Off Armageddon Reef

by David Weber

  * * *

  Captain Yowance of the Royal Charisian Navy had been no stranger to combat, and the Earl of Gray Harbor recognized carnage when he saw it. But he'd never imagined anything like this.

  Tirian's guardsmen tried to swarm over Merlin, but it was like a school of herring trying to swarm a kraken. The seijin seemed to stride forward almost casually, but his peculiar sword was a blur of motion. It moved literally too quickly for the eye to follow, and armor meant nothing before its impossible sharpness. Bodies—and bits of bodies—flew away from him in gory sprays of blood, and the peaceful library became an abattoir. Men screamed and cursed and died, and Merlin Athrawes moved through the chaos untouched, dealing death like the Archangel Schueler himself.

  * * *

  Kahlvyn Ahrmahk was no coward, but an icy wave of fear washed through him. Like his guards, he'd discounted the wild rumors and speculation about Merlin. Now, as he watched his men go down—some of them screaming in agony; most dead before they hit the floor—he knew he'd been wrong. He knew the ridiculous rumor that the mysterious foreigner was a seijin was true, after all . . . and that all the preposterous tales, all the stupid heroic ballads and children's stories, about seijin and their superhuman powers weren't preposterous at all.

  His surviving guardsmen—all six of them—were no longer advancing to envelop Merlin. They were falling back, huddling together. None of Tirian's guards had ever lacked courage, but this was too much, something beyond their experience or comprehension. They hadn't panicked, even now—there hadn't really been time for that—but the deadly sense of how totally outclassed they were had driven them completely onto the defensive, and even as Tirian watched, another of them fell to Merlin's implacable blade.

  He's not human!

  The thought flashed through the duke's mind, and he shook himself, fighting to throw off his own incipient panic. His brain raced, and he drew a deep breath.

  There was still a way, if he could only get out of the library before Merlin reached him. Wyllyms was out there somewhere, and surely the clash of steel, the screams, had to have alerted the majordomo. He must have already sounded the alarm for the rest of Tirian's personal guards! If the duke could reach those guards first, he could tell them how Merlin had exploded out of the night in an effort to assassinate him, how the supposed seijin had taken Gray Harbor hostage. However deadly Merlin might be, Tirian had the next best thing to another sixty men ready to hand, and most of them were as well trained with bows or arbalests as with swords. And if, in the process of retaking the library, there should be a tragic accident, or if Merlin should cut the earl's throat rather than allow him to be rescued, or—

  Yet another guardsman folded up around the bitter steel buried in his belly, and Tirian turned.

  * * *

  A corner of Merlin's attention saw the duke turn and race for the library's door. He realized instantly what Tirian had in mind, but there were still four guardsmen between him and the traitor. He couldn't kill them quickly enough to—

  The Earl of Gray Harbor's belt dagger flashed in the lamplight as it flew across the library. It was heavy, awkward, and not really properly balanced for throwing, but the earl's hand had not forgotten the captain's skill entirely, and grief and terror had burned the alcohol out of his system.

  Kahlvyn Ahrmahk, Duke of Tirian, rose on his toes like a dancer, arms flung wide, spine arched, and mouth open in agony, as ten lethal inches of steel drove into his back. A jeweled hilt blossomed between his shoulder blades, blood sprayed from his lips, and he crashed facedown to the floor.

  XII

  Braidee Lahang's Lodgings,

  Tellesberg

  The pounding on Braidee Lahang's door was furious enough to wake him despite the tumult of the storm.

  His immediate reaction was one of panic. No spy wanted to hear an official fist battering on his door in the middle of the night, and he could think of very few nonofficial errands which might bring someone out on a night like this one. But then his panic eased just a bit. When Baron Wave Thunder's agents came to call on a suspected spy, they were seldom so polite as to bother to knock. Doors had a way of becoming splinters in the course of their visits, although on the (rare) occasions when they demolished the wrong person's door, they were very good about replacing it, later.

  Still, it was unlikely that whoever was knocking at his door was here in any official capacity, and he felt his heartbeat slow just a bit as he climbed out of bed.

  He'd selected his lodgings not simply because they were close to the heart of the city, or even because of the roof space available for his wyvern coops. Those were factors, of course, yet an even more important one was the fact that the building's ground-floor was occupied by a ship chandler during the day but empty at night. That gave Lahang a certain degree of anonymity on the occasions when he was expecting callers after hours. He'd made a few additional judicious modifications without benefit of discussion with his landlord, as well, and he paused well to one side of his second-story door and peered through the inconspicuous peephole he'd bored through the wall.

  There was no lamp in the hallway or on the stairs. Since there wasn't normally any traffic after dark, there was no point risking the accidental fire an unattended candle or lamp might lead to. But Lahang's visitor had brought a bull's-eye lantern, and Lahang's eyebrows rose as he recognized the other man by the light streaming from its opened slide.

  His initial alarm returned, if in a rather less acute version. Marhys Wyllyms had delivered several messages to him over the past few years, and Lahang was aware that Duke Tirian trusted his majordomo's discretion implicitly. But Wyllyms had never arrived in the middle of the night without warning, or without any of the signals Tirian and Lahang had devised to alert one another that they needed to make contact. Unexpected messages like this, especially ones which carried such a risk of exposure, were only marginally more welcome to a spymaster than the heavy-handed minions of the Crown.

  He drew a deep breath, opened the door part way, leaving the safety chain latched, and peered out.

  "What?" he asked, his voice harsh.

  "I have a package from the Duke," Wyllyms replied.

  "Well, hand it over," Lahang said briskly, extending his hand through the gap.

  "It won't fit," Wyllyms said reasonably, and drew a fat package, wrapped in oilskin against the weather, out from under his streaming poncho.

  "What is it?" Lahang asked, already reaching to unlatch the chain.

  "He didn't tell me." Wyllyms shrugged. "There's been some trouble at the townhouse, though. I wouldn't be surprised if it's documents he needs to get rid of."

  "Trouble?" Lahang's eyes sharpened, and he opened the door fully. "What kind of trouble?"

  "Nothing we can't handle, I think," Wyllyms said, handing him the package. The spy took it almost absently, his eyes so focused on Wyllyms' face that he never noticed the majordomo's hand sliding back under his poncho until it reemerged with the dagger.

  Even then, Lahang didn't really notice the blade. In fact, he still hadn't seen it when it severed his throat in a steaming gush of blood.

  Prince Nahrmahn's chief agent in Charis thudded to the floor with a dying gurgle, and Wyllyms stepped back, grimacing as he regarded the spray pattern on the front of his poncho.

  Well, no matter, he thought. The rain would wash away the stains quickly enough . . . just as Lahang's death would wash away the information about Wyllyms true patron which he might have provided to Wave Thunder's investigators.

  Now all Wyllyms had to do was get back to Emerald, himself.

  XIII

  Privy Council Chamber,

  Royal Palace,

  Tellesberg

  Haarahld VII's face was hard and grim, a mask of angry discipline over grief. His son sat beside him at the huge table in the lamp-lit council chamber, and Cayleb's expression was even more mask-like than his father's. Both of them watched, silent and hard-eyed, as Merlin and the Earl of Gray Harbor stepped through t
he chamber's door.

  Bynzhamyn Raice also sat at the table, accompanied by Sir Rhyzhard Seafarmer. Neither Bishop Maikel, nor any of the Privy Council's other members were present, and Merlin wondered whether that was a good sign or a bad one. At least the king seemed prepared to maintain Merlin's low profile for the moment.

  The Royal Guards had been courteous when they'd followed Gray Harbor's coachman back to Tirian's mansion in obedience to the earl's urgent summons, but they'd also been very, very firm. It was hard to blame them, really, considering the blood-spattered and body-littered scene which had greeted them in the recently deceased Duke of Tirian's library. Being found standing over the bodies of the king's first cousin and fifteen of his personal guardsmen had to come under the heading of suspicious conduct, after all.

  At least they had been summoned by the earl, and Lieutenant Huntyr, the youthful officer who'd accompanied the squad which had responded, had been willing to at least tentatively assume the first councillor knew what he was doing. That willingness had taken a hit when Huntyr discovered just exactly whose dagger was planted in the duke's back. But it had been sufficient to at least ensure that the house would be sealed and that the entire matter would be kept secret until the king himself had been informed.

  That was as far as the lieutenant had been willing to go, however, and first councillor or not, Gray Harbor had found himself placed ever so politely under arrest. To Merlin's amusement—as much as anything could be amusing, under the circumstances—the young guardsman had been almost as courteous to him as to the earl. Both of them, however, had been relieved of all weapons before they were "escorted" to the council chamber.

  "Owl," Merlin subvocalized now. "Communications and telemetry check."

  "Communications link confirmed in normal operation, Lieutenant Commander," the AI replied. "All skimmer telemetry links are nominal," it added, and Merlin nodded mentally. He hoped things weren't going to turn out badly, but that didn't mean they weren't. It was always possible, however unlikely, that Haarahld might order their immediate execution, and Merlin couldn't let that happen. Not only would it be very inconvenient for him personally, but it would also mean the complete failure of Nimue Alban's mission on Safehold.

  That was why the recon skimmer was hovering directly above the Royal Palace despite the rumbling thunderstorm. And it was also the reason the skimmer's weapons were fully online under Owl's control.

  "Your Majesty," Lieutenant Huntyr said quietly, "Earl Gray Harbor and Lieutenant Athrawes."

  "Thank you, Lieutenant." Haarahld's voice was harsh-edged, the courtesy automatic, and he never so much as glanced at the Guardsman. "Leave us, please. And see to it we're not disturbed."

  "As you command, Your Majesty," Huntyr murmured.

  He withdrew, and the massive council-chamber door closed quietly behind him. The metallic clack of the latch was loud in the stillness, and then, as if on cue, another thunderous rumble of thunder shook the Palace.

  "So," Haarahld said after a long, still moment. "I've spoken to Bynzhamyn. I've spoken to Lieutenant Huntyr. I've spoken to the most senior of Kahlvyn's guardsmen we could find. Now I want to know what in Shan-wei's name happened."

  His voice was hard, colder than Merlin had ever heard it, in person or through one of his SNARCs, and his eyes were chips of brown ice.

  "Your Majesty." Gray Harbor went down on one knee and bent his head before his monarch. Merlin saw Cayleb's eyes widen, but Haarahld's expression didn't even flicker.

  "Whatever happened was my fault," the first councillor said, his voice low-pitched and sad, but firm.

  "I will determine who was at fault," Haarahld told him, "not you."

  "Your Majesty—" Wave Thunder began, but Haarahld held up a hand abruptly.

  "No, Bynzhamyn," he said coldly. "I'm not exactly pleased with you at this moment, either, you know. But I want to hear what Rayjhis and Seijin Merlin have to say for themselves without any excuses from you."

  Wave Thunder settled unhappily back in his chair, mouth shut, and the king's eyes bored into the kneeling Gray Harbor.

  "Why do you say it was your fault?" he demanded.

  "Because it was my stupidity which created the situation from which Seijin Merlin was forced to rescue me," Gray Harbor said unflinchingly. "The seijin warned Bynzhamyn and me that Kahlvyn was a traitor. I refused to believe it. Indeed, I went so far as to believe—to insist—that Merlin was lying for purposes of his own. Even when Bynzhamyn came to me, told me what Sir Rhyzhard had already discovered, I refused to believe. And because I did, I violated my oath as First Councillor. Instead of maintaining the secrecy of the information Bynzhamyn had shared with me, I went to Kahlvyn to tell him he was under suspicion. That he had to disassociate himself from the men we knew were Emerald agents. That he had to come to you, Your Majesty—tell you everything, prove Seijin Merlin's accusations were lies. But—" He looked up at last, his face wrung with pain and his eyes glistening with unshed tears. "—they weren't lies."

  The chamber was still, a frozen tableau, as the kneeling father-in-law met the cousin's eyes. The silence stretched out for several seconds, almost a full minute, and more distant thunder grumbled quietly in the background. Then, finally, Haarahld's nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply.

  "How do you know they weren't?" he asked very, very softly.

  "Because Kahlvyn admitted it to me, Your Majesty." Gray Harbor's voice wavered at last, frayed by remembered pain.

  "He admitted it?" Haarahld repeated as if even now he simply could not believe his own ears.

  "Your Majesty, he admitted that the attempt to assassinate Cayleb was his idea originally, not Nahrmahn's. He told me he should have been King, not you. And because I'd revealed that he was under suspicion, he planned to murder you and Cayleb this very night rather than face the disgrace and dishonor his crimes had earned. He actually believed he could steal the throne for himself, if only you, Cayleb, and Bynzhamyn and his senior investigators were dead, and he invited me to join him in his treason."

  "I don't believe it," Haarahld said flatly, but Merlin heard the tiny tremor in that hard voice's depths.

  "Your Majesty, I'm talking about my son-in-law," Gray Harbor said, his own voice and eyes wretched. "My daughter's husband, the father of my grandchildren. I loved him as if he'd been the son of my own body. Loved him so much I violated my oath to you to warn him he was under suspicion. Do you think I would lie about something like this? Something which will hurt Zhenyfyr so terribly? Do you think I would kill my own grandchildren's father if I'd had any choice at all?"

  Haarahld stared down at him, and the king's frozen expression began to change. His jaw muscles clenched into hard-defined lumps, then relaxed as his cheeks sagged and he closed his eyes at last. A single tear trickled down his right cheek, and the hard, angry shoulders sagged.

  "Why, Rayjhis?" he asked hoarsely. "Why didn't you and Bynzhamyn come to me as soon as Seijin Merlin spoke?"

  "Bynzhamyn because he didn't want to hurt you, Your Majesty," Gray Harbor said softly. "And I because I refused to believe."

  "And now this." Haarahld opened his eyes once more and shook his head. "Now this, Rayjhis. You're right, it is your fault, and you did violate your oath when you went to warn a possible traitor he was suspected. If you hadn't, if you'd waited—as you should have—Kahlvyn would still be alive. We might yet have learned a great deal from him, and he would have been alive. My cousin, almost my brother, would have been alive."

  The earl bent his head once more, and his shoulders shook, but he said nothing in his own defense.

  "May I speak, Your Majesty?" Merlin asked quietly, and the king's eyes darted to his face. For a moment, they flashed with fiery anger, but then Haarahld made himself stand back from that instant, automatic rage.

  "Speak," he said curtly.

  "Your Majesty, I told Baron Wave Thunder and Earl Gray Harbor I had no positive proof of my suspicion of the Duke. Yet had I possessed that proof, I would have laid it in th
eir hands. I would not have laid it in yours."

  Haarahld's eyes glittered dangerously, but Merlin continued steadily, meeting the king's angry glare.

  "He was your cousin, Your Majesty. You loved him, and I knew it. It wasn't my place to tell you something which would cause you so much pain, and even if it had been, I had no idea of the true depth of his treason. I told your ministers what I knew, what I suspected, but even I suspected only a fraction of the full truth, and I had no proof even of that. If they erred in the fashion in which they responded to what I told them, they did so out of concern and out of love of their own. Neither of them was prepared to shirk his duty to the Crown to investigate any charge, however absurd, and both of them acted as they did out of their love for you and their desire to spare you pain.

  "Baron Wave Thunder initiated that investigation without telling you because he knew how much it would hurt you if the charges proved well-founded, and because he wanted to spare you that pain until and unless he knew they were. And also, at least in part, to protect your relationship with your cousin, should those charges not prove valid, by arranging things so that you could blame him for proceeding without your authority if the Duke proved innocent and learned he'd been suspected. And while the Earl flatly refused to believe the Duke could possibly be a traitor, he agreed with Baron Wave Thunder, out of his duty to you, that the charges must be investigated. If he acted . . . unwisely in other ways, that, too, was out of love—love for you, and for his own son-in-law.