* * *
Seventeen
The Gathering of Shadows
I looked down into lustrous brown Vallian eyes. I saw that glowing face. I saw and I could not understand.
Almost, almost, then, I was a dead man.
But the longsword, of itself, sliced and slashed and the two Chuliks screamed and spun away, bloody wrecks.
The blood dripped down my face from the razor slashings of the steel claw.
“Dayra?"
Zankov screamed again: “Now is your chance, Dayra! Slay the rast and have done."
I stepped back, out of the lethal swing of the claw and kicked Zankov in the side of the head. He slumped. My left hand reached for the last hooked chain.
“So mother was right, after all, and these fools wrong,” she said, this girl, this Ros the Claw who was my little daughter Dayra. “For no other man could do what you have done and lived.” She lifted the steel tiger talons on which my blood glimmered darkly. “You are a Hyr-Jikai."
“Only a fool would do what I have done,” I said.
“That is sooth."
“You have fallen among evil company—Dayra. Come with me. I must go and see if Delia your mother is safe."
“She will be. I have given orders—"
I broke in, exasperated, still dizzy with the shock. “Don't you know what kind of villain this rast is? He means to kill all of us—all the family—"
She shook her head. “Not true."
“If only I had known ... They said you were arriving today."
“How do you know that? I do as I please. I take orders from no one—from no man—least of all from a father I have never known."
This could be resolved later, for now soldiers pressed on and time was on a short fuse. I gripped the harsh steel hook ready to slip it over the ring. “Come with me, Dayra. Your mother—"
“You are not fit to speak her name! Leave her out of it."
An arrow pitched into the blood-soaked ground. Another punched through the fabric of the airboat by my head.
“You must hurry, Dayra, or they will shaft you, too."
“Go, go away! Run! You have been running all your life so go on running. You betrayed us all and you will continue to betray us, no matter what you say. Go before I slash your eyes out."
But since she had understood that I, at last, knew who she was, she had made not a single move to attack me as she had been so savagely doing before.
A quick glimpse of booted feet and the glint of a bladed tail past the keel of the flier warned me I could dally no longer. If this wayward sprite of mine would not come home with me, she would not. And if I tarried here arguing I would be dead. I gripped the hooked chain fiercely in my left hand and flicked the longsword about and so deflected an Undurker arrow.
“Then I bid you Remberee, Dayra. I shall tell your mother I have seen you.” The metal hook lifted. Around me now the guards were closing in, confident I was at last done for. There were very many of them. I could not slay them all. But not a one of them showed anxiety to be first.
With the incongruity of the situation strong upon me, I said: “Take care of yourself—daughter."
She spat at me, and slashed the claw and I wondered as I lifted the hook if she would, finally, have tried to do for me at last.
The flier jerked away as the last chain came free. Gripping the hook I was wrenched aloft, dangling and swinging under the keel of the voller, hurtling away and up into the air.
A few arrows winged after me; but the voller leaped away so fast and gained height so rapidly the arrows fell away uselessly. Like a parcel of laundry at the end of a rope I was whisked up. Climbing the chain proved tricky; but without sheathing the longsword I managed that maneuver and tumbled over the leather-wrapped coaming. Presently I took the flier under command and set the controls for full speed for Vondium. Udo and Ranjal and Zankov—if his headache improved—would send the pursuit after me; but I had chosen exceeding well and the voller outran all pursuit.
When I considered what I had just discovered I was aghast I was beset by confusion, unable to believe it had really happened, and yet knowing that what Dayra said was true, true, damn the black Star Lords to hell and beyond.
The only sane course for me to follow was to do what I could for Vallia. I could not put out of my mind that terrible experience—how her claws had slashed—but I could attempt to comfort myself with the reflection that she had lived this long without me and so could live a while longer until I managed to persuade her I was not entirely the rogue, the cheat, the liar, the deceiver she dubbed me. I was those things; but not in the way she meant.
That was a dark and dismal flight back to Vondium. The claw cuts in my face could be cleaned up and in time they would heal without a scar; but the real scars on me they would leave might never heal. My own daughter! But—at the end, she had stood back. She had made no further effort to stop me. She had bid me go.
Better, I suppose, to be thrown out than to be killed, to a pragmatic kind of fellow, although the more sensitive might well dramatically prefer death. To me, they are the fools, for although one can see their artistic point of view, they do rather show their contempt of the gift of life, which is not to be taken lightly. Perhaps a taste of the Heavenly Mines would cure them...
So I forced myself to look at this unnatural situation with Dayra's eyes. She was perfectly entitled to her view of me. I fancied the company she kept could be revealed to her as the bunch of villains they were and their dark purposes destroy her belief in them. That was one area in which she could be straightened out. That was general. In the private and family quarrel she had with me—that was something else again.
Even then, in those bleak moments of near despair, I once again forced myself to consider the concept that Dayra's companions were honorable people, working for what they truly believed in, and seeing Delia and the emperor and me and the family as villains overripe for the chopping. It was difficult. But, as Zair is my witness, I tried.
And, by Vox, it was not too difficult where the emperor was concerned, either...
All these worries must for the moment be pushed aside. However difficult that might be, I had to realize that all Vallia could be drenched in blood. I had to do what I could to prevent that. Also, it would not hurt to remind myself I had two other daughters, not to mention three sons, to worry over...
All the same, the story of how Dayra had spurned the Sisters of the Rose and taken the name of Ros and learned the trick of using the Claw and become involved with Zankov and that gang would make a fascinating task to unravel and learn. Like me, she used aliases as it suited her. In that, at the least, the very littlest least, she was like me.
It was damn small comfort.
Vondium hove into view and the place was burning in many areas, the fierce orange flames reflecting in the canals, the proud buildings on their hills and islands burning and collapsing. I stared, shocked back to present crises.
The long straggling black fingers of fugitives clogged roads leading away from the capital, the canals lay deserted with all the narrow boats gone, and not a flier sped through the sky apart from my own sole voller I had stolen from Udo.
The palace was not burning and a Pachak guard ringed it to prevent looting. The devoted loyalty of the Pachaks through their honor system of nikobi was never better demonstrated.
I landed in the great kyro before the palace. A guard checked me quickly and efficiently—those guards again, men, just men, doing a job, and faithful, not mere lay figures to be spitted and chopped and cast down all bloody and forgotten—and I was led off to their Chuktar.
A few quick glances told me that all the Pachaks hired by the emperor for duties in various wings of the palace had been collected together. Even the Pachaks from the wing given over to the use of Delia and myself, for with the Chuktar stood our Pachak paktun Jiktar, Laka Pa-Re. He greeted me warmly. The Chuktar, the highest of the military ranks apart from princes and kovs and generals and kings and t
heir like, was Pola Je-Du. He looked more haggard than I liked.
“Lahal, prince. The situation, as you see, is ripe."
“Lahal, Pola Je-Du. Your orders?"
“To guard the palace. Since the defeats the emperor—"
“Defeats? I had heard of one."
“The Hamalese fought well, so I am told. The Vallian army was defeated in detail. The Crimson Bowmen fought brilliantly, those that marched. The others—"
I looked at Laka Pa-Re, remembering how he had warned me that the guards were being bribed. Laka nodded. “The guards who took bribes were weeded out. Naghan Vanki saw to that. But the damage had been done."
“And the various elements disaffected in the capital and the provinces took the chance to rise. There has been much mischief, prince.” The Pachak Chuktar pulled his moustache. Smoke billowed up from a dome across the kyro and the distant sounds of shouting and the crashings of masonry reached us, thin and attenuated. “The emperor marched out with all that was left to him. For us, we guard the palace."
Not for the first time I wondered how the emperor had ever remained emperor for so long. With these Pachaks a great deal might be done—and then I reconsidered. There were perhaps five hundred of them. Against the Hamalese army, against the mobs and the irregulars and the mercenaries of the factions, would they have made all that much difference? The Pachaks would fight in their superb fashion when the first looters arrived with whichever army reached Vondium first. As a reserve, as a hard core, they would serve. Maybe the emperor was still the crafty old devil I thought him.
“And the Princess Majestrix?"
The question was followed by a general shaking of heads in the small, round, unadorned Pachak helmets. No one had any news of the Princess Majestrix.
More information was given me—of the arrests of men hitherto considered loyal to the emperor, of the way Queen Lushfymi more and more obsessed him to the exclusion of all else, of the riots, the burnings and lootings and killings, of the exodus from the capital as the various hostile armies closed in, Hamalese, rebels, insurgents. And I knew a fresh and powerful host inspired by a revived corpse could now be added to that number...
It seemed to me that Phu-si-Yantong was drawing ever closer to his insane dream. But he could not control all the foes of Vallia advancing on Vondium. In that, paradoxically, lay a slender hope.
In that wide and grandiose kyro with its surrounding colonnades and superb architecture the slender line of Pachaks ringing the palace and the small knot of officers all looked fragile, alone, gray chalk marks against the brilliance. In the radiance of the suns a chill wind blew dust across the flagstones.
A confused noise drew our attention to the far side of the square. The sound of a multitude, the ragged tramp of feet, the jingle of weapons, the creaking of carts, made the officers walk along the ranks, tautening up their men. The Pachaks moved with the quiet, well-ordered air of men waiting for business. They were ready. They would earn their hire.
Calmly the Chuktar gave a last few orders. I said: “I will stand and fight with you, Chuktar Pola Je-Du, if you will."
“I will it so, prince, and deem it an honor."
No victorious army of irregulars, no raging army of mercenaries broke into the square. A beaten army debouched and began to straggle across the stones. They were wounded, and dusty, wrapped in bloody bandages, exhausted. At their head mounted on a drooping-headed zorca rode the emperor.
This was an army shattered and near-destroyed.
Krahnik-drawn carts brought in the seriously wounded. A few flags drooped here and there, ripped and bloodied standards. A couple of squadrons of totrix cavalry retained their guidons. But for all else these men formed a mere mob.
The emperor rode slowly toward the group of high ranking Pachak officers. At his side, mounted on a pure white zorca, rode Queen Lushfymi. She wore armor. Somehow, it did not look absurd; gilded breastplate, flaunting helmet crowned with the red and yellow of Vallia, a jingling assortment of weapons buckled about her and her mount. I stood, grim-faced, prepared to be exceedingly nasty.
* * *
Eighteen
The Hand of Phu-Si-Yantong
In the emperor's private inner sanctum he placed his goblet of wine on the polished table and banged a fist down on his knee.
“I'm not finished yet, son-in-law, so don't take that tone with me. Queen Lushfymi thinks we have as good a chance as any of defeating these rasts from Hamal."
Only a few of us had gathered here after the shattered remnants of the army had been attended to as best we could. The Pachaks still stood guard. Now Queen Lush, half a dozen of the pallans who remained, Chuktar Wang-Nalgre-Bartong and myself conferred with the emperor. The news was as bad as it could be without being total disaster. In detail all the forces arrayed against the foes of the emperor had been defeated.
“Kov Layco Jhansi will yet bring in a victory, son-in-law. Once he disposes of these scheming rasts of Falinur the rest will see they had better toe the line."
“Falinur?” I forced myself to remain calm.
“Aye! The kovnate you made me give to your so-called friend Seg Segutorio. They have risen like flies and march to war—and where is this precious Seg Segutorio, Kov of Falinur? Skulked off as you do—or does he lead his host against me?"
The emperor's hand curled in a claw about the stem of the goblet. I couldn't tell him that Seg had been hurled back to his home in Erthyrdrin after his baptism in the Sacred Pool—banished like all my friends to their homes. So, instead, I said: “And what of Vomanus? His Kovnate of Vindelka marches with Falinur. They quarrel over Vinnur's Garden, so—"
“Vomanus? That great rascal. Where is he you may well ask."
I judged that many a wight had taken himself off from the capital in these troublesome times; but I felt disappointment with Vomanus. He was a careless fellow, true; but he was half-brother to Delia...
All the time we spoke and argued and planned meaningless plans in the face of the catastrophe, Queen Lush sat upright, toying with her wine, looking at the emperor fixedly. When he glanced fondly at her she would smile. She wore a simple robe of a deep yellow, and not a scrap of jewelry. She looked different from the easy, casual, bitchy minx I had left here.
“Layco Jhansi will subdue the central provinces. The southwest awaits events. The southeast—” Here the emperor looked pointedly at Lykon Crimahan, the Kov of Forli. Him you have met before. Now he was the Pallan of the Treasury, the new pallan, for Pallan Rodway had long ago passed away and the last incumbent suffered from a cleavage where his neck should be.
Forli, often called the Blessed Forli, lies up an eastern tributary of the Great River and extends to the east coast opposite northern Veliadrin. Lykon Crimahan had no love for me. Yet, I believed he hewed to his own faith with the emperor, evil though he might be, and had the welfare of Vallia at heart, even though he had tried to obstruct my plans to build a great aerial fleet. So I waited for Crimahan to speak, ready with bitter, mocking words of my own.
“I can vouch for Forli, majister. As for the rest—they attack my lands. I would be there to fight for them; but—"
“Your duty is here, at the emperor's side,” said Queen Lush.
Her face was bright, her eyes alive with passion. I looked away from her. Her influence, I felt sure, along with many other fighting men, had weakened the emperor, and yet the old devil was full of fight, firm in his resolve to go on with the struggle.
“And, Lykon Crimahan,” I said, “where is the great fleet of skyships I wanted to build? Are your friends in Hamal pleased at your handiwork?"
He would have drawn his rapier and rushed on me; but the emperor put up a hand and bellowed, and protocol saved the fool.
“I am loyal to the emperor and Vallia, prince majister! I sit still under no insults—"
“Still, Kov Lykon. Remember the skyships we do not have when those from Hamal cast down their firepots upon the city."
“Our varters will shoot them down,�
�� said the emperor. He believed it, and he had taken part in the Battle of Jholaix.
“The Northeast is solidly against you—” I began.
“That I know."
“They fly an army here.” I told them what I had learned. Barty had not reached Vondium. Probably his flier had broken down. In these last dark hours that witnessed the death of an empire Barty Vessler must take his own chances. Maybe he had gone home. I did not speak of my daughter Dayra who was called Ros the Claw.
“Trylon Udo. Very well. I have a high tree ready for him. As for this Zankov, he can be dealt with when they get here. I am the emperor, and I understand these foolish plots. By Vox! My emissaries are already hiring thousands of paktuns for me from overseas."
“By the time they arrive all will be over,” said Chuktar Wang-Nalgre-Bartong. He licked his lips. He was a Bowman of Loh and he did not like to say what he had to say. “My men are loyal. They have been selected—"
“Aye,” put in a pallan, fierce and intolerant and with a wounded arm in a sling. “The rest of the rasts took bribes."
The Chuktar was the last in a line of commanders of the Crimson Bowmen. He had been vouched for by Naghan Vanki, the emperor's spymaster. Now he roused himself again to say: “We fought. We fought as Bowmen of Loh can fight. But we were ambushed in detail—do not ask me how for it is a mystery. Our plans were divined. We had no chance. So, I repeat and with sorrow, I see no other course for us than honorable capitulation."
The Vallians glared at him. He was a mercenary, a hyr-paktun with the pakzhan glittering golden at his throat.
Softly, the emperor said: “And Chuktar, when you capitulate in all honor and take service with our foes, what becomes of us?"
“That is the way of the fall of empires,” said Chuktar Bartong. Again he licked his lips. “It is all one in vaol-paol."
The wrangling went on. These men were like children whistling in the dark to keep their courage up. All except the emperor. There was about him a spirit I had not expected. He was far from cowed, disdaining defeat, eager to resume the struggle. A calm and supreme confidence radiated from him.
Captive Scorpio [Dray Prescot #17] Page 19
