Once A Hero

  The stones that had been used to build the walls had varied in size, shrinking in accord with their distance from the ground. As the tower came down, the stones ground against each other as if they were pressed together in a giant mill. The leavings from the stones high up filled the spaces between the larger blocks, which did not move much, creating a crushed-gravel roadway. While it was not level, and oily smoke poured up from pockets where things burned below, it provided solid enough footing that Blackstar took to it without any hesitation and only a slight slackening of speed.

  I cut Blackstar back and around a marble midden as Shijef dashed past. He leaped from the stone mound to the broken edge of the wall and clung there as if he were a titanic, rabid squirrel. Tail twitching, he dove down, and I lost sight of him just before I crested the hill. A blood-curdling scream of triumph rang from the walls, followed by frenzied shouts that ended in gurgles and moans.

  Up and over I went, the first of the Steel Pack's riders into Jarudin. Blackstar slid down the far side of the wall's ruins, then sprang forward to flat ground. He shied to the left, moving away from where the Dreel yodeled in delight. Shijef shucked a Reithrese warrior from his steel carapace, carrying away more than just metal as he did so. Blackstar's movement brought me into range of another warrior perched on a rooftop. He screamed some oath at me and leaped, but I reined Blackstar around even closer to the house and caught the airborne warrior on the point of my lance. He curled up around it and clattered to the ground like a tin pot.

  I released the lance and drew Cleaveheart. Giving Blackstar some spur, I drove forward down Dragon Street

  . Riding clear of the dust and smoke from the collapsed tower, I split one man's skull with an overhand blow. Aarundel rode another man down, then stabbed him with the spike on his ax before reining up beside me.

  Dragon Street

  led a mile straight on to the Imperial Tower. Every quarter mile between the wall and the city hub, where the three ring roads cut across the street, it widened out into a square, at the center of which stood a fountain or monument. If we were to meet resistance, it would be at one of those points, so the faster we moved in, the less likely we were to be stopped. As nearly as I could see, no one had formed up to oppose us, but the Reithrese had barracks deep enough in the city that I had no doubt we would yet run into stiff resistance.

  Aarundel pointed his bloody ax to the west. "Griffin Tower has fallen."

  Fursey rode up behind us. "First Company is through."

  I nodded. "Form up eight abreast." Looking up, I saw Shijef running across rooftops, leaping street-wide gaps as if they were cracks between cobblestones. With so much death he had to be all but out of his mind with glee. I knew that if I saw him hanging from the eaves like a gargoyle in Jammaq, I'd be getting near trouble, and that little bit of information might be just enough to keep me alive.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw something further down the street. Instinctively I brought my shield up and felt something hit it hard. A cruciform broadhead pierced the steel, but did not pass entirely through the shield. As I lowered the shield, the Reithrese archer turned and started to run. Aarundel yelled at him in Reithrese, and the warrior started hollering back when the Elf's words reached his ears.

  I tipped the shield toward me to get a good look at the shaft buried in it. "It was lucky I raised my shield."

  "Prophecies are not easily frustrated."

  I rolled my eyes. "Well, that Reithrese should have known enough not to waste the arrow, then."

  "So I scolded him while he fled."

  Fursey returned with his men right behind him. I let them file around us to take up a forward position. As the Second and Third companies came through—commanded by Senan and Ross—they positioned themselves behind the First Company. Four and Five slipped into the smaller streets east and west respectively. I put Gathelus to the west because he had worked with Drogo before, and let the new man, Benedict, have our eastern flank.

  Riding up to the front of the Pack, I saw no change in activity during the five minutes it had taken for us to get inside. As the Veirtu started through the gap, I led the Steel Pack forward. For the first quarter mile we might as well have been parading through Polston, because we ran into no trouble and even had Humans in the windows cheering us on. I forbade the men any shouting or accepting of flowers or jugs of wine and picked up our pace.

  Our advance into the second ring of the city was marked by a distinct change in architecture and inhabitants. Leaving ramshackle and widely disparate human dwellings behind, we rode into a sector of the city that housed the Reithrese lower classes and their Human allies.

  The buildings had been constructed in a blocky style that had strength but no artistry. The houses had been gaily painted and gaudy drapes covered windows, but still seemed lifeless.

  Not so the intersection with the second ring road. A Reithrese officer rallied a small patrol and two dozen Haladina to take up a position between us and the intersection. That made tactical sense, given that his position would allow any reinforcements to come from the ring road or from Dragon Street

  . Not knowing if he had troops following him, I had to admire his dedication to duty.

  I also had to go through him.

  Raising Cleaveheart, I waved my men forward and let the Steel Pack do what it does best: charge. Less than four hundred yards separated us from the defenders, so we cantered forward for roughly half that distance. I expected the defenders to break just at the sight of us, but stupidity or arrogance kept the Reithrese in their place, and Haladina admiration for the jewel-grinning warriors overrode their better sense.

  Three hundred yards, then only two hundred fifty. As we approached, I could feel the blood start pounding in my temples. Blackstar impatiently tossed his head, and I found myself chuckling in a most sinister way. Aarundel raised his ax and screamed out an inhuman challenge. I squinted, trying to see if I could pick out individuals I could identify as sorcerers. I saw none and knew, as we passed the two-hundred-yard mark, it wouldn't have made any difference if I had.

  Slashing down with Cleaveheart, I squeezed Blackstar with my knees and sent him into a gallop. The first rank of the Steel Pack surged forward, using Aarundel and me to fill in the gaps. Steel-shod hooves struck sparks from cobblestones. The rolling thunder of hoofbeats echoed down the Dragon Street

  canyon. Arrows loosed by the Haladin horse bows glanced ineffectively from armor. Clutching the reins in my left hand and pulling my shield in tight to my chest, I howled like a madman and plunged forward into the defenders.

  I had no chance to strike a blow, because the initial impact blasted the Reithrese officer back. Blackstar had hit his mount in the shoulder, tipping the horse up and back over on its rump. It twisted to the side, rolling sufficiently to pulverize the officer's leg. Bucking and leaping, BlackStar pushed forward, eager to get at the Haladin ranks. His efforts carried us clear of the officer and on into the Haladina.

  Riding lighter mounts, wearing boiled-leather or strip-scale armor, the outlanders were no more suited to withstanding our charge than they were to enjoying a harsh winter. Horses screamed, nostrils flared, and eye whites poached brown eyes as Haladin horses scrabbled ineffectively to retain their footing. Some managed to turn after an initial shock, then another horse would hit them broadside. Shrieking curses, riders slashed at our horses while trying to control their own mounts. Cleaveheart fell silver and rose crimson as I cut a man from the saddle to win free of the roadblock.

  I knew that I had to keep riding, because to stop or turn would have been as suicidal as the stand the defenders had made. The Steel Pack would roll over me as easily as it had them, and I had no intention of dying beneath the swords and flashing hooves of my own men. We had a mission to accomplish, and with each jarring hoof-fall I came one stride closer to completing it.

  I raced into the middle intersection and saw, to the east, a troop of mixed Reithrese and Human pikemen running forward to set up another roadblo
ck. I never even considered turning my riders to face them. A charge against set pikemen would be suicidal, and they could set up in the time it would take us to cross the two hundred yards to where they ran. But they were not between us and the tower, so their threat to us was minimal.

  It became even smaller when Benedict and Five Company burst from the alleys and streets to catch them on the flank. Buildings swept that battle from my sight as I rode on. To my left, inside a hundred yards, a Reithrese longbowman stepped from a shadowed alley to shoot at me. Before he could loose his arrow, a furry shadow detached itself from a building across the way and in one bound carried the archer back into the blackness from which he had come. I heard no scream, but riding past, I saw blood anointing both sides of the alley.

  The third ring of the city had buildings and homes that appeared more elegant and graceful, despite the rigidity of squared designs. Recessed doorways, open balconies, and hints of interior courtyards marked this as a more affluent section of the city, and I would have been willing to bet that we were the first free-Men to ride down the streets since its construction. It may well have had a beauty that I could have appreciated, but with the architecture being so inhuman, all I felt was the unsettling, unfocused threat of being an invader in an enemy stronghold.

  At the last ring intersection I saw a knot of figures setting up, and their actions intensified that hostile sensation. Cloaked in black, with variously colored sashes, hems, and hoods, a dozen people stood where Dragon Street

  opened into the last courtyard. Several of them touched hands; then as they spread apart, a bluish line of lighting linked their hands and glowed out through their eyes. Others took up positions behind the sorcerous line, with two even climbing into the geysering fountain. The water began to form itself around them, encasing each in a shifting, spiky rainbow armor.

  Even a hundred yards away I could hear the energy crackling and humming between them. I had no doubt their line would be lethal, but short of its instantly evaporating everyone who touched it, it could not stop us. I guided Blackstar directly at one of the sorcerers in the vain hope that he might be a weak link holding the chain together. I tightened my grip on Cleaveheart and for once hoped Aarundel was right about the prophecy's prophylactic properties.

  Suddenly, from the eastern side of the square, a volley of arrows raked over the Reithrese. The centermost sorcerer in the line fell transfixed by a half-dozen Veirtu arrows. The energy linking him with the other sorcerers blinked, then died in a stink of ozone just before our whirlwind charge blew into the square.

  The Veirtu, who had moved beyond Benedict's men as they fought with the pikemen, had flanked the sorcerers and had knocked the linchpin from the defense of the square. More arrows shot in at the water-warded sorcerers. The fluid armor caught and shunted aside arrows, but had no such luck against Veirtu magicks. I saw water rent as if by claws and one of the two sorcerers go down with most of her abdomen sliced open.

  One or two of the Reithrese did cast spells at us. I felt the heat of a flamewall materializing behind me and heard the screams of riders at my back, but the fire winked out as Aarundel harvested the Reithressa's head with one long swipe of his ax. A bolt of lightning missed me, but struck another of the Steel Pack, and somewhere else an explosion cast a horse and rider high into the air on the left flank.

  We rode on, a metal tide rising to the heart of the city. The lack of resistance over the last quarter mile had me wondering what we would face at the Imperial Tower. A number of scenarios ran through my mind, the most dire of which placed a sorcerous bodyguard for the emperor raising magical wards around the tower itself, but I doubted it. I suspected that even more troops than we had dared imagine had been summoned away from Jarudin to prevent the conquest of Reith. The sorcerers we had ridden over had not been that powerful, and I began to think that more trust had been placed in walls and defensive spells than was prudent for the emperor.

  As we rode, the Imperial Tower loomed taller and taller. It reminded me of Jammaq in that on its faces had been carved countless little scenes. These depicted everyday life, laws in action, history and folktales, in an illiterate's monument to the empire and people that put it together. And while it did not have the profane displays and elements found in Jammaq, to me it felt no less malevolent. The life carved into its flesh was not life as it naturally occurred, but life as the Reithrese intended it to be. The fact that Humans appeared at the bottom of the tower and Reithrese occupied only the upper precincts sent a not-so-subtle message to the conquered people of Ispar.

  It was a message I wanted to expose as a lie.

  We came into the central promenade surrounding the tower and saw the Steel Hunt arriving at the same time. Our troops began to rein up, and I saw the Red Tiger himself leap from his saddle to run up the stairs at the two sentries stationed there. Taller than either one of them, with his red mane flowing back from his head, the man who would be emperor ran at the Reithrese soldiers with a broadsword in each hand and roaring laughter falling from his throat.

  Behind the soldiers the tower's huge iron doors slowly began to close in an effort to keep us out.

  Without a second thought I jammed heels into flanchards hard enough for Blackstar to feel it. The horse took the stairs as if they were level ground. One of the guards turned toward me and I flung my shield at him. It sailed through the air and bounced up off the steps at him. He parried it, but dealing with it delayed him enough that he could not stop me. In a clatter of hooves on basalt, Blackstar crested the steps and plunged on through the narrowing doorway.

  I kicked free of the saddle and twisted down to the ground. I let myself go to one knee and continued my spin, with Cleaveheart whipping out from left to right two feet above the floor. A Reithrese warrior's slash passed over my head while my cut took his left leg off at the knee. He went down screaming and I came up quickly. I parried a thrust back to my right, then smashed my gauntleted left fist into another soldier's face.

  He reeled back, spitting out a fortune in broken teeth, and bumped into the two Man-slaves working the windlass to close the door. One of them turned around and jumped on his back, while the other cowered in place. "Throw it wide open," I shouted at him, then spitted the Reithrese. "You're free men now. Where's the emperor?"

  The slave who had jumped the Reithrese pointed to a sharply arched doorway. "He's in there, waiting."

  I ran toward the archway as Aarundel rode into the entryway and the Dreel edged in around the door. "The emperor is in here."

  A shiver ran down my spine as I entered the long, narrow room beyond the archway. Aside from flames dancing in the pit-fire at the far end and in the circular firepots built high up on the walls, nothing in the room moved. Squares of prayer carpet had been piled along the wall split by the doorway and were the only furnishing in the room. They helped me identify the chamber as a Reithrese chapel.

  Six black pillars shaped like giant femurs held the ceiling aloft. As I looked up into the vaults, I noticed they had been curiously shaped. With reddish highlights slithering across the relief like snakes, it took a moment or two to put the shape above me together. Overhead, as if I stood within a giant sarcophagus, the ceiling had been carved as a mold for an effigy. Though rendered in reverse, I recognized Tashayul's form—the metal skeleton surrounding him providing a big clue for me.

  Silhouetted against the firepit located beneath Tashayul's eyes, the emperor leaned on a sword, waiting. Even encased in blackened mail, he appeared taller and a bit more slender than the average Reithrese warrior. The set of his shoulders marked resignation, but I did not know if that concerned having to fight, or having to die. As his head came up, I saw gold glints from the crown he wore.

  "So, it is you, Neal." He slowly shook his head. "You have indeed earned your nickname: Sikkatura."

  I smiled. "Sikkatura?"

  Aarundel slipped through the door and stood at my right. "It means 'annoyance.' "

  The emperor laughed. "The Elf gives you t
he polite translation." He straightened up and waved me forward. "Come to me, Neal, let us fight. If you win, the empire is yours. And when I kill you, I shall have Khiephnaft and shall build the empire anew."

  I shook my head and walked down the aisle between columns toward him. "If you win the sword, I trust you will ward your capital more appropriately?"

  "There will be no need, once we have sent every last Man to the goddess." He turned his back to me and dropped to one knee before the firepit. Bending his head forward reverently, he slid the tip of his blade into the lapping flames and intoned a prayer aloud. "Bierek dmir Tieghi, Alia falz mara minn Hajja ta'dejjem."

  Rising and turning to face me, he brought his sword up in a salute. What had been a black blade before, now only served as the core of a sword edged with indigo flames. I saw lettering on the blade begin to glow. I recognized the letters as being Reithrese in origin, but their meaning and importance I could not begin to fathom. As the emperor brought his sword down into a guard, the flames brightened, and dull red tongues played off the tallest spikes.

  I closed my left fist around the latter half of Cleaveheart's hilt and kept the blade between me and the Reithrese emperor. Until I knew what the sword could do aside from burn, I could not take the offensive. Likewise I needed to gain a feel for the emperor's skill. Had I approached him the way the Red Tiger went after the sentries, I'd have been spitted and roasted with one lunge.

  The emperor obliged my taste for caution and came in faster than I expected of him, but not so fast that I could not counter his attack. He feinted a head-high slash, then whipped the blade down and around my parry. Twisting my wrists around, I managed to invert my blade and stop his attack, but not before the edge of his blade sliced a piece out of my right greave. I felt the heat against my shin and heard the metal clink on the floor, but I'd jumped back out of range before another little cut could do to bones what that blade had done to my armor.