The Jade Warrior

Chapter Seventeen

The dwarf uttered a cry of rage and anguish and rushed at Sadda.

Blade was frozen and moved too late. Sadda half turned on the throne, wide-eyed in shock and surprise, as Morpho buried his knife under her left breast. She screamed once then, and stared down in disbelief at the hilt protruding from that golden flesh.

She fell slowly forward onto the rugs before the dais.

The next moment, while shock and horror held the crowd, the Khad fell beside his sister. He gasped and clawed at his throat as terrible convulsions racked his body.

Blade came to life. The blacks were the first to leap at Morpho. Blade flung the throne at them and they went down in a heap. Blade drew his sword as he bellowed at the dwarf.

"Behind me - behind me!"

Rahstum had whipped a sword from under the covers of his pallet and was brandishing it and roaring at the top of his voice.

"To me! To Rahstum! Obey your orders - to me, to me!"

It was whirling, sweating, screaming, fighting pandemonium. Some of the Khad's men tried to fight and were cut down. Two of them rushed at the dwarf, sheltering behind Blade, and he killed one and badly wounded another.

Blade moved quickly back to guard the little man, seeing that it was not going to be much of a fight after all.

Rahstum had planned too well.

There was a flurry of action near the entrance as some of the Khad's men sought to break out of the tent. Baber, a wide grin on his face, rolled his cart into the melee and began to slash at legs. He had had a sword in a sling beneath his cart.

In five minutes the worst was over. Some few of the Khad's men escaped by slitting the tent cloth with their swords and bursting out. Rahstum sent men after them.

Rahstum had himself carried to the throne and placed on it. He smiled at Blade and waved his arm.

"Too weak to walk. I must be carried to my throne. A fine beginning for the new Khad, eh?"

"At least a beginning," Blade replied. "But what now, Captain? Or shall I already call you Khad?"

Their glances locked and held for an instant. Rahstum smiled faintly. "You will call me Captain - at least in private. But there is no time for that nonsense now. We must get on with it. You, Sir Blade, and Morpho, will remain here with me. My men have their orders."

It was a long night and a bloody one. Rahstum had planned so well that most of the Khad's men and officers were caught completely unaware. With the common soldiers there was no difficulty. It was all one to them who paid them, they had not cared much for the Khad anyway, and they came over to Rahstum in droves and without demur.

Rahstum's troops rounded up all the Khad's officers, those who had not been in the tent, and brought them before the Captain. It moved rapidly. They were given a minute to swear fealty to Rahstum or lose their heads. The headsman waited just outside with his block. A good three quarters of the officers took the oath.

They finished as the sun came bounding up. Rahstum was fatigued and in great pain, and greatly in need of sleep. He dozed on his pallet and a rug was thrown over him.

The bodies of the Khad and Sadda had been taken away. Not before Blade asked, and received, a promise that Sadda at least should have a decent burial. His child was dead now, which could not be helped, but he would not have Sadda, with whom he had shared a bed, if not love, treated as the corpse of the Khad was to be treated.

The dwarf spent most of the night in a corner of the tent with Nantee, cozening and petting her, and allaying her fears. At last she went to sleep, her cheeks tearstained, and Morpho holding one small hand.

Blade, seeking explanations now that it was over, smiled down at the sleeping girl.

"She will be all right, Morpho. He had no chance to harm her. And it is unlikely that she understood what it was about. She will not be haunted by it. And now she has Rahstum's protection. You heard him promise it."

Morpho nodded. His own rugged cheeks were tear-stained. "I owe you much, Sir Blade. More than before, which was my life."

Blade, who was also weary, found a seat and regarded the little man with a touch of sternness.

"Commence repayment, then, by telling me something of the truth. How came Sadda to know about Nantee?"

Morpho's eyes were sad over the fixed grin. "She was a devil. She had known for many years. Since Nantee was a baby. I do not know how she found out, but she did. She had spies everywhere."

Sadda had been, right, Blade thought, when she told him she could make the dwarf do anything. He had been her man. He had no choice.

"You lied," he said now. "You told me that only three people knew about Nantee. You, me, and your old crone. I half guessed, and would have known the truth, but you lied. Why, Morpho?"

The dwarf nodded slowly. "Yes. I lied, Sir Blade. I had to lie. She made me promise that I would never tell anyone that she knew about Nantee. I did not understand then. I do not understand now. But I had to promise and I dared not break it. She also promised me something - that if ever I told anyone that she knew about my child - Nantee would be killed at once. What could I do but obey, Blade. I dared not tell even you or Rahstum. If you were tortured and spoke, my daughter would die."

Nantee stirred and mumbled in her sleep. Morpho booted her and stroked her hair.

Blade thought he understood. Sadda had been subtle beyond all knowing. But what had she been protecting herself against? Her brother - who might have taken it amiss if she knew of such a lovely child as Nantee and concealed it from him?

Blade shrugged and gave up. She was dead and that was the end of it.

By noon the camp was nearly back to normal. Rahstum awakened, refreshed and hungry, and began issuing orders and making plans as he gulped his breakfast. Nantee was given to the charge of a trusted woman and taken to special quarters. Morpho went back to his tent to sleep. Baber, drunk on joy and bross, had to be carried to his wagon by four men. Rahstum, remembering the way Baber had fought on his cart, promised to make him a sublieutenant.

Blade and Rahstum went to look on the final humiliation of the Khad Tambur, Ruler of the World and Shaker of the Universe. It was a last degrading, but that was not the only end. Long lines of men and women and children, even the dung gatherers, waited to pass the body.

"There is no time for oaths of loyalty from all these," Rahstum explained. "This will do just as well. These people do not really care who rules them, and they know that I cannot be worse than the Khad. See how eager they are!"

The Khad's naked body had been tossed on a great pile of human dung. He lay on his back, his sightless eye staring at the sky. One by one the Mongs filed past, each one spitting on the corpse.

Blade looked at the Captain. "How did the little man do it? I meant to ask, but we got to talking of other things. Did he tell you?"

Rahstum eased his stub in the sling and grimaced. Blade thought his powers of recuperation far beyond the mere human.

"He did not tell me," Rahstum said a bit dourly. "I questioned him and made him talk. Lest I turn out to be a bad Khad and he use the same method on me one day."

"I doubt that," Blade said.

Rahstum shrugged, then laughed. "He is a clever little fiend. You saw the melon he took from the snow. It was whole? Uncut?"

"I thought so. But how could it have been - or had he a way of placing the poison without breaking the skin of the melon?"

The Captain shook his head. "Not so. He put the poison in the melon before the Khad's very eyes. It was on his knife. One side of the knife he had smeared with honey. On this he placed the poison so that it would stick - it was a powder."

Blade grinned. "I see it now. When he cut the melon the poison was left on one half only - the half he gave the Khad. So he could bite into the other half without harm to himself. He is a little fiend, Captain. I agree."

Rahstum laughed again. "It was a near thing at that, when the Khad challenged him. But that trick with his voice got him out of it. The Khad laughed and forgot and his laugh killed him."

They went back to the big tent. As they entered Blade said, "Suppose Morpho had failed. What then, Captain?"

"I would have killed the Khad myself. With my one remaining hand."

In the tent Rahstum swung on Blade. "I have much to do. As I am sure you do also. But you wanted a word in private, Sir Blade. You have it. What is the affair?"

It was more than a word. It was a long hour of talk, of question and answer, of anger and impatience and some little bellowing and shouting: But when Blade left the tent to sleep at last he felt that he had won - for the time being. His instincts had been right about Rahstum. He was a Cauca, not a Mong, and he was a reasonable man.