noticed, looked clear-eyed now, and he was wearing a mail coat and a rather more efficient-looking sword than his former ceremonial weapon. He rose as they approached, laid down knife and fork, and stepped forward a pace to glare at Indhios.

«Well, Chancellor. If you are responsible for what has happened these past two days, there is a heavy burden on you. And there will be a heavy punishment, if you are indeed guilty.»

Blade once again wanted to take Pelthros by his beard the way he had taken Indhios and bang the King's head against something hard in the hope of knocking some sense into it. Wouldn't the King ever come to a decision about this traitor who had all but ruined Royth?

«You can punish me if you want to,» growled Indhios. «But it won't do you any good. You won't outlive me by much, you artistic fool! And that bitch-whore beside you-«Before anyone could react, he swung one clublike arm into the stomach of the guard on his right, snatched the man's sword with the other hand, and charged straight at the King. Pelthros jumped one way, the countess jumped the other-not fast enough. The sword drove through her just below the right breast and came out her back. Letting go of the sword, Indhios turned to face them.

«You'll be damned lucky to die this easy,» he growled, turned back to the railing, and with one heave of his arms pulled himself up and over. Blade snapped from his paralysis in time to see Indhios land on the stone a hundred feet below. He didn't bounce. Soldiers were already clustering around the body when Blade turned back to the countess.

«Larina, I was a fool to-«

«He-was a desperate man. I-should have-told-you-he might do-this. Don't blame-yourself.» Her hand clutched at his, and she died.

Blade was conscious of Pelthros bending over his shoulder, looking down at the small, still body. There were tears in his eyes. «She shall be buried among the Queens of Royth. She did as much as any of them.» He rose and looked out over his capital. «And we have much to do, to complete the work that she-and you-began.»