The Warrior King: Book Three of the Seer King Trilogy Page 14

  “Something very odd just happened,” she said. “We’ve been approached by the Grand Councilors.”

  “Scopas and Barthou are here? In Paestum?” I was equally incredulous.

  “No,” she said. “They’re not that brave, nor that confident we’d honor a flag of truce, and honestly I don’t know if we should if we got a chance to grab those scoundrels. They sent an emissary, a Rast Timgad. I note they’re using Maisirian ranks still, although he doesn’t look like much of a soldier.” She was babbling a bit as her mind worked at the problem of what this meant.

  “That ass — ” I caught myself in time.

  “That asshole, indeed,” Sinait finished. “Although I’ve not had the displeasure of meeting him, I know full well what a lickspittle he is from Kutulu. He’s also accompanied by the new head of the Peace Guardians, a dangerous-looking man named Trerice, who says his rank is supreme jedaz.”

  Trerice had been Herne’s subordinate, and supreme jedaz was the Maisirian rank Barthou had offered me.

  Sinait managed a trace of a smile.

  “They want to meet with the head of the rebels. Tsk. I never realized we forgot to appoint somebody to the position.”

  “Kutulu declined to see them,” she went on. “He said he works better in the shadows. So would you care to be our leader?”

  “No, but I’d like to see what they’re offering, if you accompany me,” I said.

  “I would be honored.”

  “Grant a minute for me to give my blessings to these sweaty sorts,” I said, “and we’ll see what these Grand Councilors want.”

  • • •

  What they wanted, of course, was to see what we wanted. Timgad was as corpse-looking as I’d remembered, ridiculous in uniform.

  Trerice was every bit as dangerous as Sinait suggested. He wore the gray-red of the Peace Guardians, but where the late Herne had added lace and jewels to meet his ideas of how a properly dressed commander should appear, Trerice wore no glitter except for his rank sash. He wore both his sword and curving long dagger on the same side, and both sheaths were well-used plain leather. His face was hard, bones close to the surface, and his reddish beard was close-trimmed. His eyes were cold and held mine.

  He stayed behind Timgad and kept silent while the Councilors’ emissary sounded us out.

  “You truly haven’t chosen anyone to take the throne once you’ve destroyed Tenedos?” Timgad said in disbelief.

  “First of all,” Sinait said briskly, “whoever has said that anyone here has any interest in ruling Numantia?”

  “How could you not?” Timgad stammered, then recovered. “This … perhaps this news simplifies my mission.”

  “In what way?” I asked.

  “Well,” he said, his voice growing cozy, “if no one with your rebels has an interest in ruling, it would seem to be logical we should combine forces.”

  “In other words, we do your scut work,” I said, “and Barthou and Scopas rule on? Or, rather, they continue to rule at the pleasure of King Bairan.”

  “Temporarily, yes, although the noble mission of bringing order to our country is hardly something I would describe as scut work. And I am safe in adding that the present arrangements with Maisir will not last forever.”

  “Let me give you a direct answer,” I said, letting my voice rise, although I felt no real anger — these idiots were behaving in character. “Absolutely no! I won’t allow a single soldier of mine to sacrifice his life for a regime as morally empty as yours or for roundheel traitors like Barthou and Scopas.”

  “But,” Timgad said, trying to keep calm, “we must have plans to preserve order, Numantian society, after Tenedos is destroyed.”

  “That won’t be done quite as easily as you seem to think,” I said. “I seem to recall a fable about a man who sold the skin of a lion before he hunted him, and the beast was the victor that day. As I said, once the present danger is taken care of, then we’ll worry about what comes next.”

  Timgad was about to wallow further into his morass, but Trerice held up a hand.

  “Very well,” he said smoothly. “But is there any reason we can’t ally ourselves, the legitimate armed forces of Numantia, with your soldiers, such as they are?”

  I wanted that as much as I wanted a second navel, but the inexorable numbers kept floating through my mind: Tenedos had at least a million men, I had perhaps 600,000 now. The Peace Guardians would add another 750,000, enough to give us advantage.

  “Such as they are?” I parried. “I’d rather have my honest peasants, who I know will stand and fight, than those treasonous thugs you command.”

  “We can manage without the insults,” Trerice hissed.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “We can. I withdraw what I said. How would you plan to dispose these forces?”

  “The most logical,” he said, “would be to use your men to fill in my blank files — ”

  “No,” I said. “My army … our army … will fight as coherent units, under their own leaders. That is not a debatable issue.”

  Timgad began to say something, but Trerice glanced at him, and he was silent.

  “What about command?” Trerice asked. “My Peace Guardians will hardly be willing to serve under whoever you’ve made into officers. We do have, as you must know, legitimate, trained leaders.”

  “As requested, I’m refraining from giving my opinion of most of the ones I remember,” I said. “However, let me make a suggestion: Bring your forces south toward Paestum, keeping on the west bank of the Latane. I’ll hold a line here against the river.”

  “What advantage is there in that?”

  Trerice might be dangerous, but he was not a strategician.

  “Because Tenedos must destroy me … destroy my army … before he can move on Nicias,” I said patiently. “He will not, cannot, allow a threat in being to exist behind his lines. Besides, you boast your men are well led and well trained, so it’s more logical for them to move rather than me, since they’ll be able to keep proper formations and assemble for combat more readily than my regiments.”

  Trerice hesitated, and I wondered how well trained his Peace Guardians really were.

  “So Tenedos moves — from, where is he now, still in Bala Hissar? — against your lines,” Trerice thought aloud. “If we can conceal ourselves during the approach, that would make it an easy matter for us to attack his flanks once he closes with you.”

  “I’ll remind you,” I said, not showing my surprise at how out of date his intelligence about Tenedos’s whereabouts was, “the once-emperor is a master sorcerer. Unless the Grand Council has suddenly developed a wizard or group of wizards as powerful, it’ll be unlikely you’d be able to hide for long.”

  “We have magicians-in-training,” Sinait added, “and will have spells ready to partially confuse any seer, we hope. But being able to completely blind our movements, as you seem to think you can do, no. I can’t be that sanguine about the level of our sorcery. Can you?”

  “Perhaps,” Trerice said. “Or perhaps not. The emperor isn’t a general and isn’t familiar with being actually in command of an army. He did, after all, have you, Damastes, throughout his career.”

  I wanted to shake him for being a fool — who with the Council forces did have as much experience as Tenedos? Indore, a political general? Taitu, who hadn’t commanded men for many years? Trerice himself?

  “Perhaps,” he went on, “I am being too optimistic. It seems that I … or, rather, it seems Timgad and I … can present a good case to the Grand Councilors to accept your proposal, since that way no leader will be stepping on anyone else’s command toes.”

  Timgad was suddenly all smiles. “Excellent, really excellent, Supreme Jedaz. This was a truly productive meeting. And I’m delighted that we’ll be able to stand together against the common foe.

  “Now, we must return to Nicias. If there are no difficulties, we’ll send messengers back to confirm our decision and begin preparations for the great confrontation.”

&n
bsp; “Yes,” Trerice said, coldly. “Yes, we’ll do that. But, before we leave, I’d like a moment alone with you, General Damastes?”

  Sinait and Timgad excused themselves, and the thin smile fell from Trerice’s lips.

  “I suppose I should be grateful for enabling me to take command of the Peace Guardians.”

  “You needn’t bother,” I said, my voice equally chill. “I had my own reasons to kill Herne, besides those of the moment.”

  He nodded once. “You should be aware that I’m not a fool, so I hardly accept your pious claims of being uninterested in power.”

  “Accept what you please.”

  “I think in prison your self-estimate became overweeningly large, for there is no way you’ll be able to take the throne when Tenedos is destroyed. King Bairan will certainly not allow it.”

  “But he’ll let you rule Numantia, after Barthou and Scopas have convenient little accidents?” I said. “I can smell your ambition all the way across this tent.”

  “Why not? I’m certainly more capable than either of those two. For instance, if I’d had the opportunity, I wouldn’t have allowed either you or the emperor to live. Dead men claim no thrones.”

  I was amused. Men who brag to their enemies may be dangerous in an alley, but as foes they’re hardly in the league of a Tenedos or Bairan.

  “I take that,” I said, “as my warning if we defeat the once-emperor.”

  “You should,” Trerice said. He waited for a moment, no doubt expecting me to produce an equally bombastic vow. I said nothing.

  He looked a bit discomfited, picked up his riding gloves from a table, and without another word, marched out.

  I didn’t categorize him as a total fool — no one, even a boaster, who makes threats should ever be completely ignored.

  But I had larger problems.

  Such as the emperor, three-quarters of a million Peace Guardians who weren’t my idea of the perfect allies, and a battle that could be no more than a time or two away.

  ELEVEN

  MEETING AT MIDNIGHT

  I paid little attention to my own security, thinking the only important enemy I had was Tenedos, who seemed strangely unaware of where I was. Against him, I relied on whatever devices Sinait and her magicians had incanted and got on with my business.

  I kept a single sentry at the door to my quarters on the top floor of the inn, but that was only to filter out the idiots who besieged me with the smallest problem.

  One night I came back to the inn more than a little dissatisfied after a night exercise that’d started badly and gotten worse. My guard wasn’t at his post, and I thought he was using the jakes or the guard commander had forgotten to make the posting. I shrugged and went into my rooms, one long almost-hall with a huge table I had maps, plans, and papers strewn on, a bathing chamber, and a small alcove to one side with my bed.

  The room was dark, and I left the door open to give me light until I lit one of the lamps. I was halfway across the room when the door clicked shut, and I was in blackness. One panel of a dark lantern came open, pinning me in its beam. My sword was halfway out, when a quiet voice came:

  “Do not move, á Cimabue, or you shall surely die.” I let my blade drop back. A man came out of darkness, uncovering a slow match, and he lit two lamps on the table.

  “Please unbuckle your sword belt and let it fall,” the voice ordered, and I obeyed.

  “You may turn now,” the voice said. “We have no intention of killing you. At the moment.”

  I saw six men, or so I presumed, in the room. Two wore green uniform vests, all the others but one were in motley civilian garb, the last wore a hooded traveling cloak. All but one were armed with swords or daggers.

  I assumed the hooded one to be their leader, and the one who’d given me orders, but one of the men in green spoke again: “Sit down.”

  I hesitated, and the other uniformed man gestured at me with his weapon. It was a bit unusual, at least for a man to carry: a small single-handed crossbow, the stock just over a foot long, with no butt, its prod about an equal width. Boys in Cimabue used similar toys to shoot sparrows or rabbits with.

  I eyed it skeptically.

  “The bolt is poisoned,” the speaker told me. “You would have no more than a dozen breaths after being struck.”

  I sat, and the others followed, except for the hooded figure. “You have the advantage, sir,” I said. “You may call me … call me Jakuns.”

  Clever — Jakuns was the roguish folk hero who had a thousand faces to aid his swindles of the rich and foolish.

  “So what do you want with me?” I asked. “Obviously nothing to my advantage, or you wouldn’t have come in like assassins.”

  “That,” Jakuns said, “is what we are. Sometimes.”

  He held out a hand, and a yellow silk cord coiled around it, as if it was alive.

  Tovieti!

  “Last time I encountered one of your believers,” I said, “I was given assistance. I gather you’re now back in your usual murderous form.”

  “Not necessarily,” Jakuns said. “And, if you’re curious, that assistance wasn’t an individual aberration. The wisest among us approved it.”

  “Why?”

  “You don’t need to know, specifically. But your continued survival was thought to be helpful to us. At the time.”

  “And now?”

  “Now may be another matter … or it may not.”

  “Speak your case,” I said.

  “We have no liking for you, Damastes á Cimabue. But we like your former leader less. The once-Emperor Tenedos was and is a very dangerous man. He must not be allowed to resume the throne.”

  “I know that … but what are your reasons?”

  “He shook this world once, almost twice,” the hooded figure said, a woman’s voice, low, forceful. “He would have again, but you stopped him.”

  “You know a great deal,” I said.

  “We have powerful magicians of our own, and they’ve found out a lot about what really happened at Cambiaso,” the woman said. “But that’s in the past. Tenedos must not be allowed to take the throne again, for he’ll raise great demons for his own ends, demons he may not be able to control, that might run rampant on the earth.”

  “Demons,” I said wryly, “that will also wreak havoc with your cult.”

  “With everyone,” Jakuns said firmly. “Do you imagine Tenedos will be content with just regaining Numantia?” I knew that answer.

  “Then he’ll move against Maisir again,” Jakuns went on, “and if he’s successful, against other countries neither you nor I know of. He’ll drive on, ever seeking more power, more to conquer, for his thirst will always be unquenchable.

  “With this world in his hands, then what? Will he attack the demon worlds? The gods, if they exist? Or perhaps there are other worlds inhabited by men in this universe. If he can glimpse them with his sorcery, he’ll never be content until he devises a means to reach them … and grasp them in his talons as well.”

  Jakuns’s rhetoric left me unmoved. I knew all this, so he was like a priest, sermonizing to his chanters, who already accept his beliefs.

  “He must be stopped,” Jakuns said, a bit redundantly, “and we are not sure you have the power to bring him down, even though you are the most qualified. Even with your new allies in Nicias.”

  “Your spies are excellent,” I said.

  “They are,” the woman agreed.

  “We came tonight,” Jakuns said, “not to harm you, but to offer you our assistance. All Tovieti will turn against Tenedos, if you agree to our conditions, from the smallest child watching his scouts through the forest undergrowth to the sutler who can offer his soldiers poisoned drinks to our mighty wizards. A thousand thousands shall be his enemy, without his ever knowing it, until it is far too late.”

  “Interesting,” I said. Suddenly everyone wanted to join me.

  “You said ‘all Tovieti will turn against Tenedos,’” I went on. “I was told, some time ago
, after Thak’s … dissolution and the failure of your uprising, you’d abandoned your single-mindedness and worked in separate groups with a common goal.

  “Has this changed? Have you once more found a demon to follow?”

  “Nothing has changed,” the woman said. “All is as you said. But the destruction of Tenedos will bring everything together.”

  “Ah,” I said. “Now, what about these conditions?”

  “First,” Jakuns said, “as proof of your commitment, you must give us Kutulu. He has slain far too many Tovieti for us to allow his continued existence, and he must be removed. Second — ”

  I held up a hand.

  “You may stop right there,” I said. “I can answer without needing to hear your other provisions. Kutulu is not only one of the most important leaders in my army, but a friend as well.

  “Normally I’d apologize for what I’m about to say, lady, but not now.

  “Fuck you! Fuck all of you as traitorous scum.” I fairly spat the last words.

  “We should kill you now!” Jakuns snarled, and the man lifted his little crossbow.

  My hand was in my shirt, blurred out, and Perak’s dagger flashed in the lamplight, turning once and burying itself in the crossbowman’s hand, pinning it to his chair’s arm. I’d never been able to throw a knife before, in spite of the best efforts of snarling warrants, but boredom and countless hours practicing with Perak and other guards had taught me well.

  The man shrieked, dropped his weapon and a thin stream of blood sprayed. My hand swooped, and I had my sword out and, a moment later, Yonge’s silver-mounted dagger in my offhand.

  “Yes,” I mocked, feeling the hard rage of the past times of taking punishment with seldom a chance to strike back pound at me. “You can try to kill me.”

  Jakuns had a long dagger in hand, and I saw a sword flicker to my right. I was about to jump-lunge, impale Jakuns, and then deal with the others when the woman’s voice snapped:

  “Stop!”

  The four became statues, and only the man with his bleeding hand continued moaning.