by Джеффри Лорд
Blade folded his own arms across his chest. It was a gesture that would have conveyed more dignity if he’d been wearing something besides the knife, belt, and bruises from bumping into and tripping over things in the forest. It served well enough, however. Blade’s eyes met the father’s and read in them a willingness to listen, if not necessarily to believe.
«Do any of you know of the lands that lie far to the south of the Steppes?» said Blade. This drew blank looks from everyone, exactly as he’d hoped. «Lands that lie far to the south of the Steppes» lay outside local geographical knowledge. They would be willing to believe anything he said about such lands, or at least unwilling to dismiss what he said out of hand.
«I came from one of those lands, a land called England. I am a prince of that land. With six of my warriors I was on my way north to come before the Emperor of Saram. Though knowledge of England has not yet reached Saram, we have heard of the power of your Emperor. We would wish to know more of such a ruler, who might do much for us, either good or ill.»
«His Sublime Magnificence the Emperor Kul-Nam cares little what other people know or think of him,» said the son sharply. «Why did you expect to accomplish anything?»
«We had heard that His Sublime Magnificence was a wise ruler,» said Blade. «Any wise ruler would learn as much about other peoples as he could. Are you asking me to believe that in England we have heard lies, that your Emperor is in truth a fool?»
The son’s mouth opened and shut several times but no sound came out. Finally he clamped his jaw tightly shut, as though distrusting what might come out if he spoke again. His father was obviously struggling to keep a straight face. Blade took advantage of all this and continued.
«We could not send through the Steppes a party large enough to fight those who live there,» he said. «Yet we thought a small party of selected warriors might slip across the Steppes and reach the borderlands of the Empire undetected. We were right. We passed across the Steppes as though we were invisible. It was in the borderlands that ill fortune overtook us.»
Swiftly Blade painted a vivid picture of weary and hungry men on wearier and hungrier horses entering the forests, believing that they were safe and thus relaxing their guard. He painted an even more vivid picture of the attackers who slew five of the men at once and drove the others separately into the endless dark forests. He carefully avoided giving too many details, using darkness and surprise as his excuse.
«Did they come against you on foot or on horseback?» asked the son.
Blade shrugged. «Some were on foot, some were on horseback. I do not know whether those who came on foot came that way on purpose or because they fell off their horses in the darkness and the trees. We were not far inside the forests, so it was not hard for the Steppemen on their small horses to come at us.» The size of the horses was an educated guess. In Home Dimension people who lived on open plains usually rode tough, surefooted little horses or ponies.
«This is true. The Steppe horses are surefooted enough so that in the past they have come as much as half a day’s march into the forest. What happened to you and the other man who survived?»
«I do not know where he is, or whether he still lives. I do know that I sprang from my bed, naked as I was, and slew four of the Steppemen. My sword stuck between the ribs of one and he galloped away with it, dying in the saddle as he rode. I had no more weapons but the knife I wear now, and the five who died were already beyond my help. I could see no course that was not shameful-stay and die at once or flee and live to take a better vengeance later. I chose to come away. Perhaps I can ask your help in taking the lives of a good number of Steppemen and so taking away my shame?»
The son’s face remained frozen, but the father nodded. «Perhaps. But it must be seen whether you are truly a warrior, or one who has been justly shamed and punished. Those who have brought ill fortune on themselves are often so accursed that they bring it upon others as well.»
Blade was tempted to ask the man if warriors of Saram were so afraid of ill fortune that they refused hospitality to honest travelers. He decided not to. «It shall be as you wish,» he replied calmly. «A warrior who is a prince of England will shrink from no test. Nor did I come all this way to fail in any such test.» He brought the knife around on his belt until it rode clearly visible on his thigh. Then he crossed his arms on his chest again and stood quietly, waiting for the men facing him to make the next move.
The father clapped his hands three times. The girl who’d been dancing sprang up from the ground and vanished into one of the tents. The guards and servants shifted position, spreading out until they formed a complete circle around Blade and the fire. The two leaders stepped back until they were outside the circle. Then the father turned toward the two men mounting guard on top of the piled logs.
«Ho, Tzimon, Dzhai!» he shouted.
«We come, lord,» they shouted back. Both men scrambled down the logs and ran across the clearing toward the circle. They stopped in front of the father, bowed so deeply they almost fell on their noses, and then stood up. In the firelight Blade could see that both men were as broad as he was and nearly as tall. One now carried an axe, the other a mace. Both moved like tough, experienced fighting men.
The father turned and pointed at Blade.
«You see this man?»
«We see him, lord.»
«He says he is a prince from England, a land far to the south-of the Steppes. He has come north to greet our Emperor, of whose strength and wisdom he has heard much.»
The two men looked at Blade, then looked at each other, then wrinkled their broad noses as if they smelled some particularly foul odor. The one on the right spat into the fire. Obviously they would have liked to say something but didn’t dare without their master’s permission.
«He was surprised by the Steppemen in the forest, he says, and the men with him slain or driven off after a hard fight.» More sour looks from the two men. «I do not know if he lies or not. In any case, he is a stranger come to Saram from the direction of the Steppes.»
The father suddenly drew his sword with a rasp of steel and flourished it toward Blade. The fire sent shimmers of light up and down it.
«Tzimon, Dzhai-kill him.»
Chapter 5
Blade shot a quick look at the father, trying to guess what was on the man’s mind while concealing his own surprise. The other’s face was as blank as Blade’s own. He might have been ordering a meal in a fine restaurant instead of calling for cold-blooded murder in a dark and windy wilderness.
Then Tzimon and Dzhai began to move forward and Blade turned his attention to them. Both men held on to their weapons as they advanced but did not raise them. Blade dropped into unarmed-combat stance. He did not draw his knife. If it came to killing, he could kill with his bare hands well enough. If his best course was to disable without killing, as he suspected it might be, his bare hands were better than the knife.
Tzimon and Dzhai walked toward Blade side by side until they reached the fire. Then they separated, one moving around each side of the fire. They moved slowly, a step at a time, matching each other’s movements step for step.
Blade gave ground slowly, letting his opponents gradually close the distance. He would have liked to be able to retreat until he was half-concealed in the shadows of the trees and Tzimon and Dzhai were silhouetted against the fire. That would give him a useful edge. It might also leave a bad impression on the two noblemen. Blade suspected this was one of those fights where how he won mattered as much as whether he won.
In any case, he probably didn’t need the advantage. Tzimon and Dzhai were moving in on him like men who had fought side by side before, but they did not move like a team who’d trained together for years to fight as a single mind with two bodies. Against a pair like this, a single man always has the advantage.
Blade was only three steps from the shadows when his opponents suddenly charged. They came at him with Tzimon slightly in the lead, axe raised, while Dzhai whirled the mace i
n a great circle around his head. Anything that got inside that circle was going to get smashed, whether it belonged to friend or foe. Blade noticed that, and noticed that Tzimon was keeping well clear of his comrade as they advanced. This left a gap between the two men so wide that they could not hope to support each other against a fast-moving opponent.
Blade was going to be that fast-moving opponent.
He seemed to explode forward into the gap between his opponents. Dzhai sprang to one side, taking himself completely out of combat position. Tzimon stopped in midstride, whirled with frightening speed, and started to bring the axe down where he expected Blade’s head to be.
Blade’s head stayed in one piece only because he ducked just as the axe whistled down. He knew in that moment that Tzimon was his major opponent here, far more dangerous than Dzhai, as dangerous as any man he’d ever fought. It would be suicide to turn his back on Tzimon without doing him some damage first. Blade shifted his attack and put even more speed and power into it.
One arm shot upward in an eye-blurring stroke. The edge of Blade’s left hand slashed across Tzimon’s right wrist. The impact jarred Blade from shoulder to waist. It was like trying to chop through a log. The axe wavered in midair above Blade instead of swinging down to split him from shoulder to crotch. Blade threw his clenched right fist into Tzimon’s stomach, putting all his weight and strength behind it. It felt like punching a bag of cement, but the wind went out of Tzimon with a tremendous whuffff.
Blade let the movement of the punch pivot him around in a complete circle. He let go with a back kick as he swung. He aimed for Tzimon’s jaw, but the man stepped back far enough so that Blade’s foot slammed across his chest in a glancing blow. Blade heard something crack, but he wasn’t sure if it was Tzimon’s ribs or his own foot!
Blade came down out of the circle to see Tzimon standing with his feet wide apart and his axe raised, his eyes still focused on Blade but his chest heaving as he fought for breath. Three solid strikes from Blade were enough to slow anyone down, even a fast-moving mass of bone and muscle like Tzimon. For a moment Blade had one flank clear. He badly needed that moment, for Dzhai was now moving back to the attack, the mace whirling in circles over and around him.
Blade used that moment to time Dzhai’s swings. He noticed that the man held his free arm out across in front of him.
Blade moved in. He darted under the swing of the mace, driving his left hand upward and jerking down with his right. Dzhai’s right arm swung down in a perfect arc. The mace whistled past Blade’s ear and grazed his shoulder hard enough to jolt him. His left hand crashed into Dzhai’s descending elbow. Dzhai screamed horribly as his elbow shattered.
In the same moment Blade jerked Dzhai’s free arm down and to one side, nearly pulling it out of its socket. From the corner of his eye Blade now saw Tzimon moving back into the attack, looking for an opening that would let him strike at Blade without hitting his comrade. Blade closed with Dzhai until he was embracing the man as tightly as he might have embraced a woman. His arms locked around Dzhai’s chest.
Then Blade hurled himself backward, at the same moment heaving upward on his opponent. Dzhai rose into the air as Blade dropped. He came down at exactly the right moment for Blade’s upthrusting feet to take him in the stomach. Blade continued rolling, balancing Dzhai on his feet. He rolled right over in a backward somersault, flinging Dzhai’s entire helpless two hundred pounds squarely into Tzimon’s face. There was a crunch and a gasp, the axe flew out of Tzimon’s hand, the mace flew out of Dzhai’s hand and landed in the fire, and the two men crashed down onto the ground together. Blade sprang to his feet, snatched up the axe, plucked a couple of thorns out of his buttocks, then looked at his two opponents. They were sprawled on the ground, both obviously out cold but still breathing.
Blade sank the axe into the ground at his feet and turned to face the two noblemen. Both were staring at Blade, their swords still drawn. To one side of them stood one of their guards, holding a matchlock musket under one arm. On the other side stood the dancing girl, now wrapped in a blanket. She was staring at Blade even more intently than the others, her eyes wide and seeming to glow in the firelight. The other men stood behind these four.
Blade bowed politely, drew his knife, laid it down on the ground with the point toward him, then bowed again. It was a symbolic disarming only. He could snatch up the knife and pick off at least one man long before any of them could do anything to him, even the one with the musket.
Everyone remained as motionless as figures in a waxworks for a moment. Then the father smiled, thrust his sword back into its scabbard, and stepped forward. His son hesitated for a moment, then did the same. The man with the matchlock blew out his match and lowered his weapon butt first to the ground.
The father stepped up to Blade, hand outthrust. Blade took it, matching the other’s firm grip.
«Well, my-«began the father, then shook his head. «No, I cannot call you friend, not now, and not ever without the Emperor’s permission. You are still a stranger, and the laws of the Empire are strict when they speak of strangers.» He smiled. «But though you are a stranger, certainly you are no Steppeman. You are just as certainly a warrior, whom I am happy to have met, and very probably a truthful man as well. Blade, I am Boros, Duke of Kudai. This is my son, Tulu. And these»-he pointed to the other men-«serve in the House of Kudai. Though we cannot call you friend, yet we can say that here and now we are happy to have you among us.
«Prince Blade, welcome to the Empire of Saram.»
Chapter 6
Blade sipped from his cup of hot, spiced wine, found that he’d emptied it, and held it out to the girl. She took it, refilled it from a large jar near the mouth of the tent, and handed it back. Blade took another swallow of the steaming liquid, feeling it warm him all the way down, and looked at the girl for about the tenth time. She now wore a blue linen shift belted around her slim waist with a gilded silk cord. She was just as pleasant to look at the tenth time as she’d been the first.
Blade sat facing the mouth of the tent. He wore a pair of leather trousers, a woolen tunic, and a leather belt, all borrowed from Dzhai. Their former owner had no use for them at the moment. He lay in another tent, his shattered elbow and cracked ribs wrapped in bandages, the rest of him wrapped in blankets, filled with drugged wine and sleeping peacefully.
Duke Boros had apologized for not being able to produce better clothing for Blade. «I hope we shall be able to find garb more fitting to your rank before you come into the presence of His Magnificence. But for the moment, only Dzhai among those whose clothes would fit you has any to spare.»
Blade sipped more wine. «What is there about the Steppemen that makes them so hated and makes you so sure that I am not one of them?»
«As for what makes them hated, Blade,» said Tulu, «need you, who have survived one of their attacks, ask this? What they did to you and your men once, they have done a thousand times in the borderlands of the Empire. They have done it to soldiers, both by open attack and by treacherous ambush. They have done it even more often to farms and villages and towns. They slay all the men and enslave the women and children. Only the bravest will now live within two days’ ride of the Steppes. There would be fewer still if it were not for His Magnificence Kul-Nam’s iron will.»
«How is this?» said Blade.
«He has caused the abandoned farms to be resettled. The new settlers must hold on to the death against the Steppemen. Otherwise their lives are forfeit to the Emperor. The women and children are impaled or flogged to death. After watching this, the men are either burned at the stake or thrown into pits of snakes.»
Blade nodded politely. Kul-Nam’s determination to keep his borders secure was impressive. His methods were another matter.
«One can understand why your Emperor’s reputation has traveled even as far as England,» Blade said finally. «Indeed his will is one of iron.»
«It is,» said the duke. «Yet even iron has only so much strength. The army
of Saram is strong, and when it can meet the Steppemen man against man and horse against horse, they must flee or perish. But this seldom happens. They choose their time and place and seldom fight unless they can bring against us numbers so great that we must flee or die. The soldiers of His Magnificence will not flee, for he is harsh with cowards. So they die. Each year our soldiers grow fewer, each year the Steppemen grow more numerous. We know they dream of a year when they will ride across our border in all their strength and sweep our army aside like the tides of the sea. We fear that year is not far off, for all that His Magnificence and his soldiers can do.»
So the Empire of Saram seemed to be facing the attacks of a horde of nomadic barbarians. Blade was not quite ready to call the Empire itself «civilized»-not with their Emperor’s rather bloodthirsty taste in punishments. Yet certainly they were facing a notoriously unpleasant sort of enemy. A horde of horsemen could be as elusive, painful, and sometimes deadly as a swarm of wasps.
«I can understand why they are not welcome in Saram,» said Blade. The duke laughed shortly, and even his son managed a thin smile. «I am glad you decided that I was not one of them. Matters might have become difficult, for as you have seen, I would not have been easy to kill.»
The duke laughed again. «No, indeed. There would have been a battle worthy of quite a number of poems, if by some chance anyone had lived to write them. In fact, we had some hopes that you might not be a Steppeman when you first appeared. Not one in a thousand of them is as large as you are. Nine out of ten have their legs bowed like the crescent of the moon from a life spent on horseback, while yours are as straight as pine trees and as tough as seasoned wood.
«Yet we could not be sure, so I ordered the fight. If you perished, it would be a quicker death than you would receive at other hands than ours. If you lived, you would be no Steppeman, and your fate a matter for His Magnificence.»
