Mistress of the Empire (76 page)

One of the older campaigners stiffened. ‘Force Commander,’ he ventured, ‘I know that sound.’

Omelo said, ‘What is it?’

Jiro turned, to identify the man who had spoken as one of
the survivors of the honor guard once sent with his brother to attend Ichindar’s treaty delegation to the barbarian world of Midkemia; the peacemaking had ended in slaughter, with the blood of a thousand firstborn Tsurani soaking the field. Halesko of the Anasati had fallen in the first attack; only one of his honor guard survived to win back through the rift, carrying, with three other men, the unconscious body of the Emperor. In honor for saving the Light of Heaven, the man had been given a place in Jiro’s bodyguard. He spoke now with urgency. ‘I heard this sound fighting the barbarians, Lord.’ As a rumbling closed in from the direction of the forest, he raised his voice. ‘The enemy is mounted! Horses! They ride horses!’

The next moment, chaos exploded from the trees.

A line of blueclad warriors, each astride a four-legged barbarian beast, charged headlong toward the company. Omelo screamed commands; he had studied the reports of soldiers who had faced cavalry before upon Midkemia. Only one tactic had a prayer of success for warriors on foot. The warriors that accompanied their Lord were the flower of the Anasati forces. They obeyed without hesitation, spreading out to avoid being trampled where men who had never experienced a charge might in error have stayed rooted and been run down. Jiro’s bearers reversed in awkward fear and fell back, setting as many of his inner guard as possible to stand between their master and the onrushing Shinzawai cavalry.

Jiro swallowed back panic. The Shinzawai were not two days’ distance from the Holy City, they were here! The beasts were fast! And heavy! Their hooves chewed up gouts of turf and shook the earth. The litter bearers faltered, uncertain in their step. Rocked ungently into a post, Jiro barely noticed. The horses came on in a wave, the lances of the riders gleaming in sunlight.

The foremost ranks of warriors met the charge. Brave,
steady, determined, they never had a chance. The lances impaled them, screaming, or hooves scythed them down like hwaet. The most nimble managed to duck aside, only to perish on the swords of blue-armored riders. Only the veteran of the Midkemian wars won free. His swift stroke hamstrung a beast from behind, and it collapsed in a kicking heap. The rider rolled clear, cursing over his mount’s strangely human-sounding scream. Sword met sword, the victor of the clash lost in the ocher rise of dust.

The second rank fared little better. One man stabbed a horse in the chest, before he was overrun. The riders spitted most of the defenders, but their lances were then useless, as those not broken or rammed into human flesh were too long to counter foemen now inside their reach.

Jiro felt sweat trickle inside his armor. His teeth showed in a snarl of oaths. He could die here! And the waste of it: to go as Halesko had in the mess of battle! To perish by the sword, as any unread fool could, blinded by lust for honor! Jiro rejected such a death. He would see Mara humbled first!

He kicked clear of his cushions and sprang from his litter, vicious as a cornered sarcat.

Omelo was still on his feet, shouting orders. The initial rush of the charge was blunted, the following ranks in ragged order as the mounts of the Shinzawai swerved to avoid the fallen. Lances had taken one man in two. Now mounted swordsmen whirled in pirouette; as one with their hellish beasts, they skirmished with foot warriors who coughed in the dust. The Anasati warriors never flinched. They stood ground with valiant courage, and sliced at disadvantage against foes who battled higher than their heads.

Tsurani swordsmanship was weakest against blows from above. The best fell, their helms cloven, and their blood soaking the dry road.

And still the riders came on. They converged upon the litter and the close-ranked inner guard of Jiro’s warriors. Last and most staunch in his defense, these screamed defiance. Even the most brash could see: they were not going to be enough.

Omelo shrieked a blasphemy. Chumaka seemed nowhere to be found. Swords whined through air; some slammed blade to blade in parries, and were deflected. Too many bit deep into red armor, spilling more precious red blood.

Hokanu’s cavalry trampled on over the fallen. Another horse went down, thrashing, and a warrior too close was felled by a kick from flying hooves. Jiro swallowed a rolling surge of nausea. He raised his blade. War was not his strength; but fight he must, or die.

The cries of the mortally wounded set his teeth on edge. He braced for his first blow, dizzied and overwhelmed by the brutal reality of battle. Only family pride held him upright.

A horse reached his lines, and reared up, black against the hot sky as its hooves cut the air. Teeth flashed white in a face shadowed by a helm bearing Lord’s plumes. Jiro knew: the rider was Hokanu.

The Lord of the Anasati looked up into eyes that held no pity: eyes that were dark as Kamatsu’s set and stamp, that stripped Jiro to his living spirit and knew him for a craven murderer.

In them, Jiro saw his end.

He met the first sword stroke evenly, as he had been taught. He managed to parry the second. A warrior was dying under his feet; he stepped on him, and almost tripped. Bile stung his throat. He had no strength. And Hokanu bore down, his mount sidling like a demon, his sword a slash in sunlight.

Jiro stumbled back. No! This was not happening! He, who had prided himself on reason, would be butchered
wholesale by a sword! Numbed through his vitals with dread, he spun and ran.

Any concept of dishonor was driven from him by the horror of what thundered at his heels. Jiro’s breath labored. His sinews screamed with exertion, all unnoticed. He must reach the woods. Cleverness could prevail over the sword, but only if he survived the next five minutes. He was the last of his father’s sons. It was not shame, but only reason, to survive, whatever the cost, so that Mara, curse her name, should die ahead of him. Then the gods could do with him as they would.

The sound of fighting dwindled, punctuated by the jarring thud of hooves pounding dry ground. Jiro’s breath rasped in his throat as he reached the trees and scrambled up a small stone outcropping to gain what he recognised as safety.

The breath of the horse no longer blew past his ears. It had stopped; the forest deterred it. Jiro blinked to clear his vision. Shadow seemed to blur his eyes, after the dazzle of noon. He flung himself, panting, against a tree bole.

‘Turn and fight,’ snapped a voice, a half-pace from his heels.

He spun. Hokanu had dismounted. He waited, sword raised, faceless in shadow as any executioner.

Jiro bit back a whimper. He was betrayed! Chumaka had erred, and erred badly, and now this was the end. Red anger washed away panic. The Lord of the Anasati raised his weapon and charged.

Hokanu flicked Jiro’s sword aside as if it were a toy. A veteran of war, he had a stroke of iron. Jiro felt blade meet blade in a vibrating shock of pain. The sting shocked his nerves, loosened his grip. His weapon flashed, spinning, from his grip. He did not hear the thrash of its fall into the undergrowth.

‘Omelo!’ he screamed in white panic. Somebody, anybody, even one warrior of his honor guard must be alive to heed his cry. He must be saved!

His wits stumbled to function. ‘Dishonor to you, who would kill an unarmed enemy.’

Hokanu bared teeth in what was not a smile. ‘As my father was unarmed? Dead in his bed of a poisoned dart? I know the assassin was yours.’ Jiro began to deny it, and Hokanu shouted, ‘I have the tong’s accounts!’ The Lord of the Shinzawai looked like terror incarnate as he lowered his blade, then, with a turn of his wrist, slammed it point down into earth, leaving it vibrating as he released the hilt. ‘You are dirt, no – less than dirt, to whine of honor to me!’

He advanced.

Jiro crouched, prepared to wrestle. Good! he thought. Wits were going to triumph after all! He had convinced the honorable fool of a Shinzawai to take him on hand to hand! Though the Anasati Lord knew he was no champion wrestler, death would be slower than the downswing of a sword stroke. He had bought time, perhaps, for one of his honor guard to win through and save him.

Still playing for delay, Jiro stepped back. He was too slow. Hokanu was hunter-quick, and driven by revenge. Rough hands grabbed at Jiro’s shoulders. He raised an arm to shove free, and felt his wrist caught and twisted. Pitiless strength forced it back and back, until bone and tendon quivered in protest.

Jiro hissed through his teeth. Tears blurred his eyes. The cruel hold only tightened. Blinking his vision clear, Jiro looked up. Hokanu loomed over above him, a sparkling shower of reflection on his helm from the partially blocked sun.

Jiro strove to speak. His mouth worked, but no intelligent words came forth. Never in his pampered adult life had he endured pain, and its kiss stole his reason.

As a man might handle a puppy, Hokanu jerked him up with one hand. His eyes were mad; he looked like a demon who would not be sated with only blood. His fingers were claws, tearing away Jiro’s ornate helm with a snap that wrenched his neck.

Jiro’s sweat ran to ice. He gasped in recognition.

And Hokanu, murderously, laughed. ‘Thought I would wrestle, did you? Fool! I set aside my blade because you do not deserve a warrior’s honor; you who bought my father’s assassination deserve a dog’s death.’

Jiro choked in a rattling breath. As he groped for a plea for mercy, Hokanu shook him. In a whisper near to a sob, only one thought found voice: ‘He was an old man.’

‘He was beloved,’ Hokanu blazed back. ‘He was my father. And your life defiles the world that he lived in.’

Hokanu wrenched Jiro off his knees, shaking loose the pouch of documents. The Shinzawai Lord shifted one hand to seize the thong. Jiro jerked back, graceless in his terror. ‘You would not sully yourself with my death, if I am so wretched a creature.’

‘Wouldn’t I?’ The words were a snarl as the strap twisted tight. Jiro felt the bite of a strangler’s garrote around his neck.

He thrashed and clawed. His nails broke on blue armor. Hokanu pulled the strap tighter. Jiro’s throat closed. His head pounded. Spittle leaked from his working lips, and his eyes bulged. The dishonor of his death confronted him, and he twitched and kicked in frantic desperation as his face went scarlet.

Yet Hokanu was a battle-seasoned soldier who had never let his training lag. He bore down upon Jiro with a hate that knew no end, but drove his blood to fury as reasonless as the flood of sea tide. For their lost child and his dead father, Hokanu twisted the strap as Jiro’s color deepened to dark red, purple, and then blue. He kept on until long
after Jiro had fallen limp. Leather bit deep, through skin and trachea and flesh. Weeping, shivering in the release of reaction, Hokanu kept twisting, until a Shinzawai Strike Leader found his Lord over the fallen foe. It took strong hands to separate master from corpse.

Empty-handed, Hokanu subsided on his haunches in the leaf mold. He covered his face with bloodied fingers. ‘It is done, my father,’ he said in a voice hoarse with emotion. ‘And by my hand alone. The dog has been strangled.’

The blue-plumed Strike Leader waited in patience. He had seen long years of service and knew his master well. Spying the document pouch that twisted around Jiro’s throat, he removed its contents, assuming them to be something his master might wish to review when his wits returned.

After a moment Hokanu stopped shaking. He arose, still looking at his hands. His expression was blank. Then, as if the mess on his knuckles were nothing more than clean dirt, and the dead thing sprawled wretchedly in its red armor nothing more than killed game, he turned and walked away.

The Strike Leader strode after his Lord. To his companions who fought tight skirmishes in the roadway, he shouted, ‘Call to the field! Jiro of the Anasati is dead! The day is ours! Shinzawai!’

Like fire in a dry field, the word of Jiro’s fall spread through the fray. Standing next to the overturned litter, Chumaka, too, heard the call: ‘The Anasati Lord is fallen! Jiro is slain!’

For a moment, the Anasati First Adviser regarded the spilled scrolls at his feet and thought about the other document Jiro had worn next to his skin. What would happen when that was found? He sighed. ‘Fool boy,’ Chumaka murmured. ‘Coward enough to run, but not to hide.’ Then he shrugged. Omelo was rising from his knees,
a scalp cut running blood down his cheek. He looked ready enough to kill, as proud as ever save that something in his eyes had gone flat. He looked to the Anasati First Adviser and said, ‘What is left?’

Chumaka considered the broken remains of Jiro’s honor guard, both the living and the dead. Out of one hundred, scarcely twenty were still standing. Honorable numbers against horses, he thought analytically. He resisted a strong wish to sit down; mourn he could not. He was no creature driven by love. Duty was duty, and his pride had been outwitting Anasati enemies; that, now, was ended. He glanced at the Shinzawai horsemen who were closing in, a ring of impenetrable flesh.

Chumaka hissed through his teeth. To the Force Commander he had known since earliest childhood he said, ‘Omelo, my friend, while I respect you as a soldier, you are a traditionalist. If you wish to fall upon your sword, I suggest you do so before we are disarmed. I urge you not to. For myself, I would order our survivors to put down their arms, and hope that Mara is as forgiving now as she has been in the past.’ Almost too softly to be heard, lest his hope shine too bright, he added, ‘And pray that she has some post left unfilled that we are suited for.’