by Ian Sales
Knights stalwart. Three knight-lieutenants, to be precise.
“Lieutenant-Commander Rizbeka demar Rinharte,” said the foremost of the three, “and Marine-Lieutenant Garrin demar Kordelasz. You are to come with us.”
Kordelasz gave a manic grin. He performed a salute with his sword, whipping the blade through a figure-of-eight in the air. “I think not,” he replied.
“Garrin!” hissed Rinharte.
“I can take them, ma’am,” he said quietly, flashing her a quick glance.
“I can’t.” A flash of grey and white caught her eye near the exit from the platform. Squads of Sikkerpoliti were waiting outside the station. “Can you take them as well?” she asked.
“Ah. No.”
The knights stalwart advanced, pulling out their swords in unison. They formed an abbreviated crescent before Rinharte and Kordelasz.
The knight who had spoken attacked. He lunged at Kordelasz. The air rang with the clash of steel.
A second knight approached Rinharte. She raised her sword and nodded to signal she was ready.
Ready? She was no match for a knight stalwart and she knew it. It would be a short fight.
The next few moments were a confused melee of lunge, parry, riposte and counter-lunge. Rinharte and the knight-lieutenant disengaged and circled warily. She had only just managed to block his attacks. She could tell he was holding back, intent on disarming her or forcing her to submit. He probed with his sword and she parried it. With each attack, she found herself using increasingly desperate measures, her hand moving from the proscribed position, her wrist ringing when the two swords struck each other.
She heard a heavy thud. Her attacker glanced sideways and frowned. She saw an opportunity: she darted forwards and pinked him on the sword arm. He hissed in vexation, clapped his free hand to the wound, and scowled at her. Behind him, a white-clad figure lay curled on the floor. Rinharte took the offensive. The wound she had inflicted was minor but it might still affect the knight stalwart. His arm would tire quicker, his muscles ache with each successive movement. The discomfort would be distracting. Or so she hoped.
She pulled back and lunged. Her blade skittered down the length of his blade. The point bounced from his hilt and scraped his forearm. It caused no damage: there was a moulded metal greave in a forearm pocket of his coverall. She went for his foremost thigh. He protected it with a deft parry. She aimed high. He jerked his head back and caught the point of her sword on his cross-guard. She forced him back a pace.
Her attacks left her wide open but she knew he would not take advantage. He was not there to kill her. For whatever reason, the Order of the Emperor’s Shield wanted her alive.
She dropped her sword-tip and jabbed at his lower abdomen. The knight stalwart took another step back—
His boot landed on his recumbent comrade’s leg and he stumbled. Rinharte stepped forward swiftly and lunged. The knight stalwart twisted wildly. The point took him below the rib-cage and slid deep. The blade scraped the top of an equipment pouch. The knight stalwart gasped. Rinharte withdrew her sword with a frantic yank. The knight stalwart’s hand went to the wound. He lurched to the left. His foot caught the knight stalwart on the ground again, and down he went. Rinharte stepped forward and caught his chin with a well-aimed kick. His jaw cracked loudly. His head bounced off the floor with a muffled thud. Out cold.
She spun round as she heard a choked gurgle from behind her. Kordelasz, eyes flashing, a broad grin on his face, jerked his sword from the third knight stalwart’s throat. Blood fountained and splashed wetly onto the ground. The knight fell to his knees and then toppled forwards. A pool of bright arterial red grew beneath him.
Rinharte, panting, grinned at Kordelasz. She thrummed with adrenaline. Her forearm and wrist ached with dull pain but she felt more alive than she had done for weeks.
Booted feet sounded from the entrance to the platform. Rinharte turned. A dozen Sikkerpoliti, each carrying short pikes, were heading their way in an ordered rush.
She turned to the marine-lieutenant. Gathering her breath, she said, “Any last words, Garrin?”
Kordelasz peered at the pair of bodies on the floor. “You took out a knight stalwart, ma’am,” he replied. “I’m impressed.”
“He’s only stunned. You took out two.”
“Only one at a time.”
“Something tells me the Sikkerpoliti won’t be attacking one at a time.”
“No, I think you might well be right.”
They stood side by side swords at chest-height, blades horizontal, balanced on the balls of their feet. And waited.
The Sikkerpoliti abruptly halted their charge and formed a line abreast, blocking Rinharte and Kordelasz’s route to the exit. They held their pikes forward, an impassable hedge of points. There was no way through them. Against so many, Rinharte and Kordelasz could not hope to prevail.
Measured footsteps sounded behind the human wall. Rinharte felt her heart sink at the approach. Who could this be? Who could treat the Sikkerpoliti as a personal militia?
Rinharte saw she had reached the correct conclusion when a gap appeared in the ranks and she spotted the grey surcoat. More knights stalwart. No, only one. A knight-captain. Behind him were four serjeants, each carrying steel staves, were designed for puncturing cuirasses.
The knight stalwart unsheathed his sword. He nodded, a brief sketch of a bow to an opponent. Kordelasz saluted with his sword, holding it point upright before him. Both settled into duellists’ stances. The knight-captain attacked first.
Kordelasz fought harder and more frantically than Rinharte had ever seen him do so before. The two combatants circled each other and then closed in a flurry of ringing blades. Only to leap back, panting, defences unbroken. Kordelasz stepped forward again. The point of his sword was a blur. The clatter of steel on steel echoed across the platform. Kordelasz succeeded in breaching the knight-captain’s defence. He took first blood, sticking the knight stalwart in the upper chest. It did not go deep: the knight-captain twisted quickly away. Moments later, Kordelasz’s sword-tip whipped in and out of his opponent’s thigh.
The knight stalwart was beginning to struggle. His wrist-work was noticeably stiffer, his sword slower in its parries and ripostes. He tried for a lunge. Kordelasz neatly side-stepped the stab. But the marine-lieutenant did not drive home his own sword, even though he had the opportunity. The knight stalwart’s chest was unprotected.
Kordelasz hammered the pommel of his blade down on the back of the knight-captain’s hand. He grabbed the knight stalwart’s wrist and jerked him off-balance. The knight stumbled and fell. His sword flew from his hand. It skittered across the floor and came to rest at the feet of a Sikkerpoliti officer.
Kordelasz extended a hand and helped the knight-captain to his feet. The knight stalwart bowed, as to an acknowledged superior. “Ingev demar Miekka, at your service,” he introduced himself. “You are a master, sir.” Turning to Rinharte, he bowed once again, although not as deeply as he had done to Kordelasz. “Lieutenant-commander, my lady.”
There was a moment of silence.
“We had thought,” Miekka said, “to take you on Tanabria Station. Few people,” he said admiringly, “escape the Order of the Emperor’s Shield.” He saw the three knight-lieutenants on the floor behind Rinharte and Kordelasz, and frowned. “Clearly we underestimated you. Changes will have to be made to our training.” He held out his hand to one side, palm up. “My sword.”
A serjeant stepped forward and handed the knight-captain his sword. Miekka slid it back into his scabbard. “I am afraid,” he said, “I must ask you to accompany me.” He waved a gauntlet, taking in the four serjeants and the line of Sikkerpoliti. He grimaced at a twinge from the wound in his shoulder. “You are outnumbered. You cannot escape.”
“Isn’t it traditional to let us go,” asked Kordelasz, still poised warily with sword drawn, “since I defeated you?”
“I wish that were true,�
� Miekka replied sadly. “But I have my orders.”
“Which are?” demanded Rinharte. She sheathed her sword. She had no need of it now.
“The Emperor, my lady, wishes the Admiral to return to His fold. The Knight General of the Order awaits you on Payo. We are to take you there to impress upon you the seriousness of the Emperor’s desire. We did not think you would accept an invitation.”
“I think we can see the ‘seriousness’ of that desire,” remarked Kordelasz sarcastically.
“The Admiral,” Rinharte said, “feels she is better placed where she is. You can take us but it will achieve nothing. Tell your Knight General that he should be looking to home. The Imperial Regiments are mustering for war.”
“We’re aware of that, my lady. Their preparations have not gone unnoticed. It is under control.”
“And the Navy?”
Miekka grimaced. “The Navy we cannot control. We are assured they will honour Edkar’s Promise. For more than a millennium, the Imperial Throne has not interfered in their operations and they have not meddled in politics. We must assume that will remain true.”
“How deep does it go?” Rinharte was fishing but she couldn’t help herself. The knights stalwart clearly knew something.
“Perhaps its deepest yet, my lady. Our secret history records few plots as likely to succeed as the present one. The Housecarls are impetuous, but we know there are others behind them. The Martial Orders cannot hope to match the regiments for numbers, but the Imperial Household District will not be breached.” He chopped a hand in the air—his off-hand, not the wounded shoulder. “But no matter. The Knight General will explain further. Come.”
He turned and gestured to his serjeants. They approached Rinharte and Kordelasz but halted as Miekka raised a hand. “Will you give me your parole?” the knight-captain asked. “You may keep your swords, if you do.”
Rinharte put a hand to Kordelasz’s arm. She answered for the two of them. “It is our duty to escape, Sir Ingev. I gave my word to the Admiral and I’ll not give it to another.”
The knight-captain nodded in acknowledgement. The serjeants moved in and removed Rinharte and Kordelasz’s weapons.
With a serjeant gripping each arm, Rinharte and Kordelasz were marched from the tube-station. Kordelasz struggled, but he was held fast. Rinharte accepted her captors. She would try to escape but only when the opportunity presented itself.
“We have a cutter docked at a lower level,” Miekka explained. “The Imperial Navy frigate Harab is stationed just off Ophavon.”
Rinharte knew the name—and thought it a strange one, commemorating as it did one of the Imperial Navy’s more ignominious defeats during the Pacification Campaigns. A single ship had escaped destruction.
She also recalled that Harab was a Nimble class frigate, designed more for speed than offence. Even so, it would be a weeks-long journey via the toposphere to Payo. And what, Rinharte wondered, would the Admiral do on learning they had been captured? Engage Harab? It would be a one-sided battle. And both Rinharte and Kordelasz would perish with the frigate and her crew.
“She’s no match for Vengeful,” Rinharte said to the knight-captain.
Miekka glanced back at her. “Vengeful? Ah, so that’s what you’re calling her now. Very droll. No, she’s no match for a Renown class battlecruiser. But if the Admiral intends to destroy us, she will kill you both as well.”
“You think she’s not prepared to do that?”
“No doubt she is, my lady,” replied Miekka. “But we will not be caught. We have the advantage in speed and agility. We lost Sabre Horn to your Vengeful in the Darrus system. We’ve no desire for a repeat of that. We will depart as soon as we’re aboard.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
When Ormuz entered the local Office of the Procurator Imperial bureau at two o’clock, he found the woman he had come to meet waiting for him. He did not see her immediately. He stepped through the open archway into an enclosed space dominated by a shoulder-high desk of steel, behind which sat a trio of uniformed guards on a raised platform. One of these, a woman, gazed suspiciously Ormuz.
“So, did you find her name?” asked a voice behind Ormuz.
Ormuz spun about. It was Inspector Finesz .Her blonde hair, cut mannishly short, and the black uniform tunic and trousers, made her features seem cold and heartless. She personified authority. She was also angry. But not, Ormuz saw, at him.
“Whose name?” asked Ormuz. He glanced back at the desk and saw that the female guard’s suspicious gaze had deepened.
“Riz Gotovach. You said you’d look for it.”
“No. Not yet.”
Beyond the inspector lurked a familiar figure in an OPI uniform: squat and impassive, with hair razored close on a blockish head. Ormuz remembered him from the Housecarl’s first attack in Amwadina. He gave the man a tentative smile.
“Let’s find somewhere more private,” Finesz said. She gestured peremptorily at the trio behind the desk and led Ormuz at a smart pace towards a door. Her colleague brought up the rear. Sandwiched between the two, Ormuz was escorted along a corridor deeper into the bureau. Doorways to either side revealed glimpses of open-plan offices laid out with dehumanising geometrical precision. Everywhere he looked, Ormuz saw black uniforms: sitting at desks and working at consoles, striding along the corridor, spaced around conference-tables. All were busy at their work.
After passing through an ante-room containing a uniformed personal assistant at a desk, Ormuz found himself in a well-appointed office. A name-plate on the large desk read, “Sir Gawain demar Opisina, Commissioner of Enquiries”, but the desk was unoccupied. Finesz took Opisina’s chair and gestured for Ormuz to sit in one of the two chairs before the desk.
“That’s not me, of course,” she said, leaning forward to put a finger on the name-plate. She gave a brittle smile but her gaze remained cold. “But you knew that.” She gestured at the trooper behind Ormuz. “That’s Troop-Sergeant Assaun.”
Ormuz, seated, glanced behind him. The troop-sergeant stood with his back to the door. His face did not change expression on seeing Ormuz’s glance.
“Now—”
Ormuz turned back to Finesz.
“—we have a few things to discuss, do we not? Perhaps you’d like to start with what you told me yesterday. About the money. What was it you said? Merenilo, the Housecarl, used money from the Military Bank to pay for his trip to Darrus?”
“To kill me.” Ormuz nodded.
“How do you know he didn’t simply withdraw money from his own account?”
“Because it was given to him by another officer. Who got it from a viscount. He’s the one who took it from the Military Bank.”
Finez drummed the fingers of one hand against the desk-top. “How much do you know about the Military Bank?”
“It’s the biggest bank in the Empire. The Imperial Treasury pays in the Regimental Budget and the Navy Budget, and the Military Bank uses it to pay for equipment and ships and troops. All the soldiers have accounts with it as well. And their families.”
“It has the largest number of accounts,” Finesz corrected. “The Duchies Bank has bigger reserves. And the Navy Budget is paid directly to the Imperial Admiralty. So, was the money given to the viscount by the Paymaster General?”
Ormuz shrugged. “I don’t know. I should think he knew about it. He must know what happens to the money in the Bank.”
“You’d be surprised…”
“Maybe he didn’t, then. I don’t know that he did.”
“Fair enough.” Finesz gave another fragile smile. “Perhaps you’d like to tell me why all these people are trying to kill you.”
“My father wants me dead.”
His reply clearly came as a surprise. Finesz’s smile briefly congealed. “Does he now? And why would Abu Ormuz, a farmer on Rasamra, want to kill you?”
“He’s not my father.”
“Ah. I’d guessed as much. So who is?”<
br />
“I don’t know.”
Finesz sat back and peered at Ormuz over steepled fingers. “Curiouser and curiouser.” She gave another bright hard-eyed smile. “Your father must be powerful: sending first a regimental-lieutenant to do his dirty work, and now four midnight assassins.”
Ormuz shrugged. His father was the “Serpent” and bent on taking the Throne from Emperor Willim IX. That presupposed a great deal of power in Imperial circles. But no doubt a large number of high nobles fitted that description.
“There are some things,” Finesz admitted, “I don’t quite understand. If you’re the by-blow of some noble—and I apologise if you find the term offensive—what were you doing on Rasamra? And why does he want you dead after, ah, twenty years?”
“He only recently learnt of my existence. I was… placed on Rasamra for my own safety.”
Finesz dropped her hands. “Were you now?” She frowned. Her features turned thoughtful and she glanced quickly over Ormuz’s shoulder as if seeking confirmation or approval from Troop-Sergeant Assaun. “You’ve only just learned this, haven’t you?” she said.
Ormuz was surprised at her perceptiveness. Perhaps it was his distance which had prompted her guess. He felt detached, unable to connect with this woman in her imposing uniform and stern features. He had imagined this “interview” would be a friendly affair, as his conversation of the day before had been. Instead, it seemed more like an interrogation. Troop-Sergeant Assaun standing sentinel-like behind him, Finesz in her stark OPI uniform seated behind a desk before him. True, what Ormuz now knew about himself had forced him to re-assess himself, to consider how people saw him and how he should present himself, but…
He nodded slowly. “Captain Plessant told me yesterday.”
