Idressin had pieced together with uncanny accuracy the scraps of information he had overheard while sneaking his way among the bivouacked troops and had hit the target unerringly. The white-faced colonel sat with his eyes down for a moment, then looked up and nodded at his tormentor. He beckoned to the soldier on duty at the door and summoned a sergeant, to whom he gave the task of escorting the little band of 'priests' to the wall and letting them through the gate without any special procedures. The sergeant clearly did not understand, but an order was an order and he carried out his task efficiently. He winced visibly as the tutor called out a cheery goodbye and told them loudly to watch out for them in an hour or so on their way back. Then the gate squealed shut behind them and the group stepped out into the mist with Idressin guiding them, lantern aloft.
The Imperial Palace
She would pay for this, the impertinent little brat. Calling him out of his command centre in the middle of an operation. To attend her at a ball! To do what? Dance? General Dettekar almost laughed as he stomped angrily up the marble stairs. Well, if the message hadn't been carrying the Imperial cypher, he would have ignored it. He'd have to speak to Habbakal soon and advise him to curb his granddaughter's willful ways before she got slapped down by one of the Generals and it caused an unnecessary incident. Silly girl. Still shaking his head, a springing brown mane of which he was unreasonably proud, he strode into the glittering anteroom.
It wasn't the princess, it was that fellow Theyn who was waiting for him, looking very serious. Dettekar had no liking for the man. Cold fish. Reputed to have done a remarkable job with Special Forces over the last few years: but then the Imperial Guard despised SF regardless of their efficiency. Dettekar's staff were still vowing revenge for that high-handed execution in For Dendak, even though the operation had been under SF command. The General might have done something similar himself, but from an outsider it was intolerable.
"Well, what is it, colonel? This had better be good. And quick too."
"General Dettekar," Theyn began formally. "You were aware the Mederro leader Geth Shul was being held in the cells here. He escaped sometime within the hour and other political terrorists with him. We don't know how. They are at large somewhere within the Enclave, possibly within the Palace."
Dettekar made to speak, but Theyn plunged straight on: Shkosta had told him to get this done quickly. "These are desperate men, sworn enemies to the Emperor. The princess deemed it necessary to inform you immediately of the possible danger to the Emperor's person." The General's command of the Imperial Guard gave him automatic responsibility for the Emperor's safety. Theyn concluded, "It might be unwise, General, to thwart the rebel attack from outside and ignore the closer threat."
Later he would want to know exactly who let these people escape: right now, Dettekar realized, was not the time for asking questions. Habbakal's chambers were a mere five minutes from the ballroom. He might as well follow the age-old army tradition of covering his backside by making an inspection and doubling the guard; then he could throw the job of catching his own escaped prisoners back to Theyn where it belonged, while he went back about his own business.
"Come with me, colonel." It would be as well to have a witness to his precautions. And afterwards Theyn could damn well tell him more about this escape fiasco and what was being done about it.
The guards in the entrance hall snapped smartly to attention, showing no signs of their reactions to this surprise visit from their commander. The guards in the anteroom were equally alert. The pair posted outside the Emperor's bedchamber were never going to be alert again. The blood from their severed throats had sprayed the expensive carpets and it was still wet: fifteen minutes, maybe less, the General observed from long familiarity with wounds. Without bothering to knock he threw open the doors of the bedchamber, knowing what he would find. Habbakal had been dragged from his bed and stabbed efficiently straight through the heart. Someone had made completely sure, then gone as invisibly as they had come. A job of baffling expertise, the sort of thing the Terrechar were supposed to specialize in. But with rebels on the loose in the Palace and the Emperor murdered, this was not the time to argue the niceties of who had done what.
Theyn was struck dumb, quivering with tension. Strangely Dettekar's first reaction was sadness. A defenceless old man had died here, and not a bad man either. Then abruptly the outside world reasserted itself. The ruler of the Empire had been assassinated. The Leopard Throne was empty. Like it or not, it had fallen to the General to take the first steps in shoring up the whole immense structure in preparation for the upheavals which would follow, while paying due attention of course to his own self-preservation.
As the only surviving member of Habbakal's immediate family, the princess would have to be informed at once. Her status as heir was questionable, so Derravus would have to be brought in and Shuvar as well and a message sent to the Defence Council. He winced mentally at the thought of the sleepless nights to come as the manoeuvering intensified. Not a political animal himself, he accepted that figureheads were as necessary as military force to ensure stability. Figureheads liked to talk, and as the commander of the single most potent force inside Karkor, he would be dragged into their interminable dealings.
With a sigh he ushered Theyn out and closed the door on the corpse which was about to be the source of so much trouble. While listening to Theyn’s nervous volubility with half an ear, plans were already starting to click into place in his head. Security: a new set of guards outside the chambers at once: the current guards would have to be detained and questioned as a matter of course. Retribution: they had to catch these bastards quickly: a sweep of the Palace and word sent to the troops in the Enclave immediately. Then if Theyn could make good on this secret information he was still crowing on about and could tell them where to go, he'd have a whole battalion switched to direct pursuit: it might be nonsense, but no lead was going to be ignored tonight. It might be as well to cooperate with Theyn on this anyway: spread the responsibility and create some kind of alliance, however uneasy: he might need it.
Karkor: Outside the Walls
They had gone scarcely a hundred paces beyond the Enclave wall, when the tutor stopped. Motioning them to crouch down, he murmured, "Close the lantern and stay here. There's a small party about fifty paces ahead of us. The rest are a little further on. They've got bows, so don't make a sound till I come back." With that he was gone, leaving his companions hunched down on the coarse wet grass, straining to see or hear anything in the fog around them. In spite of their watchfulness, they were startled by his silent return a few minutes later, accompanied, as they discovered when they relit the lantern, by a tall young man with a brown robe and a ready smile.
With the tutor once more in the lead, they scrambled up over a small knoll and on the back slope came on the main party, who had already been told of their approach. Idressin quickly explained the whole situation in Mederro to the half dozen senior men among the rebels and was relieved to find that there were no suicidal maniacs amongst them.
They had in fact reached the spur the previous night and during the day they had observed a suspiciously large number of people moving about inside the Enclave. When they had seen them laying down long white ropes right across the area, their initial guess at preparations for some kind of ceremonial parade gave way to the probability that they were guidelines for moving a large number of troops at night.
"We half expected a trap. Imperial Guards though, that’s a nasty surprise," the group commander said softly. "Good news that Sammar's out. But it still leaves us with the problem of getting away from here. From what you say the army'll be blocking the top end of this spur by now, the way we came in. The north side's impassable. The south's not quite so steep, but our scouts say an army unit moved into the area below the cliffs yesterday evening, so that door's closed too. We were considering our options when you arrived and there are no easy choices."
"You have no choice" Idressin said flatly. "You must d
escend the north side."
"Like your prisoner here was supposed to?" The commander chuckled good-humouredly. "We scouted those cliffs for days before we came up here. Even the gullies are vertical for hundreds of feet and the main cliff must fall a thousand. We have a rope with us, but nothing like that."
"Descending the cliff's not the problem. I know the way, and we have ropes with us too. But we need to be off the rocks before the soldiers above us know what we're doing and I'm not sure how long this mist will hold once the sun gets up."
The commander was not a military man by inclination or training and was well used to making quick and unusual decisions. He looked long and hard at Idressin, then smiled and said, "Alright, my friend. We'll do it. Our three options were bad, worse and terrible. You've suggested we try the impossible instead. Why not?"
Idressin left the commander to organise his men, emphasising more than ever the need for complete quiet, while he himself and Berin uncoiled the ropes from around their bodies. By the time they moved off in a long file, the mist was definitely lightening about them in the dawn and they could see ten paces or so already. They traversed a steepening slope for half an hour and they were becoming distinctly aware of the dark void dropping off on their left, when the tutor held up his hand to halt the column. He beckoned three of the Mederros forward with him, took all the ropes and disappeared straight down the steep ledges.
The long wait which followed did nothing to ease Tariska's dread of the unseen depths below. She had never been particularly scared of heights, but there was something peculiarly unnerving about knowing that the mist to their left was empty, like a room without a floor. She couldn't see it, so she couldn't adjust to it either.
At last one of the Mederros returned alone and told them to follow. Word was passed back along the line to take extreme care not to dislodge stones or pebbles. Danger to those below was as serious a hazard as the noise. At a tortuously slow pace they clambered down from ledge to ledge until it seemed they could go no further; the outer edge of the lowest ledge fell sheer into the blackness below. The rebel led them carefully along the narrowing gangway which curved round to the right and took them deep into the recesses of a gully whose dripping black walls closed chilly about them. Tariska was heartened to see the tutor waiting for them in this forbidding spot, until she reached his side and saw the thin rope hanging down the vertical slit below him.
"The first two have gone down already. One of them will be waiting for you at the next ledge. He'll show you where to go. Off you go, Berin, there's no time to waste."
With studied confidence Berin picked up the rope which was fastened around a stout young tree and swung down hand over hand into the darkness, his feet braced against the rock.
"Go on, Tikka," Idressin urged as soon as Berin disappeared. "The rope'll hold more than one at once." Tariska was faced with the moment she would much rather have put off. "It's not so bad. It gets less steep lower down. Just keep going nice and steady. Don't stop to think about it, keep your feet against the rock, and don't slide or you could burn your hands. Off you go. Some of these southern lads may be pretty nervous too, so show them how it's done."
The old tricks are still the best. Put on her mettle by the tutor's last words, Tariska went off neatly down the rope, determined not to make a fool of herself in front of the watching Mederros. It was only when she had descended a hundred feet or so and realised that she was quite alone that she felt a moment of fright. She rested with her feet on a small ledge and peered down the plunging chasm. Nothing. Just the rope disappearing into the murk twenty feet below her. Her legs began to tremble and she clutched the rope tightly and looked up. Also nothing except wet black rock and her slender lifeline. Then abruptly there was a slight scuffling noise and a pair of boots materialised out of the mist. Without waiting she gritted her teeth stepped off her ledge and set off down. In no time at all she found herself on a wide ledge next to Berin who gave her a congratulatory hug.
"Well done, Tikka," he whispered. He gestured at the grinning Mederro next to him. "He says the next bit's much the same. Take a rest while I get out of the way."
She was about to reply tartly that she didn't need a rest, when she realised that she was still trembling and her heart was beating wildly. 'Come on, Tariska, grow up' she thought to herself, as she sat down wedged safely behind a sturdy sapling. A quick succession of rebels dropped onto the ledge and were directed to the next rope. It was a strange scene which reminded her more of a playground than anything else, with the same children running round to take turn after turn. After a few minutes she felt calm again and her heart had probably slowed down as much as it was going to. She was also growing uneasy at the muffled oaths that rose from below shortly after each Mederro had launched himself off onto the next section. Now was the time to go, before she started imagining all sorts of problems.
Without letting herself think about it she stepped over to the rope, took a deep breath and launched off again. 'Nice and steady, Tariska,' she kept saying to herself as if coaxing a child. 'That's good. That's good.' She was just settling into a nice rhythm when she lowered herself straight into a freezing jet of water which played down into the gully at that point. She gasped at the shock and hurried down, only to find the infuriating shower bath followed her every move. After a little flash of anger she began to laugh as the icy stream poured down her neck and soaked right down to fill up her shoes. The giggles lasted until she was well clear of the water and hopefully well down the rope.
She looked down, searching for her landing place, and froze. Below her the mists had thinned and parted. Instead of the comforting flat ground she was expecting at the base of this infernal gully, all she could see was Berin's face staring up at her from a tiny ledge on the edge of an enormous drop. Dizzyingly far below him the slope reappeared where screes ran out into grass and bushes.
Panting she dragged her gaze back to the rock in front of her nose and by sheer force of will unclamped one hand after the other to continue her descent. She didn't dare look round again and ended by lowering herself comically into a sitting position on a wide quartz ledge hidden from above by an overhanging bulge. Berin himself was eyeing her with some amusement from his tiny perch right out on the edge of space, from which he could get an uninterrupted view upwards.
There was no one else in sight. Where had the people ahead of her vanished to? She was giving her shaky limbs time to recover when she saw Berin point the next rebel to the right deep into the gloomy recesses of the gully and realised that she didn't have to go out to face the drop that lurked at Berin's heels. Positively lighthearted with relief she got up and followed the next Mederro to the back of the ledge, which angled sharply downwards as it narrowed and penetrated deep into the mountain. Just when it was becoming completely dark there was a muttered conversation and the man in front of her disappeared. She found herself face to face with another rebel who pointed her downwards through a hole in the floor, which despite her fears led easily down and then out along a sloping passage to the bed of the gully. How different it all looked now. Although it was still steep, the gully below was mostly scree and on each side grassy ledges and trees interrupted the fall of the cliff every few feet. She could even see a flock of goats browsing on the ledges not far below them, ignoring the intruders from above.
Suddenly she grasped what she was seeing. The mist was clearing fast and that was sunshine a mile or two ahead out of the mountain's shadow. There were pathetically few figures picking their way down the ledges below her; many would be still on their way, and most would still be with Idressin at the top. She shivered at the thought of the enemy finding the top of the rope while they were descending, then pushed the idea away; it didn't bear thinking about.
Two hours later she was sitting beside Berin on blessedly level ground in the shelter of some bushes and her clothes were starting to dry in the sun. It appeared that their luck had held. Because they knew where to look, they could make out the tiny figures
at the top of the gully, waiting to descend. The numbers had dwindled to a mere handful now and still there were no signs of army interference, although the last of the mist had burned off an hour ago.
A faint shout made all the spectators in the thickets peer upwards anxiously. The whole operation had been carried out so quietly up till now. Noise could spoil everything. What they saw brought several of them to their feet in alarm, until their companions pulled them down again. Up to the left where the spur began to rise to join the mountain behind, a couple of brightly coloured specks were visible on the skyline. There were more shouts as more figures joined them, then they all vanished only to reappear five minutes later further along the crest and closer to the top of the gully.
A buzz of excited comment ran through the waiting crowd, until silence was restored by a few sharp commands. The young pair sat rigid, their eyes locked on the crag where their friends would be busy, unaware of the danger approaching from above. There appeared to be only three or four people left at the top of the ropes, but they were moving so slowly, while the patrol was visible now, scouting rapidly along the top of the cliff.
The soldiers came to the head of the gully and Berin watched unbelieving as they passed right by, until he remembered the overhung recess from which they had started down. The respite was short-lived. The patrol could see the figures descending the screes far below, and returned to the gully as the line of descent. Had Idressin got clear? It was impossible to be sure of seeing a single dark figure against the black rock, but there were shouts of triumph as the red uniforms of the soldiers swarmed into the small niche. Moments later the youth saw to his horror the long white line of the rope go snaking down into space before falling out of sight into the confines of the gully. They had cut the rope.
The Tears of Sisme Page 73
