Sword Destiny

by Robert Leader

  “Your god has abandoned you,” Padmini said bitterly. “Now we have no faith left in any gods.”

  “Join us,” Kamali pleaded. “Join us in the Juahar.”

  “Yes.” Padmini nodded. “All this began because you defied Sardar of Maghalla. It would be too much to bear if he were to have you now. You must enter the flames with us.”

  “No.” Maryam tore her hands from theirs and backed away. “I must find Jahan or Kaseem. I must persuade them to wait.”

  She fled from their rooms and ran down the long corridors to her father’s audience hall where she hoped to find Jahan. The plaintive calls of her mother and aunt echoed behind her and she threw her hands up to her ears in a desperate effort to shut them out. Startled handmaidens shrieked and scuttled out of her path and then she turned a corner and crashed into Kaseem, sending him flying backwards as she fell sprawling on top of him.

  The old priest had been on his way to the royal apartments, knowing that Nirad had taken her there. He expected to be needed to comfort the spirited but dutiful princess he had known and was only half-prepared for this hurtling, half-clothed wildcat with the big Gheddan knife strapped to her waist. He lay beneath her gasping for breath until she got up and helped him to his feet. She found his staff, which had landed a dozen paces away, and then at last they were both able to speak.

  “Holy One, I am sorry,” she apologized. “I was looking for you or for Lord Jahan.”

  “I think you have found me,” Kaseem said wryly, still trying to get back his wind.

  “You know what my mother is planning to do?”

  “Yes,” Kaseem said sadly. “I know.”

  “You must stop her. You must stop them all. And you must stop Lord Jahan from making this hopeless stand on the plain. I promise you, Holy One, even if your gods have decreed victory to Maghalla, my god will not. My blue god will return and his ship has the power to destroy Maghalla.”

  Her faith was piteous, and Kaseem felt as though his heart was being torn from his chest. He clung to his staff for support and struggled to reply. “Maryam, dearest daughter of all Karakhor, your blue god will not return. I have—I have seen a holy vision.” He still did not know how else to describe his travels on the astral. “A most terrible holy vision.”

  He closed his eyes tight and the tears trickled through as he saw again the awful images of the two space fleets exploding into the obscene, star-bright flashes of death and destruction. In all the confusion, he believed that all the ships had virtually vaporized and vanished, and that both Kananda and his beloved Laurya must both have perished. He had a duty to perform, but in his own overwhelming grief and anguish he had no real comfort to offer her.

  “All are dead,” he told her. “The ships of Alpha and of Ghedda have destroyed each other.”

  Chapter Eight

  Raven and his crew, like Zela, were appalled by the outcome of the space battle. In their perception, Alpha was soft and peace-loving, spineless and weak, their men as feminine as their women. Ghedda was warlike and invincible, every man sworn to the sword, their women almost as masculine as their men. There should have been no real contest. They had expected to win, perhaps to lose one or two ships, but not to lose them all. This was almost incredible. To know that their ship was damaged and practically helpless while one Alphan ship still survived to hunt them was a violent blow to both their colossal pride and their entire belief structure.

  Raven had succeeded in taking out two of the Alphan Tri-thrusters after his ship received its initial hit. His superb flying skills and the ship’s ability to take heavy damage but still fight had given him an edge. But then a second direct hit had taken out one of his nuclear-pulse engines and drained his ship of power. The Solar Cruiser had skewered off into the planet’s atmosphere and there she now hung in a slowly decaying orbit. His lazer banks were empty. He had fired his last shot. He could slowly slide ever deeper into the gravitational pull of the planet until at last they plunged into a final crash dive, or he could make an attempt to land. He had no other options.

  “One Alphan ship is still out there.” Garl had kept track while Raven piloted the ship and Taron controlled the weaponry and he repeated what they already knew with the echoes of shock still in his voice. “They are waiting for us to come out of the planet’s cloud cover.”

  “Let them wait.” Raven shrugged in a careless gesture. “We do not have that choice.” He turned and looked for Caid. “Can you get power back to the ship?”

  “No, Commander.” It was the engineer’s turn to shrug. “The breached sections of the hull and the engine room have automatically self-sealed. Even if I could get in there, it would take several hours and even then only if I had the spare parts. Long before that happens we will hit the planet’s surface.”

  “And if I try to land?”

  “Perhaps there is enough residual power for one controlled landing. Perhaps not. We can only try.”

  Raven laughed. “Either way we are going to hit the ground. There is nothing more we can do up here. Our duty to Ghedda and the City of Swords is finished. We will try to land.”

  “Where?” Taron asked the question although he knew the answer.

  Raven shrugged again. “Karakhor is as good a place as any.”

  “The woman?” Taron’s tone was matter-of-fact, suggesting neither criticism nor support.

  Raven turned and stared at him, and briefly nodded.

  Taron laughed and said, “Why not?”

  Garl, Caid and Landis all grinned resigned agreement. Without Raven’s masterly handling of the ship, they would already be dead, so they owed him that much. Plus there was no way now that they could go home. It no longer mattered anyway.

  Maryam had finally succumbed partially to the pleas and protests of her mother and aunt and had allowed her handmaidens to bathe her. It was an alien and irritating process after so many weeks of caring for herself. The water was too warm and the soap and perfumes too sickly cloying. She refused to prolong the experience she had once craved, and as soon as the dirt and blood had been washed off her skin and out of her hair, she insisted on getting dried and dressed. She had thrown away the white linen of death that had been offered to her and then cast aside a tentatively proposed range of beautiful silk saris. Instead she insisted upon strong pantaloons, a stiff tunic and leather boots, all more suitable for hard riding and fighting. Then she scorned makeup and jewels and shocked everyone by retrieving her long Gheddan knife. To add to all their horror and dismay, she went even further by robbing one of her newly appointed guards of his sword belt and sword. Then she marched off in search of Jahan.

  She found her uncles and brothers and their surviving war captains in the great audience hall and it was her turn to be shocked. Jahan needed a spear shaft to help him walk, although the great ruby-hilted sword was again strapped to his side. His hair was now white and his face deeply lined with fatigue and anguish. Devan’s face was almost a mirror image. Both of them had grown old and weary in her absence. The young Lords Gujar and Kasim and her half-brother Rajar, whom she remembered as a group of carefree young men, were all like Nirad, hardened, grim-faced adult warriors. Even Ramesh, whom she still thought of as her baby brother, looked as tough and battle-scarred as the others.

  They greeted her with a mixture of confused emotions, their relief and joy at seeing her alive tormented by the fact that, in their view, she had come home to them to die. After she had hugged and embraced them all, there was a moment of awkward silence. Maryam could feel the tearing pain in her own heart, the hot tears only just behind her eyes, the cold snakes of death already squirming in her stomach, and yet she strove to speak bravely.

  “Uncles, you cannot do this.” She appealed to Jahan and Devan. “The Juahar and this last stand upon the plain. You must wait. I beg you. You must hold Karakhor for at least another day.”

  “Karakhor will not hold another day,” Jahan said simply. “There is no food left in the city and the population is starving. The city
wells are dry and the waters of the Mahanadi are red with blood. And now our walls are breached in too many places. Yesterday we were beaten back and only nightfall saved us from being swamped. More than a hundred of our fighters died and many scores more were wounded. Today we have one hundred less to man the ramparts, and of those who do stand, there is not one who is not wounded or exhausted. Our ranks are half-filled with old grandfathers and with boy children who should still be only playing at war.” He shook his head bitterly. “No, Maryam. I love you as my own daughter—but I cannot pretend that Karakhor will stand another day.”

  “But the Juahar—it is too horrible. My father would never condone the rite of Sati.”

  “In normal times, none of us would condone the rite of Sati. It was for old women only, old widows who had no life left without their husbands. The priests would not deny them that right if they insisted. But now we have no choice.”

  “Our own dear wives and daughters will follow your mother into the Holy Flame.” Devan added his own voice and for the first time ever Maryam saw the tears in his eyes. “We cannot leave them to the beast lust of Maghalla. After today we will not be here to protect them.”

  “No,” Maryam persisted. “It is not yet over. My blue god will return—for me—and to save Karakhor. You must hold out a little longer.”

  “Your blue god deserted you,” Devan reminded her. “Your own courage brought you home to us. Your blue god left you to the mercy of Maghalla.”

  “But Raven will come back.”

  “Even if this proves true, why would he fight now for Karakhor?” Jahan was sceptical and with a wave of his hand he indicated the lazer scars and sections of damaged stonework that were still visible on the surrounding pillars and archways that upheld the great hall. “The last time he was here he slew the Lord of Gandhar in this very room. He tried to kill us all.”

  “Someone here in Karakhor tried to kill him. There were three assassins. Raven was attacked in the street.”

  “He destroyed our temple. He insulted our gods.” Jahan was unforgiving.

  “But he will come back. And this time it will be different. Raven is my husband now. I am his woman.” She rushed on quickly in case they pressed for details of a marriage ceremony that had never taken place. “He will come back to claim me, to fight for me. For me he will fight for Karakhor.”

  There was another moment of long silence, and then Jahan said wearily, “It is too late. Dawn is upon us and already our forces are forming their last battle lines upon the plain. Maghalla can see what is happening. Sardar will wait for us to take our places in the front rank, but he would not now allow our men to withdraw again behind the walls. We must go now and join them. The dice of fate are already cast and rolling on the battlefield.”

  Maryam wept as they turned away from her, the scalding tears of anger and frustration boiling down her cheeks. But the gods had not yet finished playing with Karakhor. Faintly, and then with a deafening roar of power, they heard the return of the last Solar Cruiser as it descended to circle over the mauled city. A few moments later Raven landed his ship in the very heart of the great plaza between the circle of temples.

  With the ship’s main battle lazers dead, Raven had decided against another landing on the open plain, and the plaza was the only wide, cleared space within the city walls. Putting the ship down had demanded all of his superb flying skills and it had been in the balance whether the fast-draining dregs of propulsion power would last until the ship touched ground. The blast from the dying engines radiated into the temple courtyards and scattered both the funeral pyres and the circles of white-faced priests. Then abruptly the cushioning thrust fires extinguished. Raven already had the support legs clamping down, only just in time to stop the erect ship from toppling over.

  The tension on the flight deck eased. Their blue faces relaxed and they grinned at each other. Taron slapped Raven on the back in a rare demonstration of camaraderie.

  “Well done, Commander. For a moment there, I thought we were going to crash.”

  “So did I.” Raven chuckled, shrugged out of his straps and stood from his command chair. “But at least we are down. Now let us go and find out what sort of a mess we have come down into.”

  He led the way and his crew followed him into the airlock, and then out through the hatch and down the long exit ladder to the plaza below. There they all moved back to stare up in wonder at their crippled ship. Where the Alphan lazer beams had hit, the outer metal skin of the hull was blackened and twisted, half-melted and in places torn and flapping like strips of ragged steel flesh. The vessel had taken a savage hammering and looked as though it had been kicked around the stars in the heat of a supernova. They did not need Caid’s knowledge or the woeful look on the engineer’s face to know that their once-proud Solar Cruiser would never fly again. They were shipwrecked and marooned forever and were lucky that they were all still in one piece.

  While they stood in that last moment of silent, sombre salute to their dead ship, Maryam came running up to meet them with Jahan, Devan and the ruling elite of Karakhor trailing uncertainly behind her. She threw her arms around Raven’s neck and kissed him hard on the mouth.

  “I knew you would come back,” she told him, although it was partly a lie, for she had not always been sure.

  Raven laughed although his calculating eyes were carefully watching her uncles and her brothers. “It was a small business we had to settle. Now it is over.”

  Quickly Maryam told him all that she had to tell. Raven and his crew listened with flat, expressionless faces and she was aware of her uncles and brothers watching and listening just as intently, even though they did not understand her words. She had to resist the urge to gabble, but at last she finished desperately. “I have told them you will help, that your ship’s weapons will destroy Maghalla.”

  “Our ship is dead,” Raven said simply. “Our white fire is all spent. There is nothing left.”

  Her expression was crushed. She stared at him and at the ship, taking full note for the first time of all the massive structural damage it had sustained. Then she said desperately, “Your hand weapons?”

  Raven looked down at the hand lazer at his hip. “We can kill a few, but not all of your enemies.” He smiled and turned to his four companions. “We are invited to a war. It is not a Gheddan fight and I can no longer command you in the name of the empire and the City Sword. The choice is yours. All it offers is the chance to die with a blade in your hand.”

  Garl shrugged. “It is all we came for,” he said simply.

  Taron nodded, his ugly face grim. “We stand with you, as always.”

  Maryam felt a huge surge of relief. Tears wet her eyes as her emotions turned somersaults, but she remembered to switch back into Hindi as she turned to Jahan and the rest. “They will fight for us,” she cried joyfully. “Their ship is dead, but they still have the white fire weapons at their sides. They will use them against Maghalla.”

  Jahan still looked doubtful. He did not trust the blue men and he still harboured the old grudges and memories. However, all that any of them had expected from this day was a violent death and any ally was a gift not to be turned away. He looked to Devan, received no argument, and slowly nodded.

  Maryam looked to Kaseem who had appeared with the others. Behind him stood the first group of women dressed in the white robes of Sati: her mother Padmini, her aunt Kamali, and the wives and daughters of the princes and the noble houses, all of them with faces as fear-white as their plain and simple gowns. She stepped forward and seized Kaseem by his thin, bony shoulders, holding him so that they were face-to-face, staring fiercely into his wrinkle-wreathed eyes. “Hold back the Juahar fires. Please, Holy One—just for a few hours.”

  Kaseem flinched and his ancient bones trembled. He said slowly, “For a few hours. I will watch from the walls.”

  Raven had turned to Jahan, each now calculating the strengths and the weaknesses of the other. They had no common language, but Raven clapped th
e old Warmaster General on the shoulder and said cheerfully, “So, Old War Dog, let us go and fight your last battle. We shall see what difference a handful of Gheddan swordsmen can make.”

  In space, half-hidden beside the rim edge of the moon where the reflected sunlight might make them more difficult to spot for the first few vital seconds, the last Tri-thruster hung in waiting. On board, Kyle and Kananda had covered the body of Cadel with a blanket and done all they were able to treat Laurya and tend her injuries. They had carried her gently to her bunk, and there Kyle had cut away her tunic to reveal a massive gash and bleeding bruise across her shoulder. The shoulder was broken and the bruising was spreading down her rib cage. The best they could do was to us a numbing spray over the whole general area of damage and then dress the open wound and put her arm into a supporting sling. Then they returned to where Zela still sat intently in her command chair, keeping watch for the first glimpse of the missing Solar Cruiser.

  “I fear she may have more internal injuries,” Kyle said quietly. “That damned speaker box hit her across the shoulder and across the stomach. She needs more help than I can give her.”

  Zela looked up at him and bit her lip, wondering if any of it mattered anymore. “I will give Raven another hour,” she said at last. “If he does not appear, then we will assume that his ship must have crashed on Earth. Then I will attempt to take Kananda home to Karakhor. They have healers among their priests who may be able to help her.”

  Kyle nodded and went back to sit beside Laurya while they waited. Kananda remained standing beside Zela, staring at his home planet which filled her main viewscreen. He still could not comprehend fully all that had happened. The death and destruction had been so swift. One minute a dozen ships had filled the blackness of space between Earth and moon and now, except for their own limping vessel, all had gone. Even the debris had dwindled into fading insignificance. Half of the men and women who had died in those ships had been close friends of his companions. Zela had trained with four out of the five ship commanders and had served with most of their crews. He tried to share her crushing sense of loss. He rested a hand on her shoulder, hoping that the personal touch would somehow help. She covered his hand with her own and smiled up at him weakly. In that moment, they did not realize that there was much worse soon to come.