by Джеффри Лорд
They moved on down the hall, checking each room as they passed. A few yards farther on they came to a wide flight of stairs. There seemed to be another, more brightly lit hall at the top. Blade nodded toward the stairs and Lady Musura followed him up. He couldn't help thinking that this was a bloody good way to be ambushed or killed by mistake by your own side, let alone by the enemy! But the second floor had to be cleared, and it looked as though the job was going to be up to them.
The hallway at the top seemed deserted. But Blade wasn't taking any chances. He kicked down the door of each room as he came to it, while Lady Musura covered his back and kept an eye on the hall in both directions.
He found no one, armed or unarmed, alive or dead, in any of the rooms. Some of them must have been living quarters-their floors were covered with sleeping mats. Overturned cups and bottles, scattered sandals, and tumbled blankets showed where some of the rooms had been hastily evacuated.
The thick wooden floor muffled the sounds of the battle that still seemed to be raging below. Blade was beginning to worry. Was everybody in such a blind fury that nobody was going to think of the second floor? That might give Lord Geron a good chance to escape.
They came to a bend where the hall turned at right angles to the left. Thirty feet farther on it came to a dead end. The walls on either side were bare plastered wood, and the floor underfoot was unpolished and scarred. About halfway to the blank end of the hall was a small door in the left-hand wall.
Blade scanned the empty hall so thoroughly that he would have spotted a cockroach if there had been one crawling across the ceiling. He didn't like the silence in this isolated hall. It was unnatural in the middle of a battle. If someone was lying in ambush in that side room…
Then he noticed that there was a faint line at the edge of one of the panels at the far end of the hall. A dark line for most of its length. But about halfway up Blade saw a faint, flickering yellow glow seeping through the crack.
Silently he took Lady Musura by the shoulder with one hand and pointed with the other. She nodded. Then he pointed at the side door. She nodded again and stepped cat-footed down the hall, stalking along until she was directly opposite the door. When she was in position, Blade made his slow, careful way down the last stretch of hall. He felt sweat trickling down his back as he passed the door, and he wished for the hundredth time that he had eyes in the back of his head. By the time he was ten feet from the end of the hall, there was no mistaking it. A light was burning in some concealed compartment behind that panel. Then he was only five feet away-and the lamp went out.
As it did, the door Lady Musura was watching flew open and the room behind it spewed fighting men into the hall. Lady Musura sprang forward. Blade's mouth opened in a shout as he realized she would never survive, wading into a fight against such odds at close quarters.
She was moving fast as she crashed into the five men who were already out in the hall, her swords reaching out to either side. Blade saw the point of her long sword go in under one man's chin, her short sword drive downward into another's groin-and a third man's spear take her in the chest. The point drove into her right breast and came out between her shoulder blades. Her body arched, but one leg shot up and a foot took the spearman in the groin. He howled and staggered, letting go his grip on the spear. Lady Musura slashed him in the back with her long sword. Then a fourth man struck downward, laying her thigh open to the bone. She fell on her back, writhing as the spear twisted itself about inside her.
The forth man had about three seconds to savor his victory. Then Blade's sword split his skull from crown to chin and he collapsed on top of Lady Musura. The fifth man was vanishing down the hall already. Blade turned, saw more dabuni crowding out of the room, and attacked.
It would have been safer for him to stay out in the hall and take the men as they came out, no more than one or two at a time. It would have been safer, but it wouldn't have matched his mood. He was not a cold-blooded professional now, he was a killing machine in a white-hot rage. He sprang through the doorway, landing on the shaft of a spear thrust toward him. The shock pulled the spearman forward. Blade's short sword jabbed up into the man's throat as he toppled down onto it. The man thudded to the floor, jerking the short sword out of Blade's hand. Blade leaped clear of the corpse rolling at his feet and slashed at a man to his right. Flesh and ribs split under Blade's sword and the man crashed backward against the wall, knocking over a lamp. It broke, spilling burning oil down the side of a large crate and onto the mats. The oil also ran onto the fallen man's face. His screams drowned out the crackling of the flames as they ran across the mats and began to climb the wall.
Those were the last details Blade remembered for a while. Not a very long while-no more than a minute or two. But it didn't take very long for a man in Blade's mood to kill six more men with a Gaikon sword.
When Blade's head cleared, he realized that the room was filled with smoke and that a good part of the floor matting and one wall were on fire. Eight bodies lay around him in a semicircle, all gashed or gutted or missing arms, legs, or heads. His sword was red and slippery with blood from point to hilt, and so was his sword arm.
He backed hastily out into the hall. As he did so, he heard a noise to his left. He whirled and saw someone in a dirty brown robe struggling with the panel at the end of the hall. Whoever it was was obviously trying to get back into the compartment that lay behind the panel.
Blade knew he couldn't cover the distance before the panel closed on the man. But at his feet sprawled the bodies of Lady Musura's victims. Blade bent, grabbed one by an ankle, and swung him hard and high. At exactly the right moment he let go. The body sailed through the air and crashed into the brown-robed man, smashing him against the panel and knocking his legs out from under him. Half-stunned, the man rolled on the floor, trying to fumble a knife out of his sash. Blade charged down the hall, kicked the knife out of the man's hand, then grabbed him by the collar and jerked him to his feet. A thin, dark face, the right side covered with half-healed red scars, stared at Blade. The eyes widened in appalled recognition, and the mouth opened to scream.
It was Lord Geron.
Blade shoved the Hongshu's second chancellor back against the wall as hard as he could. The bare skull smashed into the wood and Lord Geron slumped down, unconscious. With his prisoner immobilized for the time being, Blade turned to Lady Musura.
She was dead-must have been dead for several minutes now. Her contorted, bloodless face and sightless eyes stared upward at Blade. He bent down and gently pressed the eyelids closed.
There was a knife in her hand, and Blade knew what she must have been planning to do with it. When the jinai died, they often tried to slash their faces so that no one would recognize them. But it did not matter now whether or not anyone recognized Lady Musura. She had died with her face intact, and Blade found himself glad of that. She had found very little joy in a life of hard service, with a hard death at the end of it.
The quick footsteps of a number of men sounded on the stairs. Again Blade spun around, to see Doifuzan, Yezjaro, and five or six others trot around the bend in the hall. They stopped as they saw Blade standing over Lady Musura, the bodies around him, and the smoke billowing out of the room. Then Yezjaro's eyes traveled beyond Blade-and widened in delighted astonishment as they fell on Lord Geron. The instructor looked at Doifuzan.
«I concede the honor to you, First Dabuno.»
Doifuzan shook his head. «I think both of us should concede it to Blade. Without his aid, it might have taken us five long years or more to bring our plans to completion. He found a way for us here. And it seems to have been his skill and his sword that in the end took the man we sought. Blade, I doubt if we shall live long enough to do you the honor you deserve. But we can at least do this.»
«Indeed, you speak the truth. Blade, the honor of striking down Lord Geron shall be yours.»
Blade bowed mechanically, turned, and drew his sword. The battle-fury had left him and he felt drain
ed, half-sick, and he wished only to get the business over with. Lord Geron was still unconscious when Blade's sword slashed down through his scrawny neck, and his head rolled across the floor.
«I hope he knew who was in his house, and why,» said Doifuzan as he bent to pick up the head and place it in a linen sack.
Blade smiled grimly. «He recognized me, I know.»
«Good. Then he has enough knowledge to take with him to Kunkoi.» Doifuzan finished tying the neck of the sack and stood up. «I think we would do well to leave here at once. The Hongshu's soldiers may enter the garden at any time, and the house itself seems doomed.» A crash from within the storeroom punctuated his remarks. The crackle and boom of the flames became fiercer, and the yellow brown smoke rolled more thickly out into the hall.
«Come, brothers. Let us be off.» Doifuzan turned and led them away down the hall toward the stairs.
Chapter 21
Nineteen of the twenty-nine uroi got safely out of the burning house, back through the tunnel, away from the Hongshu's palace. By the time they had reached the street, the fire was visible for miles. Flames shot a hundred feet into the air and lit up the base of a cloud of smoke that rose many times higher.
The streets began to come alive with people running out to stare at the fire, loudly wondering what it could mean. No one bothered the nineteen uroi as they tramped along, or failed to give them a clear path. In their black clothes they looked much like a party of the Hongshu's jinai on an urgent mission. No sensible private citizen and few soldiers would ask nineteen jinai their business or try to stop them. By dawn they were well outside the city, heading across country as fast as their legs would carry them, toward the emperor's precinct.
«That's a good three days' march,» Yezjaro told Blade in one of their brief pauses. «But we're going to do it in two. Not on the roads, either. Until we can place ourselves under the emperor's protection, the less anybody sees of us, the better. Once the emperor has rendered his judgment on us, even the Hongshu will stand aside. Until then the Hongshu will do as he sees fit. Need I bore you with details?» The instructor was haggard and filthy, and there were hollow circles under eyes reddened by fatigue and smoke. But he held onto a good deal of his sword-sharp wit.
Blade shook his head. «No, I think not. I doubt that the Hongshu will thank us for this past night's work.»
«Nor, I fear, will the emperor,» said Yezjaro. «At least he will not dare to do so openly. And what that may lead to-I have my doubts. But let us leave my suspicions where they are for the present, and march.»
They marched. They marched as Blade had never done during his military service in borne dimension, nor in any land or among any people in Dimension X. They stopped once for a few hours to sleep, and twice to eat and drink in small inns huddled at the edges of lonely forests. Otherwise they tramped steadily along, up hills, down into valleys, across brief stretches of lowlands and paddy fields, along paths winding through dark insect-ridden forests. Blade lost track of time, almost lost track of night and day and the passing landscape. His legs were white-hot pillars of fire, his throat a mass of dry gravel, his eyes glowing coals. But he kept on going because the others were, although few of them seemed in much better shape than he was.
On the morning of the third day they came to the crest of the last hill. Beyond the forest that spread across the valley below Blade saw castle towers with gold and orange banners streaming from them.
«The emperor's precinct,» said Yezjaro. There was relief in his voice, but also something else. Call it, well, acceptance. Acceptance of whatever might be waiting for them on the other side of the forest. Blade began to suspect that there were problems yet to come that he wasn't being told about. He was tempted to say so bluntly. But before he could speak, a dozen riders burst out of the forest below and began mounting the slope toward the uroi on top.
Blade's hand went to his sword hilt, then he saw that one of the horsemen was carrying the same orange and gold banner that flew over the castle. An imperial welcoming party? In any case, not the Hongshu's men. Blade started to relax, then he saw the tension still written all over Yezjaro's face. So instead he drew himself up as straight as his exhaustion and aching muscles permitted. There was an impressive dignity in the way the other men were standing, ready to accept the emperor's welcome whatever it might be. Blade did his best to match it. He kept his face expressionless and waited.
The horsemen appeared to be picking their way more cautiously as the slope steepened under them. Then, suddenly, Doifuzan stiffened like a puppet pulled upright by its strings. Pulling his sheathed swords from his sash, he dropped them on the grass. Then he knelt, head bowed. Before he had completed the movements, Yezjaro was following him, as were all the other dabuni.
Blade's bewilderment must have been written all over his face, because Yezjaro turned his head slightly and half-whispered, «The high prince himself rides to greet us. It is seldom that the emperor's own eldest son and heir comes forth. This is a mighty moment.»
«But not necessarily a fortunate one for us?» Blade could not help asking the question as he joined the others on his knees.
Yezjaro was silent for a moment before nodding. «You still see clearly, Blade.»
«I see what is on your face, my friend. And what is on your face is not-«
Yezjaro put a finger to his lips. Blade nodded and turned to look at the high prince, who had now moved out ahead of the other horsemen.
The high prince could not be more than seventeen, but he sat his horse like a cavalryman. He wore a short tunic that left muscular arms half-bare, and his tanned face showed no trace of youthful softness or baby fat. He wore a gilded breastplate and greaves, and a leather helmet with brass cheekpieces and an orange feather crest.
The high prince's father was an indecisive scholar, or so they said. But the high prince himself was a warrior. If he wasn't, Blade knew that he had lost the ability to recognize a warrior when he saw one.
The high prince's horse reared as it reached the top of the slope. The rider gentled it, then flung himself out of the saddle with an athlete's grace and swiftness and a complete lack of ceremoniousness. His companions reined in their horses and dismounted more carefully.
The high prince crossed his arms on his chest and said in a clear but high-pitched voice, «Welcome, uroi, in the emperor's name and in mine as well. I grant that here and now you may raise your eyes and look upon me.»
There were gasps of surprise from the uroi, then slowly, one by one, their exhausted grimy faces rose to look upon their future ruler. The high prince waited until he had the attention of all of them, then continued.
«You come from taking your vengeance upon Lord Geron for his betrayal of Lord Tsekuin. Is that not so, Doifuzan?»
«It is so, Exalted One.»
«You bear his head?»
«We do.» Doifuzan motioned to the uroi who had been carrying the sack. The man ran forward to kneel before the high prince and place the sack on the grass at the high prince's feet.
«Word has spread swiftly, as swiftly as birds upon the wind. The deed of the uroi who once served Lord Tsekuin already stands in Gaikon like high mountains. May Kunkoi grant that it stands as long as the mountains, as an example to men who come after us.»
«We are not worthy of such fame, Exal-«
«That is not for you to judge, Doifuzan.» Then the high prince fell silent. Even in his fatigue, Blade's trained ear told him that the young man was hesitating. He has praised us highly, thought Blade. If he is hesitating over what comes next, it's probably bad news.
«However-«began the high prince, and stopped again. That settles it, thought Blade. I've never heard anyone begin a sentence that wasn't bad news with «However.»
«However,» and now the words came out in a rush, «you have in your honorable vengeance slain a servant of the Hongshu, the Strong Younger Brother, whose hand is spread over Gaikon to keep the peace within it.» And to grab whatever his greedy heart desires, added Blad
e to himself. He nearly said it out loud.
«Therefore, it is fit and proper that your deaths shall follow.» Blade tensed. «It is the will of the emperor that you shall join Lord Tsekuin by that same honorable road which he used, and before the sun sets tomorrow. This honor is yours and none shall impair it in any way. For the emperor, it is spoken.»
The high prince worked his mouth for a moment, perhaps trying to get a bad taste out of it. Then he vaulted into the saddle and spurred his horse away down the hill, as though he could no longer face the men he had condemned to death.
That was certainly what he had done. Blade turned it over and over in his mind and could come up with no other answer. Before sunset tomorrow, they would all be dead by ritual suicide.
The high prince had called it an honor. Blade looked at the other eighteen men, and the relief and even joy on their faces. He realized that it might indeed be an honor. At least by the standards of Gaikon. But-were there other standards for him to follow, here and now?
If he could even think of that question, it would be a hard one to answer. He had the feeling that tonight was going to be full of grim, lonely thinking.
The uroi were quartered in an empty barracks in the military camp to the south of the palace. The servants who waited on them were willing to meet their every want. But those wants were few. Some of the uroi felt they should spend this last night fasting and praying. Those who were less strict still had little appetite for the food set before them. Not even Yezjaro was interested in the wine and the women they could have had. Some of the uroi were simply too tired to think about anything except a good night's sleep.
