‘Did you want to do this?’
‘No. I probably couldn’t even come close at this range.’
‘Then do you want to keep your mouth shut and let me do it?’
‘You’re awfully grouchy for so young a fellow, Khalad. That doesn’t usually set in until a man’s much older.’
‘Dealing with knights has prematurely aged me.’
‘How does this new sight of yours work?’
‘Do you know what the word “trajectory” means?’
‘Sort of.’
Khalad shook his head wearily. ‘Never mind, Sparhawk. My calculations are accurate. Just take my word for it.’
‘You actually work it out on paper?’
‘Paper’s cheaper than a bushel of new crossbow bolts.’
‘It sounds to me as if you spend more time calculating and adjusting your sights than you do shooting.’
‘Yes,’ Khalad admitted, ‘but if you do it right, you only have to shoot once.’
‘Why did we come out so early, then?’
‘To give my eyes time to adjust to the light. The light’s going to be peculiar when I make the shot. I’ll have moonlight, firelight, and the first touches of dawn in the sky when the time comes. It’s all changing, and 1 need to watch it change so that my eyes are ready. I’ve also got to pick Incetes out and keep a close eye on him. Killing his second cousin won’t do the job.’
‘You think of everything, don’t you?’
‘Somebody has to.’
They waited. The pale light of the full moon made the sand of the newly emerged mile-wide beach intensely white, almost the same as snow, and the night air was bitingly cold.
‘Keep your head down, Sparhawk, or hold your breath.’
‘What?’
‘Your breath is steaming. If somebody looks this way, he’ll know that we’re here.’
‘They’re two hundred and fifty paces away, Khalad.’
‘Why take chances if you don’t have to?’ Khalad peered intently at the ant-like figures working at the edge of the trees. ‘Is Empress Elysoun still chasing Berit?’ he asked after a few moments.
‘She seems to be branching out a bit. I think she caught him a few times, though.’
‘Good. Berit was awfully stuffy when he was younger. He’s in love with your wife, you know.’
‘Yes. We talked about it some years back.’
‘It doesn’t bother you?’
‘No. It’s just one of those infatuations young men go through. He doesn’t really intend to do anything about it.’
‘I like Berit. He’ll make a good knight – once I grind off the remnants of his nobility. Titles make people a little silly.’ He pointed. ‘It’s starting to get light off to the east.’
Sparhawk glanced out across the icy reaches of the north Tamul Sea. ‘Yes,’ he agreed.
Khalad opened the leather pouch he had brought along and took out a length of sausage. ‘A bite of breakfast, my Lord?’ he offered, reaching for his dagger.
‘Why not?’
The first faint touches of light along the eastern horizon faded back into darkness as the ‘false dawn’ came and went. No one had ever satisfactorily explained that particular phenomenon to Sparhawk. He had seen it many times during his exile in Rendor. ‘We’ve still got about another hour,’ he told his squire.
Khalad grunted, laid back against the log, and closed his eyes.
‘I thought you were here to watch,’ Sparhawk said. ‘How can you watch if you’re asleep?’
‘I’m not sleeping, Sparhawk. I’m just resting my eyes. Since you came along anyway, you can watch for a while.’
The true dawn began to stain the eastern sky some time later, and Sparhawk touched Khalad’s shoulder. ‘Wake up,’ he said quietly.
Khalad’s eyes opened quickly. ‘I wasn’t asleep.’
‘Why were you snoring, then?’
‘I wasn’t. I was just clearing my throat.’
‘For half an hour?’
Khalad rose up slightly and peered over the top of the log. ‘Let’s wait until the sun hits those people,’ he suggested. ‘That bronze breastplate Incetes is wearing should gleam in the sunlight, and a brighter target’s easier to hit.’
‘You’re the one doing the shooting.’
Khalad looked at the laboring Edomish peasants. ‘I just had a thought, Sparhawk. They’ve built a lot of those rafts. Why waste them?’
‘What did you have in mind?’
‘Even if Bhelliom melts Cyrgon’s ice, it’s going to take Captain Sorgi a couple of days to ferry all of us around that reef. Why not use these rafts? Sorgi can put a goodsized force on the beach a few miles north of the pier that’s probably being constructed on the other side of the wall, and the rest of us can slip around the reef from this side on those rafts, and we can jump the people up there from both sides.’
‘I thought you didn’t like these rafts.’
‘I can fix them, Sparhawk. All we have to do is take two of them, lay one on top of the other, and we’ll have one good one. Cyrgon might have more forces up here on the North Cape than just the Trolls. I think we’ll want to put all these rafts well out of his reach, don’t you?’
‘You’re probably right. Let’s talk to Vanion about it.’ Sparhawk looked at the eastern horizon. ‘The sun’s starting to come up.’ Khalad rolled over and laid his crossbow across the log. He carefully checked the settings on his sighting mechanism and then settled the stock against his shoulder.
Incetes was standing on a tree stump in the full light of the 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.