half-risen sun. He was waving his arms and bellowing incomprehensible
exhortations to his exhausted workmen.
‘Are we ready?’ Khalad asked, laying his cheek against the
stock and squinting through the sight.
‘i’m ready, but you’re the one who has to shoot.’
‘No talking. I have to concentrate now.’ Khalad drew in a deep
breath, let part of it out, and then stopped breathing entirely.
Incetes, gleaming golden in the new-risen sun, stood
bellowing and waving his arms. The titan from pre-history
looked tiny, almost toy-like in the distance.
Khalad slowly, deliberately squeezed the release lever.
The crossbow thumped heavily, its rope-thick gut string giving
off a deep-toned twang. Sparhawk watched the bolt arc upward.
‘Got him,’ Khalad said with a certain satisfaction.
‘The arrow hasn’t even reached him yet,’ Sparhawk objected.
“It will. Incetes is dead. The arrow will go right through his
heart. Go ahead and signal Ulath to charge.’
‘Aren’t you being a little…’
A vast cry of chagrin rose from the crowd at the edge of the
forest. Incetes was toppling slowly backward, and the bronze-age
warriors surrounding him wavered and vanished even as he fell.
‘You’ve got to learn to have a little more faith, Sparhawk,’
Khalad noted. ‘When I tell you that somebody’s dead, he’s dead –
even if he doesn’t know it yet. Were you planning to signal Ulath sometime
today?’
‘Oh. I almost forgot.’
‘Age does that to people – or so I’ve been told.’
‘The ministries are corrupt, Ehlana. I’ll be the first to admit that,
but if I have to rebuild the government from the ground up, I’ll
spend the rest of my life at it, and I’ll never get anything else
done.’ Sarabian’s tone was pensive.
‘But Pondia Subat’s such an incompetent,’ Ehlana objected.
“I want him to be an incompetent, dear heart. I’m going to
reverse the usual roles. He’s going to be the figurehead, and I’m
going to be the one pulling the strings. The other ministers are in
the habit of obeying him, so having him as Prime Minister won’t
even confuse them. I’ll write Subat’s speeches for him and terrorize
him to the point where he won’t depart from the prepared
text. I’ll terrorize him to the point where he won’t even change
clothes or shave without my permission. That’s why I want him
to sit in and hear the reports of Milord Stragen’s unique solution
to our recent problem. I want him to imagine the feel of the knives
going in every time he has an independent thought.’
‘Might I make a suggestion, your Majesty?’ Stragen asked.
‘By all means, Stragen,’ Sarabian smiled. ‘The stunning success
of your outrageous scheme has earned you a sizeable balance
of imperial indulgence.’
Stragen smiled and began to pace the floor, his face deep in
thought and his fingers absently weighing a gold coin. Ehlana
wondered where he had picked up that habit. ‘The society of
thieves is classless, your Majesty,’ he pointed out. ‘We’re firm
believers in the aristocracy of talent, and talent shows up in
some of the strangest places. You might want to consider including
some people who aren’t Tamuls in your government. Racial
purity is all well and good, I suppose, but when every government
official of rank in every subject kingdom is a Tamul, it stirs
the kind of resentments which Zalasta and his friends have been
exploiting. A more ecumenical approach might dampen those
resentments. If an ambitious man sees the chance for advancement,
he’s much less likely to want to throw off the yoke of the
Godless yellow devils.’
‘Are they still calling us that?’ Sarabian murmured. He leaned
back. “It’s an interesting notion, Stragen. First I ruthlessly crush
rebellion, and then I invite the rebels into the government. It
should confuse them, if nothing else.’
Mirtai opened the door to admit Caalador.
‘What’s afoot?’ Ehlana asked him.
‘Our friends at the Cynesgan embassy are very busy, your
Majesty,’ he reported. ‘Evidently our unusual celebration of the
Harvest Festival made them nervous. They’re bringing in supplies
and reinforcing the gates. It looks as if they’re expecting
trouble. I’d say they’re getting ready to fort up.’
‘Let them,’ Sarabian shrugged. ‘if they want to imprison themselves,
it saves me the trouble of doing it.’
‘is Krager still inside?’ Ehlana asked.
Caalador nodded. “I saw him walking across the courtyard
this morning my very own-self.”
‘Keep an eye on him, Caalador,’ she instructed.
“I purely will, dorlin’,’ he grinned. “I purely will.’
Vanion led the charge up the beach. The knights and the Peloi
descended upon the demoralized work-gangs in a thunderous
rush, while Engessa’s Atans ran along the water’s edge to the
foot of the makeshift pier to cut off the escape of those laboring
to extend it farther out into the chill waters of the Tamul Sea.
The ribbon clerk Amador was shrieking orders from the pier,
but no one was really paying much attention to him. Some few
of the workmen who had been cutting trees put up a feeble
resistance, but most fled back into the forest. It only took a few
minutes for those who had chosen to resist to realize that the
decision had been a bad one, and they threw down their
weapons and raised their hands in surrender. The knights,
trained to be merciful, readily accepted surrenders; Tikume’s
Peloi did so only reluctantly, the Atans on the pier tended to
ignore those who sued for mercy, pausing only long enough to
kick them off into the water. With Betuana and Engessa in the
lead, the Atans marched ominously out onto the pier, killing
anybody who offered any resistance and throwing the rest into
the chill water on either side. The men in the water struggled to
shore to be rounded up by the Tamul soldiers from the imperial
garrison at Matherion. The soldiers’ presence was primarily
a gesture, since they were ceremonial troops unprepared
either by their training or their natural inclinations for fighting.
They were quite good at rounding up the shivering men who
emerged, dripping and blue with the cold, from the icy water,
however.
‘i’d say that Bhelliom’s warm current hasn’t arrived yet,’
Khalad observed.
“It wouldn’t seem so,’ Sparhawk agreed. ‘Let’s go on down.
The days are very short now, and I’d like to secure the north
pier before the sun goes down.’
‘if there is a north pier,’ Khalad said.
‘There has to be one, Khalad.’
‘You wouldn’t mind if I ambled over to the edge of the cliff
and had a look for myself, would you? Logic is all well and
good, but a little verification never hurt anything.’
They walked back down the knoll, mounted, and rode out to
join their friends.
‘Not much of a fight,’ Kalten complained, looking disdainfully
at the mob of terrified prisoners.
‘Those are the best kind,’ Tynian told him.
‘Sorgi’s coming,’ Ulath told them pointing at the fleet moving
toward the beach. ‘As soon as Betuana and Engessa finish clearing
the pier, we’ll be able to get started.’
The Atans were half-way to the end of the pier by now, and
the terrified Edomishmen were being crowded into a tighter and
tighter mass by that inexorable advance.
‘How cold is that water?’ Talen asked. “I mean, has it started
to warm up at all?’
‘Not noticeably,’ Ulath said. “I saw a fish swim by earlier wearing
a fur coat.’
‘Do you think a man could swim back to shore from the end
of the pier?’
‘Anything’s possible.’ Ulath shrugged. “I wouldn’t want to
wager any money on it, though.’
Rebal was at the very end of the pier by now, and his screams
were growing increasingly shrill. The Atans leveled their spears
and continued their inexorable advance. They did not even
bother to kill the Edomishmen any more. They simply shoved
everyone off the pier to struggle in the icy water. A large knot
of the workmen at the very end of the pier went off the end in
a kind of cluster, the ones at the extreme outer end dragging
their fellows with them as they toppled off. The Atans lined the
sides and the end of the pier, keeping everyone in the water at
spear’s length from safety. That went perhaps somewhat
beyond the bounds of civilized behavior, but Sparhawk knew
of no diplomatic way to object to Queen Betuana about it, so he
ground his teeth together and let it pass.
There was a great deal of splashing at first, but that did not
last for very long. Singly and in groups the freezing peasants
gave up and slid under the waves. A few athletic ones struck
out for shallow water, but no more than a handful reached that
questionable safety.
Amador, Sparhawk noted, was not among the few survivors
being rounded up by the Tamul soldiers at the water’s edge.
Sorgi’s ships were standing at anchor some few yards off the
beach by now, and the plans they had all drawn up the night