Nine princes in Amber (18 page)

And I knew it. Amber burned too strongly In the blood of us.

“Your swordsmanship has increased remarkably,” he commented. “I see that your exile has done you some good in that respect. You are closer to being my equal now than anyone save Benedict, who may well be dead.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” I said. “I know I can take you now. In fact-“

“Don’t bother. I won’t duel with you at this late date,” and he smiled, reading my thought, which burned all too clearly.

“I more than half wish you had stood by me,” he said. “I could have used you more than any of the others. Julian I spit upon. Caine is a coward. Gerard is strong, but stupid.”

I decided to put in the only good word I might.

“Listen,” I said. “I conned Random into coming here with me. He wasn’t hot on the idea. I think he would have supported you, had you asked him.”

“That bastard!” he said. “I wouldn’t trust him to empty chamber pots. One day I’d find a piranha in mine. No thanks. I might have pardoned him, save for your present recommendation. You’d like me to clasp him to my bosom and call him brother now, wouldn’t you? Oh no! You leap too quickly to his defense. It reveals his true attitude, of which he has doubtless made you aware. Let us forget Random in the courts of clemency.”

I smelled smoke then and heard the sounds of metal on metal. That would mean that Caine had come upon us and was doing his job.

“Good,” said Eric, catching it from my mind.

“Stop them! Please! My men don’t have a chance against that many!”

“Not even were you to yield-“ and he bit it off and cursed. I caught the thought, then. He could have asked me to yield in return for their lives, and then let Caine continue with the slaughter. He would have liked to have done that, but he’d let those first words slip out in the heat of his passion.

I chuckled at his irritation.

“I’ll have you soon, anyhow,” be said. “As soon as they take the flagship.”

“Until then,” I said, “try this!” And I hit him with everything I had, boring into his mind, hurting him with my hatred. I felt his pain and it drove me harder. For all the years of exile I’d spent, I lashed at him, seeking at least this payment. For his putting me through the plague, I beat at the barriers of his sanity, seeking this vengeance. For the auto accident, for which I knew he had been responsible, I struck at him, seeking some measure of anguish in return for my hurt.

His control began to slip and my frenzy increased. I bore down upon him and his hold upon me began to slacken.

Finally, “You devil!” he cried, and moved his band to cover the card that he held.

The contact was broken, and I stood there shaking.

I had done it. I had bested him in a contest of wills. No longer would I fear my tyrant brother in any form of single combat. I was stronger than he.

I sucked in several deep breaths and stood erect, ready for the moment the coldness of a new mental attack occurred. I knew that it wouldn’t, though, not from Eric. I sense that he feared my fury.

I looked about me and there was fighting. There was already blood on the decks. A ship had come alongside us and we were being boarded. Another vessel was attempting the same maneuver on the opposite side. A bolt whistled by my head.

I drew my blade and leaped into the fray.

I don’t know how many I slew that day. I lost count somewhere after number twelve or thirteen. It was more than twice that, on that engagement alone, though. The strength with which a prince of Amber is naturally endowed, which had allowed me to lift a Mercedes, served me that day, so that I could raise a man with one hand and hurl him over the rail.

We slew everyone aboard both boarding ships and opened their hatches and sent them down to Rebma where Random would be amused by the carnage. My crew had been cut in half in the battle, and I had suffered innumerable nicks and scratches but nothing serious. We went to the aid of a sister vessel and knocked off another of Caine’s raiders.

The survivors of the rescued vessel came aboard the flagship and I had a full crew once more.

“Blood!” I called out. “Give me blood and vengeance this day, my warriors, and you will be remembered in Amber forever!”

And as a man. they raised their weapons and cried out, “Blood!” And gallons-no, rivers-of it were let that day. We destroyed two more of Caine’s raiders, replenishing our numbers from those of the survivors of our own fleet. As we headed toward a sixth, I climbed the mainmast and tried to take a quick count.

We looked to be outnumbered three to one. There seemed to be between forty-five and fifty-five remaining of my fleet.

We took the sixth, and we didn’t have to look for the seventh and the eighth. They came to us. We took them too, but I received several wounds in the fighting that again left me with half a crew. My left shoulder and my right thigh had been cut deeply, and a slash along my right hip was hurting.

As we sent those ships to the bottom, two more moved toward us,

We fled and gained an ally in one of my own ships which had been victorious in its own recent battle. We combined crews once more, this time transferring the standard to the other vessel, which had been less damaged than my own, which had begun shipping water badly and was beginning to list to starboard.

We were allowed no breathing space, as another vessel neared and the men attempted to board.

My men were tired, and I was getting that way. Fortunately the other crew wasn’t in such great shape either. Before the second of Caine’s vessels came to its aid, we had overwhelmed it, boarded, and transferred the standard again. That ship had been in even better shape.

We took the next and I was left with a good ship, forty men, and gasping.

There was no one in sight to come to our aid now. All of my surviving ships were engaged by at least one of Caine’s. A raider was heading toward us and we fled.

We gained perhaps twenty minutes this way. I tried to sail into Shadow, but it’s a hard, slow thing that near to Amber. It’s much easier to get this close than it is to depart, because Amber is the center, the nexus. If I’d had another ten minutes, I could have made it.

I didn’t, though.

As the vessel hove nearer, I saw another one off in the distance turning in our direction. It bore the black and green standard beneath Eric’s colors and the white unicorn. It was Caine’s ship. He wanted to be there for the kill.

We took the first one and didn’t even have time to open its hatches before Caine was upon us. I was left standing on the bloody deck, with a dozen men about me, and Caine moved to the bow of his ship and called upon me to surrender.

“Will you grant my men their lives if I do this thing?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he said. “I’d lose a few crewmen myself if I didn’t, and there’s no need for that.”

“On your word as a prince?” I asked.

He thought about it a moment, then nodded.

“Very well.” he said. “Have your men lay down their arms and board my vessel when I come alongside.”

I sheathed my blade and nodded about me.

“You have fought the good fight. and I love you for it,” I said. “But we have lost in this place.” I dried my hands on my cloak as I spoke and wiped them carefully, as I’d hate to smudge a work of art. “Lay down your arms and know that your exploits of this day will never be forgotten. One day I will praise you before the court of Amber.”

The men, the nine big red ones and the three remaining hairy ones, wept as they put down their arms.

“Do not fear that all is lost in the struggle for the city,” I said. “We have lost only one engagement and the battle still continues elsewhere. My brother Bleys hacks his way toward Amber at this moment. Caine will keep his word to spare your lives when he sees that I have gone to join with Bleys upon the land, for he would not have knowledge that he was forsworn come into Amber. I am sorry that I cannot take you with me.”

And with this, I drew Bleys’ Trump from the pack and held it low and before me, out of sight of the other vessel.

Just as Caine came alongside, there was movement beneath that cold, cold surface.

“Who?” Bleys asked.

“Corwin,” I said. “How fare you?”

“We won the battle, but lost many troops. We’re resting now before we renew the march. How go things with you?”

“I think we’ve destroyed nearly half of Caine’s fleet, but he’s won the day. He’s about to board me now. Give me escape.”

He held forth his hand and I touched it and collapsed into his arms.

“This is getting to be a habit,” I muttered, and then I saw that he was wounded too, about the head, and there was a bandage around his left hand. “Had to grab the wrong end of a saber,” he remarked, as he saw my eyes fall upon it. “It smarts.”

I caught my breath and then we walked to his tent, where he opened a bottle of wine and gave me bread, cheese, and some dried meat. He still had plenty of cigarettes and I smoked one as a medical officer dressed my wounds.

He still had around a hundred and eighty thousand men behind him. As I stood on a hilltop and the evening began around me, it seemed as if I looked out over every camp I had ever stood within, stretching on and on over the miles and the centuries without end. I suddenly felt tears come into my eyes, for the men who are not like the lords of Amber, living but a brief span and passing into dust, that so many of them must meet their ends upon the battlefields of the world.

I returned to Bleys’ tent and we finished the bottle of wine.

That night there was a bad storm. It hadn’t let up when dawn struggled to cross the world’s palm with silver, and it continued on through the day’s march.

It is a very demoralizing thing to tramp along and be rained on, a cold rain at that. How I’ve always hated the mud, through which it seems I’ve spent centuries marching!

We sought after a shadow way that was free of rain, but nothing we did seemed to matter.

We could march to Amber, but we would do it with our clothing sticking to us, to the drumbeat of the thunder, with the flashing of the lightning at our backs.

The next night the temperature plummeted, and in the morning I stared past the stiff flags and regarded a world gone white beneath a gray sky, filled with flurries. My breath went back in plumes behind me.

The troops were ill-equipped for this, save for the hairy ones, and we got them all moving quickly, to prevent frostbite. The big red guys suffered. Theirs had been a very warm world.

We were attacked by tiger. polar bear. and wolf that day. The tiger Bleys killed measured ever fourteen feet from tail tip to nose.

We marched on well into the night, and the thaw began. Bleys pushed the troops to get them out of the cold Shadows. The Trump for Amber indicated that a warm, dry autumn prevailed there, and we were nearing the real Earth.

By midnight on that second night we’d marched through slush and sleet, cold rains, warm rains, and on into a dry world.

The orders were given to make camp then, with triple security cordons. Considering the tired condition of the men we were ripe for an attack. But the troops were staggering and couldn’t be pushed much further.

The attack came several hours later, and Julian led it, I learned later from the description given by survivors.

He headed commando raids against our most vulnerable campsites on the periphery of the main body. Had I known it to be Julian, I would have used his Trump to try to hold him, but I only knew it after the fact.

We’d lost perhaps two thousand men in the abrupt winter, and I didn’t yet know how many Julian had accounted for.

It seemed the troops were beginning to get demoralized, but they followed when we ordered them ahead.

The next day was one continuous ambush. A body of men the size of ours could not be allowed to deviate sufficiently to try to deal with the harassing raids Julian led against our flanks. We got some of his men, but not enough, one for every ten of ours, perhaps.

By high noon we were crossing the valley that paralleled the seacoast. The Forest of Arden was to the north and our left. Amber lay directly ahead. The breezes were cool and filled with the odors of earth and its sweet growing things. A few leaves fell. Amber lay eighty miles distant and was but a shimmer above the horizon.

That afternoon, with a gathering of clouds and but the lightest of rains, the

blots began to fall from the heavens. Then the storm ceased and the sun came forth to dry things off.

After a time, we smelled the smoke.

After another time, we saw it, flapping skyward all about us.

Then the sheets of flame began to rise and fall. They moved toward us, with their crunching. constant footsteps; and as they came nearer, we began to feel the heat, and somewhere, way back along the lines, a panic arose. There were cries, and the columns swelled and welled forward.

We began to run.

Flakes of ash were falling about us now, and the smoke grew thicker. We sprinted ahead and the flames rushed even closer. The sheets of light and heat flapped a steady, welling thunder as we ran, and the waves of warmth beat upon us, washed over us. Soon they were right there alongside us, and the trees blackened and the leaves
 
flaked down, and some of the smaller trees began to sway. For as far ahead as we could see, our way was an alley of fires.