A Handful of Men: The Complete Series

by Dave Duncan

The second horse reared, tipping the legionary off completely. The wounded man flailed and screamed as he fell into the hedge. Ylo grabbed the cheek strap. There was a wild skirmish with clattering hooves and loud cursing. Then Ylo more or less had control of his new mount. Holding its reins, he grabbed up the rapier he had dropped. The horse backed away from him, whinnying with terror and rolling white-rimmed eyes. Fortunately it backed itself into the hedge; he was able to move in close and mount from the wrong side.

  In the saddle he was master.

  The wounded man had fainted, or was stunned. He was probably fated to drown in his own blood anyway.

  Fury roared in Ylo’s head. He felt wild exultation. Two down! He was invincible, irresistible!

  The third rider was coming, galloping across the pasture, crouched over his horse’s neck. Another two had come over the skyline. Eshiala…

  Eshiala was staggering across the meadow on foot, carrying Maya, heading for the river. Oh, Gods! She had fallen? She could not be seriously hurt if she was walking. Could she? She had a long way to go.

  For a moment Ylo dithered.

  Then he turned to face the pursuit. There was no hope of faking any more accidents, but he must hold the gate to give Eshiala time to reach the forest. The good guys always win!

  Beyond the hedge the third opponent reined in and straightened up in his saddle. Ylo saluted with his rapier.

  “You crazy popinjay!” Hardgraa roared, drawing his sword with a blood-chilling scrape. “Think you can stop me, do you?”

  * * *

  There were ten watchers in the forest now, for all the archons had arrived.

  “That is the one!” the Keeper said. “That soldier is the one the Covin watches.”

  How she could tell that, Rap had no idea and no chance to ask. With a squeal from Inos and a shriek from Kadie, his womenfolk appeared at his side, still huddled together as if lifted straight out of their chairs. They staggered. He clutched Inos’ shoulders to steady her.

  “Shandie!” he said. “When he was captured — did he say anything about Ylo, his signifer?”

  Inos glanced over the audience and the geography and raised her eyebrows. “We have another emergency? No, not then he didn’t.”

  “Later?”

  “Kadie!”

  Ignoring her mother’s exclamation, Kadie rushed to Thaïle’s side. The pixie gave her a distracted smile and put an arm around her.

  Inos said, “Later he said he thought that his companion had escaped.”

  “Nothing more?” Rap asked. “Not that he had given Ylo any special instructions, for instance?”

  Inos frowned in annoyance at being thus interrogated when she did not know what was going on. “He hinted that he didn’t trust Ylo not to go chasing after his wife. That was all.”

  Rap groaned. There was no other explanation, then. “Ylo did. Did go after her. They’re here.”

  “Here?”

  “Over there. Across the river. The impress is heading for the water — see? And Ylo’s up that road there, facing off with… God of Mercy!”

  With Centurion Hardgraa.

  * * *

  “Gladiator scum!” Ylo bellowed. “Come and get me! You think an Yllipo is scared of you, you dreg?”

  Last of the Yllipos! Bred of mighty warriors! His heart soared. He was exultant with bloodlust. He was fighting for his woman and his unborn child. Chain mail or no chain mail, that stinking legionary was never going to get past Ylo.

  Hardgraa turned to stare back up the hill. His two minions were still coming, but one horse was obviously lame. Ylo fought down the temptation to charge while his opponent was apparently distracted.

  “I don’t fall into those traps, cretin!”

  Crazy with terror and the stench of blood, his horse skittered and danced, and he held it in place without a thought. He had the advantage and was going to keep it That poxy-eyed no-good centurion had to come by him, and there was half a barrier still. Hardgraa was good with a sword and knew every dirty trick ever invented, but he wasn’t in Ylo’s class with a horse.

  Still staring behind him, Hardgraa slammed his spurs into flanks already bloody — typical sneaky tactics! His horse hurtled through the gap as if to clear Ylo’s mount out of its way by brute force alone.

  Ylo rose in the stirrups, leaning forward, lunging at the centurion’s eyes, trying to use his greater reach. Hardgraa parried contemptuously with his heavier blade. The two mounts collided with screams, swords clanged again, rapier against gladius. Ylo tried to back off, then realized his error. As the better horseman, wielding the longer sword, he would normally try to keep his distance. Conversely he had expected the centurion to keep the fight close. But Hardgraa wanted only to get by, so Ylo must seek to block him. For a moment the match was a melee, with knees and heels and hooves doing far more than arms. Dust swirled in choking clouds.

  Then Ylo ducked below a stroke that would have removed his head, and Hardgraa’s horse bucked, throwing him forward. The point of Ylo’s rapier scraped over his helmet. Damn, that had been close! Fast as a viper, the legionary recovered and swung his gladius upward. Ylo felt the wind of its passing on his face as he swayed aside. Before he could even draw back his elbow for another lunge, Hardgraa spurred forward and struck again. Ylo parried a blow that would have taken off his sword arm, but a rapier was not meant to be used that way. It bent like an earthworm. Hardgraa’s sword screeched along it and sliced deep into Ylo’s thigh. The impact on the bone was stunning — pain and fear and nausea. As the horses danced apart, he threw both arms around his mount’s neck and his rapier clattered to the dirt. Blasts of pain shot through him like thunderbolts. A hot tide of blood poured down his leg. He held his breath, waiting for the quietus.

  “I’ll finish you off later!” Hardgraa bellowed, spinning his horse around. He dug in his spurs and was off at a gallop down the road.

  “He got him!” Rap cried.

  “Who got him?” Inos shouted, squeezing his arm. “Ylo? The one on the gray is Ylo? Who’s the other?”

  “Hardgraa.”

  The archons were muttering. The ambience flickered in aurora of emotion. In the sky the illusion of eyes persisted, cold, stone eyes watching the tiny drama below. The impress was still staggering on foot across the meadow, burdened by her load and obviously close to collapse. And Hardgraa was racing down the hill.

  “I think the emergency is over,” the Keeper said in a small, satisfied whisper.

  “Who is Hardgraa?” Inos demanded.

  Rap kept his gaze on the chase. “One of Shandie’s men. He was Eshiala’s guardian. Looks like he followed them all the way here.”

  “You mean she ran off with this Ylo man?”

  “She probably thinks that Shandie is dead,” Rap said. “Of course she does! All of them do! They think that child is reigning impress! That’s why Hardgraa’s here!”

  “Rap!” Inos shouted. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s after the child.” Rap stared at those monstrous eyes in the sky. Hardgraa was probably in the power of the Covin. Mundanes could be votarized just as sorcerers could. That must be what the Keeper had detected. Knowingly or not, Hardgraa had brought the Covin with him.

  It looked as if he was certain to win.

  Except that Ylo was coming in pursuit.

  He lashed the gray with the flat of his dagger. The world was fading in and out of gray mist. Every hoofbeat sent waves of agony up from his thigh, and he knew he must be spilling a trail of blood along the road. He had very little time before he blacked out. The world was disappearing from the edges of his vision and drums beat in his ears. All he could see was the hateful back of Hardgraa ahead of him. All he had to do was catch up. All he had to fight with was a dagger, against an armored legionary.

  Yllipo! Yllipo! Last of the Yllipos. Father, Yyan, Yshan help me! Let me live just that long.

  Hardgraa must have thought the hooves were one of his cronies coming to help. At the last minute he turned his head
and an expression of comical shock showed even under his helmet By then it was too late — his foe was to his left and he could not bring his short sword to bear.

  The centurion spurred again, started to pull out ahead.

  Using his hand to move his useless leg, Ylo pulled his right foot from the stirrup. He raked his horse with the point of the dagger. It spasmed forward. With a final, killing effort, clutching the mane, he let himself slide over, wounded leg drooping, and he struck at the only target he could be sure of, Hardgraa’s mount. Even as his grip failed and he began to fall, he felt the dagger bite into the hamstring.

  He thought, Eshiala! and that was all.

  Hardgraa’s horse went down. Ylo’s fell on top of it. The centurion rolled free, stunned. Ylo was somewhere in the middle.

  The impress plodded grimly toward the river.

  * * *

  Nauseated, Rap and Inos put their arms around each other.

  “Rap of Krasnegar!” the Keeper cried from the shadows. “You must go down and make her turn back. I shall cloak you again in the spell of inattention.”

  “Me?” Rap shouted. “Never! Let her in, you heartless old bitch! If you do not pity her, then have mercy on her child!”

  The archons reeled back in unison like a ballet corps. Inos said, “Sh!” nervously.

  “It is the woman with child of your prophecy!” he said, just as loudly. He had no idea what the prophecy said, but obviously it mattered. “I think the Gods have rolled your dice, Keeper!”

  She wailed. “No! We must stop her!”

  Rap pushed Inos aside. His temper blazed out of control, jotunn fury. “You think that would save you? Two days ago an army turned back in the east. Today a fugitive is turned back in the west? Do you call Zinixo an idiot? You think he will not wonder now? Thume is exposed. Keeper! The trumpets are sounding!”

  A yell of triumph from the Keeper and archons made Rap spin around. The impress had fallen. The child was sitting up, howling, but the woman lay still, not far from the riverbank. The two horsemen were racing down the hill, almost to where two prone men and two struggling horses marked the scene of the second battle. Rap’s heart sank without trace.

  “We are saved indeed, faun!” the Keeper cried.

  The first horseman jumped from his mount and knelt beside Hardgraa. Rap saw the centurion speak, though he could not make out the words. The second horseman was almost there, his mount limping. The first straightened, beckoned to him, and vaulted back into his saddle. Hardgraa had told them to catch the woman before they tended to him.

  “It’s all over!” Inos said.

  Rap nodded grimly. Nothing he could do, and Ylo’s gallant battle had been in vain. Ylo was almost certainly dead.

  Failure.

  No! The Keeper howled like a dog — two more players had come on stage. Two girls were splashing across the river, going to help. White blouses, long skirts…

  Rap had felt nothing in the ambience, but he had known that Thaïle was a mighty sorceress. She had moved Kadie and herself down to the edge of the barrier without a flicker that he had detected. She had even evaded the Keeper.

  One of the archons cried, “Stop them. Holiness! They will be seen!”

  They had already been seen. The ghostly eyes in the clouds narrowed at the sight of these mysterious newcomers. How long would the Covin be content to watch and do nothing?

  Inos threw her arms around Rap. “That’s Kadie, isn’t it?”

  He nodded and hugged her. “Nothing I can do,” he muttered miserably. Nothing anyone could do without making things worse, and nothing would draw the Covin’s fires more certainly than Rap himself appearing. But he felt like the worst sort of coward. Sweat trickled cold down his face.

  Side by side, Thaïle and Kadie leaped up the Qoble bank and ran to the fugitives. Kadie lifted the little princess, Thaïle raised the impress. The two horsemen had stopped at the gate and seemed engrossed in struggling with the fastening. Thaïle, you are using sorcery in the sight of the Covin!

  “Holiness!” the same archon protested. “You must stop her!”

  “Me?” the Keeper screamed. “I can do nothing now. It is not my fault! I told you! Why do you think she goes to rescue a child? Did I not warn you that the Gods might yet be wroth for what you did? This is your doing, you fools! Childslayers! See what you have made of the Chosen One!”

  Archons tumbled to their knees before her fury. Kadie and the babe were halfway back across the stream. Leaning heavily on Thaïle, the impress was close behind. The horsemen were heading back up the hill toward Hardgraa.

  Overhead, the watching eyes turned their gaze on Thume itself. The Almighty’s frown darkened the sky like an imminent thunderstorm — puzzled, searching. Rap’s scalp prickled and his arm tightened around Inos. He knew those eyes of old. Obviously they could not see him, though. If Zinixo had detected Rap he would have attacked at once, so the spell was holding.

  Then the cloudy vision faded away. Either the dwarf had realized that he was being observed, or he had gone off to think over these peculiar events. Certainly he had seen enough to arouse his suspicions. It had never taken much to do that.

  The fugitives had emerged from the water, safe on the Thume side. Safe for now, at least. The two horsemen were loading Hardgraa onto a mount as if he were hurt but conscious. They had cut the injured horses’ throats. Ylo lay like a corpse in the lane, ignored.

  Rap turned. The archons still groveled before the Keeper. His fury boiled up again. “Keeper, you have failed! Now the Covin knows that there is power and mystery in Thume!”

  The hooded figure seemed to shrink away from him. “No!”

  “Yes!” he roared. “You can hide no longer! Join the battle now, before it is too late!”

  She raised her head and howled. “It is already too late! Your cause is hopeless! I have failed my people! Keef forgive me!” Her wail soared higher and higher, a thin shrill note of despair that cut like a knife.

  Rap clapped his hands over his ears. The archons were doing the same. Power flooded the ambience, brighter and brighter, unbearably bright. The Keeper’s bones shone through her flesh like the sun in mist. He turned his back on her and shut off his farsight. He did not want to watch.

  “Rap!” Inos cried. “The Keeper! It’s like Rasha, isn’t it? She’s burning! What happened?”

  “It’s the Gods’ justice,” Rap said. The Keeper had given up the struggle. Seven years of unrelenting pain, leading inevitably to this — he should feel sorry for her, but he could find no pity. “Good riddance!”

  Behind him, the Keeper’s death cry faded away.

  He stared miserably at the carnage beyond the river.

  Slumped in the saddle, Hardgraa was being led away toward the nearest farm, past the bodies of the two men Ylo had slain.

  Ylo’s body lay abandoned in the dirt between the slaughtered horses. Two ravens floated down from the sky.

  A necessary end:

  The valiant never taste of death but once.

  Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

  It seems to me most strange that men should fear;

  Seeing that death, a necessary end,

  Will come when it will come.

  Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, II, ii

  ELEVEN

  Rolling drums

  1

  Maya had gone to sleep, and that was good. There was shade under the willow, where Eshiala sat clutching her daughter, and that was good, too. The little river chattered on its pebbles under a silver glare of sunshine. Birds were chirping. But someone was missing. Something was wrong, and she couldn’t remember exactly…

  She’d hurt her leg, hadn’t she? Perhaps not, for it seemed to be all right now. Riding a horse. Jumping. Everything was very muddled. Someone missing? Girls. There had been two young women, or girls. No, someone else.

  Twigs crackled. She jumped and turned to look.

  “Let me see the child,” the man said, sitting down on the moss at he
r side. He was big and shaggy-chested, wearing only hideous purple trousers, but his ugly face seemed concerned and oddly familiar.

  “It’s all right,” Eshiala said. “She’s having a nap.”

  “More than that,” he said. “And you’re in bad shock yourself. You remember me? I’m Rap.”

  “She’s asleep,” Eshiala explained. “Poor thing, she was very frightened earlier. But she’s asleep now. She’ll be alarmed if she wakes up with a stranger holding her.”

  “I won’t let her be frightened. I can calm her like I’ve calmed you.” The man took Maya gently in his arms and frowned at her. “Trouble is, I can’t do more than one thing at a time anymore. Didn’t see where that batty daughter of mine went, did you?”

  Eshiala’s boots were full of water. Her skirt was soaked, and badly torn. Daughter? The man had a daughter, too?

  She wondered if she should mention the two girls, but perhaps she had dreamed those. She might be dreaming now. Everything was so muddled. There was something she ought to be doing, if she could just remember what it was.

  “You’re right, she is asleep,” the big man said. “Must be Thaïle’s doing. Nothing serious, just bruises. I’ll fix them and then wake her up.”

  Memory… worry. “If she’s all right with you, then I’d best go back right away. I have a friend to help. He must have been delayed.” She started to rise.

  “Sit down!” the man said. “That’s better. You’re not really conscious, you know! You’re running around in a daze. You took a bad fall. I don’t know how you managed to walk all that way. I don’t know how you walked at all.”

  Daze? It was true that things were rather muddled in her mind. Riding down a road and looking back for Ylo. Where was Ylo? Why wasn’t Ylo here? Sunlight glaringly bright on the water, moss warm, skirt all wet and tattered.

  “Thaïle would have fixed you up, I’m sure,” the man said, still frowning down at Maya, holding her as if she weighed nothing. “But she was called away.” He turned and glanced at the trees behind. “And that halfwit daughter of mine is floundering around in the briars. Excuse me… Kadie! Come back here!”