The Hero's Lot

by Patrick W. Carr

  The ilhotep’s face softened. It retained its fire, but something gentle came into the set of his features. “Since I have read the book, I find that I no longer desire needless deaths.”

  He left surrounded by eight of the ten guards. After he left, Errol shook his head. “He is very different than what I expected.”

  “He is very different than what he was, infidel,” Hadari said.

  “But not as wise as he should be.” Errol bit his lip. “Ten men are too many for the secret he’s trying to keep.”

  “You know not of what you speak, infidel. The nine are my brothers, sworn to his protection. None would betray him.”

  “For all our sakes, I hope you are right.”

  Hadari pointed toward the book. “We have a few hours before dawn.”

  Errol stepped to the table and opened the cover.

  He fought in the arena again the next day. His opponent, dressed in rough, ill-fitting rags, blustered and yelled, inciting the crowd. Someone threw a melon that landed a few feet from him as Errol stood, waiting for the introductions to end. One of Hadari’s brothers jumped the barrier that separated the stone seats of the coliseum from the arena proper. No one threw anything else.

  The brazen-throated sound of the horn signaled their bout, and Errol’s attention snapped into focus. The man facing him, broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted, moved across the hard-packed sand with surprising grace. Errol circled, trying to make sense of the conflicting impressions.

  The man’s clothes and manner marked him as just another bandit or criminal sent to meet his eventual end in the arena. But his movements and the neatly trimmed beard and hair said something else. Errol backed away, ignoring the jeers of the crowd. His opponent took a casual swing with his shirra, and his ragged sleeves inched up his arms. There. Errol recognized the tattoo on his forearm. He had seen the same three indigo circles marking some of the soldiers of the spire.

  He was fighting a palace guard.

  “Why did they dress you like a bandit?”

  Surprise showed in the man’s eyes. “You have good eyes, northlander.” He bowed in respect, his hand scraping the ground.

  A cloud of sand covered Errol, blinding him.

  He backpedaled, blinking. His vision rippled, his opponent and the arena undulated like a mirage. He caught the first blow by luck. Riposted with the staff and caught the man with a grazing blow to the head.

  The Merakhi guard wobbled. Errol retreated, scrubbing his eyes. The Merakhi attacked again, his sword catching the light. Wet. The blade gleamed with a yellowish cast.

  His opponent needed only mark him and Errol would die.

  Panic coursed through him, shattering his detachment. He pushed the light metal staff he had once again chosen for this bout, spinning it ever faster until the ends disappeared in the sound of a thousand angry hornets. He moved on the guard, striking his sword hand with a crunch of broken knuckles. The sword fell to the ground, and the guard clutched for a dagger Errol saw strapped at his side.

  Before he could draw, Errol struck. Driving faster than ever before, he beat the Merakhi on the head, hitting him over and over again, striking even as he fell.

  Sightless eyes gazed at the sun. His opponent’s guards came forward at a run to reclaim the weapons. Errol stooped, pulled the dagger from the dead man’s waist, and scooped up the sword before running back to Hadari.

  Ten paces away, drawn bows stopped him.

  Hadari cut his gaze left and right. “Drop the weapons, infidel. The fight is over. Your opponent has paid for bringing a hidden weapon to the arena.”

  Errol let them hit the ground. “They’re poisoned, Hadari. The sword and the dagger have styrich on them.” He stepped well away from the weapons as the men caught up to him from behind.

  Hadari acknowledged them with a brief nod. “The infidel says the weapons are poisoned, Jaba.”

  A tall man with narrow eyes spat. “You would believe a pale barbarian?”

  Hadari approached, coming close enough to dwarf his counterpart. He made a show of looking at the poison on the sword and then smiled. “Of course not.”

  Back in the tunnel he pulled Errol aside. “You must decide quickly, northlander. Belaaz grows impatient for your death.”

  Rale’s brows furrowed when Errol related the events in the arena, as well as the details of his conversation with the ilhotep. Cruk made extensive use of his vocabulary. Ru echoed him, and even Merodach’s stoic impassivity cracked enough to show concern.

  “I don’t have any choice, do I?” Errol asked. “I have to try and kill them.”

  Naaman Ru growled in disgust. “Of course you don’t have any choice, boy. You never had any choice.”

  Rale nodded. “He’s right.”

  Errol slumped onto the stone bench that ran the length of the room. “But it’s still three days until the feast of Belaaz. How am I supposed to stay alive?”

  No one answered.

  Hadari came to him again that night to take him to the book. Errol donned the white uniform of a palace guard once more and walked side by side with Hadari back to the treasure room.

  Errol broke the silence as they entered the ilhotep’s hall. “I will try to do as the ilhotep has requested, though it is unlikely I will succeed. Valon may not be able to see me through his cast, but the simplest guard will spot me with his eyes.”

  Hadari’s eyes narrowed as he squeezed Errol’s shoulder. “It is a special occasion. I will make sure the council is watched by the ilhotep’s most trusted guards.”

  Fatigue clouded Errol’s thoughts. When he realized what Hadari proposed, a thrill of hope, like a splash of ice water, coursed through him. If there were no guards to raise an outcry, success was possible, perhaps even likely.

  Hours later, Errol rubbed the sleep from his eyes, forced himself to focus on the page in front of him. The enormity of the task daunted him. “I’ll never be able to read it all in three nights.”

  A smile played around the edges of Hadari’s face, showing a glimpse of white teeth. “You do not have to read the whole book now, Errol. You just need to read the right part. The ilhotep and I found that a certain part of the book spoke most strongly to us.”

  Errol pointed to the pages in front of him. “Show me that part.”

  His guard’s face fell. “They were not the same. It has been different for all of us.”

  “All of you?”

  Hadari’s eyes twinkled. “My brothers and I.”

  “Then what do I do?”

  The dark-skinned mountain shrugged. “Keep reading.”

  Errol turned the page.

  Two hours before dawn, unable any longer to make sense of the words on the page, he returned to his prison and collapsed into his bunk. He fell into dream-filled sleep where he fought a score of enemies wielding poisoned swords and throwing choking clouds of dust at him. He couldn’t breathe.

  He woke. Spots danced in his vision, and his lungs burned. He struggled to tear the cloth from his face, but his arms were pinned to his side. His vision narrowed to a pinpoint of light that danced behind his eyelids.

  Impact knocked him to the floor and he sucked air. He rolled to his hands and knees, his head pounding. Someone kicked him in the side, and he curled around the blow. Instinctively, he grabbed his head.

  A moment later, hands pulled him upright. “Sit up, boy. He’s dead.” Ru.

  Errol rubbed his neck. “Thank you,” he croaked.

  “Thank your church friends. This compulsion forces me awake whenever you sleep.”

  The slave room seethed like an ant colony in a storm. Guards shouted as they charged into the sleeping quarters brandishing swords. Slaves, bleary-eyed and frightened, backed away from the tangle Errol, Ru, and the dead man made on the floor. Harsh torchlight threw frantic shadows against the walls.

  The guard closest to Ru kept the point of his shirra at his midsection until Hadari marched in and ordered him to withdraw.

  “What happened, northlan
der?” he asked Errol.

  Errol pointed to the dead man. “He tried to choke me in my sleep. Ru saved me.”

  Hadari nodded. With minimal conversation, he ordered the prisoners segregated and posted guards to watch over the men as they slept. Errol sat in the torchlight on the bunk above Naaman Ru’s.

  If not for the caravan master’s compulsion, he would be dead now. Belaaz had attempted to kill him again. He hoped to Deas it was only because Valon couldn’t see him coming.

  Two days later Errol sat on his bunk and stared at the window slit as the night purpled, then lightened to rose. The feast of Belaaz would begin at sundown. Sometime after dark, Hadari would come to him and dress him in the white linen of a palace guard.

  Then he would kill the council and Sarin Valon. In one more day he would be free.

  He thrust his dread and doubt away with a mental push, pondering instead what he had read just hours before. Over half the book remained unread, but the words he had read seem etched in his mind. Hadari had said he would know the passage meant for him, but indecision clung to him. Much of the book felt like truths he had never heard, but had he read the passage meant for him? He thought it was possible but wasn’t sure.

  The first night he’d read—as Hadari, torch in hand, stood watch over him—how Deas, Eleison, and Aurae had molded the world, and how the malus, who walked the earth in bodily form, corrupted it. Betrayed by the fallen ones who promised knowledge and power, men became chattel.

  The second night he’d read how Deas sent his son, Eleison, through the gate of time and space to rescue his creation. For the first time since Martin’s disclosure, the beating of Errol’s heart seemed less than a burden to be borne. Hadari had pulled him away from the book at first light. Dawn threatened to expose them.

  As the sun began its descent the previous night, Errol had waited in the slave quarters under guard, yearning to return, watching the light outside their narrow window, hungering for darkness. It came finally. And he’d read a passage that confounded him.

  He sat on his bunk now, the same question echoing in the astonishment of his mind. Who would believe him? The words of the book came to him again and again in refutation of a liturgy he’d heard his entire life. He grieved the knowledge that had been lost and the conflict that had arisen because of it. Would Martin believe him?

  Aurae was knowable.

  42

  Coup

  HADARI CAME FOR HIM a few hours after noon. “Come, Errol. They want you to fight again.”

  Disappointment, thin and sharp like the blade of a knife, stabbed him. “Do I have to?”

  His guard nodded. “Once more. I have told the ilhotep of your decision. We will have you and your friends away from the city after tonight. The one you call Karele has impressed the stable master with his knowledge. He has been given authority to exercise the horses. Have I not said that Deas weaves events to his desire? The ilhotep has ensured you will not be threatened. Your opponent is vicious, but lacks the skill of a warrior.”

  “I will use the staff,” Errol said, “and try to avoid a killing blow.”

  Hadari nodded as if he expected nothing less. “The guards will kill him if you do not.”

  Errol nodded acquiescence to this truth. “But at least it will not be me.”

  He stepped out of the gloom of the tunnel into the arid sunshine of the arena. Behind him he heard Hadari gasp. The big man closed the space to stand behind him while Errol chose his weapon.

  “Something is wrong,” Hadari said.

  Errol followed his gaze into the arena. “Three of them?”

  Hadari shook his head. “Those men are not bandits. They are janiss, warrior elites and captains of the guard.”

  Errol trusted the Ongolese now with his life, and more. “Can I win?”

  “Not with the staff, brother. You will have to use the blades.”

  Hadari proffered the case that held Dextra and Sinistra. Errol sighed. Would he ever be able to stop killing? “I am tired of taking lives, Hadari.” He appeared not to hear.

  “Hadari.”

  The guard started, and the eyes he turned to Errol were wide, intense.

  “What does this mean?” Errol asked.

  “Three have never fought against one in the arena—two, maybe, but never three. The council has overruled the ilhotep. They want to make sure you die,” Hadari said. “I must return to my master. I will send one of my brothers to take you back to your quarters, if you live.”

  He turned to give Errol a last warning. “The six would not overrule the ilhotep in such a way if they did not suspect. Strike quickly.”

  The twin swords felt alien in his hands after fighting with the staff. He walked toward the center of the arena, circling to his left to keep the sun from his eyes and working through the forms Count Rula taught him. His opponents moved with the purposeful strides of experienced soldiers. They did not bother to wave to the crowd or make taunts. Their grim faces held the implacable resolve of men bent on a swift kill.

  Errol concentrated, reaching for his former detachment, but his nightly sessions reading the book had made that impossible.

  The men spread on catlike feet to surround him. Death sought him here, but a thought struck him and he smiled. If he lived, he might get to read the book again. His heart swelled at the thought, and in the midst of the arena, he laughed.

  The man upon the raised stone platform signaled, and the trumpet sounded.

  They rushed him, coming at him from three different sides. Errol charged the closest, parried the stroke and slipped by, slashing with the rear sword to make space. He wheeled. For an instant he faced the man alone while the other two moved out from behind him. Errol struck with both blades. The top line was parried but the lower line found the man’s thigh. He grunted in pain and stumbled back.

  The other two slowed at the sight, paused to coordinate their attack, then struck. Steel whistled as their blades sliced the air, one high, the other low. Errol rolled as he parried the low strike, riposting. His sword found the back of the man’s legs. He went down screaming. The other man swung an overhand strike at him, and Errol squirmed, flailing as he tried to open enough distance to rise, but the man stayed on him.

  Desperate, he let go of his right sword and flung sand. The man threw up an arm to block, and in that instant Errol regained his weapon and his feet. The crunch of a boot behind him sounded and he threw himself to the side. Steel parted his shirt, whispered across his back. He wheeled, backing away.

  Two of his attackers still stood, the first man with his thigh still bleeding, and one unmarked janiss. The third man was down, his hamstring severed. Dextra and Sinistra once again in hand, Errol circled, keeping the wounded man between him and the last whole adversary.

  Errol lunged, took the parry on the fore sword, moved close to hold the janiss in a bind, and took him in the throat with Sinistra. He backed away as the body collapsed into the dirt. The last man, eyes so wide they looked lidless, screamed and charged. Errol parried the blow and lunged, his steel grating on bone as the man’s momentum forced the blade through his ribs and into his spine.

  He fell, his dead eyes staring at the sun. Errol pried his sword from the man’s body and returned to the gate. The crowd, near to overflowing, was silent. A royal guard, a brother of Hadari’s, waited for him.

  “Leave your weapons and follow me,” the guard said.

  He set a pace that set Errol running. White-robed soldiers and hulking palace guards roamed everywhere, moving quickly, scanning the halls with staccato jerks of their heads.

  “What’s going on?” Errol asked.

  “No questions.”

  The slave quarters were in turmoil, like a school of fish thrashing in the shallows. Unfamiliar noises sounded outside the walls. Shadows danced through the narrow window slits in counterpoint to guttural shouts. The guards stood, wary. Messengers came and left at a run.

  Night fell, and the royal guards were called away, replaced by a pair
of white-robed janiss with bows.

  Errol gathered with Rale, Merodach, Ru, and Cruk. “What do we do?” he asked.

  Ru turned away from the guards. “Be quiet. Be still,” he whispered. “There’s fighting in the palace.”

  “What does it mean?”

  Ru scowled at his question but answered it anyway. “It means someone is trying to kill someone else, boy. Now, be quiet so I can hear.”

  Another runner came, and two more guards joined the first pair.

  “That’s not good,” Ru whispered. “There’s only one reason I can think of to arm guards with bows in the slave quarters.”

  Rale nodded. “I suspected as much. The ilhotep?”

  Ru shrugged. “Him or the council. Merakhi politics are ruthless and bloody.”

  “Spread out, but be casual about it,” Rale said. “If they start shooting, charge the guards after the first flight.”

  Errol’s heart threatened to force its way into his throat. He tried to look nonchalant as he walked away from the group. If the guards fired, he would have bare seconds to close the distance before they fired again. If he was more than ten paces away, he wouldn’t make it in time, but being any closer meant he’d be the primary target. He scanned the room, looking in vain for something he could throw.

  Sometime after midnight, a runner came, breathless, his eyes frantic, to speak to the guard in charge—a tall, gangly janiss with a hooked nose. The man’s eyes went flat at the news. He barked an order as he fit an arrow to his bow.

  Ru’s voice cracked like a whip. “Dive, boy!”

  Bowstrings twanged as the janiss fired. Errol threw himself behind the nearest bunk. Arrows hissed, striking sparks from the floor and sending splinters from the wooden bunk. Sounds of struggle filled the hall. Errol rolled to his feet to see Merodach give a violent twist to the last remaining guard’s head. The sound of snapping bones reverberated off the stone. The four guards lay dead. The other slaves in the room flooded out and away.

  “Fools,” Ru said. “They’ll be dead in minutes.”