The Heir (Fall of the Swords Book 3)

by Scott Michael Decker

  “One, Probing Gaze will be with me. His whole life is fighting bandits. For five years he spied on them. He knows the territory, the customs, the people. He knows the risks. If he thinks my idea impossible, he'll certainly tell me.”

  “When he does, though, will you listen?” she asked caustically.

  He clenched and unclenched his fists, his jaw tight. “Two, in all my training, how many times was I injured? Once! I've fallen off battlements, fought swordsmen far better than I, had arrows miss me by inches, and eluded four assassins, the first when I was five years old. You and everyone around me swears the Infinite protects me. Something does, or I'd have died long ago. No, I'm not immortal. Maybe, though, I have resources and defenses enough to get me through this.”

  Rippling Water acknowledged with a nod that all this was true. Still her eyes pleaded for him to abandon this suicidal mission.

  Still his eyes pleaded for her to accept his need to do this.

  They looked away from each other, neither willing to relent.

  * * *

  That's why I didn't want to tell anyone, Flaming Arrow thought. I thought she might see how necessary it is for the Empire, and well worth the risks. I was wrong; she can't see it. I wonder if she'd say anything to anyone. If she tells father, Infinite blast me.

  “If you wanted to stop me, you could tell the Emperor.” Flaming Arrow prayed they could repair the breach between them.

  “I know,” she whispered. “Then I'd lose you forever.”

  “No, you wouldn't,” he told her. “My love for you is too strong to allow this to come between us. Yes, I'd be angry with you, and might not speak to you for a day. I can't imagine life without you. I love you, Rippling Water, no matter what you do.”

  She met his gaze and smiled briefly, sadly. “I love you, Flaming Arrow. If you don't come back to me alive, I'll heap curses on you until I die!”

  They shared a laugh and leaned close, the stars twinkling above them now, and the city aglow below.

  Flaming Arrow broke the kiss to ask, “Is it time for us?”

  Giggling, she nodded. “Just in case.”

  He was about to ask if they should officially announce their betrothal before he left, when a shadow approached. The guard coughed discreetly, and bowed.

  “Yes?” Flaming Arrow said with a sigh, nodding to acknowledge the obeisance.

  “Forgive me for disturbing you, Lord Heir, Lady Matriarch. Lord Heir, the Lord Emperor asks that you to present yourself forthwith to the eastern hall.”

  “Better be important,” Flaming Arrow muttered insolently.

  “I believe it is, Lord. The Lord Emperor Arrow, your father, will set the requirements of your manhood ritual tonight.”

  Flaming Arrow's gut twisted itself into knots. Feeling lightheaded, he stood and gestured the guard to lead the way, trembling with excitement and dread.

  * * *

  “Infinite blast it, why didn't the Usurper die?” Purring Tiger pouted softly. In the refectory of her private suite high in the Tiger Fortress, she pushed away her half-eaten meal and looked among her invited guests. No one looked hungry. They each pushed food from one side of the plate to the other. All psychological Wizards, all had helped Purring Tiger from the beginning with her plan to exact vengeance upon Guarding Bear. Thinking Quick and her father Melding Mind glanced at each other, entering into deep communion. Easing Comfort glanced toward a distant corner of the refectory, in deep thought.

  How demoralizing! she thought, glancing at the ceiling and feeling the failure of their plan deeply. Infinite grant me patience.

  Patience, Purring Tiger remembered, was one of her father's better characteristics—supposedly. Scowling Tiger had last tried to settle the Tiger-Bear feud eight years ago, a long time to be patient. Too long. About the time of Thinking Quick's birth, the bandit general had sent a last assassin after Guarding Bear. The assassin had failed. So many assassins. So many failures. Something profound had changed Scowling Tiger after that failure.

  What changed him? Purring Tiger wondered. Maybe his patience turned to apathy. I'm not ready to let the feud die! That bastard, Flaming Arrow, is Guarding Bear's instrument of vengeance! Why else would a man in his prime abdicate all rank and title, place his provinces and holdings in the stewardship of his son, then volunteer to become the Heir's personal tutor? Since he can't kill my father himself, the wily General only plots like a cunning master strategist—and trains the Heir to do his killing for him!

  So she had thought she would be the instrument of her father's vengeance, but something had gone wrong. The General still lived.

  “Infinite blast it, why didn't the Usurper die?” she repeated.

  “He should have died!” Thinking Quick replied. “He and Bubbling Water were mates of forty three years!”

  “Perhaps their link wasn't as strong as we thought, eh?” Purring Tiger's plan had been simple. “Easing Comfort, tell me about the link again.”

  The blond Wizard medacor nodded, sighing. “Your plan should have worked. Many couples in a long relationship develop an empathy approaching the total communion of identical twins. In a healthy, interdependent relationship, the two partners become so alike in disposition, preference, and perception that each can decide in the other's place with little difference in result.

  “Psychically as well, the mates become similar,” Easing Comfort continued. “Other than the primary talents—genetically predetermined and not easily changed—the mates' frequencies align. They engage in a constant exchange of perception and thought. Conversation between mates of many years looks bizarre to the uninitiated observer. Subtle gesture and expression, along with an occasional word, are the only physical signs that the mates are talking. The exchange is so fast and garbled that even a Wizard Empath can't follow it.

  “During periods of separation, a couple experiences periods of mild grief and depression. Even though they know on conscious and subconscious levels that they'll rejoin at some time. The frequencies align over a long period, and the separation of mates frees the frequencies to revert whence they were before the relationship. The reversion is moderately fast, changing in six months what might have taken ten years to develop, depending on how adaptable each person is. The reversion of frequency is a painful process, not unlike a snake shedding skin. If the separation is long enough and the condition not treated, the reversion can kill. The sudden severance of a deep mate empathy link drains the neural psychic interface assemblies. Mates of long and deep intimacy tend to die within hours of each other.”

  Purring Tiger nodded, understanding the idea, if not all the words. The mate empathy link had been the premise of her plan. She had tried to kill Guarding Bear by killing Bubbling Water. The plan had failed.

  “Infinite blast it, why didn't the Usurper die?”

  She had conceived the plan nearly two years before, singling out the General's one weak place. With Melding Mind's help, she had brought the plan to fruition slowly, gradually, stealthily.

  A vengeance remains unredressed when vengeance in kind befalls the avenger, she thought. Hence, their plan was so meticulous that the actual retribution, the final installment in the Tiger-Bear feud, looked like something else.

  Running Bear, the second son of Guarding Bear, five years younger than the Colonel Rolling Bear, envied his older brother's inheritance. Immensely wealthy, Guarding Bear had reaped the harvests of the Caven Hills for forty-six years, since stealing it from Scowling Tiger. In addition, when Flying Arrow ordered him to raze the Northern Empire, Guarding Bear had received a full quarter of all the spoils. Two years later, after winning the civil war, Guarding Bear had received a fourth of all Tiger assets that Flying Arrow had confiscated. Thus, Guarding Bear's wealth was incalculable, and Rolling Bear stood to inherit it all—not a tael would go to Running Bear.

  Even so, the younger son was moderately wealthy. Owning four wineries and three brothels, Running Bear squandered most of his profits on intoxicants and wenches, his tastes ext
ravagant.

  “Melding Mind, summarize what you did, please,” Purring Tiger said.

  “Yes, Lady. During one of Running Bear's frequent carousals, I found it relatively easy to intercept him and delve into his drunken mind. The first implant was subtle. I merely sublimated his extant hostility toward his brother into a mild hostility toward his mother. No one in the Bear family suspected anything remotely like the reality.” Melding Mind chuckled. “They all thought Running Bear was simply debauching himself slowly and surely to an early pyre. His increasing enmity was merely a symptom of his profligacy. At intervals, I returned to Emparia City to intercept Running Bear and strengthen the implanted behavior. Over the course of almost two years, his behavior became so opprobrious that both Bubbling Water and Guarding Bear threatened to disown him if he continued his dissipation.”

  Melding Mind sighed, shaking his head. “Of course, he was genuinely angry with his parents for their intrusiveness. Anyone would be. He continued his debauchery without additional implanted incentive. Unfortunately, the parents didn't fulfill the threat. That was when you thought they'd seek the help of a psychological Wizard, eh Lady? If they did that, they'd have found the true cause of their son's behavior.”

  Nodding, Purring Tiger said, “I told you to make the implant stronger.”

  “The result astounded us,” Melding mind replied. “Running Bear generalized his hatred for his mother to all women. Soon after I strengthened the implant, he slaughtered all the courtesans in one of his brothels one night.”

  “Rather than a setback,” Thinking Quick said, “Running Bear's penultimate depravity later deflected doubt that his behavior wasn't his own. We were fortunate; we needed something to defuse suspicion.”

  Immediately, the parents disowned him. Melding Mind implanted Running Bear with an entirely new compulsion. The next morning, Running Bear killed Bubbling Water while she slept. Running Bear's killing of his own mother looked like nothing more than the deranged act of a disavowed, decadent son. Thus, Purring Tiger's plan had born fruit, but the General Guarding Bear refused to die. No one knew why.

  “Infinite blast it, why didn't the Usurper die?”

  Chapter 6

  Nothing is inherently wrong with conscripting females—in itself. Combining two successive wars, the moral fatigue of a tyrant Emperor, a high warrior attrition rate, and a collective guilt for the destruction of an Empire with female conscription, however, results in racial suicide.—Female Conscription: The End of Empires, by Whelping Anarchy.

  * * *

  Snarling Jaguar frowned at his spies' latest dispatch from Emparia Castle. Books lined the walls of his secret, personal, paper-strewn office, its furnishings scant, its amenities sparse. With its two exits, one leading to his personal suite and the other to the labyrinthine dungeons, Snarling Jaguar felt safe.

  The threat of collapse in the Eastern Empire, however, obliterated all illusion of safety. Fact: Fields now lay fallow, the Empire conscripting too many farmers. Fact: Garrison population along the southern border was so low that citizens emigrated unhindered, no reason for them to stay and no one to stop them. Fact: The death rate was twice the birth rate, and increasing. Fact: The Empire was reducing or abolishing basic governmental services, having to funnel increasing resources toward fighting the bandits. Fact: The Emperor Flying Arrow at times exhibited symptoms of incipient psychosis, his speech disjointed and incoherent, occasionally to the point of raving. The disorder was incurable and likely to worsen, the Imperial Sword reversing all cures. Conclusion: The Eastern Empire was dying. Slowly, yes, but inexorably.

  Now, the two stalwart sentinels of the Eastern Empire were gone. The Matriarch Bubbling Water was dead, and the retired General Guarding Bear, insane and seeking death. In their absence, the Empire's decline was sure to accelerate.

  A new Matriarch had taken the reins of that army of wombs, though. How would she fare? Rippling Water was yet untried, and therefore, unpredictable. She wouldn't manage the Water Matriarchy as well as her mother had. What about the Heir Flaming Arrow? Snarling Jaguar asked himself.

  From all reports, he looked like a fair and sagacious man, whose rule would be just—if he had an Empire to inherit.

  Snarling Jaguar tried to pinpoint the event that had triggered the Eastern Empire's slow decline. What one factor or circumstance pushed it past the point of equilibrium, where its decline became self-perpetuating? He had kept a close eye on the fortunes of both the Eastern and Western Empires. The East had stood fast against the bandits until about ten years ago. Then Snarling Jaguar remembered—and traced cause and effect.

  Eleven years ago, the Emperor Soaring Condor had died. The Imperial Sword had then killed the Heir Swooping Condor. Either he hadn't prepared long enough or he had simply been unable to withstand the shock. Whatever the case, leaving the Western Empire without an Emperor. Civil war had riven the country. When one faction had finally dominated, the other faction had fled to the northern lands—and had become bandits.

  Thus the population of the northern lands had increased by half.

  The added strain upon the resources of the Eastern Empire had gone largely unnoticed—initially. Shortly before the Western Civil War, Flying Arrow had ordered female conscription to begin—for which Aged Oak had begun to plan almost five years before. Since females as well as males had fought the increased number of bandits, the Eastern Empire had resisted the threat. The Empire was only now beginning to feel the latent effects of female conscription. The birth rate had dropped significantly. Women waited longer to bear children and fewer women survived their tours of duty to bear children afterward.

  Snarling Jaguar glanced toward an ancient text on his shelf. Female Conscription: The End of Empires, by Whelping Anarchy, described the dynamics of population growth after the institution of female conscription. In nearly every case history cited in the treatise, the Empire had eventually fallen. Females had become dominant in the armed forces, removing their wombs from production. The Empires that hadn't collapsed had been few. Their Emperors had recognized the peril and had ordered the matriarchies to increase their progeny. In the Eastern Armed Forces, women didn't have to become the majority of warriors for the Empire to disintegrate. It was already happening.

  Snarling Jaguar was sure of a way to prevent collapse. Annihilating or decimating the bandits wasn't the key, he knew. No matter how many died, others would take their places. Still, he thought he could find a solution to help the Eastern Empire survive, and remain a buffer between the northern bandits and the Southern Empire.

  Years ago, the General Guarding Bear had mounted an attack on the Tiger Fortress, the most impregnable of all bandit dwellings. Thirty-two hundred bandits had died in less than an hour. Unfortunately, the General hadn't pressed his advantage. The Tiger Raiders had restructured their defenses to prevent a future decimation by manufacturing an electrical shield of their own.

  Snarling Jaguar remembered the bizarre plan Guarding Bear had concocted to build an electrical shield indistinguishable from those built by the newly-formed Bandit Council. After a certain amount of use, the shields exploded. Before they got wise, bandits had died by the hundreds. The artifice had worked well, its intent to reduce confidence in the Council shield. The Empire had intended the bandits to revert to using Imperial shields, built to disable themselves at the signature of the Imperial Sword. Instead, the Bandit Council had ordered the exploding shields sold back across the border. The tactic had caused moderate mayhem for the Eastern Empire, and they had then aborted the plan.

  The Bandit Council, formed in the aftermath of Guarding Bear's siege of the Tiger Fortress, had claimed its first political victory. Over the years, the Council had grown in stature and was now more influential than Scowling Tiger himself. Since the bandit general covertly controlled the Council, nothing had really changed.

  Twice the Eastern Empire had launched raids against the settlement at Seat, the Council base. Twice the Empire had destroyed the settlement. The se
cond raid had proved so costly however, the invading forces almost annihilated, that they considered a third raid counterproductive. Twice destroyed, bandits had twice rebuilt Seat, its defenses ever stronger. No longer was it such an attractive target to the Eastern generals. By most standards, Seat was a small community. A civilian population of five thousand surrounded the miniature castle. Within the walls was room enough for the people of the town as well as seven thousand bandit defenders—and it was growing.

  In addition to the shields, the Council had enacted several programs of benefit to all member bands. The five largest bands exchanged ambassadors. In the far north, two days travel from the Windy Mountains, were farms capable of feeding almost half of all bandits for a whole year. Nearby were large herds of sheep, producing so much wool that bandits sold the excess across the border. Along the coast were three glass factories, likewise producing enough for export. Inland were two silk factories, the worms, looms and tailors all in one place, not quite able to supply all the silk needed. Not far away was a large smithy, its swords considered equivalent to anything produced elsewhere. Beside it was an arrow factory. Not a bandit lacked a full quiver. In addition to these production facilities, the Council had set up a Windy Mountain messenger service, itinerant medacors and instructors, a trade association for buying and selling excess goods, construction companies, psychological services, an adoption agency and more. In short, nearly everything one would find south of the Windy Mountains. It was an Empire without an Emperor.

  The audacity of these upstarts to establish an Empire without the sanction of an Imperial Sword violated every custom and tradition laid down centuries ago by the ancestors who had first invested the Heir and Imperial Swords with the dominion they possessed today. That no one in all three Empires could even slow their progress salted the wound.

  As bandits grew stronger, the Eastern Empire grew weaker.