by Alma Boykin
As the males decided what to do and the King-Emperor regained his feet, Zabet and Lord Ni Drako threaded their way into the Throne Room. The Lord Defender paused, hand to the side of his helmet as he listened to a communication, and then replied. He told his concubine something and she reluctantly turned and left the room to wait outside. Ni Drako walked forward, then stopped and knelt five paces from the lowest step, as was proper. Chi-tak studied his servant closely, noting the dirt and blood on his uniform and the array of weapons he sported. Ni Drako remained on one knee but removed his throat protector and helmet, setting them at his side as he awaited his overlord’s pleasure.
“Lord Defender, do you have anything to say in defense of your most recent actions?” Tirahla asked.
“No, Imperial Highness,” Ni Drako said quietly; not moving as the King-Emperor and Prince Imperial approached.
Chi-tak nodded. “Good, because there is none. But well done. Rise, Ni Drako, and report.”
The weary mammal slowly got to her feet. “Imperial Majesty, the Palace and Spaceport are secure. I regret to inform you that Lord Shu is dead of his wounds, and Lord Beerkali seems to have suffered a heart problem, but should recover. All surviving members of Gray’s Raiders, including their commanding officer, are in custody, as are the surviving traitors and their forces.”
Chi-tak’s tail slammed to the floor. “Very good. Lord Ni Drako, you are dismissed. See to your men, then report to Us two hours after the morning meal.”
“Thank you, Imperial Majesty.” She bowed low, backed ten paces and the mammal slowly made her way out of the throne room.
Private Skeet met Rada and Zabet as they made their way back towards where Ni Drako had left the rest of her men. “Lord Mammal, we need you now.” Rada picked up her pace and trotted along behind the worried soldier. They slid around a corner and Ni Drako gasped through clenched teeth as she saw Sergeant Biss laying on the floor next to a brown spray of blood up the wall. Someone had already opened his armor and tried to give him first aid but the large hole in his throat and chest didn’t bode well.
She dropped to her knees beside the unconscious noncom, looking at his wound as she felt under his foreleg for a pulse. “What happened, Skeet?” she sighed.
“We broke the traitors and humans’ charge, Lord Mammal, and Sergeant Biss stopped firing and got onto his hindlegs to look down the hall when a shot caught him,” the private told her, his spines twitching.
Even as Rada watched, more blood foamed out of the sergeant’s muzzle and poured out of the hole between his throat and his blotchy green chest. His pulse faded, and she bowed her head as he died under her hand. Farking gehanna! I should have checked his armor and MADE him wear everything, she cursed herself. “Go to your ancestors with honor, Biss, and tell Shi-dan you’re his kind of soldier.” Rada opened the bloody pouch hanging from his armor, pouring the contents out so she could count. “Twelve, and I give him two from this last fight. Zabet, you?”
The True-dragon counted her grisly trophies. <
“He’ll have a heck of an escort,” Ni Drako observed as she stood, then staggered and had to brace her hand against the wall for a moment. “All right men, let’s take care of our people and get them to the barracks.” Corporal Schriik began dividing people up, including House Shu’s troops in the assignments. No one complained and Rada nodded her approval. Someone made a discrete noise behind her and the Wanderer turned to see a Palace servant waiting. “Yes?”
“Will you be retiring to your quarters, my lord, or do you wish hot water and a meal at some other location?” the brown-clad reptile inquired, as if there were not bodies littering the halls and smoke drifting along the ceiling. Rada gave a laugh that bordered on hysterical, then got control of herself.
“I’ll be in my barracks quarters for the moment. My usual rooms will need some repair work before they are usable,” she reminded the servitor.
He bobbed his head. “Very well, my lord. Thank you, sir,” and he bowed and trotted away.
<
“Agreed, Boss. Let’s get cleaned up, shall we?” Rada offered, starting down the corridor towards the barracks.
<
Too tired to laugh, Rada patted her friend’s head just behind the ears.
<
“Yes, he was, and Drakon IV and I were damn lucky to have had him. It’s going to be a long time rebuilding the Defenders,” she sighed. “A long, hard time.”
She and her concubine got cleaned up, ate a little, then retired to the Lord Defender’s small room within the barracks. Rada buried her head under a pillow and cried for her dead and wounded as Zabet snored.
The next morning, after visiting the wounded and writing the first messages to soldiers’ families and lords, Lord Defender Ni Drako reported to the King-Emperor’s private audience chamber. Prince Imperial Tirahla joined him. The King-Emperor entered and took his seat, then gestured for the others to make themselves comfortable. Tirahla settled carefully on a bench while Rada found an especially thick cushion, in deference to “his” scorched tail. Chi-tak studied his son and Lord Defender with pleasure at the results of their work, then frowned as he considered the problem before him.
“We have decided the fates of the traitor lords, based on their actions and the evidence. But We have not made up our mind as to Colonel Adrian Gray and his men.” Chi-tak informed the pair. “Do you have suggestions?”
Tirahla spoke first. “What does the law say, Honored Sire?”
“Nothing, because there is no precedent for the hiring of foreign mercenary forces, nor for anything more than violation of a business contract,” Chi-tak admitted.
The two reptiles looked towards the Lord Defender, who had closed his eye and frowned in concentration. “Standard penalty for deliberate contract violation is loss of unpaid fees, and of 50% of fees remaining in escrow if unspent, along with cancellation of any contract extensions. Generally the injured party also publicizes the violation and the names of the commanding and ranking officers in the company,” Ni Drako recited. After a pause he opened his silver-grey eye and continued, “I’d need to verify the latest edition of the Rules of War for this region, but any surviving Raiders who have not participated in criminal activities and who have surrendered and cooperated with the authorities are free to depart with their personal equipment and private funds intact, unless local laws prior to the event require differently.”
Tirahla’s tail slammed into the wall beside his seat hard enough to make him wince slightly. “Damn. What if we executed them all, along with the traitors, Ni Drako?”
“Speaking as a mercenary, you’d be screwing yourself Imperial Highness, pardon my bluntness. The next time the Azdhagi fight against hired soldiers you’re going to face very, very stout resistance, and if you try to hire a company, no one worth hiring will even listen to your proposal. I’ve been there, with Krather’s Komets. Don’t do it,” the mammal flatly informed his lords.
“We understand that you have a personal interest in this matter, Lord Defender,” the King-Emperor said quietly, after a thoughtful pause.
The mammal nodded. “Yes, Imperial Majesty. I swore on my blood and honor to seek justice for those murdered at Singing Pines, and I consider the dead at Sunblast to also fall under my vow. If this requires challenging Adrian Gray or whoever ordered or permitted the murders to single combat, or hunting him down after he leaves the Empire, then so be it.”
Tirahla and his father considered their Lord Defender’s words and the situation on Drakon IV. At last the Crown Prince raised a talon. “What if Colonel Gray is brought before a tribunal
, along with those of his surviving men who participated in the killings at Sunblast and Singing Pines? How does that fit with the Laws of War, Commander Ni Drako?”
“That would be appropriate and just. Especially if any soldiers not complicit are allowed to leave unharmed. When I commanded the Mustangs I was called in as a neutral observer on a trial of that sort, when Major Voger of Kissik’s Lions was accused of abusing prisoners.” Rada didn’t elaborate but the two reptiles seemed satisfied.
“Very well. That is what We shall do,” Chi-tak announced, rising to his feet. Rada knelt and Tirahla slithered off his bench to bow as his sire left the reception room.
A sixt later, after the data had been collected and time allowed for the preparation of a defense, the Crown of Drakon IV formally tried Colonel Adrian Gray, colonel commandant of Gray’s Raiders, for violation of the Laws of War in permitting or ordering the killing of civilian noncombatants. Rada had put out a discrete word among her contacts but had been unable to find a neutral party willing to observe the trial. “He owes too many people, Commander Ni Drako,” Major Angus Morphael, the Wolfcats’ executive officer explained. “Ask me over a beer some time and I’ll give you all the dirt. Have you tried anyone from Division Eight’s officer corps?” She had, with no success. Rada wasn’t happy about not having a neutral witness at the proceedings but it sounded like there would be no repercussions for the Empire whatever verdict was reached.
“Colonel Gray, I have a question,” the Lord Defender said. “Who gave the permission to kill noncombatants on the estates of fugitive nobles?”
The man shrugged. “No one did that I know of.”
The Prince Imperial held up a talon. “No one gave permission, or no one killed noncombatants, Colonel Gray?”
“There are no noncombatants under Azdhagi law,” the lean man stated, causing Rada’s eye to open wide. Gray continued, “So I see no difficulty with the measures taken at Singing Pines and Sunblast.”
“Do you care to elaborate that statement, Colonel?” Tirahla inquired, leaning forward with interest.
The human glanced back and forth between his interrogators. “Everyone swears allegiance to a noble, who can call on those individuals at any time for military service, as you well know. Thus, technically, there are no noncombatants or strict civilians,” he explained a little smugly. “If any of my men got a little carried away protecting themselves, it was because they were provoked.”
Lord Ni Drako, the Crown Prince and the Royal Justicar considered his argument. Ni Drako had her own thoughts on the matter and her flattened ears made them quite clear. The Justicar made the rattling hiss that served as throat clearing for Azdhagi, then said, “Colonel, your understanding of Azdhagi law is good, but incomplete. It is true that all Azdhagi swear their allegiance to a liege. But not until they are twelve summers old. Prior to that point, they are purely civilians and prohibited from all but voluntary military service. Thus they are also protected from deliberate targeting or use as hostages, per the general laws regulating the conduct of war, unless the individual chooses to take up arms in other than self defense.”
“Ni Drako, what were the ages of those killed on my Honored Sire’s estate?” Prince Tirahla asked.
She double-checked her notes. “Two had four summers, five had eight summers, and one each at six and nine, plus the two not-born. The rest were of oath-age, Imperial Highness.”
“And at Sunblast?” The prince’s voice had a deadly edge to it.
The Justicar looked up from his own notes. “Probably nineteen or twenty under oath age, Highness. Many of the remains were too badly scattered and broken to identify ages clearly, according to the reports.”
Tirahla rose to his feet and the others followed suit. The prince’s neck spines flared until they were straight out, and the tip of his tail went rigid with anger, although his voice remained mild. “Do you have anything else to say in your defense, Colonel Gray?”
The human snorted in derision. “Nah. You stacked the court, so why should I bother? Plus the fools who hired my company no doubt lied about what happened at the estates, and since I’m ‘just a mammal’ you won’t listen to my side of things.”
At the prince’s nod Rada stepped forward. “You are in error, Colonel. Despite your having grossly violated your initial contract with the Crown, we had intended to let you and any surviving troopers not convicted of murder go free, and would have provided transportation to a neutral world, while following standard procedures for contract violation. That still stands for your men and women.”
The Royal Justicar picked up the sword of judgment. “This tribunal finds Adrian Gray, colonel commandant of Grey’s Raiders, guilty of multiple counts of murder for knowingly allowing the killing of noncombatant civilians. The penalty is death.”
Tirahla nodded again and Rada’s claws flashed out as she leapt at the human. She dug into the man’s neck, severing his jugular vein with the claws on one hand while the knife in her other hand slit his windpipe open before he could defend himself. The smell of blood and death filled the small courtroom and the Wanderer and the Azdhagi watched as the human choked and strangled, their faces impassive.
“Will this complete your vow?” the Prince Imperial asked of the Lord Defender.
She bowed at the waist towards him. “Yes, Imperial Highness. The dead will sleep quietly.”
Justice for the traitors also came swiftly. Chi-tak didn’t even give the traitorous nobles the option of suicide, as was their traditional right. Instead, they were hung, slowly, then beheaded and their heads dumped into the Zhangki River. In further humiliation, the traitors’ tails were buried in a pit that had been dug out of the palace spaceport’s pavement and the bodies cremated in a mass pile. Chi-tak ordered the ashes divided arbitrarily and sent to the former nobles’ families, along with notice of the confiscation of their holdings.
The Crown retained fully half of the reclaimed estates, dividing the rest among the loyal nobles and some of the soldiers, including Sergeant Schriik, who happily moved his family to a new, small estate north of Skytouched. “Well, this eases my pension budget,” his commanding officer observed. Pensions for the families of those killed fighting beside the Lord Defender for the King-Emperor came from the revenues of the new Crown properties, which seemed quite fair to the Lord Defender.
“You wish no reward, Lord Defender?” His Imperial Majesty sounded stunned and Rada didn’t blame him. She knelt before him in his private reception chamber, where she had been summoned to explain her refusal of lands and public honors.
“I must remain outside of politics as much as is possible, which I cannot do if I own landed property,” she reminded her liege. As much as I want some of the glory, it’s a bad precedent. Drakon IV’s average people needed credit to go to the Defenders, the Lord Defender, and the Azdhagi nobles, not to Rada Ni Drako the individual.
The King-Emperor mulled over his Lord Defender’s words and reluctantly acknowledged the wisdom in them. “Very well. We will confine Our greatest public praise and rewards to Lords Kirlin and Beerkali, House Shu, and to your soldiers. But We will make it known that a mammalian mercenary, currently Lord Defender, led the attacks that began the reconquest.” He paused, then continued, “And We grant you this boon: We claim no revenue from either Burnt Mountain or Singing Pines this year. All goes to you to use as you see fit.” Chi-tak had a shrewd idea that Lord Ni Drako would simply put the funds back into the estates, but that was his choice to make.
Chi-tak paused, studying Lord Ni Drako. “We are also considering a revision to the domestic laws, based on what We have seen in Lady Zabet and Lady Mee-Kirlin. We propose to allow females to act as deputy mates when their mates or lords are absent or incapacitated. They may not inherit, and their mate’s and lord’s word remains final, but it seems to Us that females deserve that much of a reward. Will you accept that, Rada Lord Ni Drako, in lieu of lands and honors, should the Planetary and Imperial councils agree?”
Even o
ne as unused to mammalian body language as Chi-tak could read the joy on Ni Drako’s features. “Yes, Imperial Majesty! Thank you!” She dropped her head almost to the floor.
The King-Emperor was pleased. “You are dismissed and may leave for Our estates if you wish.”
Rada got to her feet and bowed again. “Thank you, Imperial Majesty,” was all she said, and all that needed to be said.
Epilogue: Twelve Years Later
Lord Ni Drako awoke from her afternoon nap a bit groggy but otherwise refreshed. It had been a strenuous hunt that morning and she’d needed the rest after keeping up with the Prince Imperial for the entire chase. She dressed for supper, then thumbed over the afternoon’s messages. Someone scratched politely on the outer door and she called, “Enter.”
The wood and brass panel eased open and Zabet came in, followed by a medium-sized, solid grey female. The adult female looked around a bit shyly before bowing low to Rada. Rada studied her, trying to place the youngster. Then her eye widened in recognition and she smiled.
<
“You may rise, Greykin. What can I do for you?” Rada asked gently.
The reptile hesitated, then said, “My foster sire told me that House Ni Drako offered my mate-gift.”
Zabet already had Rada’s personal accounts pulled up on the computer, as well as a list of that year’s mate gifts from Burnt Mountain’s records. The noble skimmed the figures, nodded, then leaned forward. “And you have found someone who pleases you?”
Greykin leaned back a little, confused. “I am acceptable to him and his family, my lord.”
Rada got up from her seat at the desk and knelt so she could be at eye level with the female. “But is he acceptable to you? If not, I won’t give anything until you do find someone you like,” she said sternly.
Greykin looked away. “He is good, my lord: a hard worker and kind. I find him attractive. Is that enough?”
