Servant of the Empire (68 page)

From the next room came the rasp of warriors sharpening laminated-hide swords.

‘That sound makes me want to commit suicide,’ Kevin added. He looked at Arakasi, who worked over his notes with economical lack of nerves. ‘Don’t you ever want to throw something?’

The Spy Master looked up, utterly bland. ‘A knife,’ he said with ice-cold lack of inflection. ‘Through Tasaio of the Minwanabi’s black heart.’ He was unarmed, bandaged, a man in tired clothes writing letters in a crowded apartment. But at that moment, through chills, Kevin could not have said which was the more dangerous: Tasaio of the Minwanabi or the man who served Mara as Spy Master.

Warriors stood at the ready. The rooms of the Acoma apartment had become an armed camp, with fourteen additional soldiers in the purple and yellow of the Xacatecas joined to the ranks. Lord Hoppara had seen sense almost immediately when Mara approached him in council. Having too few warriors to fortify his larger quarters, and with Minwanabi already set against him, he saw no point in standing behind an appearance of neutrality that by morning might see him coldly dead. Some of the Xacatecas garrison had fought in Dustari, and Force Commander Lujan was known to them. Warriors sought old companions, or made new, as they waited through the first hours of evening.

Behind furniture barricades in the central room of the apartment, amid a ring of warriors and the last few cushions and sleeping mats, Mara fretted. ‘They should have been back by now.’

Hoppara swirled a finger in his wineglass to stir up the spices and fruit that had been added in accordance with his taste. ‘Lord Iliando has always been a man to look upon logic with suspicion.’

Mara resisted an urge to seek Kevin’s comfort as the gloom of twilight deepened, and the first thuds and cries of
distant combat echoed through the corridors outside. Against her better wishes, she had granted Arakasi’s request to take Kenji and a patrol of five in a final attempt to convince Iliando of the Bontura to see reason. As the muffled clatter of swordplay resounded through the palace, Mara worried that her men had delayed their return until too late.

Then came the signal she longed for, a coded knock at the door. Lujan’s men swiftly slid barriers aside and lowered the heavy bar. The portal opened, and Kenji hurried in, a Force Commander in violet and white plumes at his shoulder.

‘Thank the gods,’ Mara murmured, as more warriors entered, the heavyset Lord Iliando of the Bontura in their midst. Last came warriors in Acoma green, and after them, at a flat run, Arakasi. He slipped in just as the door was closing, his helm with its Patrol Leader’s badge shadowing a face pale as parchment.

Mara left the inner circle of protection to meet him. ‘You should not have been running,’ she accused her Spy Master, aware that his poor colour was solely due to pain.

Arakasi bowed. ‘Mistress, it was necessity.’ The splinted arm under his officer’s cloak was flawlessly hidden; no one would think that the warrior before her was not fully able to defend himself. As Mara began to voice recriminations, the Spy Master quickly cut in. ‘Lord Iliando was obdurate until, at the last, we gave him a detailed picture of his own forces, their deployment, and four ways he was vulnerable to attack.’ He dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘It was his own weakness that convinced him, not our belief that he is the obvious object lesson for Clan Ionani and Lord Tonmargu.’

Arakasi glanced to the doorway, where warriors replaced the bar and barricades, and the Lord of the Bontura and his Force Commander stood in conference with Lujan and Hoppara to formulate a combined defence. ‘We were none too soon,’ the Spy Master allowed. His gaze flicked back to
Mara. ‘Lord Bontura’s apartment was already under assault when I left, and the chests I shoved under the door will not detain his attackers very long. When they find the rooms empty, they will be coming here.’ At Mara’s slight frown he added, ‘I escaped out the back, through the gardens.’

She dared not ask how he had climbed walls in his condition; only his breathlessness told how hard he had run to overtake Lord Iliando’s escort. Now firmly the Ruling Lady, Mara addressed her Spy Master. ‘Get out of that armour,’ she commanded. ‘Find a servant’s robe, and hide in the cupboards with the scullions. That’s an order,’ she snapped out as Arakasi drew breath in protest. ‘When this is over, if I am alive, I will have need of your services more than ever.’

The Spy Master bowed. But before he disappeared in the direction of the kitchen he used his Patrol Leader’s badge to collar a pair of warriors in Bontura and Acoma colours. ‘Get your master and mistress back into the fortified room, and convince them to stay there. Attack will be upon us any moment.’

Minutes later, the solid ring of axes bit into the outer window frames. Warriors in the rooms on the garden side sprang to the ready, while in the room that faced the corridors a thundering crash hammered at the barricaded front portal. Lujan shouted, ‘A battering ram!’

Acoma soldiers leaped and threw their weight against the furniture used as shoring, but their efforts availed nothing. The second blow struck. Wood exploded into splinters as furnishings and bar and doors gave way, and the ram burst into the room. The invaders who manned its weight fell forward to allow ranks of swordsmen behind to spring over their backs.

The attackers who poured through the breached door wore black. Dark cloth also veiled their faces. As the leader waved his killers onward, Lujan glimpsed the dyed palm
chat identified a hired assassin of the Hamoi tong. Then battle closed between his own combined troops and the enemy. Sword met sword with an unnatural, belling clang. As Mara’s Force Commander parried and thrust to defend, he realized: some of these tong carried metal swords, a rarity in the Empire. Valued beyond measure, such weapons were never risked in combat, despite their deadly ability to cut through laminated Tsurani armour.

A Bontura warrior went down, pierced through his breastplate. Lujan switched tactics, using his bracer to deflect the stabbing sword point. He called out a warning to his warriors, and two assassins fell before they were six feet into the room. Ordinary blades could not withstand repeated impacts. Metal carved chips from the edges and shattered good resin with cracks. Six Acoma guards went down, and Lujan’s men fell back in a race to stop the enemy from gaining the door that connected the outer room to the inner complex. The battle became a two-sided struggle between the doorposts as the remaining Acoma guards, with Bontura and Xacatecas allies, jammed together to defend the rulers who huddled behind a wall of jumbled furniture.

At his Lady’s side stood Kevin, his eyes on the outside windows in the farthest, innermost chamber. The frames bounced and shivered, and plaster cracked from the sills, as the axe blows continued from outside. Warriors hammered reinforcements into place: planks ripped at need from screen tracks, shelving, and carry boxes. The shoring would delay the invasion only by minutes, and the frontal attackers were gaining. Within minutes of the first assault, the tong members were joined by an influx of black-armoured warriors who carried no house badges or colours.

Kevin weighed the odds and decided. The barricade of furnishings would not withstand assault from three sides. To Mara he said, ‘Lady, quickly, move over into that corner.’

The Lord of the Bontura watched wide-eyed as she arose and changed her position. ‘You would listen to a barbarian slave?’

Hoppara had better grace. ‘The man speaks sense, Lord Iliando. If we stay, we’ll soon be surrounded.’ The Lord of the Xacatecas moved to join Mara, then glared long and levelly at Iliando until the fighting edged nearer and the first of the windows gave way. In the instant before more assailants flooded the rear room, the stout older ruler relented.

The two Lords drew blades and positioned themselves before Mara. Kevin stayed close, but a clear step ahead, enough to move should the need arise.

The battle in the outer room intensified; there was no way to guess how many attackers entered through the breached front door. The clack and uncanny clang of metal sword meeting laminate came fast and furious, mingled with horrible cries. Defenders from the inner room rushed in two directions, some to stay the frontal onslaught and others to stave off the influx of assailants who shoved to gain access through the torn window; while at the second window the axe blows suddenly ceased.

Kevin cocked his head. Through the bang and crash of the mêlée he heard a faint scrape, through the wall at his back. ‘Gods! Someone’s found a way into the sleeping chamber!’

He hesitated, then rushed to the screen that gave access to the hall. One lamp burned, washing the corridor in a wavering interplay of shadow and light. Kevin advanced. His bare feet sensed vibrations through the wooden floor: warriors falling, and the blows of another axe. He hugged the wall by the bedchamber door, waiting, his hand on the meat knife concealed inside his robe.

A man in black armour charged through. Kevin swung around. He drove a knee into the man’s groin, then stabbed the meat knife through the hollow of the neck beneath the
chin strap. Blood ran hot over his hands as he thrust the shuddering, dying body backwards into another man who followed. Both warriors fell with a crash.

There were more, coming in a wave. Kevin cried, ‘Lujan! Back here!’

Aware that help might never come, the Midkemian crouched, dagger raised to meet the black-armoured man who jumped over the fallen pair. Lamplight flickered over a levelled sword, too long for a short blade to thrust past, and thrusting too hard to parry. Kevin backstepped into the room. The black warrior lunged.

Kevin jumped, and all but tumbled over backwards. The sword grazed the cloth over his stomach. Off balance, sure the next strike would kill him, the Midkemian flailed to stab the wrist above the man’s sword guard.

But the knife grazed flesh and bounced off the enemy’s bracer. Kevin gasped a curse, tensing to take the killing blow. Then the Lord of the Xacatecas shoved out of the corner and drove his sword into the man’s back. The black warrior stiffened. His locked legs skidded across the floorboards and his eyes rolled back as he collapsed.

Another black-clothed assassin charged from the depths of the hall.

‘My Lord! Look out!’ Kevin cried.

Hoppara spun, his guard up barely in time. The enemy blade did not spit him, but grated edge to edge in a grinding contest of strength. Metal carved the rim of the young Lord’s chest armour, gouging a groove in the plate. Hoppara grimaced in pain. He turned his wrist in a disengage, twisted, and returned a ringing blow to the side of his assailant’s head. The unarmoured tong assassin staggered dizzily back.

From the opened hallway dashed more dark-clad enemies. The Lord of the Bontura threw his stout weight into the fray. And Mara was alone, exposed in the corner.
Kevin ducked the swing of swords and crashed into a black-armoured elbow. His hand on the meat knife was slick with blood. His grip slipped as he stabbed. The enemy fell writhing between him and his Lady.

Then a pair of axes bit through wooden bracing, and the shutters behind Kevin burst inward. Plaster puffed from the wall as the heavy panels struck and rebounded, to be bashed back again by dyed fists. More tong assassins in black clothing swarmed through. Unencumbered by armour, they leaped to the sill, swords drawn from scabbards in one fluid motion. Kevin grasped the lead man’s wrist. The sword descended. He ducked sideways and jerked mightily. The assassin catapulted through the window. Both men overbalanced. In the rolling tumble as they struck the floor, Kevin’s short knife held the advantage. He stabbed before the enemy could turn his longer weapon.

Dead man and slave hammered hard into the barrier of furniture. Impact jammed the meat knife into the corpse’s sternum. Kevin yanked, with futile result, then abandoned the blade and snatched the sword from dying fingers.

Spinning, on his feet cat-fast, Kevin brought up the sword. Blade struck blade, deflecting a cut coming fast at his neck. A ringing clang met the impact, not the dull thud he expected. Kevin laughed aloud. He held a metal blade. The gods knew how, on this world that had no ores – but this was a weapon he knew.

Kevin lashed out with the strange sword and quickly found its balance. Long as a broadsword, but finely made, the blade handled with murderous ease despite the slightly curved edge.

The first man Kevin engaged stumbled back in confusion before this alien slave who knew his way with a sword. Then the eyes behind the black mask narrowed. The assassin recovered poise and fought back. Slammed by a fast reach
and practised parries, Kevin realized he faced an equal weapon and an opponent of greater skill.

Then a green-clad warrior was at his side, and another sword was harrying the assassin’s flank. Shoulder to shoulder, slave and Acoma soldier beat the tong back toward the hall. The man had a sword arm like lightning. Parry after parry, he deflected the strokes that sought his life. The Acoma warrior missed his footing, and staggered a half-step sideways. A weighted cord snapped through the splintered window and circled his unarmoured throat. He dropped his sword, fingers clawing at his neck as he strangled. As he buckled and crashed to his knees, the tong assassin who had wielded the throwing garrotte leaped through.

A second Acoma warrior and another in Bontura colours charged to take him. Alone and beaten backwards by his original foe, Kevin skidded helplessly to the side. Luck favoured him. The assassin mired a heel in a cushion flung from somewhere; he slipped, and Kevin took him in a thrust under the armpit.

The Midkemian yanked his blade clear. He cast about and saw the Lord of the Xacatecas backed against the wall by a black warrior. The stout man somehow warded off a stroke that should have killed him – as the next one surely would. Not so fast as the assassin, the Lord was still deadly quick. Kevin rushed the black-armoured warrior and struck him full from behind. Metal slid through laminated armour with a slap like a melon being punctured. The enemy died, choking on blood. Kevin leaped clear and came to stand before Mara, sword at the ready. Hoppara had stationed himself by the window; a wad of blood-sodden black lay jammed across the sill: the most recent assassin who tried to enter.