Sword Destiny (2 page)

Kara-Rashna was not sure whether it was tears or dust that stung the back of his own eyelids. Slowly he removed his own helmet, revealing hair as white as Kumar-Rao's beard. When he spoke his voice faltered.

“Kumar-Rao, King of Kanju. Oldest friend of Karakhor. Once we were brothers, united in peace. Many times have I come to Kanju as your honoured guest. Many times I have welcomed you in Karakhor. When you were young, I came to celebrate your wedding, and you came to celebrate mine. Noble King of Kanju, oft-honoured guest, beloved friend—why are you here now, among the ranks of my enemies?”

Kumar-Rao flinched with every word as though each one stung his heart. But he was a king and answered with an almost steady voice. “Prince Zarin, my beloved son, is now a prince of Maghalla. He stands with the father of his bride and my duty binds me with my son.”

“Withdraw from the field,” Kara-Rashna begged him. “Take your unstained banner home and so will I. Let younger men settle this battle. We are grandfathers and have no place here.”

“I cannot.” Kumar-Rao lifted his bearded chin with struggling pride. “I am here and I must stay. You cannot ask me to turn like a jackal and slink away with my tail between my legs.”

“Not like a jackal, you were never that. Go like a lion, old friend, proud and regal. Hold your head and standard high. I yield my honour to beg it of you.”

“A lion does not leave the field of battle. I cannot go.”

At last a tear trickled slowly down Kara-Rashna's cheek. He raised his sword slowly, as though it were heavy lead instead of burnished steel. “Then one of us must die,” he said sadly. “Old friend, I salute you.”

“May the gods be with you,” Kumar-Rao acknowledged.

Both monarchs touched the shoulders of their charioteers. The drivers whipped up their horses and the two chariots surged forward, skidding alongside each other with a scraping crash. Both old kings almost fell, recovered themselves feebly, and then began to hew ineffectively at each other with their swords.

It was a half-hearted contest, as though each willed the other to make the killing blow. Jahan and Devan glared at Zarin and Bharat, and those two stalwarts glared balefully back, but there was a code of conduct to be obeyed. Battles between champions were to be decided by the champions alone. They were subject to the will of the gods.

Finally Kumar-Rao made one last despairing swing, as though at last he had decided to try and end it. His blade missed and cut deep into the side of Kara-Rashna's chariot. For a moment, there it was wedged. Kara-Rashna swung his own blade at his opponent's head, but either he was still aiming to miss or his arm was now too weak and unsteady to take advantage of the opportunity. He succeeded only in knocking Kumar-Rao's turban from his head, and then the still wildly swinging blade chopped into the bare shoulder of Kumar-Rao's charioteer. The unfortunate man howled with pain, swung away from the blow and inadvertently hauled hard on his reins. Both of Kumar-Rao's horses reared high in sudden panic, the chariot was tilted backwards and Kumar Rao tumbled out to land sprawling on the grass. Somehow he had retained his grip upon his sword and pulled it clear as he fell.

There was silence, except for the panting and scuffling of the horses as the wounded driver tried to control them. Kumar-Rao pulled himself to his knees, and then crawled painfully away from his grinding chariot wheels. After a few yards, he stopped and looked up pitifully at Kara-Rashna.

Slowly Kara-Rashna dismounted from his own chariot, using a spear from the rack beside him as a crutch to steady himself. Sword in hand, he limped toward his fallen opponent, and then stopped and leaned on his makeshift staff. He was breathing heavily and had to gasp his final pleas. “Kumar-Rao, friend and brother, again I beg you—leave the field.”

“You know I cannot.” Kumar-Rao used his sword to push himself upright. In doing so, he pressed the point deep into the earth and then had to struggle to free it. Kara-Rashna waited, still in hope, until Kanju's panting monarch was again erect with his sword upraised. Then Kumar-Rao charged blindly forward. He made no more attempt to swing his sword, simply holding it aloft like a banner standard. He deliberately impaled himself on Kara-Rashna's out-held, unmoving blade. The links of golden chain mail parted and the blue tunic and the soft flesh below the heart yielded just as easily. The blade plunged deep and Kara-Rashna stared in horror into Kumar-Rao's dying eyes.

Kara-Rashna pulled back his sword, staggering as he did so, and then, like something foul and distasteful, he threw it aside. He knelt beside his fallen opponent and cradled Kumar-Rao's head against his chest. The tears welled in his eyes and he could not see whether Kumar-Rao was still alive or dead. “Why, old friend?” he asked bitterly. “Why did we have to come to this?”

“I had no heart for it,” Kumar-Rao croaked weakly. “But perhaps now Kanju's honour is saved. I give Zarin and Bharat my leave to withdraw.” He coughed up blood and his last gasp was almost inaudible. “Let them take Kanju's warriors home.”

Bharat had urged his chariot forward. He was a large man, black-bearded and black-hearted. The wide grin on his face was one of triumph and satisfaction. He had overheard the last words of his elder brother, but they meant nothing to him.

“Prince Zarin is ruler of Kanju now.” He flung out a mailed hand to grandly indicate his younger, grim-faced companion. “Kanju has a new monarch and will be stronger under his leadership. Kanju will not leave the field. Not until Karakhor has fallen. Then the spoils of war are ours when we share the victory with Maghalla.”

“And you are the King-maker,” Jahan snarled contemptuously. The old Warmaster turned his gaze toward Zarin, although he knew that any appeal to any filial sense of love or duty in that direction would be an empty formality. However, Bharat was in no mood to permit any further discourse.

“King-maker and King-slayer,” he roared, mainly for the benefit of the watching warriors of Kanju. “Kumar-Rao will be avenged.” He snatched a javelin from his rack and hurled it at Kara-Rashna, and in the same moment charged his chariot forward.

Devan heaved his horses round, thrusting out his arm and shield to deflect the speeding javelin. The weapon tore through the hard, stretched leather, almost wrenching Devan's arm from its socket, but Kara-Rashna was unharmed. In the same second, Jahan leaped his horses forward, speeding between his King and the on-coming Bharat. Their chariots crashed and buckled and their swords clashed in a fast and furious ring of steel.

For a moment the rules of single combat again prevailed, but the horses on both sides were rearing and plunging out of control. Bharat's team suddenly bolted, dragging his chariot behind them, and then the tide of battle closed in behind him as Zarin too backed away, shouting for his warriors to kill them all.

Jahan found himself besieged by the men of Kanju, like some savage old lion of the forest trapped by jackals. His great sword whirled and cleaved around him, cutting back the pressing ranks of his enemies. He cleared a breathing space and then looked again for Zarin or Bharat. Both had fled, but then he heard a warning shout from one of his own captains.

He turned to see that Devan had jumped down from his own chariot. Now he was standing over the slumped bodies of the two old kings in the centre of another savage fight, defending them both with his sword. Jahan turned his chariot and charged his horses into the fray, sweeping past the spot where Devan stood and smashing the biggest knot of his opponents aside.

Kara-Rashna still held the lifeless form of Kanju's king, held him as in a lover's embrace or as a drowning man might cling with his last slipping grip upon the shore. He was only vaguely aware of Devan fighting above him and of the mighty battle raging all around. There was a red mist before his eyes and a fierce, stabbing pain in his broken heart. He felt as though he had been pierced by a spear or sword, but when his hand clasped at his chest there was no cold steel and no warm blood. There was no wound. The pain was all inside his chest and it was slowly quenched by an all-consuming darkness.

 

 

 

On Ghedda, Kananda and his companions had survived two nights and two days in the desert. They had escaped from the City of Swords in a stolen patrol ship but had soon come under attack from three Gheddan fighters. Zela's superior flying skills had saved them and all four ships had been shot down in the few mad moments of battle.

Kananda, Zela and Jayna waited long minutes for their crashed patrol ship to explode, but nothing more happened. Finally, when the frantic beating of their hearts had slowed and their shattered senses had regained some equilibrium, they dared to raise their faces from the sand. They could see glows of light where the remains of the three enemy ships still burned fiercely, but their own craft lay still and black against the dark slope of the dune.

“We need water,” Zela said grimly, her mind already racing ahead to the problems of survival. She stood and Kananda moved to join her, but she pushed him back. “Wait here, I know where to look.”

She ran quickly to the wreckage and climbed back into the broken cabin. There were overhead racks for maps and documents and side pockets inside the doors where the crews usually stuffed any personal belongings. In the latter she found two half-filled water bottles and a few cakes and oddments of snack food. These she swiftly gathered up and then made another hasty exit.

They had already lingered as long as they dared and immediately began the long trek north, knowing that it was imperative to cover as much ground as possible under the blanket of darkness. Once the sun rose, they would be more easily seen and they would roast in the merciless heat. Zela led, half supporting Jayna who was now in considerable pain. There was massive bruising around the left side of Jayna's rib cage and she had been either more badly hurt than she wanted to admit, or else suffered more damage from being thrown about in the crash. Jayna's lips were pursed tight and bloodless and her face poured sweat, and Zela suspected that she now had at least one cracked rib.

Kananda brought up the rear and, with his bare hands, carefully smoothed out their footprints from the sand behind them. The palls of smoke from the three Kaz-ar fliers gradually faded from the black horizons, but they all knew that eventually there must be more pursuit and that, from the air, the crash sites would be easily found. Zela guessed that they were now no more than an hour's flight from Kaz-ar, and they would not get far in that time. Their only hope was to leave no clue as to the direction they had taken.

Mercifully, high clouds were filtering out much of the starlight and only one of Dooma's three moons was aloft, a stark, black-swirled grey satellite low on the eastern horizon which threw long, dark shadows from the high dunes. Zela was using the stars to navigate and fortunately her knowledge of the star patterns and the constellations was good enough for even partial glimpses of them to give her their direction. Kananda, too, knew most of the constellations. They were the same stars that he had so often seen from Earth, but here he had no way of relating them to the unfamiliar terrain. With only half the picture, he could only trust to Zela's skills and instincts.

Eventually they heard the sounds of the second wave of pursuit from Kaz-ar, the faint, distant drone of more fliers circling the crash site behind them. They kept going until one of the drones became louder, and then dropped flat and lay motionless in the sand. Far to their left they saw a distant beam of white light weaving a zigzag pathway across the dunes. Above it hovered the searching flier, like some great black, hostile insect combing the sky. The flier and its searchlight beam passed several hundred yards behind them and flew on its way.

“They are circling out from the crash site,” Zela explained, her voice calm and matter of fact. “But the Great Gar is a huge desert and they have missed us on the first sweep. The further away we get the more they have to search and the better our chances. We must keep moving.”

Jayna nodded and tried to push herself upright. Her face contorted in pain and she collapsed again. Zela and Kananda helped her to stand and they continued as before. The soft sand pulled at their feet as though trying to suck them under the desert surface and their progress was slow. A strengthening wind was now beginning to blow, and although it flung fine sand to sting their bodies and faces, it was also helping to clear their tracks. Kananda decided that it was now safe to leave that task wholly to the wind and concentrated on helping Zela to support the near-fainting Jayna.

Twice more they heard the searching Gheddan ships and cowered down in the sand, but each time the ships passed at a distance and only once did they see the far glimmer of a searching light. They were tiring, and when the dawn began to bleed its pale glimmer across the eastern rim of their harsh and barren world, they were all beginning to stagger.

They paused for a brief rest and Zela allowed them each a mouthful from one of the water bottles. Then they began walking again. The sun became Zela's only navigational aid as the stars and the low moon disappeared, but she was still confident that they were heading due north. It was not the direct route back to the swamp and the skimmer, but it was their shortest route out of the desert, and she knew that if they did not find tree-shelter and more water as soon as possible, then they would surely die.

The dunes at last gave way to a more hard and stony landscape, all brown and yellow with a few rust-red hills. It was a blistering world of heat and glare and dust devils, growing more cruel and deadly with every step as the sun rose higher. Zela pushed them on until they found a pile of rocks that afforded a few square feet of shade, and there they dug themselves into the hard sand and lay up for the rest of the day. Their bodies craved the rest, but the heat hammered them in savage waves and they lay exhausted. Their mouths were parched dry and Zela was sparing with the water. Even so, by noon one of their precious water bottles was empty.