Sword Play (18 page)

An orc captain took Greenwillow’s pass and detached two soldiers to escort her somewhere. The orcs spoke among themselves in a grunting, gargling language that sounded like someone choking. Sunbright watched Greenwillow’s eyes. He’d neglected to ask her if she spoke the language, but read in her face that she did, for she followed the exchanges with feigned indifference. So the ignorant barbarian took his cues from her and stayed close on her left side, for she fought right-handed.

Tramping through the crowded streets, Sunbright looked for signs of oppression and found none. Whatever the One King’s plans, he’d kept a rein on pillage and rape. They soon arrived at what Sunbright thought of as the city palace, entered a small side door, and squeezed into a room barely larger than an alcove.

The guards left them to a human clerk, and Sunbright breathed easily again. But soon he found himself missing the orcs. The clerk was a fussy, irascible woman who questioned them endlessly as to their mission.

“I told you thrice now,” Greenwillow finally snapped, “I’m a delegate from the High Elves of Cormanthyr, here to see the One King!”

“And I’ve told you, elf, the king is a busy man! He doesn’t admit every saucy snippet that marches in here! Give me the missive to read, and I’ll decide if it warrants the king’s attention!”

Greenwillow cursed under her breath in elven, but handed over the missive, which Sunbright now saw for the first time. It was a wide and lumpy sheet of old parchment, much scraped and curled, folded thrice and sealed with blue wax with a simple sigil. With no pomp whatsoever, the clerk jerked her thumb under the wax and snapped the seal, uncrinkled the parchment, and read for a long time.

Finally she reread a section, then folded the missive shut. “I see. Wait here.” She heaved her massive butt off a bench and passed through a wooden door.

” ‘Kings think they rule, while clerks really do,’ is a saying at court.” Greenwillow sighed and studied the ceiling, reaching up and fingering dust along a beam.

Sunbright drummed his fingers idly, went to a shuttered window in the wall, and peeked between the slats. “What if the king… Garagos!”

His shout was drowned by an inrushing wave of orcs. They carried not studded clubs but hardwood batons, and wore red-and-black tunics and steel helmets and breastplates and greaves. There seemed to be a hundred of them, and they stampeded into the tiny room like a herd of mad buffalo. Before Sunbright or Greenwillow could even draw steel, the wave smashed into them, plowed them into a wall, drove them under feet and greaves and pounding batons. Sunbright was literally smothered under a ton of gray flesh and bright steel, and blows crashed, like an avalanche, on his head. He heard Greenwillow shriek just once. Then the lights went out.

Sunbright awoke abruptly and, remembering the attack, reached out to stop the invading orcs, lost his balance, and toppled off a bunk onto the floor.

Groggy, he crouched on hands and knees, listened and smelled and peered around.

He was in a room no bigger than a hayrick. A wooden door studded with iron spikes filled one wall; a tiny, barred window marked another. A wooden bunk with straw-stuffed ticking and a bucket were the room’s only furnishings. Light from the window bounced off fresh whitewash.

A jail cell. The words came to him from tales he’d heard, for he’d never seen one. Indeed, he hadn’t been in nine different buildings in his entire life. He’d spent almost every day outdoors.

Then he recalled what jails were for. With a choked cry, he scrambled up and pushed at the door, for he couldn’t pull it open; there was no handle. Heedless, he threw his shoulder against the door until the iron spikes were tipped with blood. Failing there, he ran to the bars, grabbed and yanked and pulled. But the bars were thicker than his wrists. The view outside showed only another wall.

Howling, he grabbed the bunk and used it as a ram to batter first the door, then the window bars. But the crude bed was made of lightweight pine and soon cracked. Heedless, he smashed it to splinters that lodged in his hands.

Confined for the first time in his life, Sunbright, child of the tundra and the steppes, went berserk. He screamed and ranted and banged on doors and windows and walls until the whitewash was spattered with blood. And still he pounded and shrieked, all through the afternoon and long into the night.

Orc and human guards found the barbarian lying on the floor of his cell. Punctures and scrapes and crusted blood covered him from head to toe, and for a moment they feared he’d killed himself. An orc guard rolled back the human’s eyelid, jammed his thumb into the eye, and felt the prisoner squirm. Grunting, four soldiers lugged him upstairs.

Sunbright came to when dropped into a tub of scalding hot water. Blubbering, lashing out, he was restrained by firm hands and gentle reassurances. Opening his sore eyes, he found himself in the grip of two dark servingwomen dressed in damp linen shifts that clung to their bodies. The shifts each had a small red hand painted on the front.

Sunbright lay half in and half out of a small bathtub. “I… I don’t understand.” His voice was raspy and raw from screaming.

“Rest, good sir. Be at ease. Let us attend you, and soon the One King will explain all.”

Dizzy, groggy, still not at full strength, Sunbright gave himself up to their ministrations. Gently they washed and dried him, combing his golden hair and pulling it back into a topknot. Then they bandaged his hurts, most of which were self-inflicted, and fed him cakes and ale. They dressed him in a soft smock of light blue, painted with a red hand on the front, and slippers. Lastly, gingerly, they insisted he don silvery manacles. The barbarian refused, and argued, and finally pleaded in a way that amazed and shamed him, but the servingwomen were firm: he couldn’t appear before the One King unless shackled.

“The One King? I’m to meet him?” Solemn nods answered.

Only the king could get him out of this mess—whatever it was—so, reluctantly, he extended his arms. The handcuffs and chain were cold, and glistened. With a shock, the barbarian realized they were silver, not steel. “Curious, this king’s customs,” he muttered.

Bidding the servants thanks, Sunbright gave himself over to the castle guards. These were unusually tall and upright orcs and a smattering of men, all in the steel soup-bowl helmets and breastplates and greaves and tunics of black edged with red. None of them spoke as Sunbright was escorted down wide stairs to the main hall.

The barbarian peered over steel helms; the guards were tall, but he was taller. The palace’s main hall had plain stone walls, like those of many keeps, but banners and streamers of red and black hung where normally there would be the banners and pennants of enemies defeated in battles. As far as Sunbright knew, the One King had yet to conquer anything except this one tiny city. Courtiers lined the walls, city people and orcs and women dressed to kill, the oddest mix the barbarian had ever seen. There were more folks, guards and clerks and even a few dancing girls, seated along benches and tables flanking the throne. The throne itself was carved from ebony wood, and sported a pennant above it of a red splayed hand. The king looked like a bearded, black-haired man carved from wax. Sunbright waited a long time as the king attended business, making decisions and issuing commands in a flat drone.

Abruptly, the king stood and began to address the crowd. He began, “Fellow Tinnainens, citizens of the First World. Know that by doing my bidding, you cause the wonders of man to increase.”

The proud and empty words rolled on for what seemed like hours. It was all fluff as far as Sunbright was concerned. The message was that the people, by obeying every order of the One King implicitly, would be part of some vague new order when he conquered the world. Independent, trained to think for himself—for only the alert survived on the tundra— Sunbright resisted the pettish arguments, but saw the city-born courtiers nodding in unison, as if hypnotized. Perhaps, the barbarian thought, if one listened to this mishmash of fact and fancy long enough, it would make sense.

At last, a plump, grayish man in a gray gown consulted a list, took command of the barbarian, and led him to yet another table staffed by clerks in an alcove at the back of the room.

The man was of middling size, stoop-shouldered, and distracted by his duties. If not for his average size and pompous nature, he would have been imposing with his grayish skin, pouchy jowls, black, burning eyes, and dark hair that formed a deep widow’s peak.

In an unctuous voice he proclaimed himself to be Angriman, the One King’s chief minister, which Sunbright interpreted as chief clerk. He apologized for the rough treatment Sunbright had suffered, then asked the barbarian’s mission. Simple and direct, Sunbright told the truth: he had accompanied Greenwillow on her mission, and was seeking information on the One King for his employer, who fretted about grain prices.

Angriman frowned, twitched his jowls, pondered, then shook his head and pronounced, “Thank you. The king has already concerned himself with Greenwillow. Sadly, her missive from the High Elves is one of defiance, which is not permitted. She will be held for punishment. You are free to go. We shall return your—”

“Go? Punishment?” Sunbright bristled so his silver chain clittered. Angriman stepped back; orcish guards moved forward. The barbarian’s voice rose. “I’m not going anywhere without Greenwillow! And I don’t see why she should be punished. She’s only the messenger! If you’ve a quarrel, take it up with the High Elves, wherever the hell they are.”

Angriman’s jowls quivered as he signaled frantically for the guards, but the barbarian whirled and swung his chains to keep them back. Before they could circle, he trotted into the clear—right down the middle of the hall toward the king’s throne.

Now people closed in from all over: clerks, guards, courtiers. But Sunbright yelled over their protests. “Sire! King! You will release my friend Greenwillow if you are a just man! She’s done you no harm—” He hissed, for guards clutched his hair and ground the ends of their hardwood batons into his kidneys, all surreptitiously. But they ceased, and the crowd parted, when the king raised his hand, beckoning the tall barbarian forward.

Up close, Sunbright got his first good look at the king. He appeared to be middle-aged, was unusually tall with handsome features, black hair and beard, and wore a gaudy crown of platinum set with red and black gems and bewinged with silver. The only jarring feature was the monarch’s pale, almost sallow skin, which made him stand out amidst his courtiers, who were either sun-dark or gray-skinned.

There was no expression whatsoever on the king’s face. No human warmth, no anger at Sunbright’s presumption, no sympathy. With his yellow cast, black hair, and deadly calm manner, he reminded Sunbright of a giant hornet transformed into a man, an apt image, since hornets were easily roused and carried deadly stings.

Yet before the king could speak, something flickered at one side of the throne. A beautiful woman with the arching eyebrows and pointed ears of an elf rose from a wooden bench. She wore a garment of rainbow silk that shimmered like mackerel scales. Slim golden chains on thin wrists shackled her to the piece of heavy oak furniture. She smiled at him sadly, but held herself tall and proud. Sunbright blinked, rubbed his eyes with hands bound by clanking chains, and blurted, “Greenwillow?”

Then, from the opposite side, there came another shimmer. A beautiful woman with hair the color of flames, dressed in a gown of the same shade, sat close to the throne, her legs crossed saucily, her red mouth smiling slyly. Sunbright was even more boggled by this vision, but managed to keep from saying aloud the name that burst into his mind. Ruellana? Here?

The king spoke, his tone of voice as flat as his face. “You too, underling, now give offense. Such is not permitted in the lands of the One King—”

“Sire,” interrupted the barbarian. The king was so surprised he sat back on his throne, hands on its intricately carved ebony arms. Sunbright was flummoxed to find the two women he cherished most here and was nervous about addressing the king in such a fashion, but he pressed on, regardless. After all, they could only behead him once. “If I might interrupt, sire. Greenwillow came only to deliver a message from her superiors. You yourself must send forth messengers throughout the lands, and you would be upset if they came to harm. Kings must communicate with lesser beings to preserve civilization.”

That was almost a direct quote from the king’s earlier speech. Sunbright had never spoken in public before, not even at the tribal council, but he had a good memory and could spin arguments as well as any man. “If you free her, I will see that she leaves your kingdom immediately. Or, if we have offended you, perhaps you might give us a chance to do penance. A task you need completed, perhaps, or an errand to run. We are both capable and strong.”

With the innate drama of a storyteller, the barbarian crossed his arms before him as if saluting the king, then snapped them sideways. His silver shackles shattered in three places. In the crowd of silent courtiers, the plink of silver links.on flagstones sounded loudly.

“At the very least,” Sunbright finished to a rapt audience, “let me suffer the same punishment as the elf-maid. Return us to our cells together.” His voice almost broke as he said the last, and his knees trembled, for the fearsome memory of confinement haunted him. He prayed his quivering stomach wouldn’t puke up his meager breakfast at the king’s feet. Yet he failed to notice that the crowd discerned the truth: this wild man feared imprisonment over death.

The One King, as he had proclaimed himself, sat a long time on his cold throne, staring without blinking, and again Sunbright thought of a hornet and not a man. Finally the king signaled for the barbarian to move backward, and Angriman to come forward. Low tones conveyed orders, and guards led Sunbright away.

Whirling around, the barbarian glimpsed Greenwillow looking after him with a proud smile. But too, he saw Ruellana lick her lips and drop a sly wink.

Then he was hustled from the hall.