Servant of the Empire (31 page)

Keyoke absorbed this without pause to register the horror, for Minwanabi soldiers poured through the gap. The defile might only admit one or two men at a time, but it was open, and the Acoma were in retreat.

Keyoke drew his sword. His helm was off, abandoned on the ground where he had slept. He rejected the idea of searching for it, not trusting his balky leg enough to attempt unnecessary steps. Only the will of the gods might determine whether he should die proudly as Acoma Force Commander or as just another nameless old soldier. With Mara left threatened, in the end, he judged, it mattered little.

‘Burn the silk,’ he called to a servant, who hovered awaiting orders by his elbow. The man bowed swiftly and
left, and in the soft, untrustworthy light of blossoming torches, as loyal hands threw flaming brands upon piled silk, Keyoke hurried forward in a stumbling half-hop. Through a spinning haze of fever he was aware of the screams of dying soldiers and the clash of arms punctuated by the crackle of silk and dry wood exploding at his back in a leaping wash of Are. A Minwanabi soldier spun backwards, stumbling from the blow of an Acoma warrior. Keyoke dispatched him with a reflexive slash, and a grim smile stretched his lips across his teeth. His leg might be ruined, but by Turakamu, his sword arm still functioned. He would see the Minwanabi as his escorts into the halls of the Red God.

The battle raged across the narrow draw, hemmed between rock walls and a blazing barrier of silk. Men struggled in a dance with death, their swords shining red in the night. Fighting, stumbling ahead, Keyoke squinted against the glare and tried to sort friend from foe. The warriors of both sides looked like nothing so much as a scene from some demented battle hell as the fire burned in brilliant fury.

Beset by another Minwanabi, Keyoke ducked a sword thrust and countered with a single chop to the throat. The warrior fell, gurgling, and precious seconds were lost because Keyoke could not raise his injured leg high enough to step over the man’s death throes. The Acoma Force Commander’s knee trembled as he limped around, and pain jabbed him from ankle to thigh each time the limb bore weight. The agony knotted his belly, and he swallowed to keep from voiding his stomach. Dizziness teased at his balance, and his vision swam.

Keyoke hobbled headlong into his last fight, where two Minwanabi soldiers hammered at the shield of an Acoma. Hide and wood parted with a crack, and a blade struck home. The Acoma warrior went down, and his dying eyes met those of his officer.

‘Force Commander,’ he called clearly, before an attacker trampled over his face.

Then a figure in orange and black was shouting and pointing his sword, and warriors turned and converged. The clash of arms swelled on all sides. Believing the sound to be amplified by his fever, Keyoke focused only on the recognition reflected on enemy features.

‘The Acoma Force Commander!’ someone called clearly and Keyoke was beset by enemies. His sword spilled their blood, but his feet were not nimble. His guard was hampered by his lameness, and in the press of cut and thrust he was aware of other soldiers rushing him from behind. He could do nothing to prevent himself being surrounded. Driven to his knees and crippled, he wrestled through spinning vision to ward off the blows hammered down on him. The Minwanabi soldier before him suddenly stiffened. His expression of astonished disbelief was swallowed by darkness as he fell. Keyoke caught sight of a meat cleaver protruding from Minwanabi armour, and a frightened servant backing away. Keyoke cut sideways with his sword, and at least one more enemy died before he could avenge his fallen comrade. The servant perished anyway, cut from chest to crotch by another soldier, and then the same bloody sword was pointed and slashing at Keyoke. More men pressed in from the sides. He fought them, with a skill honed by forty years on the field.

Sweat ran down Keyoke’s temples. He blinked salty drops from his eyes and slashed through a white haze of pain. Dimly he noticed an Acoma servant crouched near him, and hands attempting to prop him upright. Then the servant’s eyes went round and he lurched forward. His back lay opened to show the white ribs, and his weight drove Keyoke to the ground.

Blinded by dust and agony, Keyoke struggled to rise. His ears rang and his hands would not grip. Numbed fingers
could not find his sword, and he was conscious of wetness flooding down his flank beneath his armour. He gasped, but there seemed to be no air to fill his lungs. Above him he made out the shape of a Minwanabi soldier, pulling back his blade from the thrust that had dispatched the valiant servant.

Keyoke groped in the dirt, found his sword, and struggled against the twitching weight of the corpse to raise his guard. The soldier pulled the servant aside, then aimed a killing stroke at the beaten old Force Commander at his feet. Keyoke raised his arm to parry and drew upon his last shred of strength to commend his wal to Turakamu. Then sword met sword, and the laminated hide screeched with the impact. The blow deflected, but barely. The Minwanabi stroke missed the heart and glanced down to pierce through armour and gambeson and, finally, through the flesh of Keyoke’s belly.

The soldier jerked back his blade. Flesh tore and bled, and Keyoke heard a distant, hoarse cry, as torment forced his own lips to betray his weakness before an enemy. At the ending of life, Keyoke invoked his soldier’s will to greet death with head up and eyes open. Through the pounding of blood in his own ears, the Force Commander heard a distant voice crying, ‘Acoma!’ He felt only pride for that one brave soldier.

Blurred shapes swam in and out of focus. Time seemed unnaturally slowed. Through the darkness, a hand caught the Minwanabi soldier’s arm, yanking back the descending sword. Keyoke frowned and faintly wondered whether this was the god’s reward for lifetime service: for his valour in Acoma defence, he would not feel the death blow. ‘Turakamu,’ he muttered, believing himself bound for the Red God’s halls; then the earth overturned, and he knew nothing as the sword slipped from his hand.

Sounds intruded.

Through an encompassing dark, Keyoke heard voices. They echoed dreamlike through his mind, amid a growing awareness of pain. He listened for the singing of warriors, the Minwanabi dead who would attest to his valour as he entered the hills of Turakamu.

But there came no singing, only spoken words in a voice that sounded like Lujan’s.

No, thought Keyoke. No. Through a stirring rush of anguish that mushroomed into despair, he listened more carefully. There had to be singing.

‘… not regained consciousness since the battle,’ Lujan’s voice continued, ‘… been delirious with fever … serious wounds in his belly and side …’

Another voice interjected, Nacoya’s surely. ‘Gods. Mara must not see him like this. It will surely break her heart.’

And then a bustle amid the darkness, and someone that sounded like his mistress crying out in an anguish too sharp to rein back. ‘Keyoke!’

There was to be no singing, then, the old warrior understood in cold sorrow. Accolades would not herald a warrior who died in defeat. The Acoma must have been vanquished for Mara, Lujan and Nacoya to be present here, in the halls of Turakamu. The Minwanabi army must have gone on from the canyon to attack the estate, and the cho-ja defenders must have fled or been overwhelmed. The end must have come with the enemy in triumph, and the Acoma crushed.

‘Mistress,’ murmured Keyoke in his delirium. ‘Lady.’

‘Listen! He speaks!’ someone exclaimed.

‘Keyoke?’ Mara’s voice said again. Cool hands brushed his brow, the fingers lightly trembling.

Then light shone, blindingly bright through half-opened eyelids, and consciousness flooded back, along with full awareness of the pain.

‘Keyoke,’ Mara said again. Her hands settled on either side of his temples, gently and insistently framing his face. ‘We are all well. Ayaki is well. Lujan speaks of a battle bravely fought in a canyon. The Minwanabi brought five hundred men to attack, and we hear your small company battled to the death defending the silk.’

The Force Commander struggled through a haze of fever and managed to focus his eyes. His mistress bent over him, her dark hair still loose from her sleeping mat, and her pretty brow furrowed with concern. He was not in the halls of the Red God but in the courtyard before the doors of the Acoma estate house. The grounds were peaceful. Shapes stirred in the surrounding mists as warriors of Lujan’s company dispersed to their barracks. A servant with a cloth hovered nearby, ready to wipe his sweating face. Keyoke drew a difficult breath. Through the fiery pain of his injuries he gathered his wits and spoke. ‘Lady Mara. There is danger. Lord Desio has breached your security.’

Mara stroked his cheek. ‘I know, Keyoke. The spy who was tortured escaped and brought us word. That’s how Lujan knew to rush his company to the mountains to your aid.’

Keyote thought back to the sounds of fighting that had broken out at last, in the hills behind the canyon. Lujan, then, had flanked Lord Desio’s army and put it to rout up the ravine.

‘How many are alive?’ Keyoke asked, his voice barely a croak.

Lujan said, ‘Six men, Force Commander, counting yourself. All seriously wounded.’

Keyoke swallowed hard. Of the hundred warriors and fifty servants, only five besides himself survived the Minwanabi trap.

‘Don’t mind that the silk has been lost,’ Mara added. ‘The cho-ja shall eventually make more.’

Keyoke fumbled a hand free of the blankets that lapped over his chest. He grasped Mara’s wrist. ‘The silk is not lost,’ he gasped clearly. ‘Not all of it.’

This brought an exclamation from Lujan and a whispering stir among the servants. Only then did Keyoke notice the presence of Jican, hovering, bright-eyed, to one side.

He forced out the necessary phrases and told where the bolts were left concealed in the rocks leading into the pass.

Mara smiled. The expression lent her face the delicate, glowing beauty that had once been her mother’s, Keyoke recalled. He also noticed the tears that glittered brightly at the corners of her eyes, which she bravely blinked to keep back. ‘No mistress could have asked so much. You have served honourably, and superbly well. Now rest. Your wounds are very grave.’

Keyoke did not ask how grave; the pain told all he needed to know. He loosened his breath in a sigh. ‘I can die now,’ he added in a whisper.

The mistress did not protest but arose and imperiously called out orders for her Force Commander to be given her finest chamber. ‘Light candles for him, and call poets, and musicians to sing him tribute. For all must know that he has fought as a hero, and given his life for the Acoma.’

Ruling Lady she might be, Keyoke thought, but her voice shook. From him, who knew her as a daughter, she could not hide her grief. ‘Do not weep for me, Lady,’ he whispered. ‘I am content.’

There was noise and a jostle of motion, and consciousness wavered. ‘Do not weep for me, Lady,’ Keyoke repeated. If she heard, he could not tell, for the darkness lapped over him once more.

Later he was aware of scented candles, and soft music, and a stillness that enveloped him like peace, except for the pain, which seemed endless. Forcing his tired eyes open, he saw that he lay on a mat in a beautifully appointed chamber, one painted with scenes of warriors displaying the virtues of arms and valour. Between the reedy notes of two vielles playing in counterpoint, he heard a poet reciting the deeds and the victories he had accomplished, which extended back into Lord Sezu’s time. Keyoke let his eyes fall closed again. He had not lied to his Lady. He was content. To die of great wounds for her honour was a just and fitting destiny for a warrior grown old in her service.

But a disturbance outside in the corridor rang over the notes of the instruments, and the poet faltered in his lines.

‘Damn it, are you just going to let him lie there until he dies?’ cried a strident, nasal voice.

The barbarian, Keyoke identified, as always challenging custom.

Lujan’s voice interjected, unaccustomedly distressed. ‘He has served honourably! What more can any of us do?’

‘Get a healer to fight for his life,’ Kevin almost shouted. ‘Or do you wait for your gods to save him?’

‘That’s impertinence!’ snapped Lujan, and there followed the sound of a hand striking flesh.

‘Stop it! Both of you!’ Mara broke in, and the voices merged together in a spill of sound that rose and fell like waves.

Keyoke lay still and wished the arguing would end. The poet had reached the stanzas that referred to the raid he had once staged with Papewaio against Tecuma of the Anasati, and he wanted to listen for inaccuracies. No doubt the bard would not mention the celebration that had followed, nor the jars of sa wine he and Pape and the master had shared to celebrate the victory. They had all paid with a hangover, Keyoke recalled, and he had hurt afterwards nearly as much as he did now.

But the poet did not resume his verses. Instead, Keyoke heard Mara’s voice carrying from the hallway. ‘Kevin, it would be no kindness at all to save the life of a warrior who is missing a leg. Or didn’t you know that Lujan’s field healer had it cut off, since Keyoke took an arrow wound that festered?’

Keyoke swallowed hard. The agony that racked his body masked his awareness of the missing limb. He kept his eyes closed.

‘So what!’ Kevin said in exasperation. ‘Keyoke’s value lies in his expertise, and even your gods-besotted healer knows a man’s brains are not in his feet!’