“The Carnelian Guard is out in the city, helping to quell the rioting in the merchant quarter.”
“Making obvious the purpose of the rioting,” Dhulyn observed under her breath.
“The discontented have always dispersed in a very orderly way upon the arrival of the Carnelian Guard.”
“Of course they have, Din-eDin.” The Tarkin’s even voice silenced everyone. “Making us all the readier to send the Guard out tonight.” The Tarkin drew back his gaze from the distance.
“How many do we have?”
“No more than fifty at the most, my lord,” he said, looking up from the strip of cloth he was using on his wounded guard, strapping the woman’s arm immobile. “But they are scattered through the Dome and some do not know you still live. With us now, a dozen of your Personal Guard, no more.”
He caught the look that passed between the Mercenary Brothers.
“Our security was not lax!” he said, straightening to his feet. “We’re a Personal Guard, not an army. As recently as this morning, all was at peace.”
“The Sleeping God?” Dhulyn murmured.
“Think you’re funny?” Parno said under his breath.
“What do you know, Dhulyn Wolfshead?” Alkoryn said.
Dhulyn gave a pointed glance at the number of people in the room, and waited to speak until she saw her Senior Brother’s face change in acknowledgment of her point that this was neither the time nor place to speak of her secret. “This isn’t a simple coup on the part of an ambitious House, and we all know it,” she said. “This fire has the Jaldeans for fuel. And whatever it is that stands behind them, pushing them forward.” She turned to the Guard Captain. “Your security was not lax,” she told him. “You did not know you were at war. Neither your men, nor your preparations, took the followers of the New Believers into account.”
“My Brother’s right, Tek-aKet. Even had you believed her immediately, our warning may have come too late to do more than save your life. The Carnelian Throne we cannot save, not tonight at any rate. Once you’re upon it again, that will be the time for us to talk about what the duties of the Tarkin’s guards should be.”
Dhulyn did not trouble to hide her grin. The look on the Guard Captain’s face as he looked openmouthed from Alkoryn to the Tarkin and back again was almost worth the trouble that brought them together. She’d wager her second-best sword-or she would if she knew where it was-that the man had never heard anyone speak to the Tarkin that way before. Let alone use the man’s name without his title attached.
“How steadfast are your men, Din-eDin?” Alkoryn asked.
The Tarkin’s raised hand stopped Din-eDin from answering.
“Perhaps that, too, is a question to be answered later, since there is only one way to test it.” Was it possible that the man was smiling? “I am open to suggestions for present action.”
“A strategic retreat, my lord,” Alkoryn said. “Get the Tarkina and yourself to a safe place, and regroup.”
At that moment a disturbance came at the door as the guards let in another man wearing their dark red uniform. He was panting, his hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, but the blood on his clothes was evidently not his own.
“My lords,” the man spat out as soon as he had gathered breath. “They draw nearer. We will be cut off if we do not move.”
“Nonsense,” Din-eDin said. “We can hold these rooms indefinitely until relief comes.”
“And from where is this relief to come?” Dhulyn’s voice rang out, in stark contrast to Alkoryn’s thin whisper.
In the silence that followed, Dhulyn leaned back against a table and crossed her arms, watching indecision fight its way across the Tarkin’s face. It hurt his pride, she could tell, to abandon his palace, his throne. His jaw firmed, and Dhulyn raised her eyebrows. He would make the grand gesture then, make his stand and die, here and now. She was wondering where their weapons had been taken when the Tarkin’s face softened.
“We will run,” he said, “and see what the future brings us.” He looked around him. “But how can we leave the Dome without bringing our enemies with us?”
Dhulyn shrugged and relaxed into immobility once more, exchanging glances with her Brothers. She saw the same thing on their faces as she knew to be on hers. They would die here or somewhere else; today or on a day to come. They were Mercenaries.
Not that they were in any hurry, she grinned as Parno winked at her. She’d just as soon escape as die trying.
“Captain Din-eDin.” Alkoryn was now very careful to observe the formalities. “Are there enemies between us and the old keep where the summer kitchens once were?”
The Guard Captain was shaking his head, his mouth twisted in thought. “There may be a few, but most are coming in from the front and western gates. They’re in the Throne room, and the Tarkin’s suite of rooms behind it. They’ll seek to isolate us here, but they’d have no reason to go into the old keep. There’s nothing but offices and work-rooms there now.”
“Then there is a way to leave the Dome unseen. But we must spend some of your men to keep your enemies from following.”
The Tarkin grimaced, his handsome face a twisted mask. “How many?”
“You may spend as many as you like,” Din-eDin said. “That is what we are for.”
“You know your men,” Alkoryn said to the Guard Captain. “You tell me how many we’ll need. There are three points that should be held. Let men stand at the two staircases, the Coral and the Ruby, that lead down to the old summer kitchens. Let them hold as long as they may, and then fall back to the intersection where the old serving corridor meets the Onyx Walk. That is the final point. If that is held long enough, we’ll be able to get away. But,” he looked Din-eDin in the eye, “if we are hard-pressed, the men who hold that point will not escape with us. They must stand.”
The Guard Captain stopped nodding. “There’s no escape through the old kitchens.”
“And as long as everyone believes that, we’ll be safe.” Alkoryn said.
“What do you know, old man?” The Tarkin had some hope on his face.
“Enough to get us out of here safely.”
Din-eDin shook his head, “They will know where we went.”
Alkoryn bared his teeth. “They will know where, perhaps, but unless we have no luck at all, they will not know how.”
“Jay.” Din-eDin turned to a young dark-haired man. “Take two men and hold the Ruby Staircase. Taryn, it’s the Coral Stairs for you and two others. Send anyone of ours you see, any you know to be with us, to the old kitchens. You know your orders.”
It was not a question, but the dark-haired guard answered. “Hold our positions as long as we can. Do we fall back, Captain, or would you prefer us to die at our stations?”
He was grinning, but Dhulyn could tell from the set of his jaw that his question was meant seriously.
“Why don’t you improvise, man?” Din-eDin said with a grin of his own that was answered by all the guards. “The rest of you are with us. Stay with the Tarkin, no matter what passes. After we reach the Onyx Walk, you’ll take your orders from Alkoryn the Charter until you’re free of the Dome, and then from the Tarkin himself.”
“Dhulyn Wolfshead will be my voice,” came the harsh whisper of the old Mercenary. “Listen for her.”
The guards nodded, some of them studying the Mercenary woman covertly. A few looked as though they would have felt better if Alkoryn had said Parno was to be his second, not, she knew, because she was a woman, but because she was so obviously an Outlander.
The Tarkin had not moved. He was still leaning against his worktable, arms folded across his chest, frowning down at the spot where his dog should have been lying.
“My lord,” Din-eDin said.
The Tarkin blinked and stood up straight. “Zelianora and the children.”
Dhulyn glanced at Alkoryn and waited to speak until he’d nodded.
“Tell us the way, and if you’ve arms for us, Parno, Hernyn, and I will go
for the Tarkina,” she said, “and meet you by the Ruby Stairs.” Or even if you don’t have arms, she refrained from saying out loud. Guard Captain Din-eDin no doubt felt inadequate enough.
Fanryn Bloodhand stepped off the last of the twisted narrow flight of treads cut into the rock deep under Mercenary House and felt her eyebrows rise and her mouth form an “oh” as her lantern illuminated what Alkoryn had called the lower chamber. A grunt reminded her she wasn’t alone and she moved forward out of Thionan Hawkmoon’s way.
“Well,” Thionan said after a minute of staring about her. “Big enough, isn’t it?”
Fanryn nodded. The chamber was a good four spans long, partly natural, and partly cut out of the rock, with beds for at least twenty and space for twenty more.
Holding her lantern higher, Thionan moved deeper into the room. “There’s bedding,” she said, “and the air’s fresh enough. Cold, though.”
“We’ll send one of the youngsters down to start a fire,” Fanryn said, indicating the iron stove along the right-hand wall and the pile of neatly cut logs stacked next to it. “Make sure everything is warm and dry.”
“What is it?” her Partner said, as Fanryn stood still near the bottom of the stairway.
Fanryn shrugged. “I didn’t like sending Hernyn off again like that. One of us should have gone.”
“And spoil the fun of his first real danger? Go on, he wouldn’t have thanked us. And besides,” Thionan said, putting her arm around Fanryn’s waist. “Our orders were to hold the House.”
Fanryn nodded, doing her best to smile. “And with luck, Hernyn’ll come back with whoever it is Alkoryn wants this room made ready for.”
“There you go,” Thionan said, giving her Partner a squeeze. “Let’s get out of here, it’s too blooded cold.”
Dhulyn followed Parno and Hernyn, their feet silent on the winter matting of the corridor, hefting a blade unusually well-balanced, considering the amount of gold and jewels decorating it. She supposed it followed that the nearest weapons to the Tarkin’s private study should come from the Tarkin’s personal armory. Even the dagger she had in her boot was worth more than all her other possessions, books included. Good thing, too, as so far in this campaign they’d made no money at all.
“Parno, my soul,” she said in the voice one used on nightwatch, the voice that didn’t carry. “What happened to that purse of money the old Tenebroso gave us?”
“Gone when I woke up in the cell with our Brothers.”
“Another thing that one-eyed piece of inglera dung owes us,” she muttered under her breath.
They had advanced as far as the end of the final dressed-stone corridor that led away from the Old Tower, and had turned into a wider, wood-paneled hallway when they heard the soft tramp of careful feet, offset by the muted jingle of soldiers’ harness. The Mercenaries slowed, if possible becoming even more silent than they had been before.
Parno raised his brows at her. “For or against?” he asked in the nightwatch murmur.
“Against,” she answered.
“How do you know?” Hernyn said.
Parno shut his eyes and shook his head slightly, but Dhulyn answered. “Their footsteps are hesitant. If they were on our side, they’d know where they were going. Since not for us, against us.”
“They’re closer,” Parno said.
Dhulyn looked around quickly. The hallway was a long one, and they had come too far down it to be sure of getting back to the cross corridor without being seen. And, unlike Tenebro House, there were no hiding places in the hallway itself-the original designer had seen to that, and the later inhabitants had been careful not to disturb it.
“Dhulyn.” She’d known Parno long enough to hear the impatience in his voice.
“Fine. We kill them.”
“I don’t understand,” Hernyn said, stepping into the lead at Dhulyn’s gesture. Dhulyn merely shook her head.
“She doesn’t like to kill people,” Parno said. Hernyn looked at Dhulyn and back at Parno. “It’s an Outlander thing,” Parno added, shrugging.
“Advance,” Dhulyn said, pulling the dagger from her boot. “Or we lose the element of surprise.”
Not that they needed it, she thought moments later. They reached the end of the wide hallway just as their quarry rounded the corner. That they did so without either looking first or sending a man ahead was testament to their carelessness. Hernyn spitted the first one on his sword as quick as breathing, and had the sword out and killed the next man while the first body was still slumping to the floor. Parno kicked the feet out from under a tall, thin man who obviously thought he had the reach on everyone, gutting him with his left-hand short sword as the man went down, while blocking another blow with the short sword in his right hand. The fifth man turned to run, and with a call to warn her Brothers, Dhulyn threw the jeweled dagger and caught the runaway squarely under the left shoulder blade as Parno pulled his sword from the fourth man.
Dhulyn stepped around the bodies and blood on the floor, grasped the jeweled hilt, and pulled the dagger free.
“Throws well, too,” she said, wiping the blade clean on the dead man’s shirt.
“Look what I have.” The dead soldiers had all been wearing badges in the Tenebro colors of black, teal, and dark red pinned to their chests. Hernyn had removed them. “We can wear them as a disguise.”
Dhulyn leaned forward and picked one out of his hand. “This one has blood on it.”
They had not progressed much farther when noises came from behind them. Parno twisted around to listen more carefully, holding up his hand for Dhulyn and Hernyn to be still.
“We’re between them and the Tarkina’s rooms,” he said. “But they sound like they’re coming this way.” He lowered his hand. “Dhulyn? You’re Senior.”
“You wait here for them. Join us if you can. If not, we’ll be back for you.”
“My Brother, I could stay.”
Parno caught Dhulyn’s eye but should have known better; of course she’d seen what he’d seen. The nervous half smile that appeared on Hernyn’s face whenever he stopped controlling his features. Those two Tenebro soldiers could very well be the first people he’d killed since his Schooling had finished. The boy had done well, and he knew it, but was trying to be as offhand about it as his Senior Brothers. Since he was paying more attention to his attitude than his job, this was not the time to put Hernyn in charge of their rear guard.
“My Brother,” Dhulyn said with command in her tone. “This is not your time.” Parno caught her eye and winked.
“In Battle,” he said.
“Or in Death,” they responded as they trotted down the hall toward the Tarkina’s rooms. Parno adjusted the badge pinned to the front of his tunic and stood, feet shoulder width apart, knees slightly bent, shoulders relaxed, swords held out from his body. He released all the breath from his lungs and breathed in, consciously beginning the rhythms of the Eagle Shora. His heartbeat slowed, sounds became clearer, the light brightened.
The first man into the hallway was Dal-eDal Tenebro.
Parno felt his lips peel back from his teeth. The blond man motioned his fellows to wait, stepped forward himself to striking distance and stopped, but Parno wasn’t stupid enough to move. He was already in the best spot to stop them from advancing, close enough to the corner to crowd them as they came around, far enough from the other end to give him room to fall back.
Dal’s eyes flicked to the badge on Parno’s chest.
“We’ve engaged no Mercenary Brothers to fight for us,” Dal said.
“Do all your allies know? Because once I’ve killed you, you won’t be telling anyone else.”
“I would tell you something, Mercenary,” Dal-eDal said, with a noticeable pause before the last word.
“And what might that be? If I recall correctly, the last thing you told me was a lie.”
“This is not. You might wish to know that your Household fell almost two years ago. The Lady Pen-uPen is Householder now.”
Parno managed to stop himself from lowering his sword, but his heart rate did speed up. His father was gone, then. But his sister had been allowed to inherit. He shook his head. “Who do you think you’re speaking to?”
“My cousin, Par-iPar Tenebro. I didn’t remember you at first, but the only time I was here in Gotterang with my father, you were here as well, and you helped me with my pony. My father liked you.”
“The man you speak of was Cast Out,” Parno said, gratified that his voice was steady. “I am Parno Lionsmane the Chanter, I fight with my Brother, Dhulyn Wolfshead.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, man. You’re closer to the main line than I. If Lok-iKol dies, you would be Tenebroso.”
“And Tarkin, too, I suppose?”
Dal shook his head. “With Lok gone, no need for Tek-aKet to die. And the man has children to inherit, besides.” Dal sheathed his own sword and took a half step forward. For a moment Parno saw, not the tormented, torn man Dal had become, but the laughing child he’d once put on a pony. “Think about all you give up!”
This time Parno did lower his sword. Dal wasn’t going to hurt him. Not here anyway, maybe not ever, if he thought there was a chance that Parno would step back into the life he’d left. The life I was Cast Out of. He shrugged one shoulder. When he’d talked of this to Dhulyn-was it only hours ago?-he had no way of knowing such a temptation would come his way. His sister would keep the Household; he’d be taking nothing from her. He thought of his mother, still alive. He could place House Tenebro and all its power behind Tek-aKet and defeat the Jaldeans. His thoughts faltered as he remembered the green shadow that looked from men’s eyes. What power would they need to defeat that?
He thought then of his Schooling, of the feeling in his stomach on the morning of a battle; of the smell of spring as he rode his horse down from the mountains; of the way the air of a foreign country filled his lungs. Of the look on Dhulyn’s face when she turned over the right vera tile. Of her husky voice singing while he played the pipes. Of the smile she smiled only for him. He thought of the years on the road together since Arcosa. In Battle or in Death.
“You have no idea what I’d be giving up,” he said finally.
The Sleeping God Page 27
