The Silver Crown

by Joel Rosenberg

"Here we go," Karl said.

  Chak sucked air through his teeth; Walter brought his shotgun up.

  Ahead, the road forked. In the dark, three boxy wagons stood around the campfire. While more than a dozen slept under their blankets, ten grizzled men sat around the fire, drinking and talking. Beyond them, several others stood over a huge blanket on which lay the moaning forms of the two women. The men called mocking words of encouragement to their friends while waiting their own turns.

  Walter turned to beckon to the dwarves. With all the noise from the camp, they wouldn't be noticed for the next few seconds. "Ready when you are," he whispered, his voice faltering momentarily.

  Chak brought his shotgun up to his shoulder.

  Karl's hand grew tight around the crossbow's stock. He raised it to his shoulder, curled his fingers around the trigger as he took aim at the nearest of the slavers around the campfire, and squeezed.

  Fffft! The slaver lunged forward, clutching at the feathers that just barely projected from his chest.

  The crack of Chak's shotgun split the night. Three of the slavers screamed in pain as they caught some of the scattering pellets; a fourth clapped both hands to what had been a face.

  As the other slavers leaped to their feet, Karl dropped the crossbow to one side, transferred the shotgun to his right hand, braced it against his hip, and fired.

  Another man lunged for a rifle, but the blast from Slovotsky's shotgun opened his belly as though it were an overripe melon; he fell to the grass, vomit pouring from his mouth in a bloody torrent.

  Others dashed across the meadow, running for the road. Chak raised a pistol and sighted down his arm.

  "No!" Karl shouted. "Leave them to the two-guns—follow me." He dropped the empty shotgun and sprinted for the blankets, snatching his pistols from his belt and cocking them.

  The slavers were beginning to react to the attack. Several of them made a mad dash for the nearest of the boxy wagons, only to be cut down by two quick volleys of gunfire.

  Peill's signal rocket screamed into the night.

  "Down!" Karl threw an arm across his eyes and looked away as it exploded above the meadow, a white flash that momentarily dazzled his eyes.

  The nine slavers around Karl, Chak, and Walter hadn't been prepared for it. They screamed, blinded, if only for a few moments.

  One of the slavers, clad only in his leather tunic, was pawing around the ground for his sword. Karl kicked him in the face, bones crunching beneath his boot. He turned to shoot another who was trying to bring an unsteady rifle to bear on Chak. With his left-hand pistol, he quickly gutshot a third, then reached over his shoulder to draw his sword as a blocky man, his teeth bared in a snarl, lunged for him, a foot-long dagger clutched tightly in his white-knuckled fingers.

  Karl's sword was barely out of its scabbard when a heavy mass slammed into his back, a hairy arm snaking around his throat.

  There wasn't time to think about it. He could deal either with the enemy clinging to his back or with the one charging from the front.

  Instinct took over. Ignoring the slaver on his back, he parried the other's knife with the flat of his blade, then thrust the point of his sword into the knife wielder's throat, twisting savagely as he pulled the blade back.

  Crack! Impact shook the slaver on Karl's back as the pistol shot rang out. The slaver shuddered, and the arm around Karl's throat went limp. Karl grabbed the thick wrist, spun, and twisted, bringing his knee up into the man's chin, bone shattering like glass.

  Two yards away, Chak favored him with a brief smile as he dropped his smoking pistol to the ground, then drew his falchion to parry the attack of another slaver.

  Walter's scimitar clanged against the ninth slaver's steel. It looked as though Walter could handle the man, but it didn't occur to Karl to play fair: he skewered Walter's opponent through the kidney, then spun around into a crouch.

  Chak's opponent was down, clutching at a wounded arm. The dark little man didn't waste any more time on the slaver; he drew his remaining pistol and shot him in the chest.

  With a clatter of hooves, Tennetty's horsemen galloped through the meadow, sending the last of the uninjured slavers into flight. Therol detached himself from the rest of the group, leaping off his horse to dispense healing draughts to two injured dwarves, the only casualties on Karl's side. So far.

  Karl breathed a sigh. It was over for him, at least for now. Peill's and Gwellin's squads had knocked down all of their targets, and the now combined squad was working its way through the scattered bodies, administering deathblows to the wounded.

  Down the road, shots echoed, horses whinnied, and men screamed.

  "Karl!" Gwellin called out, standing over the body of a slaver, a bloody battleaxe in his hands. "Do you want us to—"

  "No. Not until the shots die down." Killing the rest was the job of the two-guns squad and Tennetty's horsemen, not Gwellin's dwarves or Peill's squad. For them, the fight was over. Unmounted men rushing the slavers from behind would risk being mistaken for slavers in the darkness. Karl had lost far too many of his warriors in his time, but not one had been killed by friendly fire, and he didn't intend that any ever should.

  A low moan from the ground drew Karl's attention. The half-naked slaver that Karl had kicked in the face was starting to move, holding the shattered remnants of his jaw together.

  Over his cupped, blood-dripping hands, the man's eyes grew wide as Karl approached him.

  "Karl," Walter snapped. "We want another live one, remember?"

  Karl kicked the man in the shoulder, bowling him over, then stooped to bring the slaver's hands behind his back and tie them tightly with a leather thong from his pouch.

  "Therol, check the wagons for healing draughts, and treat this one. A few drops from every bottle, eh?" It was always necessary to test captured healing draughts on someone expendable; two years before, Karl had lost one of his warriors to what had looked to be a bottle of Healing Hand Society draughts, but had actually been poison.

  "Done," Therol called back. "And how about you?"

  "Me?"

  "Don't talk about it, Therol," Chak shouted. "Just get your ass over here. Karl's hurt."

  "Chak, I'm fine."

  "Right." Slovotsky snorted. "Sure you are." Walter's hand slipped down Karl's back. When he brought it in front of Karl's face, blood dripped from the fingers.

  "It's not too bad, Karl. Just a nick—but you'd better get it healed before your adrenaline level drops and it starts to hurt you."

  What had been a dim, distant pain suddenly cut across his back like a whip. He gasped, then willed himself to ignore it. There's no danger. Therol will have me healed up in a minute. Pain was just a biologically programmed warning of danger. There wasn't any danger here, so the pain should go away. It was logical, but it didn't help.

  It was best to keep busy, try to keep his mind off the pain. "Chak, you and Gwellin's people check out the wagons—except for the wizard's wagon. Just put a guard on that one and leave it alone."

  "Do you think there's anyone in there?"

  "I don't know, so assume that there is."

  "I was just asking." Chak sniffed. "I have done this before."

  "Sorry. Put it down to nerves."

  "Yes, Karl." Chak ran off, calling for Gwellin.

  Every motion making the wound on his back cry out in agony, he turned to face the two women huddling in the blankets. He took a step toward the nearest one, a blonde, her almond eyes and high cheekbones betraying a mixed heritage, with forebears from both the Kathard and the Middle Lands.

  "No." Her eyes grew wide. "You're Karl Cullinane. Don't kill me, please. Please. I'll do anything you want. I'm very good, really I am. Please—"

  "Ta havath." Easy. Karl tried to smile reassuringly. "T'rar ammalli." I'm a friend.

  Therol arrived with the bottle of healing draughts and slopped some of the icy liquid on Karl's back. As always, the pain vanished as though it had never been. He worked his arms for a moment, relishing th
e comfort.

  The blonde was still pleading with him. "Please don't hurt me. Please . . ."

  Damn.

  "Those bastards." Slovotsky shook his head. "Again?"

  "Yeah."

  Slovotsky held out a hand; Karl exchanged his saber for two of Slovotsky's knives.

  The women edged away from him as he slowly approached, holding the knives out, offering them the hilts.

  "Everything you've been told is a lie. I'm not going to kill you. I'm not going to hurt you—you're free, as of now." It was a calculated gamble, but one that hadn't yet failed, although he still had a scar on his right cheek from the time that it came close to failing.

  The blonde took the proffered knife, holding it awkwardly at arm's length. The brunette mimicked her.

  "Karl," Walter said in English, his voice pitched low, "either I've been away from Kirah too long, or both these ladies are gorgeous."

  "Ta havath," he murmured. "So what if they are?" With the way they were huddled in their blankets, he couldn't see much of them, but what he could see looked good.

  Awfully good, which was privately embarrassing. It wasn't just that he intended to remain faithful to Andy-Andy—he should have been feeling only sympathy for these two poor wretches, not noticing the swell of a full breast or the smoothness of a shapely thigh.

  He switched back to Erendra. "Nobody's going to touch you. We'll get some clothes for you in a little while, just as soon as things settle down."

  "So," Slovotsky continued in English, "we're looking at prime stuff, here. I could see the slavers taking some culls out of Pandathaway, but these two would go for a hell of a lot of money there. Or anywhere else."

  Slovotsky was right, of course. As usual. But what did it mean?

  The pounding of a horse's hooves spun Karl around, his hand reaching for the hilt of a sword that wasn't there.

  It was only Tennetty. She slipped from Pirate's back, her face creased in a broad smile. "Everything's fine, Karl," she said. "Three casualties on our side."

  "How bad?"

  "I said that everything's fine. Wellem was the worst. He caught a round in the gut, but we got the draughts into him in plenty of time. Mm, I got a capture, too." She eyed the slaver that Therol was treating. "That makes three, yes?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. So—"

  "Would you take care of the women, first? Later there'll be plenty of time to stick a knife in these bastards and get them to talk."

  "Agreed. But I'll take care of the women my way, since we have a spare slaver. Unless you're really set on stopping me?" Tennetty carefully kept her hand away from her swordhilt. "I'm asking nicely, aren't I?"

  Karl shrugged. "Go ahead."

  She took a shrouded lantern down from her saddle and slipped the baffles, then elbowed Therol out of the way and urged the slaver to follow her into the woods by the simple expedient of grabbing the man by his hair and pulling him to his feet.

  "Follow me," she ordered the two women, smiling gently. "And bring your knives. Relax—this is the best thing in the world for you." The slaver safely in hand, she led the two women into the woods, her voice trailing off in the distance. "Now, you can take your time with him, but Karl doesn't like it, so it'd be better if you start with . . ."

  Slovotsky started to object, but Karl quelled him with a sudden chopping gesture.

  "She's been there, Walter. And we haven't."

  "I don't have to like it. I don't have to like any of it, and I don't, Karl. I've gotten used to killing, but—"

  "No, you don't have to like it." Karl shrugged. "What you have to do is not let it get to you," he said, looking Walter square in the face as he forced himself not to shudder at the screams coming from the woods. "Let's check out the wagons."

  "Right."

  * * *

  "So?" Walter asked, squatting in front of the blanket Karl had spread on the grass. "What do you make of all this?"

  "Trouble." Karl stood and stretched, squinting at the noon sun. He rubbed the back of his aching neck and sighed, then held out his hand for the waterbag.

  Walter tossed it to him. Karl drank deeply, then splashed some on his face before recorking the bag and handing it back.

  Walter uncorked it and took a sip. "Speaking of trouble, not only did I find three bottles of dragonbane extract in one of the wagons, but Daherrin has been checking out their crossbow bolts. A lot of them seem to be absolutely coated with the stuff. Looks like the slavers are still interested in offing Ellegon."

  That wasn't surprising: Ellegon was awfully useful for the Home forces to have around.

  "Are you sure you burned it all?" Karl asked. Once thoroughly burned, dragonbane was every bit as harmless to Ellegon as burned pollen would be to a pollen-sensitive human, no matter how serious his allergy.

  "Of course. Dumped the bottles in the hottest part of the fire; threw in every suspicious bolt."

  Karl looked over to the slavers' campfire, now barely smoldering. "Have Daherrin build up the fire, just to be sure."

  "Right."

  Karl looked around. The aftermath of the battle wasn't pretty. It never was. But it had, in its own gruesome way, become almost routine.

  Just beyond the campfire, two piles of bodies lay, gathering flies. The smaller pile was a haphazard arrangement of fully clothed slavers; it continued to shrink as Daherrin and two assistants frisked the bodies, reclaiming both valuables and whatever clothing was sufficiently unbloodied to be usable, then stacking the corpses like cordwood.

  By Karl's orders, the wizard's wagon had been left completely alone. There hadn't been any complaint; wizards had been known to leave hidden glyphs.

  While the two remaining wagons had been left intact, their contents had been unpacked, sorted, inventoried, and repacked. Peill had removed the inlaid brass wave-and-chain insignia of the Pandathaway Slavers' Guild from the wagons' sides and propped up the plaques facing the road.

  Standard operating procedure—slavers were always left for the vultures, along with some means for passersby to identify them as slavers. It was important that everyone know that only slavers had to worry about unprovoked attack by the Home forces; it took most of the steam out of pursuit by the locals.

  "Well?" Walter raised an eyebrow. "What have we got?"

  "A puzzle. I don't like puzzles." The guns weren't guns, and the powder wasn't gunpowder. What the slavers had been using was a fine-grained powder that looked more like ground glass than anything else. The gunlocks fired what appeared to be water through their breechholes and into the barrels. The water had to be loaded with something, but what?

  Whatever it was, it worked. Loaded into one of the slaver's smoothbores, the powder could sink a lead ball a full two inches into a block of pine, only a quarter-inch less than a Home-made rifle firing Riccetti's best powder.

  "Take a look." Karl unlooped his amulet from his neck and held it over the glass vial containing the slaver powder. The amber gem came alive: It pulsed with an inner light, first a dark red, then a greenish blue, then red, then blue again. "There's a charm involved."

  "Well, your wife should be able to puzzle that out. What's bothering me is that it doesn't stink when it's lit off—however the hell their guns light it off. You try tasting it?"

  "Tasting it?" Karl raised an eyebrow. "Do I look stupid?"

  Slovotsky smiled. "Answer me first." His face grew grim; he shook his head. "We know that it works—somehow—and that it's charmed."

  "Or the pouch is charmed, or something." Karl eased the cork out of the bottle and sniffed at it again. No scent at all. "Could it be cordite? Or just plain guncotton?"

  "Not cordite. I've seen smokeless powder; it's darker, and it stinks when it's lit off, not like this stuff. But I've never been around pure guncotton, although I think it is white like this." Slovotsky stood, stretching in the bright sunlight. "It can't be guncotton, though—you use fire to set off guncotton, not water." He jerked a thumb in the direction of the woods where Tennetty had g
one off with the two surviving slavers in tow. "Maybe Ten'll have something more. She's taking her time with the prisoners."

  "Maybe they've got a lot to say."

  "Don't count on it. We killed the master in the fight, and master slavers don't tell their journeymen a whole lot."

  "So? Where do we go from here?"

  Slovotsky thought it over for a moment. He pursed his lips. "Go back to first principles. What would you have wanted Daherrin to do if he'd gotten out with that one pouch and gun, the rest of us left behind, dead?"

  "Get it back to the valley; have Riccetti analyze it." Karl nodded. "Which is what we'll do—although we'd better include Andy-Andy and Thellaren in on the group."

  Tennetty's slim form appeared through a break in the trees. Karl beckoned her over.

  "How are they doing?"

  "Just fine." She nodded. "Chak and I got them drunk; they're sleeping it off. I think Chak likes Jilla—the blonde."

  "Really?"

  "She could do worse," Tennetty said. "It's going to be a major adjustment for both of them. They were raised as room servants in the Velvet Inn in Pandathaway. Sternius picked them up at a foreclosure sale, for a bit of diversion during the trip." She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. "I gave them your tent; didn't figure you'd mind."

  "Must have taken you quite a while to do all that."

  She shook her head. "Not really. I spent most of the time interviewing the two slavers."

  "What'd they tell you?"

  She smiled thinly. "Everything they knew." The smile fell. "Which wasn't much. You were right; this wasn't a raiding party. It was some sort of a trade. They were on their way to the inn in Enkiar to deliver guns and powder to whoever the buyers are."

  "Any idea how much they were going to be paid?"

  "Sure. Each of them was to get—"

  "Not that—how much were they going to get for the cargo?"

  "They didn't know. I do know what they were going to be paid in: a chain of slaves. How many?" She shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine."

  "Or as bad." Thirty or so slavers could handle a chain of anywhere from about one hundred to well over a thousand slaves, perhaps as many as two thousand. It all depended on how closely chained and how well tamed their human merchandise was. "What else have you got?"