“Hlens’l?”
One of the marines tapped him on the shoulder and offered a leather bottle, the kind all Imperial troopers carried as part of their equipment. If there was one thing Aldric would never refuse at a moment like this it was a drink, even the infamous rough, sour ration red. At least it was cool in his dry mouth and warm in his stomach, and that was enough reason to gulp it down. He drank a little more, stifled a nasty acid belch – there was nothing but the wine inside him and his insides were commenting about both matters – then handed the bottle back and tried to believe he felt better. For a second he missed the snug embrace of the black wolfskin coyac, but only for a second, with an inward shiver that had nothing to do with the weather. He would never be cold enough to want that thing back.
When the cutter bumped against a wooden jetty he all but fell off the upturned barrel doing duty as his seat and the marines laughed, making unkind observations about Albans and army-issue wine. Aldric gave a bleak little smile and ignored them. In his time he had downed enough varied forms of alcohol to float Teynaur, and never until now tasted stuff so obviously rented for re-cycling. Two more soldiers, not Fleet marines this time but Army regulars in crimson armour and full-visored helmets, came clattering down the steps of the jetty and lifted him under the armpits as if he was a sack of meal. Aldric wasn’t pleased and as his feet touched the lowermost step, weed-covered slimy wood but dry land for all that, he shrugged himself free.
“Thank you both, gentlemen. I can walk well enough without you.”
He achieved the right tone of injured dignity rather than dangerous rudeness, but that wasn’t why the soldiers laughed, a hollow, metallic sound inside their closed helmets. It was because a man whose legs were tired beyond belief, and accustomed to either a swaying deck or the unending treads of a drive-mill, found solid ground uncertain footing. The first two soldiers flanked him in case he fell, but several more atop the jetty formed up behind and in front before setting off at an unsettling rapid march-pace. Teynaur was late, therefore he was late, and therefore whoever had sent the battleram wanted him at once.
An Imperial at once left no room for further delay.
Their destination was one of the largest buildings within the fortress complex, and as they approached its door up a flight of broad stone steps the sentries to either side of the door flung it open so the little group could pass through without breaking stride. The sullen boom as it slammed shut behind them had an unpleasant, final sound, but Aldric had no time for reflection and little enough in which to look around.
This place might have started life as a palace or a mansion, and it remained a building where the high-born of the Empire wouldn’t look out of place. But there were no aristocrats in the tiled and panelled corridors this evening, just soldiers, a few wearing half-armour but most in tunics with their arms full of paperwork. Even when the passages were free of hurrying figures there was an air of furious activity and a tension which made the atmosphere tingle.
The boots of Aldric’s escort woke echoes in a vaulted hall as he was quick-marched through, not pushed nor forced, just hemmed about in until he either matched their pace or had his heels stamped on by the rearguard. They rounded another corner, entered a short, well-lit corridor which had only one doorway at its end and then stopped dead, for soldiers lined this passage from one end to the other.
These were big men in full battle harness, featureless behind the closed visors of their helmets. Six more of them blocked access to the double doors, razor-edged gisarms carried at the port. When two of Aldric’s guards continued to advance all the sentries levelled their spears, three at each chest, and took a single forward step like the automata on a complex clock. The movements were so precise and simultaneous that Aldric half-expected to hear the whirr of machinery. Duergar’s sending Etzel had moved like that, and the memory was a raw one which still troubled his dreams.
Their manner suggested these guards had orders to keep the place secure at all costs, and if that meant killing men who shared their uniform they shouldn’t hesitate. It looked as though they wouldn’t hesitate, for the unwavering spearpoints only drew back when the senior-ranked soldier of the escort spoke a password. As if the word set off a new series of actions, four guards stepped aside while the remaining two opened the ponderous bronze-sheathed doors.
The room beyond their threshold was long, and low, and wide. Lamps burned in elaborate sconces along its walls, striking reflections from a polished table which dominated the centre of the floor, from the crystal goblets which rested on it, and from the gold-worked crimson armour of the twenty Imperial officers who turned as one man to stare at the intruder in their doorway.
Escort or no escort, Aldric froze in his tracks. At his back there was a rippling clatter of salutes, and only after their completion did someone give him an ungentle shove between the shoulder-blades to send him stumbling into what had to be a conference room in mid-conference. As he straightened up he eyed the officers dubiously, but he also felt relieved. Aldric recognised the yellow metal bars and diamonds of general-rank insignia when he saw them, and there were several right here. But he also knew the Emperor’s crest of the eight-pointed star, worked in precious metal on the temples of each man’s helmet where they rested on the table among the wine-cups. Emperor Ioen’s supporters had no grudge against Rynert or Alba; the king had assured him of that often enough. Aldric released a gusty sigh of held-in breath, not caring who could overhear him or what they might think of his reaction. Whatever these granite-faced gentry might say would never be as bad as his imaginings.
There was one officer in particular who drew his eyes, seated at the head of the table, gazing at him, saying nothing, his only movement the slow tap-tap-tap of one index finger. His insignia of twin bars surmounted by a pyramid of three diamonds were a pattern Aldric had only heard described and seen in pictures. This was the most senior of all Drusalan military ranks before political significance took over: en-coerhanalth, Lord General. But which one?
A perfunctory gesture of his hand dismissed most of Aldric’s escort before he rose and strode down the hall for an examination at close quarters, but two closed in to grip the Alban by wrists and biceps, proving that his dangerous reputation had got here before him. He was stocky, this general, little more than Aldric’s own height but with an already-broad build made massive by the armour which encased him. His grizzled beard and balding iron-grey hair were those of a middle-aged man, but age hadn’t dulled the eyes glinting below his heavy brows. They drilled through Aldric as if, like Ymareth’s, they probed the innermost recesses of his mind.
Even without the guards, the other officers, the armour and the marks of rank, this man had a forbidding presence of his own. One blunt-fingered hand reached out, closed on Aldric’s chin and lifted it up from where nervous instinct had tucked it low over his throat. A finger of the other hand tapped as it had done to the table, this time against the heavy silver of the crest-collar restored to Aldric’s neck just before he left Teynaur. The Drusalan grunted to himself as if satisfied, but when that same finger touched the scar on the younger man’s cheek, another grunt sounded more like displeasure at the wound’s newness. A moment more and the general turned away.
“Release him,” he said over his shoulder, and Aldric felt a muscle twitch in his face because the order was in Alban. Massaging his arms – the sentries’ grip had been tight enough to stop the flow of blood, and it tingled in his fingers as it returned to them – he watched all the officers covertly from under drooping eyelids, and the general most of all.
“My lord,” he said, uncomfortable at the loudness of his own voice in the silence, “I thank you.” He bowed as was only polite, then looked straight at the general, not polite at all, and tried not to care that a direct stare might be insolent and dealt with accordingly. “But I would thank you rather more if I knew what the hell was going on.” Nineteen high-ranked officers growled their displeasure, suggesting every one of them was familiar
with colloquial Alban, but the general just nodded.
“Your file suggested you might react like this.” Aldric didn’t miss the inference, delivered with all the subtlety of a war-hammer: We know about you. All about you. “Would it help if I told you that I am Lord General Goth?”
At last. At long last.
Aldric did the most sensible thing he could in the circumstances. He dropped to one knee and offered the elaborate courtesy of Second Obeisance, since Goth as senior officer present was lord of this place. It also gave him a chance to get his betraying facial muscles under control, and when he straightened up again he was hiding behind a cool, half-smiling mask. Goth matched it with a half-smile of his own.
“There is a proverb among my people that refers to your people: ‘Beware the Alban when he bows to hide his face.’ Should I beware of you?”
Aldric doubted if there was much this man had to beware of here or anywhere else. Lord General Goth was third man in the Drusalan Imperial hierarchy and its paramount military commander. The office of Grand Warlord, despite its martial title, was more political than anything else as recent events had made all too clear. More important still, Goth was virtual father to young Emperor Ioen much as Gemmel was to Aldric, but for years longer. He was an honourable enough man, although it was a Drusalan form of honour and more flexible than most Alban kailinin would tolerate. Goth, doing what he considered necessary for the good of the Empire, had twisted it almost beyond acceptance even by Drusalans.
“You will sit down,” the general said. It wasn’t an invitation, and Aldric did as he was told. “Also,” continued Goth, “you will pardon me for the means which brought you here.” That slightly clumsy use of Alban wasn’t clumsy at all. The demand for pardon was in imperative mode and another order, no more a linguistic slip than his offer of a seat. Aldric nodded, smiled, and made all the courteous little gestures of one dismissing a paltry inconvenience rather than an experience terrifying then and far from reassuring now.
“As to the reason for it all.” The general leaned back in his chair and made ready to talk at length, familiar body language since both Gemmel and Dewan ar Korentin were great preachers when the mood was on them. “Tuenafen is in debatable territory, and most seaports perforce must be…” Aldric locked polite interest onto his face and let five minutes of pointless elaboration wash over him. Either he had heard it all before, or he hadn’t been interested the first time around. Then Goth said something which jarred him back to full awareness. “More than my men knew of your presence there.”
Something of what he felt must have shown on Aldric’s face despite his efforts at guarded neutrality, for Goth leaned forward and wagged a disapproving finger at him in a tutorial gesture much in keeping with his tone of voice.
“Come now, you didn’t think the goings-on at Seghar went unnoticed, did you?” Goth stared harder. “Or did you?” Aldric said nothing. “Well…!” There was a good deal of private opinion in the way the Drusalan exhaled the word, but he elaborated no further and instead lifted one armoured shoulder in the beginnings of a shrug. “No matter now. But given your frame of mind, you wouldn’t have stopped for conversation with armoured regulars like those who brought you here. And their presence would have made my hand too plain. As I say, there were more eyes than mine in Tuenafen. So despite opposition I had to use other means.”
As if on cue one of the other officers got to his feet, snapped a perfunctory salute and berated his superior in what Aldric could only think of as a polite shout, very different to the muted voices at King Rynert’s war council before the Dunrath campaign. Another man rose, nodded to his equals, saluted his superiors and joined the discussion, if ‘discussion’ was the right word and Aldric wasn’t sure about that at all. This man’s oration had more shouting and less politeness, enough to start Goth’s finger tapping again. Both speakers used dialect, as Geruath of Seghar had done all those months ago and for the same reason, so the foreigner present wouldn’t understand.
“Gentlemen,” Goth said at last, an edge in his voice marking the end of further debate, “we voted on this matter when the plan was first proposed.” He spoke High Drusalan now, with the drawling accent that seemed a trademark of the military, but despite that affectation what he said was clear enough to Aldric. All too clear.
Plan? yelled an outraged voice in his mind. Nobody mentioned any plan to me! The first officer jumped up again, scowling, and barked out a few words before making an indignant gesture in Aldric’s direction.
“We were not forced to anything,” replied Goth. “The whole council made this decision. And yes, Hasolt, I remember your views. Do you wish to make formal objection as a matter of record?”
“Yes, Coerhanalth Goth, I do!” The officer glanced around the table, shot another unfriendly glare at Aldric and counted points on his fingers. This time he used ordinary Drusalan, whether because of his passion or because he no longer cared who understood him. Even without it Aldric could have guessed his complaint from the waving arms and the Alban words scattered through his diatribe like raisins in dough.
The man had been expecting a notable emissary selected personally by King Rynert of Alba, an arluth or noble lord, at least a high clan kailin-eir retainer, and Light of Heaven knew what else. Now he was being asked to accept, on the same terms, a scruffy landless eijo with neither name nor fame who could as easily be a spy or an assassin. Real eijin were oathbound self-exiles from family and past life. What Drusalans knew of them were crude caricatures from cheap melodrama, never honourable, seldom heroic, often villainous, always lethal. The perfect anti-hero. Little of that was fact, but not enough of it was fiction.
“Stop.” Goth’s voice was sharper now, and the officer fell silent. “If you want to continue in this vein, our guest may wish to challenge you over it. And I won’t stand in his way if he does. You still don’t realise Rynert has sent us the man who restored peace between Alba and the Empire. This is kailin-eir Aldric, ilauem-arluth Talvalin of Dunrath-hold, who killed Duergar and cu Ruruc.”
Hasolt’s eyes widened and he opened his mouth to say something, but only licked his lips. The curt bow before he sat down again was a balance between trying to maintain his position and rank yet not give any more offence than he had already. One thing was clear, he recognised Aldric’s name well enough to want no challenge. After so much petty obstruction, that reputation was finally proving useful.
Aldric suspected Goth knew far more than he had confided to his colleagues. He wanted, needed, to learn how much more, and even find out where the general got his information. And there was one other question which, discourteous or not, he had to ask.
“Coerhanalth Goth-eir?” The Drusalan glanced in his direction, eyebrows lifting in query. “Sir, what plan is this?”
“So Rynert didn’t tell you after all? That was most remiss of him.” The reply sent an apprehensive shudder scurrying down Aldric’s spine, and he felt his mouth go dry as the fear he had suppressed so well came flooding back.
“Tell me? Tell me what? I was to deliver messages of… Of a certain delicacy, to Lord General Goth in a place of his own choosing. Nothing more than that.”
“Indeed.” Goth steepled his fingers and stared at them in a very Rynert-like gesture. “Ah well.” He came to a decision and looked past Aldric at the escort who had brought him from the harbour. “Return his black knife,” he told the escort leader, “then dismiss.”
Aldric heard the clatter as the armoured troopers took their leave and looked at what one of them had laid on the table in front of him – and laid gently, for someone had warned the man to show respect for that small blade. His tsepan. The Guardian of his Honour. A blade whose scars crossed his left hand, scars he would carry to the final fire. He lifted the weapon and felt the comforting coolness of grip and scabbard against sweaty skin, then returned it to its proper place on his belt.
“General,” he spoke Drusalan himself now, for sincerity’s sake, “I thank you for returning my self-r
espect. But I ask again: what plan?”
“Surely King Rynert told you?”
“I don’t remember him saying…” Aldric closed his teeth on an incomplete excuse, because though the king’s words were months in the past, there was a sudden uneasy recollection of words that had seemed vague and unimportant. ‘If you have any other opportunity to prove my friendship, I expect it to be done.’ At the time it seemed only an ambiguous footnote tacked onto clearer instructions. Now he wasn’t so sure. “Suppose you hear the messages?” he said at last. Those messages were locked by sorcery within his brain, only their recipients knew how to release them and – despite the officer Hasolt’s opinion of the way he looked – he really was the Alban clan-lord this conference was expecting. That made the messages important even if they were nothing more than polite hopes for health, success and long life.
“Hear them, Goth. Then perhaps we can get on.”
The hollow, metallic voice came from right behind Aldric’s head, where nobody had any right to be without his awareness of it, and he came up from the embrace of the upholstered chair faster than he would have believed possible. The man who stood there, far too close for comfort, was almost six feet tall. Despite a lean build there was altogether too much of him to enter any room without notice, yet he had done so. Elegant in crimson and silver beneath the dragonsblood cloak of the Imperial military, he wore its hood drawn part-way over his head. But it was what that hood left exposed that set Aldric’s pulse-rate jumping.
It was a mask of mirror-polished steel.
There were far too many deeply ingrained images from his memories of cu Ruruc and the demon-sending Esel in that tall, silent figure, more than enough for him to jerk his tsepan from its scabbard. The Honour-dirk was no fighting weapon, but it had killed before: Overlord Geruath of Seghar had died on its point, driven by the hand of his own son. And it was the only weapon Aldric had to hand. His warped reflection stared back at him from the surface of the mask, but there was nothing else to read from that polished, expressionless face: no threat, no anger, no amusement. Nothing at all.
The Dragon Lord Page 16
