There was a moment of silence, and then Kaseem stepped forward to add the formal list of their own star fighters. “To command the forces of Karakhor, we have the Lord Jahan, our most mighty warrior and our Warmaster General. As you all know, Lord Jahan’s banner is that of the Snarling Tiger. On his left in the front rank of battle will fight the Prince Sanjay, our Master of the Javelin, with the banner of the Golden Hawk. On his right, the swift sword of the Prince Devan, with the banner of the Lion’s Paw. We also have Prince Rajar of the Silver Falcon, Prince Nirad of the Silver Boar, and Prince Ramesh with the Silver Panther.”
Jahan winced inside as his young princes were proudly named, although he allowed nothing to show on his face. He saw Ramesh and Nirad stiffen themselves and hold their chins higher, their eyes unblinking. It was their right to be listed, but if he could have his way, they would not fight at all. He had already nominated three of his best captains to shadow and protect his young nephews with squads of hand-picked warriors, and he had threatened to have all their heads if any one of the young princes should fall.
For a moment, they were all flushed by pride and most of their faces showed flickers of smiles. Then Jahan brought them back to grim reality again. “If the Gods will that I should fall, then Prince Devan will command the battlefield. The next in line will be the Prince Sanjay.”
They were sobered again, but there was one more thunderbolt to come. Kara-Rashna leaned forward to grip the narrowing point of the elephant tusk that formed the arm of his throne with his one good hand, and with a huge effort hauled himself upright. He fixed a now glittering eye on Kaseem and announced angrily, “You forgot one name. You did not speak of Kara-Rashna, Light of the Sun, Sword of the Gods, and King of Karakhor. The chariot of Kara-Rashna flies the golden banner of the Rising Sun, and it will be there.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. All were caught by surprise. Then Jahan turned to face his friend and King and said slowly, “Sire, surely you cannot intend to take the field. Can you not trust this battle to younger men?”
“I am no older than you are,” Kara-Rashna told him irritably. But he could see and understand the concern in the eyes of his old comrade and some of the anger went out of him. However, he continued, “You have listed Kumar-Rao among the enemy champions. Do you think I could leave another old friend to be cut down by younger and stronger men? If Kumar-Rao takes the field, then so must I. It will be my task to seek out Kanju’s king on the battlefield. I must try to persuade him to withdraw his forces, and if I cannot, then we must cross swords and one of us will die. If it is my fate to fall in the first battle, then you Jahan, and you Kaseem, will hold my joint mandate to rule until the return of the First Prince Kananda.”
Jahan bit his lip to hold back more argument. Kaseem took a step forward, his hands coming up in the stance of prayer and supplication, but then he too faltered. Both saw that no words could hope to sway their King. The decision of Kara-Rashna was not an invitation for public discussion, it was a royal decree.
Almost all were unhappy with their King’s decision, and some of the older faces were positively distressed. The ancient Lords of House Tilak and House Bulsar were not only grieved at the prospect of their friend and King risking his life, they now had to reconsider whether their own dotage was still sufficient reason for allowing their house banners to be carried into battle by their sons.
The old Warmaster General was not the only one chewing his lip, but one other was even more furiously holding his tongue. The face of the young Prince Rajar flushed hotly as he struggled to hold his temper. It was not the thought that his father might be easy prey for the enemy champions which bothered him, but the delegation of Royal authority. Kananda was not here. Kananda had abandoned Karakhor in her hour of greatest need. He, Rajar, was next in line. He was now the First Prince. He had already argued in private with his father for the right to carry the Rising Sun banner into battle and been refused. Now he knew why, and here was a second insult.
Kara-Rashna should have named Rajar as his successor. Instead, he had clouded the issue by giving his mandate to a dog-head of a soldier and a dithering priest, to be held for a lost son who would never return. Rajar was furious with the senile old fool, but still he bit down on his tongue. He did not dare challenge or defy Kara-Rashna openly while he still lived.
The young Lord Gujar was also prey to angry thought processes which had nothing to do with the forthcoming battle with Maghalla. As Kaseem and Jahan had proceeded with their war briefing, Gujar had found himself helplessly distracted by a grim study of the faces of the Princes Devan and Sanjay. It was his first opportunity to compare them directly, and he was still convinced that one of them had to be responsible for the foul murder of his father.
One of them had hired three assassins and paid them to wear the colours of the House of Gandhar, but which one? As he watched them, Gujar could see nothing in their faces or their manner which even hinted at the capability of such twisted deceit. Until his father’s death he would have sworn that both of them were noble in heart and pure in mind, two honourable men who would still have been richly deserving of respect, even if they had not been high-born princes and brothers of the King. They had both fought against the blue gods with equal courage after Kananda’s intervention. But one of them, he was certain, harboured a tainted and rotten soul, and he could in no way determine which one.
For a moment, his gaze fixed on Sanjay’s shriveled arm, a distinguishing feature which was now impossible to miss. If it were Sanjay who had met with the three killers in the dockside tavern, then surely the girl Devi would remember such a misshapen limb. She had not mentioned it, but he had not specifically asked. For a second, elation flared within him as he considered a return visit to put the question. Then he realized that the damage to the Prince’s arm had not occurred until after that clandestine rendezvous.
However, the idea of returning to question the girl again persisted. There were definite differences between the two Princes, even though the face of the guilty man had been carefully hidden. Sanjay was a tall, lean man, with the body of an athlete. His brother Devan was thickset with broad shoulders. If he described them both, then surely the girl would be able to say which one was most like the man she had seen.
As soon as the war Council was over, Gujar sought out Kasim and announced his intention of returning to the tavern. Kasim frowned a little and inside he was uncomfortable. With the onslaught of Maghalla imminent, it seemed an inopportune moment to pursue a personal vendetta, especially against one of their highest war-leaders and a brother of the King. However, he knew that in Gujar’s position, he too would be determined to uncover the truth, and so he concealed his doubts. He would not allow Gujar to go alone, and so together the two young Lords made their way back to the waterfront.
Again it was night, the drinking and debauchery was well advanced, and the scene in the dingy, smoke and sweat-smelling bar room was unchanged. Even the blurred faces seemed the same, and it was as though they had never left. They saw the girl, Devi, serving on the far side of the room, but if she saw them, she deliberately kept her distance and a crush of bodies between them.
Daksha, the tavern-keeper, served them cups of wine, his dark face even more surly and uncommunicative than before. Kasim tasted his wine and grimaced. His palate was insulted. The wine was still as coarse and foul as it had been on their first visit.
They drank slowly while Daksha avoided any conversation by moving as far away from them as he could. They were aware of suspicious eyes fixed on the backs of their necks, but no eyes met their own. Backs and shoulders were hunched toward them, and faces turned away, and yet every man in the room seemed to be watching and waiting.
Gujar, tired of pretence, finished his cup with a noisy gulp, and then moved directly to where Devi was waiting on one of the far tables. He swayed, and deliberately missed his step as though he had already drunk too much wine, and then stumbled into the serving girl and swept his right arm around her waist
.
To protect her he had to make it appear that he wanted something other than information, and there was only one perfect excuse to get her alone. He leered at her in what he hoped was a good imitation of lechery, and said in a whisper that was meant to be heard, “Devi, your sweetness is wasted in this ugly place. But we return just to see you smile. Is there still the upper room?”
The girl trembled like a trapped rabbit. She stared into his face, and then at Kasim who had stepped up behind him.
“Both of you?” she said weakly.
Gujar nodded. “We will each pay double.” He looked down at her blouse front, as though flushed with anticipation, and allowed his hand to slip lower and caress her bottom. Around them men grinned with understanding, and there was a general relaxation of the undercurrent of tension.
Giving her no chance to protest, Gujar steered the girl to the wooden staircase leading to the upper room she had indicated before, and managed to stumble once to continue the illusion that he was unsteady on his feet. Kasim tried to hide his embarrassment and followed. He too had been caught by surprise by Gujar’s choice of approach, and suddenly he felt hot and foolish. Now, as he passed, there were some chuckles of laughter.
Devi led them into a small room where there was nothing but a single bed with a stained mattress. She was still flustered, but beginning to hope that perhaps her usual calling was all that might be required. She forced her trade smile onto her lips and quickly pulled open the front of her shirt. She wanted the business over quickly and her brown breasts popped into view.
Gujar signed to Kasim to stay close to the door as he eased Devi down onto the bed and sat beside her. His hands on her shoulders stopped her from pulling off her clothes.
“There is no need,” he said softly. “I only wish to talk.”
The fear leapt back into Devi’s eyes, and clearly she would have preferred to do anything rather than talk. Her shoulders shuddered under his firm grasp.
“You remember when we talked before, of the high-born Prince who gave gold to the three assassins?”
“Please,” the girl whimpered. “Do not ask me. Daksha did not believe me before when I said that I told you nothing. He will beat me again.”
“This time there is a different reason for us to be here. In three days, Karakhor will be besieged by Maghalla. Many men will die in battle. My friend and I must fight in the front ranks. We do not wish to die before we have lain with a woman. That is the story you must tell Daksha. This time he will believe you.” Gujar pulled his own shirt loose from his sword belt. “When we leave this room, we will all look as though we have disrobed for the usual sport.”
Devi put her face into her hands. “I dare not.”
“The man you saw,” Gujar persisted. “Was he tall and slender, like my friend Kasim? Or was he a broad-shouldered man, one more of my own height?”
“I do not know. I cannot remember.”
“Try hard. You must remember. We are here now, so it will make no difference if you take our gold for information or for sport. Daksha will either believe the lie or he will not. But I will pay more for the information. Did the royal Prince have wide shoulders, or was he tall and slender?”
“The young Prince was not large at the shoulders, but neither was he as tall as your friend.” Devi wept, and large tears rolled down her anguished face. “I do not know how to answer you.”
Gujar and Kasim stared at each other, one of them ready to groan in turn with frustration, the other at a loss and unable to help. Finally, Gujar made an attempt to make sense of it.
“Prince Devan must be the more easily recognizable of the two. He is built like an ox. Perhaps Prince Sanjay is not quite as tall as you. I think it must be Sanjay.”
“Perhaps.” But Kasim was looking thoughtfully at Devi, and remembering her exact words. “She said the young Prince, but both Sanjay and Devan are older men.”
Gujar stared at him as the words sank home, and suddenly they were both remembering the events of that terrible night of their epic return to Karakhor.
“When we entered the palace,” Kasim said slowly. “The great gong was sounding, and Prince Rajar ran into us as we approached the throne room.”
“But he was not running toward the throne room,” Gujar recalled, and his eyes widened as if with revelation. It had not fully registered before, but now the fact struck him like a blow. “Rajar was running away from the audience hall.”
“Perhaps because he knew that he had more to fear than most.” Kasim voiced the suggestion with caution.
“Prince Rajar,” Gujar said softly, and his voice was cold as ice. He had tried so hard and for so long to fit either Devan or Sanjay into the role of treachery, and like the wrong pieces in a puzzle, neither could be twisted to fit. But Rajar, there was a character to fit seamlessly into the picture of perfidy. Gujar realized that for too long he had ranked Rajar as just a callow youth, but like all of them, Rajar was being forced to grow up fast into a world of grim new reality.
Rajar was suddenly a much more likely candidate for his suspicions, and Rajar’s act of running away could well have been the act of a guilty man.
Gujar’s hand closed over the hilt of his sword and his heart began to pound in his chest as he wondered what his next move must be.
Kananda and his companions had rejoined Lars and his brother Sard on their ancient paddle boat and continued their journey down the Great Steel River. An hour south of Corrion the waterway dramatically split in two, divided by awesome crags of rock that reared upward in sheer, cracked black cliffs of savage, saw-edged granite. Where the waters smashed against the base of this gigantic rock pile, many a sail-driven riverboat had perished in the early days of river navigation. Now, steam and paddle power gave more control, and the boat captains had learned to keep tight to either the left bank or the right, depending on whether their destination was southwest to the City of Swords, or southeast to Steel City, the second great city of Ghedda on the south coast.
Only when a storm raged and a captain lost control of his steering would a ship now be swept down the centre of the river. Then the vessel would be doomed and smashed to splinters, and her captain a fool for leaving Corrion without reading the weather. Lars shrugged as he explained it all to his three passengers, taking care to hold his bow well away from the sharp fangs of foam-snarling rock as they were swept quickly past.
For the rest of that afternoon, the river grew gradually wider as it curled through more spectacular gorges, and then through wooded ranges of low hills and farmlands. There were more towns in the sheltered loops, each one successively larger and more prosperous than Corrion, with more solid towers, walls and wharves of black stone. Their cargo was for the city so they did not stop, but Kananda noticed that most of the fortifications were ancient and bore heavy signs of siege or damage. There were traces of ruins abandoned where towns had been reduced to rubble. New towns had been built beside them, and many defences that had been rebuilt or expanded and modified over old foundations. The Gheddan Empire was one that had been forged out of war and conquest, literally carved by the sword, and everywhere it showed.
The weather was dry and calm, and when night fell, they sailed on under the stars. Lars and his brother took turns to sleep or stand at the wheel. The only shelter was the cramped wheelhouse, so Kananda, Zela and Jayna all chose to sleep out on deck, well wrapped in their furs. They were all silent, but Kananda lay awake for a long time, gazing up at the brilliant, jewel-studded canopy of the heavens. Soon after their arrival on the fifth planet, Zela had pointed out for him the shining blue diamond of reflected light that was Earth. Now it was a comfort to him to watch his home planet for a while, simply to know that it was still there. He could not help wondering how fast events might be progressing in Karakhor. That was another reason to find Maryam as swiftly as possible and return.
Finally he slept. When he awoke, it was dawn. The river was wider, more than a mile across, and the land seemed less hostile. They had lef
t the huge gorges far behind, and all the land had been tamed for cultivation. There were grain fields and great acres of pasture, raising vast herds of shaggy-coated, half wild cattle for meat. There were many more boats on the river, some of them two, three or four times the size of their own craft. These large vessels were not steam or paddle driven, but had giant, churning blades of steel pushing them back and forth at much greater speeds. Kananda was fascinated and had to remind himself not to gawp like a fool who had never seen such sights before.
Lars was again sociable, contriving as many opportunities as he could to make small talk, preferably with Jayna. For her part, Jayna did nothing to discourage him. Her job was to let others talk, to listen and sift out anything which might be meaningful. To Kananda, it was obvious that Lars had other possibilities on his mind, and he had to hide and curtail his growing annoyance. This was something he had been warned to expect, and it was up to Jayna to indicate when he should intervene with a word, a fist or his sword. She seemed quite happy and unconcerned, which meant that Kananda had to bottle up his own feelings of dislike for their new companion.
Sard, who was an older and more grizzled version of his brother, made an occasional effort to strike up conversation with Zela. But he was wary and half-hearted, perhaps sensing Kananda’s opposition, or perhaps he simply lacked the necessary social skills. What added to Kananda’s irritation was that Zela had for some reason become a little distant, and he could not think of anything he had done to offend her.
The day passed slowly, and Kananda was glad when at last the sun dropped to touch the western horizon, and the first faint lights of the City of Swords began to glitter ahead. As the lights of the city brightened, so the sun slipped away in a brief, cloud-barred moment of blood and gold. Zela and Jayna both came to stand beside him at the bow and they watched as the city came closer. A huge bridge, supported on massive columns and suspended by twin towers and great chains, took shape in the gloom. The towers were less than half the height of the vertical steel sword that rose above the centre of the bridge.
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