The Sword Saint

by C. F. Iggulden

  ‘Who knows, you might become a father again when Darien falls, eh? Would you like that, Harkness? To go in with the winning regiments? Or are you too old for such fun and games these days?’

  ‘I fear I am, Your Majesty, though my son is a young ram who would be delighted at such an opportunity. If you wish to honour my service, you could give him a pass?’

  King Jean waved a hand in acceptance, aware of the shadow smirking as she crawled into view. His mood darkened in her presence and Harkness was experienced enough to sense the change. He spread another map on top of the first. This one was to a different scale and showed the land around the city walls of Darien. The hills were marked in concentric bands, tight together to show a steep slope. King Jean had peered at every part of it before, though it was still a thing of marvellous enterprise. In its own way, the map was as impressive as one of his siege engines and at least as valuable. At that scale, he could see the coils of the river as it made its way out of Darien to the sea. King Jean prodded the river entrance.

  ‘How will they know when to attack?’

  Lord Harkness smiled, unsure if it was a joke or not.

  ‘I imagine they will hear, Your Majesty. As soon as the gunfire begins, we will hit them where they are weakest.’

  The two men spoke for a few minutes, discussing the exact formations and deployment of forces. It was looking good.

  ‘I think I’ll walk amongst the men today, Harkness. It inspires them to have me alongside, enduring the blisters and the hardships.’

  ‘They will be delighted, I am certain,’ Lord Harkness replied, though his heart sank.

  You fool. All you can do is make them afraid. You are not even man enough to tell me what you did to Louis.

  ‘He served his purpose,’ King Jean hissed at the shadow.

  Harkness remained very still, his eyes slightly glassy. He had never been quite certain how to respond to the king’s odd utterances, so he simply ignored them.

  ‘On the other hand, perhaps I will ride, after all. I want to keep my horse fit for tomorrow.’

  ‘Of course, Your Majesty, I will have Ox-head saddled and brought up to you.’

  Rather than leave, the older man hesitated. King Jean raised his eyes briefly, suspecting he knew what the lord would ask. He wasn’t disappointed.

  ‘May I enquire as to the … health of your son, Prince Louis, Your Majesty? He was a most agreeable colleague and I was upset to hear of his injuries.’

  ‘He remains in the city, Lord Harkness. When we have strung up their council by their own entrails, when we have cut down their men and their children and the old women – and herded the young women ready for the breeding camps – I’ll find him and see if he still has the will to rule. Do not lose too much sleep over Louis, Lord Harkness. He was always a difficult son.’

  ‘Of course, Your Majesty.’

  Look out. One comes to kill you.

  The king reacted much faster than the lord bowing his way backwards. From slightly behind him, King Jean heard running steps. He turned and barely blocked the knife hammered down at him. His arm rose under the attacker’s armpit and, for a second, they were close enough for him to feel the bristles on the other’s cheek.

  With a wrench, Jean Brieland took hold of the man’s wrist and twisted until it broke. When he was a young fellow of twenty, he’d taken work as a strongman in a travelling show. He had not lost the crushing power that continued to bend the man’s arm though he shrieked and tried to pull away, made pitiful and weak by pain. The king maintained his grip on the broken wrist, controlling him with it.

  ‘I don’t know you, do I?’ he said to the man.

  The man shook his head, weeping and enraged.

  ‘You took my wife, my daughters …’

  ‘Ah, well. I imagine we had more use for them than you did. Still, where were you, eh? When was this?’

  When the man did not reply immediately, the king gave a jerk to his broken wrist and laid a second hand on the outer elbow, locking it straight. He began to apply pressure there, jamming his thumb into the joint.

  ‘Dalston!’ the man said through hissing pain. ‘Your men came there and killed everyone!’

  ‘No … I don’t remember a Dalston. Can you point in the right direction? With your other arm?’

  Lord Harkness looked away. He had witnessed the same cruelty any number of times and it still turned his stomach. He knew the king enjoyed it to a degree that was somehow obscene.

  In desperation, the man with the broken arm tried to point to his home village, anything to stop the agony being visited upon him.

  ‘And what is your name?’ King Jean said with another twist.

  The man sobbed.

  ‘Walter,’ he said through clenched teeth. He wanted to find courage enough to spit in the king’s face, Harkness saw. Yet Jean Brieland never quite gave him enough time between bouts of agony that left him gasping.

  ‘I don’t understand, Walter, how you escaped. If my soldiers killed all the men, as you say. Where were you?’

  As the man sobbed and sagged to his knees, Harkness saw they had been silently surrounded by grim soldiers of the king’s personal guard. They were ashen, as well they might be. Harkness saw the rage that lay under the light tone as the king twisted the arm enough to make him scream.

  ‘Please! Please stop!’

  ‘Then tell me how my men missed you!’ the king said, as if Walter was the one being difficult.

  ‘I was in the woods when they came. I ran away.’

  ‘You left your wife? You left your children?’

  ‘Y-yes.’

  ‘That is a shameful thing, Walter. Isn’t it?’

  The man nodded, with his eyes shut. He was already thin and worn. The pain made him pale as paper and so weary he seemed to be almost asleep or close to passing out. The king shook him until he was a little more alert.

  ‘There. A man who would leave his wife and girls for soldiers. What? Did you think you’d find your manhood here? By attacking me? You are not the first, Walter, believe me. Now I want you to see something before I pronounce judgement on you. Step forward, Captain Nicholls, would you?’

  The guard captain bowed his head, resignation already deep in him, like claws. As the king watched, the man removed his helmet and placed it under one arm.

  ‘Captain Nicholls, you have failed in your duty.’

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

  ‘Hand your sword and helmet to your second in command.’

  ‘I … would like to ask for mercy, Your Majesty, in recognition of my long service to you.’

  King Jean waited until the man had been disarmed before he replied.

  ‘Your request is denied. Bind him and put him on his knees.’

  It was the second in command who accepted the task, kicking hard at the back of his captain’s legs. Rope was produced and once again Captain Nicholls spoke up.

  ‘I have served you for ten years, Your Majesty. I ask for mercy.’

  ‘Do you see how he shows no fear, Walter?’ King Jean said to the one whose arm he still twisted. ‘Captain Nicholls here would not have run!’ He thought for a moment, licking the tip of his tongue over his upper lip. ‘So his courage redeems him. Stand up, Captain Nicholls. You are demoted to second in command of your troop. Acknowledge your new officer, sir!’

  The ex-captain climbed to his feet and stood with relief clear on his face as he saluted and was saluted in turn.

  ‘Courage, Walter, do you see?’ King Jean said more gently. ‘It does not mean a rash gesture, or waving a knife about! It is endurance – of hard work, of building a country, of working for something to last beyond you. Do you see? Your women will bear children – and those children will call me king. I hope that is a comfort to you.’

  Let me have him.

  ‘Oh, very well,’ King Jean said.

  He released the still-sobbing Walter and stood back. No one else saw the shadow creep across the ground like spreading oil, nor how she
wound slowly round one of the man’s legs. Walter seemed to feel the touch, though. King Jean watched in fascination as the man’s expression became confused and fearful, looking this way and that as the shadow climbed him, higher and higher, until a dark arm or leg coiled right round his throat. She squeezed. He clawed madly at himself, of course, though one hand flapped uselessly. Yet there was nothing to grip, nothing thicker than the air he could not draw in. The man grew dark with it and then blue-grey as his heart failed. He fell inert, with dead eyes staring.

  ‘Go back to your duties, all of you,’ King Jean said. ‘Do I need to say I will not be so merciful again, Nicholls?’

  The man who had risen from bed that morning as a captain knelt on the turf, sickened and disturbed by the strange death he had witnessed, that had almost been his own.

  ‘No, Your Majesty.’

  ‘Then pack up the camp. I want to cover some distance today. I feel the blood coursing in me, sir! For all that lies ahead!’

  18

  Assault

  ‘Not yet,’ Elias said again, as Deeds turned to him in the gloom. It might have appalled him how easily he’d remembered the companionship of the young gunman. Neither of them had mentioned their previous association aloud, but there had still been an instant familiarity in the shared memories. They had history. It was a history filled with blood and death, but perhaps that wasn’t a disadvantage on that particular night.

  The scouts had taken them to within three miles or so of the Féal army, then left them in a valley between two rising fields, with only the setting sun for company. Horses had been hobbled there to wait for dawn, just another blot of sleeping animals in the darkness.

  Elias and the others had settled down to wait for the night to deepen, until stars were visible and no hidden Féal watcher would see them moving. When they were nothing more than shadows, he took point on their slender column, leading them closer as quietly and quickly as they could go. A hard day’s ride out of Darien, the land was farmed there, with fields and patches of woodland of the sort Elias knew well. He’d led them through green wheat and barley, dropping flat at the slightest sound.

  They’d gone slowly enough, willing to let time spool away as the night grew cold. Elias had halted at last in a stand of oak and birch, near the crest of a small rise. Some farmers left them for the Goddess, as tribute, or just because it was hard to plough a hill. In truth, the spot was barely higher than the walls of the Féal camp that lay ahead of them. The six of them lay on black and frozen leaves, staring at the enemy for the first time.

  That close, they could hear the army of Féal. So many men in one place made a rustling susurration, an evening murmur. Like the sea almost, if the sea contained laughter and orders and iron. There were lights around the perimeter and dotted throughout the camp, casting pools of light. It was not as dark as anyone had imagined. Along the edges were massive embankments where pole-torches burned, lighting up guards on watch. As Elias stared into the distance, he saw the last baskets being filled with earth and stones dug from the ground, then raised to the crest of a wall. Fresh earth was packed in over that solid core and, in just a short time, something like a defensive fortress was complete. Guards took watch on actual gates, assembled from great beams brought forward and bolted together.

  ‘Tellius was right,’ Deeds said in awe. ‘I can’t imagine assaulting that with an army. How would you even get in?’

  ‘Keep your voice down, Deeds,’ Elias said, as he had a dozen times before. Some men didn’t seem to understand caution. He recalled Deeds’ love of risk and suspected it had survived all his trials since. The man was dangerous to know, but he shot like the devil. Elias only hoped he wouldn’t get them all killed.

  Elias turned back and the rest of them huddled close. Even so, he kept his voice low.

  ‘I can’t see a way to scout the camp. They’ve built their banks on flat ground, with nothing much overlooking them, so until we breach the gate, we don’t know what we’ll face. Our only advantage is that they don’t know we are here. That means Deeds and Nancy are the last resort. If they are forced to attack, the noise and light will bring the whole army running. So … Hondo, Bosin, Taeshin? You are with me. Deeds and Nancy? Behind us. Once we’re through the gate, find a good spot and hide yourselves. Under a cart, or … you’ll know it when you see it.’

  ‘That camp is huge,’ Nancy said. Her voice was calm, almost languorous. It put Deeds in mind of long, sunny afternoons in bed with a lover. He smiled at her. She ignored him. ‘Deeds and I should stay with you as long as we can, or we’ll be out of range when you need us.’

  Elias nodded. The truth was, there was no way to make proper preparations for something they’d never seen. Tellius had chosen three of them and accepted three more with great pleasure. Elias had to hope the old man’s judgement was sound.

  ‘Use your common sense,’ he said to her. ‘But Deeds, if you trip and fire a shot or rouse the camp before we have found the king, I will come back and kill you myself, if I have to wade through them all to do it. Understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ Deeds said.

  ‘Yes, “boss”,’ Elias added.

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘How are we going to get through the gate?’ Nancy asked.

  Deeds smiled again, but it was a darker expression, with memory in it.

  ‘I imagine Elias will kill the guards,’ he said.

  ‘All right, but then what? If they have watchers on the embankments – and they will – the alarm will be raised the moment we attack.’

  Hondo cleared his throat and the others turned to him in the darkness.

  ‘I can’t see how to do it. Even if we can kill the guards we see, there will be others, as the lady has said.’

  ‘As “Nancy” has said,’ Nancy interrupted.

  Hondo inclined his head to her.

  ‘Bosin and I might scale the embankment and take down anyone up there, but the problem lies in that lack of knowledge. Do they have guns? If they do, will they fire them in the camp? The darkness could help us there. Yet we don’t even know where this king lays his head, or if he is with his main force!’

  ‘I haven’t come this far just to leave,’ Elias said gruffly.

  ‘Nor have any of us,’ Hondo replied. ‘I just can’t see …’

  ‘If we have to, we’ll break the perimeter and rush them,’ Elias added.

  Hondo blinked unseen in the dark, shaking his head.

  ‘Tellius appointed you leader, sir, but …’ He struggled to find words that would not undermine Elias. ‘Our advantage lies in stealth, as you have said. Six cannot rush an army.’

  ‘I am not being paid enough for that, anyway!’ Deeds broke in. ‘And the horses are at least three miles to the south – if we can find them at all. So don’t be expecting me to run that far with the army of Féal on my heels.’ He kept some of his usual wry tone, but Deeds felt the beginning of a sick sense of worry building. This group could punch their way through a door easily enough. Yet this had all the marks of a plan thrown together in too little time, against an unknown enemy.

  ‘For now, we stay here,’ Elias said. ‘See how often they change the watch, what patterns they walk. We’ll wait as long as we can, let as many as possible fall asleep. I want them cold and groggy and slow in the small hours. It’s true we don’t know what defences they have. So I need you to be sharp. Rest. Sleep if you can. I will take first watch. When the camp is quiet, we’ll go in.’

  They settled back in the darkness, making themselves comfortable as best they could.

  ‘Then we come running right back out again, with an army after us,’ Deeds muttered.

  ‘Be quiet,’ Elias replied.

  Silence fell again.

  ‘Six of us,’ Deeds said after a time. ‘None like us.’

  ‘Shut up, Deeds,’ Bosin rumbled.

  No one else spoke as the stars turned overhead.

  Taeshin had listened to the others argue, hardly able to believe how they bick
ered and sniped at one another. Elias was the leader. It was inconceivable to have the other five discuss orders, all while the enemy sat in front of them! Warriors did as they were told! Taeshin shook his head in the darkness. Even Master Hondo had questioned the plans. Master Hondo, the actual sword saint! Taeshin felt only awe in his presence. They all seemed to know what to do, while he could only gaze on the camp walls with a sense of dread.

  Things had been simpler in Shiang. Or they had seemed so. Taeshin missed the peace and calm of never having to think for himself. It was certainly more restful than the terrible anxiety he felt at that moment. He wondered what Marias was doing and found to his surprise that he missed her. The Fool, too, came into his thoughts, whistling away like a kettle as he worked with steaming cloths and the huge cauldrons of the laundry. Just a little distance made Taeshin long to hear Marias laugh once again. He realised it had been a while since the last time.

  Hondo came awake as Taeshin touched his arm. He, Bosin and Deeds had been exhausted. How long had he been asleep? He felt refreshed even as he glanced at the stars and saw it had been a few hours, perhaps a quarter turn. Still, it could mean the difference between being fast enough and getting killed. Hondo was some way off being a young man. He knew having slept might save his life, but he still tried to conceal his yawn and slight confusion, waiting for his mind to focus.

  Bosin was awake and crouching at his side, which was comforting. Hondo didn’t know if the big man had slept at all, but it was hard to imagine an enemy getting past Bosin. Hondo shook his head. The man was no longer a faithful hound. He had grown used to knowing him in a particular way, to the point where Hondo had half-forgotten how much the old Bosin had annoyed him. He sent up a silent prayer that the one at his side would be a gentler mixture of parts.

  ‘Are we going?’ Hondo whispered.

  His eyes had adjusted well to the starlight and he saw Bosin dip his head. Hondo took a deep breath and rose to his feet. He felt stiff and sore from sleeping on broken ground, but he gave no sign of that. A sword saint was a leader of men. The others would look to him to show confidence, no matter how poor an enterprise this was. Hondo had some idea of what his companions could do. Yet an army faced them, an army with unknown numbers and hidden strengths. He and the other five were just a single thrust of a blade. If that blow were turned, the night would go bad very quickly. He clenched his jaw, knowing the others could not see.