Demon King (13 page)

“Stand clear,” came a cry, and I heard the grating of iron plates and the huge portcullis dropped, spear points impaling an enormous woman swinging a pruning hook. Just behind the portcullis the iron-barred gates slid to, and it was quiet. But only for a moment, until the wails and shouts of our wounded rose. From outside came answering howls of rage.

Bikaner brushed blood from a gash across his forehead without knowing he’d done it. His breath came in gasps, and his sword was red to the hilt. “There’s windows into th’ courtyard,” he began. “We’ll put archers in ‘em, drive th’ bastards back from our gates. We’ll reinforce th’ gates with timber balks, and — ”

“No,” I said sharply. “They think they’ve got us pinned. They’ll finish the others in the castle and then lay siege to us.”

Bikaner thought, then nodded jerkily. “Aye. That’s what they’ll do.”

“So we’ll not do what they want, Domina. Drag the wounded out of the way and form the men for a charge. Right now. On foot, open ranks, Lancers in the lead, Hussars to follow. Make sure the men in the front ranks are wearing at least breastplates. And I want the buglers. All of ‘em!”

“Yessir.”

Other officers had gathered around. “You heard what I said,” I ordered. “Make it so!” They, too, ran off.

There was no time to treat the wounded now. I saw Kutulu among them, lying motionless, and hoped that slut hadn’t killed him. We’d been hit hard. There must’ve been thirty or forty men motionless, more who were wounded. But some were forcing themselves to their feet, and into the battle lines. Now the merciless discipline of the frontier regiments was paying off, denying men the right to moan or die.

I saw Marán at a balcony. She wore dark leather trousers and a vest, and held a small crossbow we’d used for target shooting. Beside her was one of her maids. She saw me looking up, waved, and pointed. I saw a Kallian sprawled faceup, with one of the weapon’s foot-long shafts in his throat. Good! The Agramóntes may have been harsh, but they’d won their lands with courage and the sword, and their blood ran true in my wife.

Seer Sinait found me. “Now we know,” she said.

We did. The magic that created the grand illusion of Kallians appearing to be Numantian soldiers had been cast by a master magician. It was now clear both Amboinas were wizards and the boy had been a mask for the older man’s skills. There had been no leavings from the dead Mikael Yanthlus to cloud the emperor’s and Sinait’s powers, but a living master sage working in our own camp.

If we died this day, he would be able to continue his masquerade, claiming to be utterly loyal to the throne. Such reliability, when the emperor moved against the rebels, would place him close to Tenedos, and that would complete his plan.

It was a cunning scheme, indeed, and, if Landgrave Amboina were able to gain the emperor’s confidence, the Kallians would need no support from outside. Far more than our lives was at stake here — the emperor and all Numantia was at risk!

“We surely do,” I said. “Can you cast a spell against him?”

“I have two ready,” she said. “But I’m afraid his powers are greater than mine. I’d prefer to wait and see if I can’t produce a counterspell once I feel him out.”

“As and when you decide. Magic isn’t my province.”

The soldiers had regrouped, and I ran to their front. “Lancers! Hussars! They fooled us once and think they’ve got us trapped. But now it’s our turn to determine who’s on which side of the trap.

“Soldiers,” I cried to the men on the gate pulleys. “Lift the barriers! Buglers! The attack!”

The main courtyard was a scramble of madness. Inside the buildings shouts and screams of battle continued, but the mob outside were already rewarding themselves. A dozen were rolling barrels out of one of the stronghold’s wineshops, and several of the casks were upended and smashed open. There were screaming women, clothes torn away, men holding them down as they ripped at their own garments. Kallians scurried around with every sort of loot.

They saw us then, a thousand strong, shouting defiance louder than our trumpets. There was a great wail of surprise and fear, and we smashed into them. Swords, axes, rose and fell, and arrows spat into the throng. Some fought, some ran, and again the courtyard was a boil of killing and slaughter. Kallians inside the buildings burst out, some trying to flee, more ready to fight on, and we obliged them. I shouted orders, and the Hussars broke away from the hand-to-hand melee and circled behind the mob — and we had them.

I heard something, a deep musical tone, except it reverberated through my very bones. The air shimmered and Molise Amboina grew from nothingness, rising full fifty feet against the sky. His hair and beard were wild, disheveled. There were bloodstains on his face, and his hands clawed into talons. He was no longer the smooth nobleman, but a murderous, deadly seer, a greater demon than any he could raise. His words in an unknown tongue boomed against the walls, and I thought the stones themselves might burst.

Arrows whipped toward and through him, but he paid no mind, as his hands moved back and forth, up and down, arms curling sinuously, and the onrushing mob were no longer human, but transformed into slithering, hissing serpents. They moved toward us, a tide of green, brown, and black. Amboina was sending the same spell against us used to destroy the justice column. I slashed one serpent in two, and it became a blood-soaked corpse, but there were dozens, hundreds, more. Some of us were fighting, but others were hesitating, about to flee. Men were down, serpents’ fangs buried in their flesh. The Kallians hissed in glee and rushed us.

Wind roared, and I glanced back, my guts clenching, knowing Amboina had sent a second spell to complete our destruction. There was another huge figure in the courtyard, as tall as Amboina. But this one, I realized, was quite familiar.

When I was a boy, in my jungled province of Cimabue, we had a village rat catcher, since we were frequently troubled with the pests, particularly when the rains came and they sought shelter in the farmers’ huts or even in the buildings of my family’s estates. The rat catcher knew a few simple spells to drive the rats mad with fear and make them rush into the nearest water and drown themselves. Adults thought him not quite right, and perhaps it was so. But to children, he was a sort of hero. He always treated us as if we were equals, and delighted in taking us into the jungle, where he’d tell us to sit and be silent while he whistled. We never knew what sort of creature would come. Sometimes it would be a sambar, once it was a crocodile from the nearby stream, sometimes a family of voles, or a flight of birds would circle and land amid us, as if they were our friends. He told us never to touch them, for man’s scent would make them outcasts to their brothers and sisters, but we should watch, and learn how they behaved, for we were all animals together, and who knew but the soul of a gentle marmot could be one of us, sent back from the Wheel to pay penance for evil in a previous life.

The rat catcher was my apparition. But none of us saw the same man, I found later. One saw a nursemaid, who chased away nightmares, another a shopkeeper who’d run off a dog that terrified him as a babe. Karjan said it was a peasant from the small holding next to his family’s, who’d rushed into a pasture and saved him from an angry bull.

My rat catcher picked up one snake, which grew to be ten feet long. As he did, he seemed to pick up all the snakes. He lifted the long snake close, examined it as it hissed and twisted in his hand, then cast it away. But the reptile never landed; it vanished, with the others, and the cobblestones were bare.

Amboina roared in rage, hands moving differently as he chanted a spell. I felt weakness in my guts and heard the crash of great winds. The rat catcher stumbled back and put out a hand to steady himself. He winced as an invisible blow struck. He staggered, and I heard Lancers moan — we were doomed.

But the rat catcher straightened, and spoke, and when he spoke it was in Seer Sinait’s soft voice:

“O little man

Full of hate

You have no law

You have no good

Is there one

Who speaks for you?”

The rat catcher paused, as if listening, though I heard nothing. Then he went on:

“A dying voice

A dead voice

That is the past

There is none

O man so small

I ask Aharhel

But there is none

Not Varum

Not Shahriya

Not Jacini

Not Elyot

Not Water

Not Fire

Not Earth

Not Air

There is no one

No one but She

I must not name Her

She will welcome you

She will shelter you

She will let you come to her

She will return you to the Wheel.”

The rat catcher picked up Landgrave Molise Amboina between thumb and forefinger, and the magician was suddenly his normal size. Sinait’s apparition held the Kallian close, examining him curiously, as if looking at an insect of an unknown species. Amboina cursed and flailed, but couldn’t escape. The rat catcher cast him away. But Amboina didn’t vanish; he whirled through the air and smashed on the cobblestones, his body exploding like a burst melon.

The Kallians held for a frozen moment, then a moan of despair went through them.

“On them,” I bellowed. “Charge!”

My Numantians attacked. Only a handful of the Kallians tried to fight, and then mainly when they were trapped. Mostly they ran, clawing, overrunning one another looking for safety. We killed and we killed, and then, at last, there was no one left to kill.

I stood in a room I’d never been in before, somewhere deep in the castle, over the body of a man who’d tried to fight me with a saber he had no idea how to use, and I did not know how I’d gotten there. I made sure the man was dead, then found my way back into the central courtyard.

Captain Lasta, of my guard, came over and saluted. “We’ve secured the castle.”

“Good,” I said. “Now we must find Prince Reufern.”

Lasta began to say something but stopped himself. “Come with me, sir.”

• • •

Prince Reufern’s body sprawled outside the entrance to his throne room. A sword lay not far from his hand and ringed around him were the corpses of five Kallians. Sinait and Domina Bikaner were beside me.

“He died bravely and well for a merchant,” the domina said.

“He died well,” I corrected. But words after this catastrophe were meaningless.

• • •

“Very well,” the emperor said. His voice was calm, his face quiet as he stared up from the Seeing Bowl. “You will continue as Prince Regent in his place.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Whether more could, or should, have been done to preserve my brother’s life is a matter for future times. I shall be sending full and complete orders, along with the necessary troops to enforce them.

“But here are three immediate tasks: You said the Amboina child, along with the others you captured when you killed the traitorous bastard’s son, escaped in the chaos. I want all of them found and executed. I’ll determine the manner and will send it with Kutulu’s replacement. He will live, I assume?”

“So Seer Sinait has told me. He’s still delirious from the blow to his head, but he’ll return to normal in time. And the spell on his knife wound is already working.”

“Take no chances with him,” the emperor said. “The moment Kutulu can travel, I want him returned to Nicias. He’ll have the best seers in the land to make sure his recovery is full and rapid.

“Now, to return to these miserable Kallians. They hurt me deeply, and they must realize what they’ve done. I want your drum patrols to ride out once more. They’ll be reinforced with infantry elements I’ll be dispatching within a few days. I want two leaders in every hamlet, every village executed. If they cannot be found, or if the Kallians will not surrender them to you, twenty men and women are to be killed in their stead and the village put to the torch.

“My final order is for Polycittara, where the snakes had their lair. Polycittara will cease to exist. Its name will be stricken from all records. I shall dispatch special units of masons in time to tear stone from stone and sow the land itself with salt.

“As for its citizens, they are to be decimated. One in every ten — man, woman, child — is to be killed. The manner of their death does not matter. All others are to be sold as slaves. No family is to be left intact. Those once known as Polycittarans will be scattered to the corners of my kingdom, their names, their homeland forgotten.

“Those are your orders, Tribune Damastes á Cimabue. Now carry them out.”

I had been expecting that the emperor would want to punish Kallio, but not this terribly. I took a deep breath.

“No, my emperor. I will not.”

“What?” It was the hiss of the snake.

“Those are orders against the way of gods and men. I cannot obey.”

“You swore an oath to me!”

“I swore an oath to you,” I agreed. “My family’s principle is ‘We Hold True.’ But your orders are evil, and come from the heart, not the head, and it’s my duty to keep you from evil as best I can. You swore an oath of your own to rule wisely and well, and to never treat your subjects with cruelty. I placed the crown on your head when you said those words.”

“I am the emperor, Tribune!”

“You
are
the emperor,” I said. “I shall obey any wish you have, including killing myself if that’s your desire. But not those commands. I am sorry, sir.”

Veins pulsed at the emperor’s temples, and his lips were a thin line. “Very well,” he said. “If you will not obey me, I shall find someone who will. You are relieved of your duties, Tribune Damastes á Cimabue, and I order you to return immediately and directly to Nicias. You are to issue no orders of any nature to anyone formerly under your command, is that clear?”

“It is, sir.”

The emperor’s eyes gazed into mine, a black glare of demoniac intensity, then the Seeing Bowl was blank.

I was ruined.

The nymph giggled lasciviously and dove into the seething pool. She swam to where the waterfall cascaded, then climbed the sheeting water as if it were a ladder. She was very lovely, very naked, and had white-blond hair. She also had Marán’s face. Near the top of the waterfall the nymph stepped onto a half-hidden, moss-framed ledge. She crooked an inviting finger at me, then vanished behind the waterfall, into her cave.