Demon King

by Bunch, Chris

We were almost in the Time of Storms, and rain, then snow and wind, smashed into these poor wanderers, and there were sprawled bodies beside the rude tracks we followed, bodies thankfully covered with fast-falling snow.

  I was not cold, was not wet, was like a baby about to be born, yet not wanting to come into the harsh world. I’d be born to instant death, for the minute I slew the emperor I’d be cut down myself.

  What of it? I thought dully. This life was burdensome. I’d lost all — my loves, my ruler, my respect, my friend — and now my honor was doomed, for who would ever believe I was under a spell when I committed the ultimate sin and slew the father of my nation? The whispers would be how Damastes had been wooed by the evil Maisirian king to slaughter his best friend and ruler. Perhaps I’d be permitted a bit of rest when I returned to the Wheel, before Saionji judged me harshly, as I knew she would, a regicide, traitor, and monster, and spewed me forth to begin life again in some horrid low form to expiate my evil.

  I was still alive enough to sense when we approached Penda and the fighting. I felt blood, the sharp feel of danger, and stirred, coming a bit awake. The other Damastes felt me and forced me back down. I pretended to obey, and spread a blanket of nothingness over myself. Then we were on the front lines — dirty gray snow, strewn bodies, shattered trees, and broken buildings.

  Negotiations began to allow us to enter Penda. I paid little attention. The other Damastes was coming more and more alive as its senses sparked to full alert, ready for the greatest, the only, task of its brief life.

  Maisirian uniforms were replaced with Numantian uniforms, and there was great rejoicing that we were finally safe, among friends. The other Damastes pretended joy, then told the leader of the prisoner exchange, my friend Tribune Linerges, that Damastes had a vital message for the emperor.

  “Your wishes match my orders,” Linerges said. “For you’re to be brought immediately into his presence.”

  The other Damastes expressed pleasure, and we went through the lines, through the fighting positions, through the ruined streets and torn buildings of Penda, into its heart, to a palace where the emperor’s headquarters were.

  I was unarmed, but what did that matter? I could kill a slight man like Tenedos in a hundred ways with my bare hands before anyone could stop me.

  My vision cleared somewhat, but it was as if I viewed everything in the reflection of a brightly polished copper mirror. All was red, yellow, orange. I was beginning to panic, seeking my chance, my only chance, but as yet I saw none, and the time was growing shorter.

  We entered a big room, filled with tables covered with maps. Fire blazed in a great hearth, and next to it stood the Emperor Tenedos. He was dressed simply, as a private soldier, but his uniform was made of the finest heavy silk, and his boots were polished as mirrors.

  I started to kneel, but Tenedos held up a hand. “No, no, Damastes, my greatest friend. Welcome home, welcome to safety.”

  I rose and stepped toward him, moving a little faster at each step. Alarm flared across his face, and my hands were up, clawed, ready to tear out his throat, and somewhere behind me I dimly heard Linerges shout in horror.

  But I, the real I, was too cunning for that other Damastes, and his creator, the azaz, and his master, King Bairan of Maisir. Before my hands reached the emperor, I hurled myself sideways, toward that searing fire with its high-roaring flames.

  I felt the other Damastes scream in terror, and then the friendly flames reached out, held me, took me, embraced me, and there was nothing but red agony and then nothing at all.

  • • •

  I’d expected to awake finally seeing Saionji’s face, or one of her manifestations or ghouls, or, perhaps best of all, to not wake at all, to have slipped through her talons into the joy of utter oblivion. Instead, I felt soft linen under and over me, the warmth of a blanket, a perfumed wind touching my nostrils.

  I opened my eyes and saw I was in a large bedchamber, in a palatial bed. Sitting next to me was the Emperor Tenedos.

  “Welcome back, Damastes my friend,” he said gently.

  Perhaps I was …

  “You are not dreaming,” he said. “Nor are you dead.”

  But I remembered that fire, that searing agony around me, and felt a great fear, one any soldier will admit to. There are worse fates than being killed: being maimed, crippled, emasculated, scarred so that your own mother shudders and shrinks away in horror. I’d seen men and women taken in Shahriya’s embrace, who yet lived, their flesh twisted, warped like water-smoothed driftwood, pain rending them at every movement. But there was no pain. Involuntarily my hand came up and touched my face. I felt soft, warm, healthy, unscarred flesh.

  “No,” the emperor went on. “You have no scars, either.” He smiled grimly. “My magic saw to that.”

  “How?”

  “Do you wish to know? Do you really wish?” I should not have nodded. “There were three prisoners. Noble, or so they styled themselves, Maisirians. They pretended passion for two of my dominas, who were foolish enough to call on them. The feast was poisoned, and my soldiers found death instead of love.

  “I had intended a terrible death for them, a death such as I’ve given to any civilian who dares harm one of my officers. Then another thought came, after you’d tried … after you’d done what Maisirian magic forced you to try. Certain spells were cast, and the three women were flayed alive. Their skin replaced yours, and some of their blood flows in your veins.

  “It was a dark deed — but one I felt no compunction about. There was a darker price attached for me, but one I paid gladly, not only as your emperor, but as your friend. I need you, Damastes. And I owe you a great debt.”

  Part of me shuddered at what the emperor had said, but another part boiled in rage. He needed me again? How was I to be betrayed this time?

  But the emperor spoke on:

  “You have lain like a corpse for fifty days of this Time of Storms, barely breathing, eating only broth, and that seldom, but it is a true miracle you have come back so quickly. I know all, Damastes á Cimabue. While you were drifting between worlds, between life and death, I made other magic, and discovered the terrible curse King Bairan and his lackey laid, and how you slew the faithful Karjan and were supposed to assassinate me.

  “That was monstrous, and both of those swine shall pay in a monstrous manner. For this war has only begun. Welcome back, Damastes. Now I’ll call on you for your greatest deeds, and we, together, will find our greatest triumph.” Tenedos rose.

  “Yes,” he went on. “I need you to lead my army to victory. For we’re impossibly mired here in Penda. But there is no turning back. There can be but one end — either Maisir or Numantia shall be destroyed.

  “And you will be the one to ensure it is not Numantia.” He didn’t wait for a response, but swept out of the room.

  • • •

  What emotions came then? A better question might be what ones did not. For hours my thoughts boiled. I was alive, and for this I should be grateful. But I still felt the pain, and part of me still wanted oblivion instead of a return to life. I was grateful to Tenedos, yet another part growled that there was no end to serving him, that he would — and had — brought me back from the grave to ensure that more of his visions, visions beyond reality into madness, would become real.

  But I had no choice, and so concentrated on regaining full strength. I was whole, but weak. Whole — but when I found a mirror, there were changes. The most obvious was my hair, now only a bare stubble, that had burned like a torch in the fire and, I feared, would never grow back in its former profusion. My skin was, indeed, lustrous, and I shuddered away from the obscene joke that it was “just like a woman’s.” But there were wrinkles at the corners of my eyes, and I thought my expression was different: harder, colder.

  I still felt numb, uncaring about anyone or anything. There was but one spark, and that was the dim hope that I might somehow find Alegria. That brought another realization. The only chance I had to find her was to do j
ust what the emperor wished: Win this war.

  I didn’t and don’t know if the emperor was aware of Alegria, and how my love would sway me. Perhaps so, for he was more than subtle enough to find out what had happened in Jarrah, and to use that knowledge as, I was realizing, he would use any tool, any man, to accomplish his ends.

  And I had sworn an oath. That did as much as anything to return me to life.

  We Hold True.

  Very well. I was not permitted death, I was not permitted oblivion. Then I would deal it out to others, I vowed grimly. That appeared to be what Irisu wished. Irisu — or, more likely, Saionji, and her manifestation as Death.

  Very well, I’d take that manifestation for my bride, for my avatar, and welcome Death on her pale horse, swords held high, skull grin shining through her dark cloak.

  Now there would be three of us: the emperor, myself, and Saionji.

  And let the world scream long in terror and agony.

  TWENTY-TWO

  THE BREAKOUT

  On the thirteenth day of the Time of Births, the Numantian Army smashed out of the perimeter around Penda, striking south. We had three objectives: to destroy the army of Maisir; to seize and occupy Jarrah; and, although this was unstated and somewhat nebulous, to either seize King Bairan’s throne or make him the emperor’s vassal.

  It had been almost a year since the war had started, more than half of that spent mewed up in Penda. When I was able to totter beyond my hospital bed, I was inundated with problems and their causes. First I obeyed my own commandment and ordered all my subordinates, buzzing like mosquitoes, to leave me the hells alone unless I summoned them or it was a true emergency.

  Then, with the emperor’s permission, I summoned all of the tribunes and generals. My speech to them was very short and very pointed: We were fighting a war. We would win that war. If necessary, I would win it myself, killing the last Maisirian with the clubbed head of the last general who’d had the insolence to question my orders. That brought grins from the ones I wished to smile, and blank expressions from some others. Those were the ones I noted as being worthy of attention.

  Yonge and Le Balafre lingered behind. “Are we finally going to fight?” Yonge asked. “Or should I tell my men to plan yet another season’s crops beside the holes they live in?”

  Le Balafre answered for me. “We’re going to fight.”

  “Good,” Yonge said, and smiled twistedly. “But are we going to win?”

  “I don’t think we have any other choice,” I said.

  “There’s always a choice,” the Kaiti said. “It just might be one that no one likes.”

  “Defeatist,” Le Balafre said, grinning.

  “No,” Yonge said. “A realist.”

  “Get out of here,” I ordered. “It’s time for us all to get to work.”

  Time and time past for that. The problems were simple and, not unexpectedly, began at the top, with the emperor. It is one thing to order a squad to charge a hilltop that’s conveniently in view, or even command a corps to attack a crossroads that can be seen from the general’s comfortable hilltop post. It’s quite another to control an army that’s sprawling for fifteen miles around a shabby, half-ruined city, an army and its hangers-on. The emperor had lost control, ironically just as he’d snarled at his new brother-in-law, Aguin Guil, for doing in maneuvers.

  All efforts to regain control. When he attacked, his maneuver would violate the most basic rule: Pick a single objective and strike with all your strength. The emperor vacillated, without ever making a firm commitment to any plan, and so none succeeded. All his plans killed Numantian soldiers more than they slew Maisirians. They had the men to sacrifice, and we did not.

  I’d been afraid of this when I’d heard of our army’s inertia back in the Octagon. But all that could be done was to swear I’d never permit my emperor to place himself in such an impossible situation again. That was what we were for, his tribunes and generals, and I considered the emperor’s failure more ours than his. He was, after all, the emperor, the ruler, not a general, even though that was one of his dreams. But we all have dreams that can’t be fulfilled.

  I knew better than most, for most of mine lay dead in a burned-out castle called Irrigon, and the one left was in the heart of the enemy. I tried to keep from thinking of Alegria, and continued collecting problems.

  The emperor, and this I saw from personal observation, had another flaw I’d been vaguely aware of. He chose favorites, as does any king, but the favorites might only remain so for an hour or a day. Then another would be anointed, and the first’s dreams of glory vanish. I thought Tenedos a vacillator, but realized he behaved this way deliberately, although I could never decide if it was conscious or not. As long as he had a courtier worried about his moment of splendor, that man wouldn’t be plotting. There was of course no conspiracy, but I suppose those who wear crowns can never be sure when a smile conceals a dagger. Once more, I was glad I had never dreamed of being more than a simple soldier.

  This problem was insoluble but, once recognized, easily dealt with. I merely pursued my own plans, checked them regularly with the emperor, and paid no mind as to which general had dined at the imperial table last night, and why I hadn’t been invited.

  Other personal matters were dealt with. My three warrants — Svalbard, Curti, and Manych — were commissioned legates, and the hells with anyone who gasped about their “unofficerlike manners.” We needed warriors, not dancing instructors. I also promoted Balkh, that once overeager young legate from Kallio, to command my Red Lancers, and had the Lancers brought back to full strength by coldly raiding other formations.

  As long as I allowed myself to think of personal matters, I wanted to know more of my ex-wife, but knew no matter how subtly I’d bring the matter up, it would be noted, and someone would shake his head about poor Damastes, still mooning over her. So I kept from asking, and only learned that, as far as anyone knew, she was still exiled to Irrigon and considered somewhat of a laughingstock for her coldbloodedly unsuccessful pursuit of the emperor.

  My most secret problem was my murder of Karjan. In spite of my mind’s telling me that I was under another’s control, that I had no will of my own, I still was shamed, fouled. I wondered if blood could wash the matter clean, and resolved I’d try to make it so. But little by little, that faded into the back of my mind, as I buried myself in other worries.

  Numantia had had a terrible harvest that previous year, and it was taking forever for supplies to reach us, and all too often they were spoiled in transit.

  The same with our replacements. We’d crossed the border with almost two million men and lost — killed, wounded, missing — almost 150,000. We needed not only replacements to build the army back up, but more soldiers to break out of Penda. The new Guard Corps had to end their training, no matter what stage it was in, and march south to us, taking casualties as they did. The army had made little effort to befriend the Maisirian peasants when it crossed the border, and, in accordance with imperial policy, had “resupplied” from the surrounding countryside.

  Now, to our rear, where there should have been a cowed and complaisant populace, there were “bandits” aplenty, for what else can a man become when his cattle are driven off, his fields stripped, his larder emptied, and all too often, to my great shame, his women ravished? Numantia had laws forbidding such barbarisms, but how readily were they to be enforced, especially when the army itself survived by organized looting?

  These crimes created partisans, reinforced by the Negaret, who were far too sensible to face our soldiers in open warfare. Instead, they mounted nibbling raids and cut off and looted supply trains. As for a straggler — if he were an officer and visibly rich, he might be ransomed. Sometimes. But a common soldier was doomed. The lucky ones were sold as slaves.

  New units, inexperienced at real fighting, would take countless tiny pinpricks, each time losing one or more men. Like a horse driven nearly mad by summer flies, they’d lash out in any direction as they march
ed, and the peasants they savaged quickly became banditry.

  The best solution I found was detaching cavalry units — thereby breaking another commandment about keeping my horsemen as a single cohesive force — to escort the new soldiers and the supplies from point to point, each point garrisoned by infantry. These behind-the-lines forces drained what I was thinking of as “my” army. But the increased flow of supplies and fresh men compensated, and we slowly rebuilt our strength.

  I made personal reconnaissances along our lines, looking for a weak point. The emperor wanted a frontal assault all along the line, which was guaranteed to be as unsuccessful as his other forays. Our arguments reached the shouting stage on several occasions, and at last, pushed beyond common sense, my notorious Cimabuean temper flared and I snapped, “What the hells do you want? Your whole fucking army lockstepping back to the Wheel? If that’s so, find another gods-damned tribune to be your corps master,” and stalked out. Tenedos stopped me before I reached my horse, and soothed me back into his chamber.

  His manner changed, as if he were no more than a common magician and I his chief aide, reminiscent of time long past. He poured himself a brandy, and me a glass of juice that didn’t taste completely of dried fruit boiled and soaked in well water, then said, the steel in his voice buried under velvet, “So where shall we attack, then?”

  Staring at the map of Penda, I remembered a hill that jutted into Maisirian positions that were no more than hastily dug breastworks. Behind that hill, I could mass any number of men, if the emperor’s magic was enough to hide them from the Maisirian sorcerers. “Here,” I said, tapping the spot.

  “Then make it so,” he said.

  “As the Maisirians say, ‘You order me,’ ” I replied. The endless planning began, always in secret for fear of discovery by either spies, for there were still Maisirians in Penda, or by sorcery. The emperor swore that he, and the Chare Brethren, were able to thwart all such attempts, although he wryly added that if a truly effective spell were cast, it would be so hidden no one could unveil it.