by Robert Brady
Walk your army in there, and you would lose ten men or more a minute. If you were smart, you put your shields up against the arrow slots and hoped you could destroy the main gate before they could pour hot oil down on you.
You could send a squad in with a battering ram, but the first few waves were going to die.
I sat my horse outside where the guard could see me. The Uman-Chi had a spell that protected us from arrows in case someone got brave.
“We would speak with Duke Yerel, or his proxy,” the herald pressed him.
More talk behind the gates. Why didn’t I proclaim myself the heir, or the Duke of Thera?
Those were Wolf Soldiers on their front lawn. But they were on the wrong side of the wall to do much.
“May we treat with him alone?” the guard called down, finally.
The herald looked back at me, and I nodded. He withdrew, and I trotted Blizzard up to the gate.
The gate groaned open about a quarter of the way, and an older man in chainmail armor trotted a dappled gray warhorse out to meet me. His hair shown as gray as the horse, cut close to his scalp, and his face clean-shaven. He was an Uman, but as big as a Man. He nodded and I nodded back.
“Your highness,” he said, “I am Jak, Captain of the Guard.”
“Well met, Jak,” I said.
“I must ask your intention,” he said.
He looked me right in the eyes, but you could tell he didn’t want to. A soldier followed orders, like them or not, and closing the gates to the Heir wasn’t an order that he liked following.
“I am here to speak with his grace, Duke Yerel,” I said, “under treatise of the King of Eldador.”
He looked at me more directly. “The King hired you?” he asked. “Why would he hire the Heir to do the duties of the Heir?”
“He hired the Free Legion,” I said, “of which I am a member.”
He opened his mouth, and then closed it. He opened it and closed it again.
“His Majesty has sent mercenaries to the city?” he asked.
“He has sent tax collectors,” I said, “under hire.”
“This has never been done before,” he commented, as if he could argue us away.
“Times change,” I said, simply.
He thought about that. “I can tell you,” the captain said, finally, “that Yerel will not open his gates to invaders.”
I nodded. “You know of course,” I said, “that the Heir has no power to order him to open his gates, or to collect taxes.”
“Yerel has made this point many times in the last few days,” he said.
“And the Heir cannot order the army into an Eldadorian city,” I added.
“Again, the Duke made this clear to me.”
I looked back at the Wolf Soldiers, then back at the Captain.
“We aren’t here as Eldadorians,” I said. “We are here for Eldadorians. If Yerel doesn’t see me today, he will have this army and even more Free Legion warriors on his doorstep, and we won’t be here to talk.”
“That sounds like a threat, your Highness,” he warned me.
“A threat is something that someone might not do,” I corrected him. “This is a promise – as soon as the Free Legion reinforcements arrive, I will destroy your gates, purge your walls, take the coin owed the state, and bring Yerel to Eldador the Port in chains.”
The Captain nodded. I dismissed him, and he rode back in through the gate. I got Blizzard out of the murder hole before they realized that they would be the first group to die if I invaded.
Uman City had been laid out much the same as Outpost IX was: outer wall, inner wall, cobblestone streets and a central palace with its own wall. They had no coliseum for the Fovean High Council, no flying bridges soared above us, however I saw where flying bridges might be, if they’d wanted them.
They had only one gate, but the walls had the same kind of towers, only shorter. Someone had probably seen Outpost IX before they made this city, and then came as close to it as their budget would allow.
I walked in with my wizards and a 50 Wolf Soldier retinue, more to show off five squads than because I thought I needed them. Five squads wouldn’t hold off the whole city guard, no matter who they were.
We marched down the central way to the palace. Wolf Soldiers who were veterans of the sack of Outpost IX looked on in wonder and recognition, just as I did. I hadn’t been here before, but it felt like I had.
The palace gates were open. I doubted those would close until we actually attacked. The streets were crowded with civilian onlookers, some watching quiet and dour, others waving scraps of cloth with my Wolf’s Head insignia drawn on them and shouting, “The Conqueror!” News of a military victory travels fast, and no one loves the Uman-Chi. Still, I think that most of them didn’t like that army outside of the gate.
We entered the palace, and here my expertise ended because I hadn’t been in the palace at Outpost IX. I saw a similarity to the palace at Steel City, where the inner gates were a straight shot from the outer gates. The palace exterior included towers and tiers and a grand marble stair leading up to its double doors. We marched past liveried Uman warriors and in to a main hall that mirrored Outpost X, right down to the gallery on the right hand side.
Cheyak tradition ran deep.
Yerel sat on a raised dais, on a throne carved of stone. He had no one there to advise him like Glennen and I did. He looked the same as when I had seen him in my home in Thera, except that he looked angrier now than then.
“Your Highness,” he greeted me.
“Your Grace,” I returned.
“I am told that you are here to collect taxes,” he said. He came straight to the point. I didn’t feel like sparring with him, anyway.
Well, the conversation wasn’t over, either.
“You are delinquent,” I said. “Are you able to deliver?”
“I can deliver,” he said, “but I see no reason to do so for the Heir. You have no authority to collect tax or tithe.”
“You will note,” I said, politely, my helmet under my arm, “that I am not here as an Eldadorian, but as a member of the Free Legion.”
“And I find that strange,” he said, leaning forward, “because the Free Legion are under my employ.”
Didn’t see that one coming.
“They are?” I asked him. I felt my scar twitch. “That would not explain the troops on your gate.”
“Oh, I assure you, I hired the Free Legion last month, to clean out Aschire raiders near my city,” he said, half of a smile on his face. “They have been busy for me.”
Now, that would suck, I thought. We had an agreement with the Aschire, an agreement through me, and that I depended on, that said that there would be no combat between the Aschire and the Free Legion.
I knew for a fact that every member of the Free Legion knew of that agreement. If they broke it we would never be able to incorporate the Aschire into our larger plans.
My first instinct right then was to bail from here, hunt down Ancenon and smack him down for screwing this up. I actually put weight on my left heel for a quick turn when it occurred to me.
Ancenon did a better job planning than that. He’d lived much longer and learned much more than I had. Ancenon Aurelias would not screw himself in the long term for some short-term gain, because Uman-Chi live for centuries, and they just don’t think in the short term.
Yerel had tried to play me, and he knew just how to do it. That was pretty smart. I couldn’t help myself from smiling.
“You are amused, your Highness,” Yerel said.
I looked him in the eye. “No member of the Free Legion,” I said, “would harm a purple hair on the head of an Aschire, for any amount of gold or silver.”
He sat up straight, probably because I called him a liar in his own court, rather than because I had caught him in a lie.
“I take offense,” he said.
“As well you may,” I pressed him. I knew I had him. He was bluffing, and no one bluffed who held a good
hand.
“And I will demand satisfaction,” he said.
I smiled. I could take Yerel. He might have been a warrior, but that had been years ago.
“You shall have it,” I said. They don’t throw down gauntlets here. I had mentioned it once, and been told quite plainly that it was a stupid waste of an expensive piece of armor.
“Shall we use seconds, your Highness?” he asked me, “or will you be fighting yourself.”
“I fight my own battles,” I said.
I had been so pleased with myself that I didn’t think before the words came out of my mouth. Why the hell would he want to ask about seconds?
Unless…
The man who stepped out from behind the stone throne could have been Nantar’s bigger, meaner brother. He was armored from head to toe in thick plate, carrying a sword with a blade four feet long over one shoulder and a mace on his hip.
“Well, I am an old man,” Yerel said, “and I shall choose a second. May I introduce you to Varoth, of the Bounty Hunter’s Guild?”
Crap.
You had to admire the planning. You really did.
The Bounty Hunters approached Yerel and got him on their side, probably with some dispersion against me. Then they betrayed him to me, through their emissary to Eldador, to encourage me to come after Yeral. Now, of course, they supported Yerel with this warrior so he stayed on their side. This got me to do the one thing that they couldn’t arrange on their own: open up direct combat between them and myself.
I could see where they had cut Shela out of the picture as well. If she were here, Varoth would already be dead. They knew I wouldn’t bring the whole family to a siege, and Alekanna’s assassination was still too recent even to consider leaving the baby alone. I am sure that, if we had, then Lee would be in the possession of the Bounty Hunter’s Guild anyway right now, and Varoth would be delivering the message, “Give us yourself, or we will settle for your daughter.”
That tended to say that they already had someone in the palace at Eldador, but I couldn’t focus on that now.
On the first day of the month of Weather I stood on the square, just within the main gate of Uman City. Two hundred of my Wolf Soldiers stood as my witnesses. Whether I won or lost, they would wait until combat finished, then take the gate and the tower.
Two Spears sat outside the gate with 1,000 heavy horse. When the gate opened, they would charge directly to the palace and slaughter anyone who resisted. The foot would be right behind them. On this side of the gate, I could take the city with what I had.
I wore my armor tight. My wizards had already thwarted three attempts to cast spells on me. I let them respond in kind. The Uman-Chi felt certain that he had blinded at least one of their wizards.
Varoth stepped into the square. He held his sword in both hands. It looked similar to the Scottish claymore, long handle, over-stated cross guard, a foot of steel with no edge at the base, then sharp to a point on both edges. He didn’t swing it in any fancy way, just held it before him, point down, waiting for battle to begin.
His mace hung from his hip. Seemed to me that the mace would be a better weapon to start out with. My armor would be a hell of an obstacle to his sword.
Yerel stepped out onto the square. “For the honor of Uman City,” he said, and stepped back.
Varoth advanced. I pulled the Sword of War from over my shoulder and held it up between us.
He pointed his sword’s point directly at my eyes, using a hand-over-hand grip. This would keep me from judging the distance from the end of the point to me, then he could stab at my face or he could swing from either side, changing his grip as he swung the sword over his head.
I stood my ground. I’d chosen a spot too near the crowd behind me. If he lunged, I would be unable to retreat without crashing into the spectators. As well, I’d taken a purely defensive posture. I had no assault from this position; I could only defend against his attacks. I would have to change my stance and my grip to fight, while he could keep swinging.
I knew I’d be facing the best swordsman they could throw at me. They wanted me bad, and this whole situation smacked of expense. They wouldn’t skimp at the end of the game.
He came right in for the kill. Ten feet from me, then eight, then five. I couldn’t tell the exact distance to the point of his sword. He held it perfectly in line with my eyes, creating an illusion of it being shorter than I knew it had to be.
I stood still as stone, barely even breathing. A good swordsman would think me scared of him, and finish me.
I didn’t face a good swordsman, I faced a great swordsman. He thought five steps ahead where most couldn’t manage one. I had a reputation for being devious and he knew that nothing ever appeared the way it seemed with me.
He stopped, and he took a good hard look at me, trying to tell what game I might be playing.
And the point of his sword wavered, and I knew the exact location of the end of that sword.
And I made a move that Saa Saraan from Outpost IX would have beaten me for, had he seen it. I hopped forward like a kangaroo, his blade scraping the armor on my shoulder and laying right next to my neck, and jammed the Sword of War into his breast plate like a spear.
Whatever the breastplate consisted of, the Sword of War didn’t go through it like it usually did every other thing created by living hands. I actually expected that. The blow knocked him back, putting his sword right at the level of my face, and I immediately brought my own sword up within his guard, turned sideways so that I looked at the edge of his blade, and wrapped his arms up with my own.
He pulled back but couldn’t disentangle himself. Our swords pointed out at crazy angles from our bodies and I’d put him totally off his guard.
He stepped in to disengage, and I stomped the instep of his left foot with my right cleat. He grunted in pain and I took a one-handed grip of my sword, using my left hand to push him away.
The blade of his sword scraped down my arm, but my armor took it. I went back to my two-handed grip in time to block a chop he sent to my knee, another to my head, and another back to that same knee.
I hopped back, and he limped forward, favoring his left foot. I immediately circled to his left, forcing him to pivot on his right to keep facing me. When he tried to advance on his right instead, I hammered at his defense, my sword spinning over my head to rain blows on his head, his legs and into his torso. He blocked them all, but he couldn’t do that and advance, and he had a hard time retreating, having led on his right foot.
His sword finally met mine in the air, and he caught my cross guard with his. Leaning his weight on me, he took a step back and tried to pull me off balance as he retreated.
I leapt forward again and landed on his left foot with my right. He grunted again and I pushed him as hard as I could, jumping back from him.
His sword dinged the front of my armor. I left a trail of his blood from my foot.
I didn’t offer quarter. I needed to finish this.
I kept circling to his left. He left a red smear on the cobblestones as he pivoted to face me. He worked it out now, trying to come up with a better strategy to come at me. I knew that, given time, he would probably do so.
And I couldn’t just rain blows on him. He could probably fight me off and strategize at the same time. I had to go in for the kill while I had the advantage.
I faked for his head, faked for his right foot, faked for his head again and chopped down on the handle of his mace. He returned with a direct stab at my midsection, hoping either to pierce my armor or to force the point of his sword into a seam. I let him push me back with his sword, not knowing if his weapon could do what mine could not. The mace’s handle clattered to one side.
I kept out of his reach, and the head of his mace pitched forward, no longer having the weight of its handle to counter-balance it. He stepped to his left and stumbled, his balance thrown off, and I darted in for the kill.
Right for the head – and he blocked me. Then for the leg, and he bl
ocked me. I crossed the guards of our swords and then pushed at him with all of my strength, and he stumbled backwards, his left foot slipping on his own blood. I pulled my sword free and then swung right for his center, raining blows with all of my strength, taking shots that he could block easily.
After the seventh blow, I changed my grip just slightly and brought the sword down right on his hands. Defending your hands is the first thing you learn when you fight. Now I had him off balance and wondering what the hell I might be trying to do. Three fingers flew off and the sword slipped in his grasp.
I knocked the sword aside with a left-handed sweep, then punched him in the face with my right. He staggered, and I punched him again, holding his sword to the side with my sword in my left hand, and again.
Teeth dropped to the ground. I stepped forward, planted my cleat on his right foot, and pushed him.
And immediately slipped on his trail of blood. I fell on my back with a whack to my head, seeing stars.
I felt my armor ring as his sword crashed down on it. I felt the Sword of War in my left hand, but I couldn’t bring it up to protect myself. My lungs ached from the fall and my sight became a confused blur.
I heard a shout from the crowd. He must be bringing up his sword for the kill.
I brought my left knee up and kicked straight out in what I hoped to be his direction. My cleat connected, with all of the force I could muster behind it.
The crowd moaned. I had a pretty good idea where I caught him. I brought the sword up and, as my vision cleared, saw him stepping back from me in a crouch.
The handle to his mace lay beside me. I threw it at his injured feet to slow him down, then took the chance and rolled to my right, to try to stand, knowing that I left myself totally open to him as I did so.
I heard him fall before I could get back on my feet. He had to have slipped on the handle. When I stood, shaky and my sword still in my left hand, I could see him on his butt, with his left elbow supporting him, and his right hand pointing his sword at me.
