Read The Two of Swords: Part 14 Online
Authors: K. J. Parker
The Two of Swords: Part 14
Y
K. J. P
ARKER
The Fencer trilogy
Colours in the Steel
The Belly of the Bow
The Proof House
The Scavenger trilogy
Shadow
Pattern
Memory
The Engineer trilogy
Devices and Desires
Evil for Evil
The Escapement
The Company
The Folding Knife
The Hammer
Sharps
The Two of Swords (e-novellas)
B
Y
T
OM
H
OLT
Expecting Someone Taller
Who’s Afraid of Beowulf?
Flying Dutch
Ye Gods!
Overtime
Here Comes the Sun
Grailblazers
Faust Among Equals
Odds and Gods
Djinn Rummy
My Hero
Paint Your Dragon
Open Sesame
Wish You Were Here
Only Human
Snow White and the Seven Samurai
Valhalla
Nothing But Blue Skies
Falling Sideways
Little People
The Portable Door
In Your Dreams
Earth, Air, Fire and Custard
You Don’t Have to be Evil to Work Here, But It Helps
Someone Like Me
Barking
The Better Mousetrap
May Contain Traces of Magic
Blonde Bombshell
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages
Doughnut
When It’s A Jar
The Outsorcerer’s Apprentice
The Good, the Bad and the Smug
Dead Funny: Omnibus 1
Mightier Than the Sword: Omnibus 2
The Divine Comedies: Omnibus 3
For Two Nights Only: Omnibus 4
Tall Stories: Omnibus 5
Saints and Sinners: Omnibus 6
Fishy Wishes: Omnibus 7
The Walled Orchard
Alexander at the World’s End
Olympiad
A Song for Nero
Meadowland
I, Margaret
Lucia Triumphant
Lucia in Wartime
Published by Orbit
ISBN: 978-0-356-50621-0
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental
.
Copyright © 2016 by K. J. Parker
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
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Little, Brown Book Group
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Hope, reversed
The horse-archer, whose name was Chantat mi Chanso, considered the shot and figured he must have pulled it at the last moment; a snatch in the release, sending the arrow low right, into the fleshy part of the thigh rather than the heart. He was annoyed with himself. He’d have to watch that before it turned into a bad habit.
The enemy had fallen off his horse – quite a pretty little mare, carried its head well, rounded nicely on to the bit; but too much trouble to lead back through the battle, and who was buying women’s horses these days, anyway? He considered shooting the man again, but he discovered he only had five arrows left. Slovenly, to leave a wounded target, but that really only applied to animals, not people. He wondered why a big man had been riding such a small horse, but it was none of his business.
Talking of which – he really ought to be getting back, he knew. Down in the valley the big battle was slipping away without him. What did you do in the big battle, Daddy? Oh, I wandered off and shot stragglers, while your Uncle Garsio and your Uncle Razo captured the enemy standard, killed the emperor and looted his golden treasury. No, that wouldn’t do at all.
He rode past the mare and over the brow of the hill, looking for his squadron. Last he’d seen of them they’d been out on the far east wing, cutting up Ironcoats. But they didn’t seem to be there any more. He looked again, more carefully; the Dream of Bright Water was easy to spot, because their dragon was the only one with a real gold head; it caught the sun and sparkled, you could always tell it was them. And now he couldn’t see it, and that was worrying.
Best to get back down there and find them. He nudged Firebird into a gentle canter, keeping her over on the soft verge. He wondered how Garsio had got on; he’d been plugging away shooting Ironcoats from a standstill (did they count if you weren’t moving? They’d never actually clarified that point) but he’d soon have run out of arrows doing that, so he’d have had to go back to the packhorses for some more. Had they brought enough? Fifty sheaves had seemed plenty when they set out that morning, but who could have anticipated a day like this?
Nothing to be seen on the road except dead Ironcoats. He glanced at the fletchings of the arrows that had killed them, but they were all reds and greens, no sign of the yellow and white of the Bright Water. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to go hurtling off after the men in the red cloaks. It’d be embarrassing if he couldn’t find the Bright Water and had to muck in with another squadron until they got back to the wagons. And if you piggybacked on another squad, didn’t you have to pay for your arrows?
Something caught his eye and he pulled Firebird up short. Under an overhanging rock beside the road he saw dead men and dead horses; no Vei, not Ironcoats. He jumped down, looped the reins round his wrist and came closer.
It was horrible. At least fifty or sixty; he didn’t recognise any of them, but there was their dragon, crushed almost flat, its pole snapped. A whole squadron, near enough. None of them had been shot. They were cut about and stabbed, there was blood everywhere.
One of them was looking at him.
He wasn’t sure at first. Dead men with their eyes open can look so very intense; yes, you, I’m talking to you. But this one blinked. He let go of the reins and edged over, stepping over dead bodies. The man licked his lips and said, “I can’t feel my legs.”
“I’m sorry,” Chanso said. “How can I help? I don’t know what to do.”
The man just looked at him. He wasn’t cut up like the others, but the way he was lying wasn’t right at all. “Horse threw me,” the man said. “Think my back’s broken. I can’t move.”
What Chanso really wanted to say was: I’m sorry, but don’t look at me like that, it’s not my
fault
. Two kites swooped down over his head, turned into the wind and pitched on the rocks above him. He looked at them; they looked back. In your own time, they were saying. We don’t want to hurry you, but we’ve got work to do. He waved his arm and yelled, but they didn’t move.
“Please,” the man said.
Please what, for crying out loud? Please lift me up and carry me back to the wagons, or please shoot me? “I’ll get help,” Chanso heard himself say; then he raced back to the horse, scrambled up on her back and got out as fast as he could.
He followed the road, simply because it was better going than trying to pick a way through the stones. He’d gone a few hundred yards when he heard shouting. He reined in and looked round and saw horsemen coming at him from three sides. They were riding big, heavy horses. They were Ironshirts.
Which made no sense, as the enemy had no cavalry in this battle, that was the whole point. But there they were; spearmen, therefore most likely the notorious Dragons’ Teeth lancers – don’t go tangling with them, sunshine, they eat little boys like you. He reached round for an arrow, realised just how stupid that would be, wrenched Firebird’s head right round and galloped back the way he’d just come.
Was it just conceivably possible that while he’d been away, in the half-hour or so his back had been turned, some fool had contrived to lose the battle? Impossible. There weren’t any enemy left, we killed them all. Whoever these lunatics were, they couldn’t have anything to do with the real outcome of the day. That had been settled long ago. They could only be some purely local anomaly, a minor incident out on the edge of the main action. It would be stupid to get himself killed by an irrelevancy. He gave poor Firebird a vicious kick and felt her accelerate. Then he glanced over his shoulder. They were closer now; much closer. It was as though he could already feel them, cutting his skin. He flapped his legs wildly, hammering Firebird’s ribs, but she couldn’t go any faster.
And then he was in the air, watching the road coming toward him. And then—
“Wake up, for crying out loud.” There was a hand gripping his jaw, waggling it from side to side. He grabbed at its wrist and it let go. “You’re all right, you’re fine. All over. Time to go.”
The man crouching over him was no Vei; too old to be on the raid, properly speaking, his hair was streaked with grey and his face was deeply lined. The pattern of fine scars on his forehead was Glorious Destiny. “What happened?”
“Tell you later. Right now, we’ve got to go. Come on.”
“Just a minute. What
happened
? Where’s my horse?”
“Forget the bloody horse, we’ve got a spare. Come
on
, will you? Or we’ll leave you here for the shitehawks.”
An arm clamped to his elbow yanked him upright; he tottered and caught his balance. He tried to pull away but the older man was much stronger, dragging him along with one hand, shoving him between the shoulders with the other, so that he had to go forward or fall over. He heard the sleeve of his shirt rip. Another voice called out, “Get a move on, will you? They’re turning.”
“Oh, shit,” said the older man, and Chanso realised he was terrified. “Look, pick it up, can’t you? Or they’ll kill us all.”
He was being hustled towards a line of boulders along the verge, where a rockfall had been cleared out of the road. As he got closer he could see men behind it, three, no, four, all no Vei, and, behind them, six horses. They were watching something behind him, as anxiously as heavy betters at a horse race. The strong man grabbed a handful of the back of his shirt and boosted him over the boulders.
“Now can we get out of here?” pleaded one of the men angrily.
A moment later, Chanso was on a horse – he wanted to explain, I’ve already got a horse, I don’t need one; then it occurred to him that maybe he didn’t any more. He twisted round to look for Firebird, but someone grabbed his reins and he had to catch a handful of mane to stay in the saddle as the stranger’s horse broke into a gallop. As soon as he was secure in his seat he craned his neck round and saw a grey line sweeping towards him. More of the terrible Ironshirt lancers. Fear flooded his mind, drowning everything else. He had no control over anything. He clung on tight, like a little boy.
