Demon King (11 page)

“Leave your tunic on,” she said. “I want to see you make love to me as a soldier, so I can always remember what you are. Come to me, my Damastes. I need you so!”

• • •

A few minutes later I left our apartments. Standing outside was a calm Karjan and a irate messenger wearing the prince’s livery.

“This babbler says th’ Prince wants you,” Karjan said. “I told him you give me orders to leave you alone. He wanted t’ go in anyway. I didn’t have t’ slam him one, but it was close.”

“How
dare
you,” the man hissed at the lancer. “I speak for the prince.”

“You!” I barked. “You have a message for me?”

“Yes. Yes, of course. Just what this idiot said.”

“Then stop yammering, and take me to Prince Reufern.”

“But aren’t you going to do something to this, this …” The messenger read my expression well, clamped his mouth shut, and scurried off, his legs twinkling to stay ahead of my long strides.

• • •

“I told your domina I wished to accompany you on this raid,” the prince said. “He acted surprised, then told me I’d need to tell you my desires.” He pursed his lips. “Sometimes I feel less a ruler than a prisoner in this damned castle! Damnation, but I promised my brother I’d do the best job I knew how, and I am trying! I have no desire to be a peacock on a throne!”

He glared and I stared back. I was surprised when he didn’t look away. Instead, his jaw firmed, and I saw a glimpse of that innate power his brother held in such great measure.

“My apologies, Your Majesty,” and I meant what I said. “We became so busy in this matter we didn’t take account of your feelings. It won’t happen again.”

“I’m not concerned about that greatly,” Reufern said. “Forget about it. I always prided myself on appointing managers and stewards in my businesses and leaving them alone to manage.

“The point is that I propose to go with you. Don’t worry, I know I’m not a general, so I won’t try to interfere. But the people of Kallio will never respect me if I sit on my ass surrounded by my pack of pet fools and whores and let the real task of governing go to others.”

“I’m sorry, Your Highness — ”

“Stop!” Reufern barked. “Tribune, I told you what I propose to do, and I shall do it. I am giving you an order. Obey it, or I’ll summon the guard and have you placed under arrest! ”

By the withered balls of Umar, there was some fire to the man!

“I cannot obey that order, Your Majesty,” I said. “Arrest me if you will, but I would like to have a chance to explain.”

“I have no interest in your explanations! Dammit, my brother told me that you tried to keep him from going with you once, back in that shitty border town you both almost died in! But he insisted, and he went along. I’m doing the same.”

I maintained my silence.

“Well?” he said.

“I asked if I was to be permitted an explanation. If I’m not, then you must do what you will.”

The color receded from Reufern’s face, and he rapped his knuckles twice on the table he was leaning on. “All right,” he said finally. “I’ll listen.”

“Thank you, sir. Your brother did insist on going with me back in Sayana, and he was right. We sought magic, and he was — is a magician. This is different.”

“Maybe I’m not a seer,” Reufern said. “But I can use a sword, and ride as well as any of your Lancers, Tribune. Don’t you understand,” and his tone became pleading, “I’ve
got
to feel I can do something, for Irisu’s sake! You don’t understand what it is. Laish was — is my younger brother, and I grew up taking care of him.

“Now it’s the other way around. Now he’s the one with the power, and sometimes I feel as if I’m not much more than a hanger-on, kept around more for pity than because I can serve well. Sometimes,” he said, and his voice was not much more than a whisper, “sometimes I wonder if I didn’t like it better in the old days.”

I almost let pity take me, but stiffened my resolve. “Sir, we’re after a magician once more. A very powerful one. Somehow who knows everything that happens in Polycittara. I’ll pose a question, sir, and you answer it as best you can, and if you still think it’s wise, then we both ride within the hour:

“Don’t you think that this Jalon Amboina would know, almost instantly, if Prince Reufern Tenedos, ruler of Kallio, left his palace for any reason at all, especially without warning and in the company of a band of armed men? Don’t you think that might make him at least take alarm, and maybe even lay a trap for us?”

There was a very long silence. The prince sighed, and his shoulders sagged. I felt relief wash over me — I’d hoped the shrewdness that had made Reufern a successful trader was still in him.

“You’re right, Damastes,” he said grudgingly. “But I feel no warmth toward you as I say that. I’ll stay, as you wish. But don’t expect me to just smile and shrug this off as no more than a prince’s momentary caprice, easily cast aside. I was serious about every word.

“You’re dismissed, Tribune. I wish you good hunting.” Without waiting for a response, he went out, and the slam of the door behind him was very loud.

I waited for a few moments, then left by the same door. I was very contemplative. Prince Reufern was a better man than I’d thought, and I reminded myself to not be so quick to judge. Perhaps the emperor hadn’t been completely wrong in making him prince regent.

We rode out in groups of threes and fours, in mid-afternoon. The civilians left first, then the soldiers, wearing dark civilian garb, our weapons hidden. It was a squally, chill day, perfect for our purposes. We met on an agreed hilltop five miles beyond the city. When dusk came, and travelers grew fewer, we clattered down to the highway, and rode for Lanvirn.

• • •

Five of us sprawled on a muddy hilltop, staring down at Lanvirn: Captain Lasta, Sinait, Kutulu, Karjan, and I. The rest of my raiders were hidden in a rickety barn behind us. It was not long after dawn. We’d ridden all night, stopping briefly for a meal from the iron rations in our saddlebags and one small flask of wine. Seer Sinait had improved our meal by casting a small spell over the flasks to heat them, so there was some warmth in our bodies when we rode on.

Lanvirn, like Polycittara, had sprawled beyond its walls. The fortress itself was a rectangle, with four-sided towers at the corners of the seventy-five-foot-tall keep and one on either side of the main gate. A small river had been diverted from its course for a moat around three walls, and there was a swamp to the rear. The Amboinas had built beyond the gates as their farms and ranches prospered, and a clutter of outbuildings had grown around the central structure, on the far side of the three-arched fixed bridge that bestrode the moat. There were peasants working here and there in the mucky fields, and wagons creaking along the narrow dirt roads. Unless this was all an elaborate deception, Jalon Amboina didn’t know we were coming.

We took it in turn to examine what lay below. The rear of the castle was one large donjon, and a flag flew over it, suggesting the Amboinas were in residence.

Sinait hesitantly suggested she could attempt a small seeking spell, but would rather not, for fear of alerting Jalon. I agreed — we’d find him by brute force.

First, we had to enter the fortress. It would’ve been possible for one or two to scale the outer wall, and we’d brought grapnel and rope, but we were after more than the family silver. I had an idea. I beckoned Captain Lasta to crawl over and pointed to where I thought Lanvirn might be vulnerable.

“Chancy,” he whispered. “Very chancy. I assume we’d wait for someone to open our way?”

“Just so.”

“Mmm. Four — no six men,” he mused. “Put the rest of us … where, back in one of those sheds? The closest one to the moat?”

“No,” I said. “That one over there. Let’s not get too close to the moat.”

“Chancy indeed,” he said. “But I have nothing better.”

We looked at each other, shrugged, and the plan was set.

• • •

A thin moon had risen, obscured by scudding clouds, when seven of us slid from the byre toward the moat. We were Svalbard, who carried bonds, gags, and blindfolds for the magician; an equally large bruiser named Elfric, who was one of Kutulu’s men; two archers, both from the Red Lancers (Manych and a longtime comrade and possibly the best bowman I’ve ever known, Lance-Major Curti); Kutulu; myself; and my shadow, Karjan.

All of us except the archers carried swords, but we’d slung their sheaths across our backs. We’d need them after we made entrance to Lanvirn, but not before. I hoped. Our main weapons were long daggers and padded rolls of sand to quietly silence anyone we encountered. Karjan and I carried four-inch lead pigs, which could be held in the fist to improve a blow’s quality, or thrown, as I’d done when I killed the Kallian landgrave Elias Malebranche. The archers’ bowstrings were silenced with tassels.

There was no one about, nor were there sentries outside the barred gate of the castle, but lights gleamed from the tower on each side of the bridge, so watch was being kept from a more comfortable spot than a sentry-go.

We moved slowly, crouching, so many dark huddles in the night, until we reached the moat. River-fed, it wasn’t the foul swamp most are, but it was deathly cold. I went first and had gone but a half dozen steps when the bottom dropped away and I was swimming. The current tried to sweep me under the bridge, but I kicked hard and made it to the first arch, where I was held by the current. Six heads bobbed toward me and we clung to the rough stonework.

We went from arch to arch, until we were against the dank stone walls of the fortress. Three slipped under the arch to the far side of the bridge, three others stayed with me. There was a slight ledge just underwater I hadn’t been able to see, so we were able to sit.

I took steel tent pegs from my belt pouch and tapped them into crevices in the wall, using a lead ingot for a hammer. Svalbard gave me a hoist up, and I pounded in more, until we had crude steps to just below the parapet. I heard a clink or two and the scuffle of boots against stone, and knew Kutulu and his two fellows had done as I had.

Then we waited. I spent the time numbly trying to decide which was colder, the sodden part of me above the waist in the chill breeze, or what was still underwater. I guess we sat for an hour, maybe two, although it could have been several lifetimes.

Over the soft rustle of the river I heard horses’ hooves. The stones of the bridge rang to iron horseshoes as riders approached the gatehouse. There were at least half a dozen, too many for us to overpower. A shout came, a challenge was answered. Harness creaked, and men muttered, then the great gate boomed open, and the riders entered Lanvirn. The gate closed, and there was no sound but the plash of the waters.

More time passed, and we heard more horsemen approaching, and it sounded like two, no more than three, riders. I clambered up the pegs. Karjan, then Svalbard were behind me. Again the challenge came and was answered. The shout hadn’t died into the night before I rolled across the parapet, dagger in hand.

There were three of them. One still bestrode his horse; the other two had dismounted. They had their backs to me, but heard my boots. One turned, gaping in surprise, and my dagger’s hilt thudded against his ribs, point sticking out a handspan beyond his back. The second’s mouth was open, but a sandbag took him, and he was down. The mounted man’s horse reared, someone grabbed the rider’s leg, and tore him from the saddle, and Elfric dropped across him as he went down. I saw his dagger go up, then down, three times in the dimness, and the gate was opening. Svalbard grabbed the gate in two hands and pulled hard, yanking the astonished guard behind it out onto the bridge. Karjan dropped him with a sandbag, and we were inside Lanvirn.

The Red Lancers came out of the darkness across the bridge, Seer Sinait in their midst, and were with us in the courtyard. There was a winding staircase into one of the towers, and boots thudded as another sentry came down. Curti had an arrow drawn, and as the man came into the open his bow thwacked and a war arrow went through the man’s throat clean and clattered against the stone.

Svalbard and Elfric ran up the steps. They were gone a handful of minutes, then came back. Svalbard shook his head and held his palms flat. No one else was on guard.

I marveled at the arrogance of Amboina. He had such confidence in his craft he felt untraceable, as if no one would, could, find him.

“Kutulu,” I asked. “Should you be in command?”

“No,” the spymaster whispered. “I want him taken by military law. He’ll have less right of appeal then.”

I half-admired a man who could think of such legal niceties in these circumstances.

“Seer,” I said, “do you detect any traps?”

“I do not,” and her voice was worried. “Either this Amboina is a far greater wizard than I thought, and can produce undetectable spells, or else he’s unbelievably complacent.”

“Let’s see which,” I said, and motioned my men forward. We ran along the wall, large rats scurrying, toward the double doors that were the entrance to the donjon. They were heavy wood with iron cross-bracing, and could have stood against a sizable ram. But they were unlocked and unguarded, and we drew our swords and burst through them.

The great hall could have kept harvest home for several hundreds, but there were only a dozen men and women inside, sitting at the remains of a late supper, with an equal number of servants.

At the head of the table was a man I instantly recognized, although I’d never seen him before. Jalon Amboina was his father’s image. His face was that of a brooding dreamer, a poet.

Beside him sat a young girl I supposed to be his sister, whose name Hami told Kutulu was Cymea, at the most fourteen. They were richly dressed, as were their guests.

“Jalon Amboina,” I shouted. “I have the emperor’s warrant!”

A serving maid screeched and threw a tureen at Karjan, and he knocked her spinning. I drew my sword and ran around the table. The man sitting at the foot came up, and I smashed his temple with the iron pig in my left hand, and he sprawled across his dinner partner’s lap.