The Rebel of Rhada (6 page)

The Rhadans quickly established a defensive perimeter about the starship. At a command from Nevus, now stationed in the center of the circle, Rhadan engineers rolled forth two missile casters consisting of five oversized crossbows loaded with god-metal quarrels. These were emplaced ten meters on either side of the starship’s open portal.

The commander of the Vegan warmen watched these hostile activities and made a tactical decision. He deployed his troops in attack columns, advanced them to within half a kilometer of the waiting Rhadans, and halted them there.

His orders had been to take Kier of Rhada into his custody and escort him, without delay or public display, to the citadel. Clearly, this would now be impossible without a bloody encounter--and his orders did not cover this possibility. The Nyori had seen the starship landing, and they were gathering in great numbers about the wall, even pouring out onto the landing ground. Kier of Rhada was a great favorite among the people of Nyor; they remembered him as a trusted captain of The Magnifico’s, one of the men who had brought a semblance of peace to the home planet after generations of war. They recognized the harness of the troops from the starship as Rhadan and had begun to wave and cheer. Already, there were some hundreds of Nyori braving the rain; the word was spreading, and more were coming to join the throng. A battle with the Rhadans would most certainly be “a public display,” and it would undoubtedly cause considerable “delay.” Thus, the Vegan commander acted as soldiers have acted for twenty thousand years. He bucked the problem along to higher authority by sending for Landro, the Imperial warleader.

At this point, Kier of Rhada, flanked by Cavour and Gret--the Vulk absurdly resplendent atop a Rhadan war mare--emerged from the starship and rode silently to the edge of the Rhadan perimeter. Immediately, the portal half closed behind them, so that even a concerted rush by the Imperials could not overrun the starship. The people of Nyor had begun to shout greetings to the popular young man known as The Rebel, but the obviously grim meaning of the Rhadan deployment was not lost on them, and they stirred uneasily.

For the better part of thirty minutes, the fighting men on the landing ground sat their mounts in silence, Rhadans gripping their flails, Vegans with their axes to hand.

As the tension mounted, Kier murmured a word to Gret, and the Vulk smiled broadly and took up his instrument.

He began to play a hiring air, the melody of a song of the people, a ballad about a Vegan star king of a century ago whose doings were still the subject of much ribaldry.

The people cheered, and the Vegan troopers smiled. Pride in the amorous doings of their nobility was a very Vegan characteristic. Less warlike than the spartan Rhadans, the Imperials began to call out to the visitors in friendly terms, to the embarrassment of their frustrated commander.

Gret, playing the fool, made his mare prance and step in time to the music, and the people cheered more loudly, relieved at this small sign of nonwarlike intent on the part of the Rhadans.

Sitting beside the young star king, Cavour said quietly, “I see what he meant by saying he might be useful.”

“I expect more than this from Gret,” Kier said.

Cavour raised his eyes to the activity atop the wall. Even at this distance he could see that the war engines were fully manned. And now a smaller but far more resplendent body of troops was issuing from the city.

Like a wave, silence spread across the crowd of Nyori. Gret’s music ended as the people turned to look at the Imperial warleader’s bodyguard cantering toward the first rank of Vegan Imperials. At the head of the guardsmen rode Landro.

Kier noted that he was in court dress and not in war harness. He murmured to Cavour, “I may have misjudged him.”

“As a bird misjudges a snake, Kier.”

Landro paused for a word with the Imperial commander and then rode on alone, the scales of his Vegan horse glistening wetly in the silvery light of the afternoon.

Kier moved his mount through the lines to meet him. The two men stopped with their animals’ heads only a meter apart, and the Rhadan mare laid her ears back and bared her teeth at her distant, distant relative. She twisted her head to look at her master, rolling her eyes. “Kill?” she asked. Kier soothed her, patting her arching, sweating neck, and told her no.

“What nasty beasts you Rhadans keep, cousin,” Landro said.

Kier, who only by the greatest stretch of genealogical imagination could be considered a cousin of Landro’s, replied, “They suit us, Leader.” He spoke in Vegan dialect, rather than Imperial, as a courtesy to the Veg.

Landro accepted the compliment and said, “Welcome to Nyor. But why all the warlike preparations?” He smiled dryly. “Have you come to conquer us with a squadron of warmen?”

“I came because I was called, Landro. I landed as Rhadans always land. We Rim-world people have learned to be cautious, not warlike. Is the Emperor well?”

Landro inclined his head. “Well and waiting to receive you.”

“And is that why I was met by a regiment of Imperials?” Kier asked quietly.

“These are troubled times, cousin. Any starship landing so far from the walls is apt to be met with--precautionary measures.”

“And now that you know it is only the loyal Rhad, you’ll withdraw your troops, of course.”

“The Emperor will give the order himself, no doubt,” Landro said with a strange and nervous laugh.

Here, then, was the moment of truth, thought Kier. To refuse to accompany Landro would be to confirm himself indeed as The Rebel of Rhada. Caution and deep suspicions of the Imperial urged him to withdraw to the security of his starship and depart. But to do so would mean rebellion, war between Rhada and the Empire, and possibly the premature death of all that Kier’s father Aaron, Glamiss the Magnificent, Kier himself, and half a hundred loyal star kings had sought to create: a rebirth of Empire, perhaps the foundations of another Golden Age.

“I am here to escort you to Torquas and the Regent, cousin,” Landro said.

Kier’s war mare pranced nervously, showing her teeth.

“A moment, Landro,” Kier said, and turned his mount to canter back to the Rhadan perimeter. Nevus, dismounted, walked reluctantly to his stirrup and looked up, anxiety on his bearded face.

“We will go with him now, Nevus,” Kier said. “You have your instructions.”

Nevus touched his king’s mailed wrist. “May God protect you, sir.”

Kier signaled Cavour and Gret to join him, and the three trotted their animals through the lines to where Landro waited, now flanked by a wing of his guardsmen.

“My greetings, Cavour,” Landro said. He did not speak to Gret. The Vegans had exterminated all their Vulks a generation ago, and their prejudice made them suffer in the presence of the strange creatures.

The guardsmen formed files on either side, and the party cantered through the massed Imperials and Nyori to the city gate.

Cavour said, “Think what it must be, Gret, actually to live on this tel, where every foot of ground must hold some ancient secret.”

The Vulk, riding close behind his young star king, turned his blind, wise face to the warlock and said, “Yes, many things are buried here. Mysteries and artifacts--and trusting men.”

Cavour grunted. He could hear Landro nattering foolishly to Kier, giggling his tremulous laugh. Behind them, the armored ranks of the Vegan Imperials closed so that when the warlock turned to look, he could see the great hull of their starship seemingly afloat on a sea of conical helmets and menacing spears.

In the second decade of the Second Stellar Empire, stealth and political chicanery contrived to enlarge the Vegan garrison of the capital to a point where Landrite troops were very nearly Praetorian in their influence. Surrounded by the Veg, the Vykan Dynasty stood in mortal danger.

Nv. Julianus Mullerium,
The Age of the Star Kings,
middle Second Stellar Empire period

Who has a Vegan for a friend has no need of an enemy.

Proverb, early Second Stellar Empire period

The ride through the streets of Nyor began as a progress, but once within the walls, the Rhadan sensed the change. The way was lined with Vegan Imperials, far more than courtesy demanded. And these were skirmishers, light-armored men, each with a drawn crossbow across his saddle.

The people of Nyor, who had cheered Kier and his party outside the gate, now stood silently, sensing that they might be witnesses to some great treachery, but helpless to prevent it.

The rain fell in a steady, gentle drizzle out of a high gray sky, and Cavour murmured, “This is headsman’s weather, King.”

If Landro heard, he gave no sign.

Kier said, “Do you need so many troops to control the Nyori, Landro?”

“Why would you think that, Kier?” the Veg said easily. “We only seek to do you honor.”

“I’m touched,” Kier replied dryly.

The procession moved slowly through the tangled ancient slums of the city, where the buildings were decayed blocks of glass and plastic and rusted god-metal, toward the new town, where stone houses and the massive cylindrical form of the citadel dominated the narrow, crooked streets.

Gret whispered to Kier, “They will take us when we enter the citadel.”

Kier replied in Rhadan, which Landro did not speak. “Are you certain?”

The Vulk shrugged. “I sense it so.”

Cavour said, “You knew it when we put our heads into the mouth of the beast.”

“I had hoped it would be different. We are in the hands of God,” Kier said.

“We are in the hands of Landro,” Cavour remarked acidly. “Which is not at all the same thing. Do we fight?”

Kier shook his head.

Cavour said, “It is just as well. I am a poor swordsman.” Kier half smiled at his warlock. No man could doubt his courage, though warlocks were not famed as fighting men.

And then, for reasons that he could not imagine, the young star king found himself thinking of Ariane, that princess he had not seen for many years. What had become of her, he wondered. If there was, in fact, treachery and treason everywhere, could the transgressors have allowed her to live?

Landro was pointing at the new weapons on the flat roofs of the citadel. They were stone throwers of a new design, with slings loaded with what seemed to be thousands of pieces of jagged god-metal. Each war engine commanded an avenue of approach to the tiered residence of the Galacton.

“The designs of a warlock named Kelber,” Landro said conversationally.

The name meant nothing to Kier. He said, “What enemy are you expecting, Landro? It seems those catapults were meant to be used against your own people.”

“The Nyori are an unruly lot.”

Kier studied the shrapnel-loaded machines of death.
“That
unruly? This city seems more a war camp than the capital of an empire.”

“The times are troublesome, cousin,” Landro said. “Surely you’ve heard.”

“Times are always troublesome. But on Rhada we don’t arm against our own people. I wonder if you really do in Nyor.”

“I say it, Kier,” Landor said with growing coldness. “Then it must be so.”

Landro laughed suddenly. “On the word of a Veg.”

Cavour raised his eyes to the wet sky, and Gret made a chuckling sound.

They had reached the gate to the Citadel. It stood open, and within the first courtyard Kier could see still more Vegan troops with crossbows. The Vyks of the Imperial guard were nowhere to be discovered. It was obvious that Landro, as commander of the garrison, had sent them all elsewhere.

The cavalcade rode into the yard, and the gate swung closed behind them. Kier raised his eyes to the top of the wall and saw Mariana standing there, cloaked against the rain. Then, not knowing why he did it at such a time, he looked even higher, to the narrow window of the round tower dominating the courtyard. He had a flashing glimpse of a young, narrow face framed in straight black hair--a Vykan face behind an X of god-metal bars. Was it Ariane? He had no time to consider, for Gret said clearly, “It happens
now,
King.”

Kier wheeled his mare to face Landro just as he heard the twang and whir of crossbows. The three Rhadan mounts screamed in pain and fury and went down under a hail of quarrels. Kier struck the ground painfully, one leg caught beneath his murdered horse. Gret and Cavour were down as well, sprawled on the wet stones of the prison yard.

His war-trained reflexes brought the young star king to his feet instantly, sword bared in his hand. He had said they were not to fight, but his instincts demanded it. On the wall a second rank of crossbowmen raised their weapons.

“Wait!” Landro commanded.

The three Rhadans stood together at bay while their animals twitched and died miserably behind them. Kier felt a sick fury at the way it had been done. He had expected betrayal, but the form of it left him half maddened with rage.

Landro said, “Put down your weapons. There is no need for you to die.”

Kier did not trust himself to speak. Now he knew what he had thought he must know, but he had bought the knowledge at the price of a fine horse and his freedom. His, Cavour’s, and Gret’s. God help them then if the plan so carefully made with Nevus and Kalin failed to work.

“You are under arrest for treason and conspiracy, Kier of Rhada,” Mariana called. “Don’t make us kill you where you stand.”

Kier raised his sword and said bitterly, “I had this weapon from your husband’s father, Mariana. I promised never to raise it against the Empire.” He brought it down across his knee with all his strength and shattered the god-metal. Then he threw the two pieces from him, ringing on the stones. “But there are other swords, Queen!”

Cavour, who was, as he had said, no swordsman, dropped his weapon readily enough and murmured to Kier, “But why
don’t
they kill us and have done with it?”

“They will send you and me to the tower,” Gret murmured. “I cannot sense what they intend for Kier.”

“Is that all you sense?” Kier spoke in a swift, low voice. “Quickly!”

“Erit is near,” the Vulk said, “and still free.”