Murder in Tarsis

by John Maddox Roberts

  “I see.” Then he addressed the gang members at large. “Gentlemen, before you make a terrible and truly irreversible mistake, I urge you to allow us to pass.”

  They snickered as if they had never learned to laugh outright. “Pass?” said a sandy-haired lout, somewhat taller than the others and apparently the leader. “Would we be here if all we were going to do was let you go?”

  “Very well, then,” said Nistur, “it is clear that someone has hired you to kill us. Perhaps we can better his offer.”

  “That’s a good one,” said the leader. “Forget it. You can’t match his offer.” He pointed at his cohorts, naming them as he did. “Snake, Buzzard, Louse, you three take the big woman. Lefty, Dagger, and me’ll get the chubby one. The rest of you kill the warrior. Forget the cutpurse and the old man. We’ll catch them after we’re through with these three.”

  “Chubby one, indeed!” Nistur said indignantly. His sword was out, his small shield in his left hand even as the gang members began to close in. Ironwood had blades in both hands, and the two went into a back-to-back stance as if through long practice. Then Myrsa shoved Stunbog between them and her broad back made it a triangle, with Stunbog in the center, hastily joined by Shellring. The cutpurse had a stone in each hand and was looking for targets, her face pale but unafraid.

  The three assigned to Myrsa attacked first, full of confidence. Without hesitation, the barbarian woman grabbed the smallest of the three by his collar, ignoring the steel-tipped club that he tried to swing too late. She hurled him against the other two even as she drew her cleaverlike knife. Before the attackers could regain their balance and clear their weapons, her blade made two hacking cuts in a huge X, and the three screamed and fell back, bleeding from ghastly cuts.

  “First blood to Myrsa!” said Nistur, who had caught the action from the corner of his eye, not taking his attention from the men in front of him. “Come now, who else wants to kiss steel?” The three were disconcerted to see the one assumed to be the softest of the fighters standing so ready, in fact eager, to fight.

  “Get him, Lefty,” hissed the leader.

  The one thus named slid in with his short sword held low for a gutting stroke, his right forearm held across his torso as a ward. He was quick as a lizard, but his blade rang on the little shield, and an instant later he cried out as the tip of Nistur’s basket-hilt sword nicked a tendon on the inside of his wrist. The leader thought he saw an opening and darted in, his sword almost at full extension. Nistur sidestepped the thrust almost lazily and punched with his left hand. The shield met the leader’s face with a sound like a skillet swung with both hands. The leader went down like a sack of rocks, and the one called Dagger displayed a sudden disinclination to engage.

  Ironwood just stood, smiling. “Come, now, surely someone else wants to play.” Two stones whistled past his shoulders, and a pair of unsuspecting thugs, their attention on the wrong adversary, groaned and staggered back, hands to bloodied faces.

  “Hey!” Shellring yelled. “It’s five to three now, and that’s not even counting me! You sure you want to hang around?”

  The five unhurt gang members stood gaping, their weapons forgotten in their hands. Slowly, hesitantly, one step at a time, they began to back away. When they had put ten paces between themselves and their intended victims, they whirled and ran off at top speed. The six wounded by blades and stones staggered away less precipitately.

  “Grab one,” said Nistur, keeping his words, for once, to a minimum. Myrsa grasped the collar of one of the youths struck by Shellring’s stones. Blinded by blood that ran into his eyes, he had staggered into a wall.

  Ironwood sheathed his unbloodied weapons. “That wasn’t much fun,” he said, disappointed.

  “They’ll send better talent next time,” Nistur assured him. “Here, you.” He addressed the wounded thug. “Who hired you?”

  “Are you going to kill me?”

  “If you don’t answer,” Ironwood assured him, “I will.”

  “It was some big lord. I didn’t talk to him.”

  “Who took the money? Was it your leader?” Nistur demanded.

  “That’s right. He went to the Scorpions to get some extra help. The lord was paying enough for us to set aside our feud for this job, Rockfist said.”

  “Exactly what were your instructions?” Nistur prodded.

  “Kill the mercenary in the dragon suit, and the … the whatever he is, the chubby one with the old sword, and the cutpurse.”

  “The three carrying the lord’s seal,” Ironwood said. “What about the others?”

  “We weren’t told about any others, but we agreed not to leave any witnesses behind.” He might have been discussing a trade in the marketplace, apparently quite happy to be allowed to breathe for a few minutes longer.

  “Did you see what this lord looked like?” Nistur asked.

  The youth shrugged. “He wore a mask, like they always do. I don’t think it was a real lord anyway. Probably just a servant. Real lords don’t come to our part of town.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Nistur said, surveying the ruins all around. “It has a certain charm, if you’ve a taste for such things.”

  “Huh?” said the thug, brightly.

  Nistur ignored him and turned to Stunbog, who crouched beside the felled leader. “Is he able to talk?”

  “Talk?” said the healer. “He can barely breathe.” The young man’s shattered face was a mask of blood, the flesh already so swollen that the eyes and mouth were defined only by three slits. Bloody froth bubbled from the nostrils. “I wouldn’t have believed you could inflict such damage with one short punch from a little shield like yours.”

  “I have my moments,” Nistur said complacently.

  “Wouldn’t do any good if he could talk,” Shellring told them. “This one’s probably right. The lord would have sent a chamberlain or one of those high-ranking servants. He wouldn’t have come himself. And nobody’d know who he was, anyway. Common people never see the nobles close up.”

  “Undoubtedly,” said Nistur. “Come, let’s go while it is still early.”

  “Aren’t you going to kill me?” the thug said, sounding almost disappointed.

  “I know that this will shake your sense of propriety to its foundations,” Nistur informed him, “but no, we are not going to kill you.”

  The youth shrugged. “Suit yourself. I won’t argue.”

  “When you can see again,” Ironwood advised him, “drag your leader home. Or leave him where he lies, as the fancy suits you. Come along,” he said to the others, striding eastward.

  “I don’t think either of them will last long, disabled as they are, in this part of the city,” Stunbog said.

  “Then Tarsis will be a better place,” Shellring asserted. “They came to kill us. If they live, they’ll kill somebody else. It’s what they do. Don’t waste your sympathy.”

  “It’s just the way he is,” said Myrsa. “Too softhearted.”

  Nistur stroked his beard in thought. “Those scum were ill-armed, even by the standards of scum. Shortly after my arrival in this fair city, I saw two gangs fighting below my window. They used two-handed slashing swords. They were inferior weapons, but far more formidable than those these rogues carried. We might not have come off so lightly had our late assailants been so armed.”

  “If they all had swords,” Shellring said, “then you saw gangs from one of the nice parts of town.”

  * * * * *

  They parted company at the East Gate. Captain Karst would allow through the postern only those who bore the lord’s seal.

  “We shall rejoin you this evening,” Nistur told Stunbog and Myrsa. “Or not, as the case may be.”

  “I think,” said Stunbog, “that we should all ponder Granny Toadflower’s words. There was far more in them than seems apparent.”

  “At the moment,” Nistur confessed, “I am so confused that even the obvious is daunting to me, let alone the obscure. Let us learn what we can, and perha
ps all will become apparent in time.”

  “Perhaps so,” said Stunbog. “Good fortune to you, my friends.”

  A pair of guards swung the small but heavy postern gate aside, and the three passed through, their seals prominently displayed. Behind them the postern swung shut, and there was a metallic clash as the bolts were shot home. Before them, a long bowshot away, the enemy host stood glaring at the unwelcome visitors.

  “Kyaga said they’d respect these seals,” Shellring said with sudden trepidation in her voice. “Do you think they’ll obey him?”

  “Let us hope so,” said Nistur.

  “If they don’t,” Ironwood said with a sardonic smile, “we probably won’t suffer long.”

  Shoulders squared, heads high, the three strode toward the nomad army, displaying far more confidence than they actually felt. Ironwood and Nistur, wise in the ways of the world, knew that the discipline of barbarians was a chancy thing at best. Shellring, so self-confident amid the savagery of her home city, was in an alien land the moment she set foot outside its walls. Here, every blade of grass seemed threatening to her.

  As they neared the host, some of the nomads stared at them sullenly, but none tried to bar their way. Some spared them a passing glance; most ignored them entirely. As they walked through the camp they saw that the host, which appeared so homogeneous from a distance, was actually made up of many distinct peoples. Some resembled Myrsa: large, fierce-looking folk dressed in skins and furs, many of them wearing hats of wolf or fox pelt. Others favored extravagantly long robes of colorful cloth, and these wore close-wrapped turbans, their faces veiled to the eyes. Besides these two types were many others, distinguished by their own styles of clothing, paint, and tattoos. Among the colorful warriors were many persons wearing simple clothing, unarmed, their hair cropped close to their scalps.

  “Does short hair mean a slave among these people?” Nistur asked.

  “It does,” Ironwood affirmed. “Captives from the towns near the wasteland, I’ll warrant. I don’t see a single, genuine barbarian among these slaves.”

  “Where are we going?” Shellring asked, her confidence returning as the barbarians showed no interest in killing her.

  “The big tent,” Ironwood said. “I want to talk with this Kyaga Strongbow face-to-face.”

  “As it so happens, I think that is a sound course of action,” Nistur agreed, seeming slightly put out that Ironwood was assuming the lead.

  Before the immense tent in the center of the camp, an honor guard took their ease. Some rested on the ground before the tent, others were mounted, surrounding the chief’s standard. All these were barbarians of the veiled sort, and despite their slothful pose, the eyes above the veils were alert and suspicious.

  “They don’t seem too concerned about Kyaga’s safety,” Shellring noted.

  “Don’t be deceived,” said Ironwood. “You see how they hold their lances?”

  “Sure,” said the thief. “That one with the blue scarf is leaning on his like he’s half-asleep, and the two on horseback have them slanted over their shoulders like boys with fishing poles, and those three next to the doorway are using them to hold themselves up while they throw dice, and the one that’s snoring has his across his knees. What of it? It looks sloppy to me.”

  “Every one of them,” Nistur told her, “grips his weapon at the balance-point. One false move from us, and we will be skewered from six directions. These are not back-alley thugs to be dealt with casually.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Well, I never had anything except Tarsis town guards and drunken mercenaries to judge by. I won’t forget.”

  As they neared the tent, a man stepped before the entrance, his hand on his sword-hilt. He wore a robe striped purple and black, and above his veil his eyes were bright blue and unwavering. “What do you want?”

  “We are the investigators commissioned by the Lord of Tarsis to look into the murder of Ambassador Yalmuk Bloodarrow. In accordance with the agreement between our lord and your chief, we come to question certain persons within this camp. We would speak first with Kyaga Strongbow.”

  Keeping his right hand on his hilt, the guard stretched forth his left, palm up. Nistur placed his seal in the palm, and the man examined it closely, first one side, then the other. Returning it, he examined the other two as minutely. Satisfied they were genuine, he turned and passed into the tent. “Follow me,” he said.

  They went within, and here they found more guards lounging about. Inside, the tent was draped with magnificent silk hangings, dyed in amazing colors and embroidered in a hundred fanciful designs. Beautiful lamps of silver and gold and carved amber hung by golden chains from arching roof-supports made from the slender ribs of some enormous beast. The floor was covered with carpets, and here and there braziers of exquisite workmanship sent up perfumed smoke to dull the more disagreeable odors of the camp.

  “I see Kyaga has little use for the austerity for which his fellow nomads are famed,” Nistur noted.

  “They didn’t make us surrender our weapons,” Shellring said.

  “They aren’t afraid,” said Ironwood. “Nor should they be.”

  All the guards rose to their feet as someone emerged from another room of the huge tent. The man was taller than Ironwood, his height emphasized by his turban. His robes were of purple silk, his veil revealing only his brilliant green eyes. After him came the shaman, his green-painted face obscure beneath his amulet-draped headdress, and behind him was an ominous figure, scale-armored, in a bronze mask. For a long moment Kyaga Strongbow studied them silently; then the veil creased slightly, as if the man wearing it were smiling.

  “You are the investigators appointed by the Lord of Tarsis?” The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepened with amusement. “I expected distinguished noblemen, perhaps experienced public officials or military officers. Instead he has sent a rogue sell-sword, an urchin of the streets, and a popinjay!”

  “I grieve that we disappoint you so,” Nistur said.

  “Not at all! I feared that I would be bored. Instead I find myself vastly amused. Be seated, my friends. You are under my protection, and now you must enjoy my hospitality.”

  “You are kind,” Nistur said, seating himself on a silk cushion stuffed with fragrant herbs, “but we must be brief. By your own decree, our time is extremely limited.”

  “Surely it is time enough for persons as clever as yourselves,” said Kyaga.

  “How good it is to enjoy your confidence.”

  “Among my people,” said Kyaga, “it is accounted a rudeness to speak too quickly of important matters. However, since your time is limited, let us dispense with the amenities and discuss your business while we partake of refreshment.”

  Crop-headed slaves of both sexes brought in platters heaped with flat loaves, dried fruit, and skewers of sizzling meats. It was typical nomad fare, but the wines they decanted were of fine vintage, and the goblets were of amethyst crystal.

  “The late Yalmuk Bloodarrow,” Nistur began, “belonged to a tribe conquered by you two or three years ago, is that not so?”

  “He was a chief of the Blue Mountain nomads, and yes, it was necessary to convince that people forcefully of my right to rule. Since that time, they have been my loyal followers.”

  “And yet,” Nistur said, “it may be that old rivalries are not so easily eradicated. During the time that the Lord of Tarsis and his great nobles entertained your embassy, prior to your arrival, there were detected certain, shall I say, tensions among your followers of high rank.”

  “Is this so?” said Kyaga, sounding neither surprised nor alarmed. “Might you be more specific?”

  “The lord himself,” Nistur said, “heard exchanges of some acrimony between Yalmuk and your shaman, Shadespeaker.” He nodded toward the bizarre figure who sat just behind Kyaga. Through the obscuring strings of amulets, the brown eyes regarded him with no readable expression.

  “And what do you conclude from this?” Kyaga asked him.

  “
That the two were jealous of one another. Each thought the other to be too influential, too high in your esteem. Among men of ambition who seek to rise in their lord’s favor, such rivalry is more than sufficient to warrant murder.”

  “You think Shadespeaker slew Bloodarrow?” Now he sounded truly amused.

  “I do not consider him to be above suspicion.”

  “There is a flaw in your suspicion.”

  “That flaw being?”

  “Shadespeaker was with me the whole night of the murder.”

  “Indeed?” Nistur said, nonplussed. “And yet, I thought you did not arrive in the camp until the next morning.”

  “I had promised my chiefs that I would rejoin them no later than that time. As it occurred, I arrived in camp just after sundown the evening before. I spent the night in counsel with my shaman.”

  “I see,” said Nistur, disappointed. “And yet, there were among the envoys certain subchiefs who indicated mutual resentments and even, I grieve to inform you, certain dissatisfactions with your overlordship.”

  “Say you so? And you heard this from the Lord of Tarsis himself?”

  “From his own lips,” Nistur agreed.

  Now Kyaga Strongbow laughed richly. “Let me tell you what you really heard, my friend. You heard a conniving, treacherous lordling seeking to poison my mind against my loyal chiefs! He tries to sow dissension in my host, setting tribe against tribe by stirring up old feuds. He wants me to think that my chiefs plot against me, and he tries to convince them that I treat them shabbily, not rewarding them as they deserve.”

  Now he raised a hand as if taking a vow. “But I tell you this, and you may take my words back to the scheming Lord of Tarsis: Kyaga Strongbow is no fool! And he has no fools for subchiefs, either. Yes, I heard from their own lips how the lord and his councilors entertained them, flattered them, tried to buy them off and set them against me, even as I had told them would happen. The loyalty of my followers remains unshaken!”

  “I am sure that this is so,” Nistur said smoothly. “Nonetheless, we must follow every lead, in order that we may render a full and complete report to our lord. Surely you understand this.”