The Two of Swords: Part 15
Read The Two of Swords: Part 15 Online
Authors: K. J. Parker
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: 978-0-356-50622-7
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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London, EC4Y 0DZ
The Angel, Reversed
Major Genseric opened the door and looked inside, but it was only someone’s study. There was a boy, sitting behind a desk, probably a student or a servant. Not a threat. He looked petrified, and faintly comic.
“Where’s the library?” Genseric asked.
The boy stared at him; scared, half-witted, maybe both. “The library,” Genseric repeated slowly. “Big room full of books. Well?”
The boy struggled for a moment, then said, “Sorry, don’t know.”
Didn’t know or wasn’t telling; actually,
didn’t know
was entirely possible, given the look on his face. Not just gormless; rather, a bottomless pit into which gorm falls and is utterly consumed. “Oh, for God’s sake,” Genseric snapped, and slammed the door.
There were three more doors in that section of wall. One opened on a steep staircase and the other two were locked, and there simply wasn’t
time
— Come on, Genseric told himself, the most famous library in the known world, it’s got to be somewhere. Damn this place to hell. Why couldn’t someone have dug up a floorplan? Why couldn’t there be any
signs
?
He was standing in the middle of the quadrangle feeling helpless and annoyed when Captain Sirubat turned up. “We’ve found it,” he called out.
“Hoo-bloody-ray,” said Genseric. “Where? No, don’t point. Tell me, in words.”
“Through that door there,” said the captain, “up two flights, turn left down a corridor, third door on your right, brings you to some more stairs—”
Genseric held up his hand. “Anyway,” he said, “you found it. Right, now we can get on. Where’s the head man?”
“In the gatehouse,” the captain said. Pause. “Through that arch there, left, you can’t miss it.”
The head man, Genseric reminded himself, was the Principal; not just the chief administrator of what was probably – grey area – a sovereign nation, but also a considerable scholar and the greatest living authority on metallurgy. He took several deep breaths to calm himself down, sheathed his sword and went in.
The gatehouse must’ve taken a direct hit from the mangonel, because half of it wasn’t there any more. Most of the roof was on the floor, and the furniture was smashed under fallen rubble. The man he’d come to see was sitting on the only survivor, a small gate-leg table. He was dirty and covered in dust, but apparently otherwise unharmed. He looked stunned, as if he was trying to figure out if all this was real or just an elaborate practical joke.
“Principal Ertan,” Genseric said. The wretched man looked up at him. “I’m Major Genseric. Your people are in my way.”
The Principal opened his mouth but said nothing.
“You’ve got a hundred students crowded up the staircase to my lady’s chamber,” Genseric said. “Human shield, presumably. I really don’t want to hurt them if I can help it.”
No answer. Why do we have to do this, Genseric thought, it’s so pointless, and these people aren’t the enemy. They’re just— He sighed. “So here’s the threat,” he said. “Clear them out of there, or my men will burn down your library.”
For a moment, Genseric thought the Principal was going to choke to death. He wanted to help, but he wasn’t sure he knew what to do. But then the Principal said, “You can’t.”
“Yes, I can. They tell me there’s a quarter of a million books in there. I never realised there were that many in the whole world.” He paused, then said, “Up to you. Let us take what we came for and we’ll be on our way, no more fuss, nobody gets hurt, no more damage.”
He counted to five under his breath. The Principal hadn’t moved.
“We’ve done our best,” he said. “We haven’t shot a single arrow, and as far as I know, none of your people have been killed. You’ve been doing your damnedest to hurt us, but that’s all right, I understand. But you’ve lost, there’s nothing more you can do, so please be sensible and help me to keep the damage to a minimum.”
He waited. Maybe the poor fool had lost the use of his tongue. It took some people that way, he’d read somewhere. “Oh, come on,” he said. “Say something.”
“No,” the Principal said.
“What? For crying out loud, man, you’re talking about several hundred lives. I’m a soldier, not a butcher. Do you understand what I’m saying? First I’ll set fire to the library. Then I’ll send my men in to clear the staircase. It’ll be the greatest crime against humanity in all of history, and all because you’re so damn stubborn. Don’t you get it? It’s over. You can’t stop me. What you can do is help me prevent a fucking disaster. Well?”
He realised he’d been shouting, which he hadn’t wanted to do. But the fool was just sitting there, understanding and not giving in. Ridiculous. Unbelievable. And then a thought occurred to him, and he thought, Of course, brilliant.
He turned to the captain, who was right behind him. “Did we get any of this man’s personal staff?”
“Two, sir. Chief secretary and deputy principal.”
“They’ll do.” The Principal’s eyes were wide with horror. “Oh, pull yourself together, I’m not going to hurt them,” Genseric snapped. “Right, fetch them in here, quick as you like.”
Curious specimens: one was a youngish no Vei, the other a middle-aged woman. The no Vei was missing his right thumb; Genseric was pleased to see his people had bandaged it neatly, properly. The woman had blood on her dress, but seemed unhurt. “Names,” he snapped.
The woman gave him a murderous scowl. “I’m Lonjamen,” the no Vei said quickly. “This is Emphianassa.”
“Fine,” Genseric said. “Now listen to me. I’ve just told your chief here that if he doesn’t get his human shield off the stairs to the top tower, I’m going to burn the library.”
The woman yelled something at him that he decided he hadn’t quite heard. “And then,” he went on, “I’ll have no choice but to clear that stair, any way I can. Your chief’s just told me, go ahead. Is that what you want? You two. Don’t look at him, I’m talking to you.”
The woman had gone white as linen. The no Vei was staring at him as though at an approaching tidal wave. “No,” he said. “I take it there’s an alternative.”
“Of course there is,” Genseric said. “Seems to me, if your boss here were to see sense, he’d send one of you two to give the order. Well? Yes or no.”
The woman was in tears. “Yes,” said the no Vei. “That’d be me.”
“Fine. So it’s not him I need to convince that I’m serious, it’s you. Look at me,” he said, taking a step closer. “Are you convinced?”
The no Vei nodded quickly. “If I do it, will you let the students on the stairs go?”
“I promise,” Genseric said. “Soon as we’ve got what we want, we’ll be off and out of your hair before you can say snap. Or the streets can run with blood. You decide. I really don’t care any more. I’ve had about as much of you people as I can take.”
The Principal jumped up and started yelling; Genseric knocked him to the floor with the back of his hand, skinned his knuckles on the fool’s bony jaw. Trouble with me, he thought, I don’t know my own strength. “Ignore him, he doesn’t matter. It’s all up to you. I’m going to count to five.”
“All right,” the no Vei said, before he could start. The Principal, on his hands and knees, was mumbling through a mouthful of blood and loose teeth. The woman looked like she was about to start screaming. Civilians, Genseric thought. No more idea than my mother’s cat.
All but a dozen of the students obeyed the order to evacuate the staircase; the remainder weren’t hard to remove, with a little help from both ends of a spear or two. It was as the last of them were being bundled away that Genseric remembered a story his uncle had told him. He swore loudly, looked round for someone to give orders to, found nobody, broke into a run. This horrible place, all doors and corridors.
More by luck than judgement he came out in the main quadrangle, where he’d posted two troopers and a sergeant. He was too blown from running to explain, so he grabbed the sergeant by the wrist and towed him like a barge, with the two troopers trotting behind like carriage dogs.
