Warrior of the Altaii Read online

  The streets we rode through were crowded with Lantans, civilians fleeing and not knowing where to flee. We had no danger from them. They only wanted to get away. But they waited to run until they saw us. They didn’t believe. They couldn’t believe. And so they waited until their own eyes convinced them, when panic-stricken runners pushed through them.

  That disbelief was a greater weapon than our swords. On the Outer Wall among the mass of Lantan guards, they’d disbelieve that the alarm bells could mean there was an enemy actually in the city. They’d disbelieve that an enemy could actually manage to fire the Outer Wall. Even when the summons came to move troops into the city, they’d disbelieve. After all, the enemy was outside, and Lanta was the Unconquerable.

  The pall of smoke behind covered a quarter of the way around the city. Within, confusion reigned. A body of guards moved to face us, and were taken in the rear and dispersed by lances with gold goblets tied to their saddles, jewels festooned around their necks. More guards passed, without weapons, running. They fought in the crowd to escape and never even saw us. Panic warred on our side.

  In the distance faint feathers of smoke began to lift from the Towers of Kaal, and I felt a small easing. No one who’d not seen it had been told of the vision. No one had fired the Towers just to make it true. Then we were at the great square in the center of the city, and across it lay the Palace of the Twin Thrones.

  The gates of the palace were shut, but there were still guards outside, peering toward the rising smoke and talking excitedly among themselves. For all the screams and noise of armed clashes, there was no alert at the palace. Disbelief.

  I motioned, and a dozen men moved up beside me. “Now,” I said.

  From a standing start we reached a dead run in no more than half a dozen paces. We were already at the gallop and halfway across the square when the guards realized what it was they saw and managed to believe. They began to scramble inside. A third of the way to go.

  Bowmen on the walls began firing, but there weren’t many of them, and they weren’t prepared for an attack, so it was well short of a hail of arrows. A warrior took a shaft in the throat and rode three more strides before he fell. Another rolled silently from his saddle.

  The palace wall loomed over us. I uncoiled the rope that I, like each of us, carried and hurled it upward. The grappling hook on the end caught with a clang, and I leaped from the saddle and began climbing. Above there was still disbelief. We were there. They were shooting at us. But it was insane to think we were really going to scale the walls. We had a good start before anyone ran to stop us.

  A knife flashed, and a warrior fell to the paving stones below. The guard who cut at my rope waited too long. I pulled him over the edge, then caught hold of the wall as the rope parted. With a heave I was onto the guardwalk. I cut down a man slashing at the rope below a grappling hook and dashed on.

  A guard met me at the head of the stairs. He tumbled to the bottom before I reached it myself. Another ran to meet me, but he was clumsy and lost his weapon at the first pass. Openmouthed he clutched his arm and waited for me to kill him, but I’d more important things that had to be done. A wave of Altaii joined me, and the Lantans at the palace gates threw down their weapons.

  Two men attended to binding the prisoners while the rest of us labored to lift the bar across the gates. The gates were thrown open, the signal given, and the rest of the thousand charged into the palace. More guards rushing to defend the gates arrived in time to go down under the rush. Warriors leaped from their horses and pressed on into the depths of the palace. Mayra came to me as I moved to join them.

  “We must go down. The place we seek is two levels down.”

  I didn’t ask her how she knew, or even what it was she sought. I’d promised a service. It was for her to name it.

  With her leading we found stairs and started down. She moved as if she’d studied a map, or had been there before. Neither was possible, I was sure, but then almost anything is possible to a Sister of Wisdom. I followed her lead without question, down halls, through rooms and side passages. I began to think we could merely stroll to where she wanted to go, and it almost cost my life.

  Fire bloomed in my side, and I fell away from the two Lantans who swarmed out of a gallery we’d passed. The blade came free as I fell, but the second man laid open the side of my head, and the first managed to kick my right-hand sword away. The other sword hamstrung that one from where I lay. He screamed as he fell.

  The other guard circled me as I got to my feet. He was more careful than he’d been before, but I’d no time for his caution. The side of my head was wet with my blood, and the wound in my side was soaking my tunic. The hurt I’d taken at the gate tower opened. If he managed to stay away from me long enough, I’d fall on my face in front of him.

  He feinted and moved to the side, feinted and moved. He was beginning to move in. Maybe he gained confidence because I still held my one remaining sword in my left hand. He feinted, moved closer, closer. The exchange was sharp and brief. His eyes widened in surprise as my blade slid between his ribs, and the man on the floor stuck a dagger in my leg.

  I’ve no excuse for forgetting about him. The second guard hadn’t. He’d maneuvered me right to where his companion could strike at me. It wasn’t his fault he hadn’t survived the attack.

  I finished the one on the ground with his own dagger. As I was reaching for my swords Nesir walked out of a cross corridor. At the sight of him I forgot my swords, my wounds, Mayra, everything. In two strides I hit him, slamming him back against the wall. My fingers dug through the fat of his neck to reach muscle, and dug deeper.

  He wasn’t a weak man, for all of his fat. He was strong, and full of the confidence of his strength. He took my wrists in a crushing grip and pulled. Most men’s hands would’ve pulled loose. My fingers dug deeper. For the first time he met my eyes. There was still no worry in his. And then he recognized me.

  Sweat popped out on his forehead, and it wasn’t from the exertion. His eyes bulged, and it wasn’t from my grip on his throat. Staring at me he pulled harder, more frantically. He began to claw and hit. And all the while his eyes were locked to mine. At the end he put up his hands to block my gaze, to block the eyes that had looked into the pit.

  Mayra looked at his body curiously. “So he was the one.”

  I picked up my swords without asking what she knew, or how she knew. What was, was. With her there was often no other explanation.

  Suddenly my right arm began to tremble. My hand felt numb on the sword grip. It subsided, but the tingling was back, as bad as it’d been since the day it came. I looked a question at her.

  She nodded as if I’d confirmed something she already knew. “Yes. We’re close, now. She thought these might do it, but she’s waiting.”

  She walked swiftly, obviously going where she knew the way. Two cross passages down the hall she stopped. The door in front of us opened without being touched. She smiled and entered.

  I followed close behind her, but I stopped at my first step. Daiman sat on a table across the room. It was Daiman, but in some fashion he was bigger than I remembered, bigger and younger and stronger and more confident. The casual smile on his face said he was waiting for a little casual practice with someone he knew he could beat.

  Three sharp claps drew my attention away from him. Mayra stood with her robes around her feet, hands shoulder high in front of her, palms forward. Facing her, Betine stood in the same manner. The confident smile that was on Daiman’s lips was on hers also.

  “The first part of the service,” Mayra said. She sounded strained. “Kill the man.”

  Daiman swung his feet off the table and got up slowly. He showed no concern, and considering my condition, perhaps he shouldn’t have. But I had promised the service, and she had named it. I raised my swords and took a step forward.

  With that step the pain of my wounds disappeared. Without looking I knew they bled no longer. The aches were gone, the tiredness. Each breath I took
seemed to flush new life and strength through me. I felt in the first flush of my youth again.

  We met in the center of the floor. There were no wild rushes, no furious attacks. Carefully each of us felt the other out, probed for weakness, searched for openings. And that smile never left his face.

  He had one sword longer than mine, and a dagger. The dagger was held low for the thrust into the belly or under the ribs, but he was in no hurry. His boots whispered on the stone as he circled.

  His first attack was a lightning strike to my head, followed an instant later by the belly thrust. He moved faster than I thought he could, faster than I thought any man could, but I met the attack easily. As fast as he moved, I moved faster, one blade flicking his sword aside, the other opening a cut on his dagger hand.

  Whatever Betine had done to him, whatever Mayra had done to me, I knew in that instant I could best him. I moved to the attack.

  My blades no longer seemed a blur. They were a blur, blindingly quick flickers of light, gleaming fans of blue steel hissing in the air like hot metal dropped in oil. He struck quickly, too. His sword was a flame in the lamplight. But he retreated, and I advanced. That was the difference.

  I struck through his guard. Again. Two red patches widened on his tunic. I struck again, and there was a third. I could end it now. I knew it. I closed, and blazing pain swept along my right arm. It trembled uncontrollably, twitching and burning. I tried to hold on to my sword, but it fell from fingers that wouldn’t obey, couldn’t obey for the molten metal the bones in my arms had become.

  In that first instant he knew what happened. With the first tingle in my arm, the first small tremor, he made his attack from my right. He moved, and his sword swept back for a backhand beheading stroke. He forgot that my left-hand blade was longer than the dagger he carried. Four inches slid into his heart. Not much, but enough.

  His sword dropped over his shoulder, and he fell to his knees. For the first time the confident smile disappeared. He looked at me in surprise. “You? How—” He fell forward and was dead when he hit the stones.

  I looked for Mayra. She was standing over Betine. The Sister of Wisdom from Caselle lay on her back, staring at the ceiling with a look of indescribable horror on her face.

  “She didn’t believe it was happening,” Mayra said, “even while it was happening.”

  “He didn’t know me,” I told her. “Until the end he didn’t know me.”

  “It was as I thought, Wulfgar, once I saw him. I didn’t know how I could do what had to be done, but when I saw him—She didn’t trust him, not enough to give him free will to fight his battle. She linked with him completely. He was no more than a puppet. She must have been insanely confident to do such a thing.”

  “Why? I don’t understand.”

  “The link with Daiman. When he died under that link, she died. You might say that you killed her when you killed Daiman.”

  “I’d rather it wasn’t said. I want no name for killing Sisters of Wisdom, no matter the circumstances.” The tingling in my arm had faded to where I could pick up the sword again. “Besides, I’ve still got a city to conquer.”

  “No longer, my lord.” Orne walked in with scarcely a glance for Daiman, though his eyebrows lifted at the sight of Betine. “I’ve been looking for you to give you the news. The last resistance has collapsed. Lanta is yours.”

  XXV

  OATHS

  From the tower room in the palace that I’d taken for mine I could see the ring of smoke that still surrounded the city. Hundreds of the guards had leaped from the Outer Wall to escape the flames, but they were back out there now, all of them we’d captured and thousands of men from the city, too. The fire had spread to Low Town, sweeping through it like a flood. Most of the inhabitants appeared to have escaped, but those Lantans out there, wearing our chains now, fought to keep the flames from spreading into the High City.

  There were fires inside the Inner Wall, small fires for the most part, easily controlled, but one was beyond anything that could be done. From windows on every one of the hundred levels of the Towers of Kaal flames roared as if they were huge furnaces. No man could get near them. Thousands worked hauling water to the vicinity of the Towers, not for the Towers, but to wet down the buildings around them, to keep the fire from spreading.

  Orne walked in muttering to himself. I looked at him sharply, and he shook his head.

  “We’ve turned out every place big enough to hide a man, my lord. We’ve questioned all of the guards, and as many others as we’ve been able to get. Nothing, my lord. They know nothing of Lord Harald.”

  Mayra put down her wine. “I told you that,” she sighed. “If you’re going to start disbelieving me—”

  “It’s not that,” I said. “It’s just that they might have used a spell to hide him. Or they could have clouded his presence. I couldn’t take the chance, Mayra.”

  She smiled and touched my arm. For some reason it made me feel better.

  “The rest, Orne?”

  “The slave dealers’ll start their caravans again, but they’re complaining. They say we have so many it’ll ruin the market and push the price down for the next five years.”

  “The price they pay us, they mean,” I laughed. “And the food.”

  “First the dirtmen said they wouldn’t sell to us.” He made it sound like a personal affront. “Then they said they’d sell, but at about one imperial to one of their stinking roots. I said we’d come and take the roots, if that was how they wanted it, and they said they’d plow the crop under and burn their barns. Then I said—”

  “What was the last thing said, Orne?”

  “They’ll sell,” he said sourly, “at only twice what they charged the Lantans.”

  “It’ll suffice, Orne. For now, it’ll suffice.”

  “As far as your personal orders, my lord, do you realize how difficult it is to find one particular girl out of thousands in the palace?” When I didn’t answer, he went to the door. “But I found her. In here, girl. Quickly.”

  A girl ran into the room, head down. Immediately she fell to her knees, face on the floor.

  “Get up, Nilla,” I said.

  Slowly she straightened, her face a study in puzzlement. Elspeth had shaved my beard that morning, but as Nilla studied me recognition showed on her face. “Why, you’re the slave—” With a gasp she threw her hands to her mouth and fell on her face again. “I’m so sorry, master. I didn’t mean—”

  “Get up, girl. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  She rose to her feet timorously, but she still hadn’t lost her tongue. “If you’re not going to hurt me, then why was I brought here?”

  “Do you want to go back to that farm still?”

  “Master, it’s cruel to taunt me.”

  “Do you want to go? Answer me, girl.”

  “Wulfgar,” Mayra broke in, “don’t frighten the child to death. Tell me, girl, do you want to go home? I’m not teasing you. I want to know.”

  “Oh, yes, please, yes.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “I do want to, but—” She faded away into sobs.

  “I thought you weren’t going to upset her,” I said dryly. “Nilla, there are a thousand gold imperials in the bag on the table. They’re yours. You’re not a skinny child any longer. With that money, you’ll be able to take your pick of the men in your village. I’ve made arrangements for you to be taken to Caselle. In the bag there’s also a letter to one Henrus Quitillan, a merchant, charging him to see that you return safely to Knorros and your village. Do you understand that?”

  “You mean I’m free now?” She sounded almost wistful.

  “That’s right. Orne will see you on your way.”

  “Thank you,” she said flatly. She didn’t look particularly happy as Orne led her away.

  “Mayra, did you hear her? She sounded disappointed, actually disappointed that I was sending her home.”

  “Of course she did.” Mayra laughed. “She was hoping to stay with you.”

 
; The hour-bell struck, and I started for the door. “Are you coming, Mayra? It’s time to deal with the Council of Nobles.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” she replied.

  Bartu met us in the hall. “I was coming for you, my lord,” he said, and fell in behind.

  There were still Lantan guardsmen at the doors to the great hall, chained to them. Those doors were heavy, taking all the Lantans’ strength to open, and no Altaii would want the job.

  A gabble of talk came out to meet me as the doors swung open, but it faded to silence when I entered. The room was lined with the full Council of Nobles, all one hundred of them. The noblewomen sat alone, but behind the men sat their wives, three or four hundred in number, and behind them the walls were lined with Altaii.

  I could feel their eyes on me as I walked to the dais where the thrones stood. There was hatred there, and contempt, but no fear. They could hardly believe what had happened to their city. They could not believe it could touch them.

  Putting a foot against one of the thrones, I toppled it. The crash when it struck the floor rang through the room like a gong. There was a concerted gasp, then silence again.

  “Have that removed. I can’t sit in more than one at a time.”

  I sat on the other, Mayra and Bartu standing at my shoulders, and surveyed the room. They were digesting what I’d said, trying to see if it meant more than the words said. We’d taken towns before, but only in raids. Did we mean to stay this time? Was that what I meant? Would an Altaii rule from one of the Twin Thrones? Avarice and arrogance spread over their faces as they began to plot how to manipulate and control stupid barbarians.

  Ara, the palace seneschal, stepped forward, smiling nervously. Perhaps he knew more than the rest. If so, he had a right to his nervousness. “Noble sir,” he said. “My lord. It’s come to the attention of the members of the Council of Nobles that their daughters have been taken prisoner.”