“What?” Rahan exclaimed with startling emotion. “Oh, sir, I am so terribly sorry to hear it. Her writing was marvelous. What a terrible loss for Zoviya, and for you, sir. My sincerest condolences.”
Was Rahan crying? He wiped the corner of his eye, and I looked on in shock. Harod seemed to be tearing up as well.
“Shut up, Rahan,” Harod said.
Arilas Kiel said up to our chairman. “I call this man Rahan Yentif as well.”
The Arilas of Havish rose quick and declared, “The Royal Ludoq call him Rahan, also, and move for a vote.”
“Seconded,” Lukan Vlek shouted over Bendent’s renewed protests.
“The Council will vote,” Chairman Hooak said, banged the gavel like a strike of lightning, and said, “Thanin votes, no.”
The frenzied room was shocked back into silence.
Treachery. We were surrounded by snakes.
Aldus was trying to unseat the Yentif altogether. If Rahan was not crowned, the Yentif rule would be declared unfit and the Council would choose a different royal family. He wanted it all for himself.
“Abodeen, how do you vote?” he asked, and his lap dog voted no instantly. Around the circle it went, but I already knew how it would end.
The East was with us: Khrim, Aneth, Dahar, and Havish.
The south voted, no: Yudyith, Berm, Urmand, Kuet, and Eril.
That was seven no votes, and Harod Serm of Aderan was certain to—
Harod sat silently. The Council looked to him, and excitement gripped me.
Aldus said to Harod, “I will see all of Aderan’s debts forgiven.”
The disfigured slaver scowled. He’d been promised wealth before. He looked to Rahan who said, “I will see every play Taima ever wrote performed for all the world to see.”
The domo were not so willing this time to charge out with their canes.
“The Serm of Aderan votes, eyy,” Harod said and bowed his head toward Rahan.
“Yes!” shouted Lukan Vlek the next instant.
“Trace votes, eyy!” cried Regent Oklas.
Rahan turned to me and raised an eyebrow. It took me a moment to realize that the deciding vote was mine. Bendent was hyperventilating, and in the pit below Yarik looked around as if expecting some additional help to arrive.
“Enhedu votes, eyy,” I said and took a knee. “All hail Rahan Yentif, Exaltier of Zoviya.”
The ring of arilas, domos, and guardsmen followed me down—all save Bendent and the unsettled trio in the pit. Yarik was whispering hotly to General Bellion. The Sten was leaning to one side and tapped his robes as if searching for a flask.
“He’s drunk,” I whispered to Rahan.
My brother did not miss a beat. “Grand Prelate,” he called down with poise I could not have managed at that moment. “The Council has found me fit to continue the Yentif rule. How do you find me?”
The puppet had one line left to give, and before Yarik could stop him, he said what he’d been brought to say. “I declare with Bayen’s voice that you are Exaltier—the embodiment of Bayen’s will and bearer of His sword.”
Rahan was already moving. He pulled the oversized satchel from beneath the desk and threw it at the nearest domo. “A pennant bearing my name, sir. Replace my father’s atop the Chancellery.”
The domo bowed crisply and started toward the door behind the podium.
“Stop him,” Bendent shouted to the Hemari lieutenant guarding the door. The domo and everyone else came to a halt.
The lieutenant and a troop of Hemari guarded the door. All of the arilas were at their desks. Our personal guards were on station behind us, and the domo were at their writing desks upon the tier farther back. The only man out of place was the domo with the satchel. The men of the North and East looked ready for blood. My sword hung upon my hip, and Rahan’s war hammer was upon him. Chairman Hooak was unarmed.
“Reconsider your words, Arilas Bendent Yentif,” Rahan said and turned to the Hemari general below. “Rally the Hemari, General Bellion. Since their founding, the bluecoats have taken order from the Exaltier and his sons alone. I call upon you to maintain the honor and history of the Hemari. I call upon you to secure Bessradi in my name.”
The general looked from Arilas Bendent to his arilas cousin from Eril. “No,” was all the general said, and a great many things happened at once.
The Hemari lieutenant cut down the domo with the satchel. Aldus Hooak fled toward his desk, yelling at the men from Abodeen and Khrim to take up arms. Rahan pointed the arilas of the East at Bendent, while the men of Trace, Enhedu, and Heneur collapsed around him. The domos fled into the corners of the chamber, and Yarik made for the exit. I drew my rapier and waited for an order from my Exaltier.
The Ludoq arilas was the swiftest man in the room. Screaming like a vengeful ghost, he ran ahead of his men, leapt Urmand’s desk, and punched his sword straight through Bendent’s chest. He was left to face Bendent’s three guards alone while the men of Aneth and Dahar collided with those from Yudyith and Berm.
“Hemari, rally,” Rahan called to the troop standing over the dead domo, but it was too late. They charged us. My Chaukai and the nine guards of the northern arilas met them in a fury of bodies and voices. The long spike atop Captain Horace’s poleaxe punched through the shoulder of the Hemari lieutenant and the steel-plated Chaukai to his right and left met the charge head-on. Two bluecoats fell, and men of the North traded blows with the rest.
“Brother,” Rahan said, seized my arm, and pointed back south. “Bar the doors.”
Yarik had opened the doors to the foyer, and Hurdu and Hemari poured into the pit and up the stairs. Above them, all the men of Yudyith and Berm were dead, and the Arilas of Havish was chasing the last man from Urmand around the south side of the circle toward the trio of desks for Kuet, Aderan, and Eril. Arilas Harod Serm and his men were in a petty shouting match with the Bellion men from Eril and their neighbors from Kuet.
I charged toward them and the doors behind them. Arilas Vlek and General Oklas were right behind me.
The men from Eril looked from us to the madman from Havish who was pulling his sword from the back of Bendent’s last guard, and they fled down the stairs. The men from Kuet were not far behind them. Harod Serm could not decide which way to go. He and his three guards stood and watched while I raced passed them to the open doors of the stairway. Hurdu and Hemari were just rounding the landing below them.
“Harod,” I called as I slammed the doors shut. “The desk!”
Lukan Vlek was standing there next to Harod Serm then, and the old enemies glared at each other.
“You can kiss later,” I said. “Now get that desk over here.”
The first Hurdu slammed against the doors, and I was nearly thrown off. General Oklas got his shoulder into the doors as well. The blood-spattered Ludoq madman arrived as the Hurdu and Hemari slammed into the door a second time. Both doors pushed halfway open. The Ludoq man screamed again as he loved to do and stabbed again and again into the mass of yellow and blue that pushed upon the doors. Men screamed, and the doors slammed closed.
“Make way!” Lukan bellowed, and we dove clear before he and Harod slammed the top of the heavy desk against the doors. Its edge bit into the carpeting, and the next charge of the Hurdu and Hemari against it was stopped cold.
Back on the north side of the chamber, Horace and our guards had backed the last four Hemari against the wall. Rahan had found a spear to go with his war hammer and was getting ready to throw it at someone below. Hurdu filled the pit. The men of the East surprised them by throwing a pair of the heavy desks over the side.
Harod and Lukan tossed a second desk against the doors, and I led them and the rest back toward Rahan as he threw his heavy spear at General Bellion. The general pulled the Sten in front of it, and the shaft struck the prelate above the hip and tore through his bowels. He spun as he fell and sprayed the Bellion man with blood. The general fled.
Horace finished his work, and the men of the Wes
t, North, and East converged toward the podium.
“Ludoq, Serm,” Rahan said to them, “are you with me?”
Harod nodded, and the Havishon madman held up his bloody sword.
Rahan said to Aldus, “An excellent play, Chairman. I would have tried the same. Are you with me?”
Aldus nodded, happy that his treachery had been forgiven. There was little doubt what Yarik would have done to him. “Now what?” he asked. “We are alive, but trapped. What are we, forty men?”
Rahan said nothing for a long moment, working to hide his anger and frustration. He’d calculated everything—had planned and schemed in Enhedu those long seasons to get us to that Council chamber. He’d walked me into their trap on purpose. Everything had depended upon the Hemari, but they were not the same men who had guarded us while we were children. They had changed, and we were trapped.
“The pennant,” I said as the Hurdu crashed into the door with redoubled strength. “Where was the domo going with it?”
Rahan pointed at one of the men huddled in the corner of the chamber. “You there. Your Exaltier needs you.” The man was frozen in place, but the trio next to him rushed forward and took a knee. “Gather up my pennant, gentlemen. We must see it raised.”
We followed the domos through the door behind the podium, on through simple offices, and out onto a balcony. A few men stayed behind to pile the furniture against the office doors.
I followed Ryat out into the warm sun that bathed the rectangle of balcony. Its stone rail was broken only by the narrow stairways at either end that made their way down along the walls of the Chancellery before switching back beneath us. Our forty filled the space, and I took in the view below.
It was a striking sight. The Treasury Keep rose directly opposite the balcony on the far side of the road and the river. It filled the island there, and between the island and the road, a towering barbican rose out of the river. The barbican’s drawbridge was up, the keep flew Parsatayn’s pennant, and his private army manned the walls. On the far side of the river were the estates of Bessradi’s elite, and east of them rose the walls of the Priests’ Quarter and the tall spire of Tanayon Cathedral.
Soma’s ships and the wharf were out of sight to our left behind the Chancellery.
A clattering of hooves upon the road drew my eyes. A column of Hurdu rounded the corner.
“Go,” Rahan said behind me, and the collection of domos started climbing a ladder I’d not seen. It reached up the side of the Chancellery to the tall pennant house above. It was a long climb.
“Rahan,” I said. “The Hurdu are surrounding us.”
“The pennant must go up,” he said.
“Brother, even if the whole city rallies to you, we cannot defend this place. We must flee—find a boat along the Grand Mhedhil. Something.” But it was too late. The swift Hurdu would reach us long before we could get east into the market’s twisted streets. I looked down into the water. “Can you swim?”
“Exaltier,” cried one of the domos from above. He was hazarding his grip upon the ladder to point north. “A ship,” he said. “A ship attacks the treasury.”
We saw it then, just over the top of the keep—the tall pair of masts. It was the Whittle, and as we watched, greencoats began to appear upon the walls and towers of the keep.
Rahan and I shouted and waved madly to get their attention. Soma was there, already moving with men toward the barbican.
“The drawbridge,” I shouted and pointed. She ignored me, already on her way there.
Rahan ran down the stairs two at a time, and all but the domos going up the ladder raced to follow him. We ran out onto the wide and rocky road between the Chancellery and the river. It was a long drop into the water there, and the barbican loomed over us. The drawbridge was still up.
The Hurdu had their lances, and their colonel signaled a charge. They meant to ride us down. Horace and the Chaukai got in front of us, but it was three against hundreds. The rest of us were useless—not a spear nor a shield to be found.
Parsatayn’s pennants were starting to come down from the keep’s towers, and from the barbican we could hear the call and cry of battle.
Soma would not get the barbican’s drawbridge down in time.
“Back up the stairs,” I said and took hold of my stubborn brother.
Horace began to sing. He tossed a rag onto the ground, and it caught fire. His song swelled and reached the short distance down the road. A red light shown around the Hurdu colonel’s horse before it fell and flung the officer to the road with a hard crash of metal. My captain’s magic moved on to another, a third, and a fourth. Each horse collapsed, and the confusion across the forward edge of their charge stymied the rest. Horace fell, and Rahan rushed to his side.
An arrow stabbed across the river and struck one of the Hurdu. Three more arrows followed from the top of the barbican, and the rattle of chains signaled Soma’s success. More arrows followed, and the heavy Chaukai shafts punctured man and horse alike. The Hurdu turned and fled back down the road as if they’d faced Chaukai arrows before.
The Ludoq arilas grabbed my shoulder. “It was you,” he said with great and unreadable emotion.
I didn’t know how to reply. A stab of his longsword seemed as likely as a great hug.
“The longbows,” he said and pointed. “Sahin Ludoq, may Lord Bayen keep him, he had forty such bows. Was in it Enhedu that the Ludoq had hidden themselves away, same as Rahan? The men of Enhedu are a hospitable people, Barok Yentif, and you are quite a bowyer. You smile. I can tell it. It was you.”
I was happy to let Sahin die a royal man of Havish. His sister would not be happy with me for propping up the lie, but that was for another day. I put my finger to my lips. “Shh.”
The arilas laughed joyously and wrapped me in a ferocious hug that cracked my back and left me smeared with blood.
A cheer rose. I looked up at the Chancellery with the rest. Vall’s pennant was down, and in its place flew Rahan’s name. The letters were stark, and I could almost hear the city’s shock.
The barbican drawbridge came down.
Back down the road, the fallen horses began to rise as though they had only been resting, and farther down the road the Hurdu had rallied. Another charge was imminent.
We followed Rahan across and up to the top of the barbican. We were treated to a view of the angry Hurdu and the effects of Chaukai arrows upon them.
“Order,” Rahan called. “Archers, shift fire. The ladder. The ladder.”
Dozens of Hemari and Hurdu were upon the balcony. Several had started up toward the pennant. They’d gotten through our barricades. The domos trapped above were quite beside themselves.
The Chaukai bows found the range, and one Hemari after another fell. The pennant remained.
The men cheered, but Rahan called sharply for silence. “Never cheer the fall of a Hemari,” he said. “Those men are your brothers, and I will have them back. Never forget it.”
Soma made her way up, and Rahan and I rushed toward her like a couple of school boys. We caught ourselves before the embracement of a hug. The three of us managed proper salutes.
She pointed at the flag flying above the Chancellery. “Rahan? When did he show himself?”
I pointed at him, and the look of astonishment on Soma’s face was equal to Rahan’s. He asked her, “You took the treasury. How?”
I had questions of my own, but all three of us yelled in surprise and reached for weapons as we saw the pair moving up behind her. It was Dekay and a thing—a man once, perhaps, but no more. Furstundish the Senior and his men were behind them upon the stairs.
“Is that Sikhek?” I asked and aimed my sword at him, but the question went unanswered.
A horrible pale of darkness gripped me. I tried to stab Sikhek in the head before his magic took me, but my body was stolen.
The earth shook, and I despaired.
80
Madam Dia Yentif
Gernilqwa Furstundish
The palisade was impressive. It reached from the top of the ridge far off to the east and all the way down to Enhedu’s west coast. The full weight of Gern’s division rested on the near side in a proper-looking camp. The wall hid the river and our visitors on the far side.
Leger had made the Chaukai into machines. They had built all of it in just six days.
I met Gern near the closed gates. The scent of fresh bread caught my attention. “Are you baking?”
“A loaf of fresh bread for every man seemed as good a greeting as any,” he said. “I have a catch of yellowtail arriving tomorrow at the river’s mouth.”
“A fine greeting, Captain. What made you think to do it?”
“Did she yell at you, too?” he asked quietly.
I nodded.
The gates opened briefly, and Colonel Bohn joined us. “They are settling in, sir. No one has come forward yet.”
Gern led us atop the gatehouse. The view across the sea of men on the far side stole my smile. Invaders was not the right word for them, but I could find no happy words to describe them, either. “Something is wrong.”
“What do you see?”
“I’m not sure … don’t they seem bored to you?” I asked. “Of all the thousands we’ve invited to Enhedu, have you ever seen such disinterested people? All of them. Look.”
It was plain. The huge groups that gathered around the cookfires were half asleep. They stared at the grass and poked at their food. None looked up at the bright peak of the mountains or the rolls of dazzling green hills.
“Here comes someone,” Bohn said.
A man walked toward us down the center of the rough-hewn road. None of the rest bothered to looked at him.
“Gern, archers,” I said. “Quickly.”
The captain sent Bohn down with orders, and the men began to form ranks behind the wall. Others climbed the palisade with bows at the ready.
“Is there a Hessier out there, do you think?” Gern asked.
“Whatever it is, 6,000 arrows are too many to dodge. Let’s go greet this man.”
Tanayon Born Page 8
