Blood of Ambrose (17 page)

“Vost!” Urdhven cried. “Leave it to me! If I fall, you will attack with the Dragon Watchmen. Afterward, do as Steng will advise you. Do you hear me?”

“I hear and will obey, my lord,” cried Vost, and raised his sword in salute, his eyes wide with admiration.

Urdhven spurred his heavy steed to a lumbering gallop, dashing before the front line of the Dragon Watchmen. As one they raised their swords and shouted his name. He raised his hand in acknowledgement, then wheeled aside to face the dragon.

It sat there on all fours, its wings folded back, regarding him with a fixed gaping look—almost like a grin. He drew his sword and flourished it, shouting a challenge, then charged straight at the beast.

It reared up, lifting its wings forward and aloft, then back again as it inhaled a mighty breath. At the last moment Urdhven jerked the reins and swerved his horse aside, swinging back in a long curving path toward the place where he had begun his charge. A storm of red obscuring light followed him, but never reached him, as the dragon roared.

When the dragon ceased roaring and the tide of red light receded, he sheathed his sword and swung his steed about, unsheathing his lance and setting it at rest. Then he charged directly at the dragon, positioning the spear for a deathblow in the narrow scaly chest.

With terrible clarity, he saw the dragon rear up again, throwing its wings aloft and forward and then back as it inhaled. He had left it too long—retreated too far. The dragon would roar again before he could strike. But the dragon would die, too—momentum would carry him on and he would pierce the dragon's heart. At worst, his cohorts of armed men standing by would be able to finish off the wounded dragon.

True, he would be dead, but at that transcendent moment it hardly mattered. He would die for the empire he had killed so many to rule, and perhaps one day men still might refer to him as Urdhven the Great….

The dragon roared, and all Urdhven's thoughts drowned in the red light. He knew only the need to ride forward, to strike, to kill the beast that was killing him. He didn't even feel any heat.

But there was no shock of contact, only a strange tearing sound and his horse stumbled. He fell into darkness and the sense of inexplicable failure.

When he lifted his head he saw that he and his horse were tangled in a huge swath of scarlet silk. Near at hand he saw his spear, still protruding from the rent it had made in the great silken shape that was collapsing as he watched. And from the tear were pouring black birds—dozens of crows, hundreds of them, thousands, murder upon murder of crows….

Where is my dragon?
he almost cried aloud, like a plaintive child whose favorite toy has been taken away, but just then he realized:
this
was his dragon. This silken puppet moved by crows, gilded with illusory magic that was now dispelled,
this
was his dragon.

He knew now exactly what had happened, exactly how he had been tricked by those damned Ambrosii and his own hopes. He knew what he must do, before it was too late. But he took a moment to mourn his boyish dreams of heroism. He would never be able to indulge them again; he would always remember this time when they had played him false. A man who had murdered his sister and his liege lord to gain power had no business to be dreaming of heroism, anyway. Perhaps he would never be Urdhven the Great, the people's hero. Perhaps he would be Urdhven the Terrible. At any rate, he would be Urdhven I, Emperor of this damned empire, if he had to wade in blood to do it. And this defeat was in a way an opportunity, for now, after all these months, he knew just where his enemies were.

Sullenly he got to his feet. His charger seemed to have broken its leg when it fell, so he killed it with his sword. Then he walked over to where Steng and Vost awaited him, their faces carefully expressionless.

“Get down, Steng!” he shouted impatiently. “I need your horse. We ride to Ambrose, as fast as may be.”

The poisoner dismounted, and the Protector ascended to his saddle. “Tell the Companions of Mercy I will need them,” Urdhven commanded Steng. “Any Dragon Watch—any Protector's Men you see, send them to me at the City Gate of Ambrose.” He rode away without waiting for a reply, and Vost and the other soldiers followed him out of the Great Market.

The captains of the City Legion were gathered, with many of their men, in the audience hall of Ambrose. They had all received anonymous messages to assemble there at this hour and day, and they had all been forbidden by the Protector to engage in the fight against the dragon. Some were absent. A few had taken to the street to fight the dragon, their sense of duty overriding their (obviously politically motivated) orders. Others had declined to appear, fearing this anonymous summons was an invitation to another purge, like the one that had left most of the loyal servants of Ambrose dead. This possibility was on the minds of those who had chosen to appear as well: all of them bore arms and armor. They would not be purged without a fight.

They waited in vain for the Protector. But presently one of his henchmen appeared, fully armored, in the hated black surcoat with its red lion rampant.

A rumble of dissatisfaction arose from the assembled soldiers. The arrogance of it! One Protector's Man, in battle-scarred armor and a dirty surcoat, to address the pride of the City Legion!

The Protector's Man was arrogant indeed, speaking to no one, swaggering up the long hall to the dais and the imperial throne. Then he sat down on the throne itself and drew his sword, putting it across his knees like a sovereign about to deliver the high justice.

There was a shout of protest, and some of the Legionaries leaped forward to pull the Protector's Man off the throne. But before they could reach him he took off his helmet and tossed it down the long hallway. And what they saw then caused all the soldiers to grow silent and still.

“Come on, then!” Ambrosia shouted, her iron-gray hair settling about her shoulders. “Haul me down and hail me about, and when the Protector returns from his dragon hunt, as he will do shortly, he'll reward you as richly as he can. He might even let you transfer to his new guards—you, too, might wear this proud uniform!” And she tore the surcoat with her left hand and cast it down on the stairs of the dais.

There was silence in the hall. Ambrosia waited and waited, and finally she smiled. “You're lacking in ambition, that's your problem,” she said confidingly. “You still think your oath has meaning—that loyalty and honor can have any use or purpose in the bright new tomorrow
our Protector
promises us. What fools you are! You stand there gaping, when any one of you could make your fortune by climbing this dais and striking off my head!”

Another long pause. None of the Legionaries spoke or moved; they hardly breathed.

“Or is it the other way around?” Ambrosia asked quietly (yet somehow the words went to every corner of the room). “Is it the others, so swift to shake off their allegiance, so ready to follow a kin-slaying traitor, is it they who are the fools? Fools to oppose me, certainly. I won't pretend to know every one of you, but every one of you here knows me. It was I and my brother who went to the edge of the world to defy the Sunkillers. It was I who stemmed the tide of the Khroi at the Battle of Sarkunden. It was I who carried the banner of Uthar into the breach at Vakhnhal. You remember how I led the troops of this empire to victory again and again. Uthar my consort is gone, but I remain, the greatest general and leader of armed cohorts since the old time. Those who threaten me or my descendants, the rightful emperors of Ontil, will go down in death and defeat. So it has always been and so it will be today.

“I come to you for one reason and one reason alone. You have watched this thing, this crawling traitor, this Urdhven, with as much disgust as I. You have not joined with him—or you would not wear the Legion's sacred emblem—but neither have you opposed him. I tell you this: you must do one or the other now. Tear off your surcoat and humbly supplicate Lord Urdhven to be one of his men, or
do your damn job
and protect the King of the Two Cities from a murdering usurper.”

She reached into her mail shirt and drew forth a rumpled sheet of parchment with a red seal.

“This is my appointment, by the lawful King of the Two Cities and the lord of Ambrose, to act as his regent. Those who choose to stand with me and renew their oath to the King may take up in the new Royal Legion the same rank they held in the City Legion. Those who choose to do otherwise may crawl out of here, on their bellies or however seems suitable, but they must expect no mercy from me or any of the King's loyal ministers should we ever meet again.”

She stood and, lifting her sword aloft, began to chant the words of the Legion's oath. As one, the assembled soldiers drew their swords and echoed her. The thunder of their voices reached down to the riverside dungeons, to the empty guardhouse at the City Gate, to a secret chamber high above the city where Morlock lay dreaming of being a dragon.

The King and Wyrth heard them as they sat beside Morlock in the hidden passages of Ambrose.

“What does it mean?” Lathmar asked breathlessly.

“They're either slaughtering the Lady Ambrosia or taking the oath with her,” Wyrtheorn replied, shrugging. “Sounds too organized to be the murder of just one person, but they say the Legion is very well drilled. You know: ‘Company A: advance. Kill! Company B: advance. Kill! Company C—'”

“Oh, shut up.”

“The King's wish is my command,” said Wyrth, mock-obsequiously. Like Ambrosia, or for that matter Morlock, he was now a minister of the King with a seat on the Regency Council, if they only had a table to sit around.

“All right,” said Lathmar, taking him at his word. “Then it's my wish that you attend Lady Ambrosia in the audience hall. Deliver her whatever assistance she seems to require. If she needs none, return to me here.”

“Er.” Wyrth pulled at his beard. “Are you sure you can wake him, if he needs waking? Morlock can be very single-minded, especially when he is pursuing a vision.”

“I'm sure. Anyway, the sooner you go, the sooner you'll be back.”

Wyrth shrugged again, grinning. He leaped to his feet, sketched a courtly bow toward his sovereign, and dashed off down the stone passage.

The King turned back to Morlock and considered the face of his dreaming minister. Then he folded his hands and put himself through the spiritual exercises Morlock had taught him to summon the rapture of vision.

Lathmar, in truth, had great promise as a seer, and the rapture came upon him swiftly. His spirit was drawn alongside Morlock's as he flew above the city on red silken wings filled with crows. Morlock acknowledged Lathmar's presence without even an unspoken word, and then returned to his rather complex task.

More than ever, Lathmar was awed by the power of Morlock's mind—the ability to direct the separate motions of hundreds of crows that filled the silken dragon puppet while maintaining the dragon illusion that sheathed it. But he was even more impressed when he perceived that Morlock's power over the crows was not power. They liked him—they respected him—they had had many a profitable deal with him. To them, he was the most crowlike of men, almost reasonable, and this latest prank (for so they thought of it) appealed tremendously to their small distorted senses of humor. They were willing partners in the gag; they took their cues from Morlock but were not mastered by him.

The city far below them was dim and shadowy in Lathmar's vision—far more visible were the myriads of human souls that burned brightly within it. Among them Lathmar was sure he could recognize one. He had seen him only once, rising from a hole in the floor of a ruined shop—

It was Genjandro, their agent in the city, awaiting as they had prearranged in one of his warehouses. It was extremely droll to see how like Genjandro's inside was to his outside—full of hate for the Protector, reverence for the King (at the moment Lathmar thought of the King as a being quite distinct from himself), and with a certain crowlike amusement for the task at hand. They left Genjandro setting fire to his rugs and leaped into the air again.

Presently they landed in the Great Market and confronted Urdhven. Lathmar was fascinated by the talic prospect of Urdhven. It was as if he were two men: one a hero figure of shining silver. But this was just a surface, tossed like tinsel over a heavier, blood-edged, somewhat indistinct figure—rather like the red lion that was his ensign. But it was the silver shape that all the soldiers in the market saw: there were tiny little silver Protectors inside their souls as they watched and worshipped Urdhven in his heroic moment. Lathmar would have laughed if he could have laughed.

Then Urdhven charged toward the dragon, and the silver within his spirit grew bright indeed, almost eclipsing the other, and his lance tore through the silken dragon that Lathmar's mind inhabited. The illusion spell on the dragon puppet was severed, and suddenly Lathmar's awareness was shattered into thousands of crow-shaped pieces of darkness and he knew nothing for a while.

The City Gate was standing wide open when Urdhven and his three cohorts of armed men reached it. To all appearances, there were no soldiers on duty.

“May the Strange Gods damn them all to all eternity!” Urdhven muttered with complete sincerity.

He could take comfort, he supposed, in the fact that the Ambrosii had not secured the gate against him. Then again, it was possible that they held the gate on the far side of the bridge and were waiting in ambush.

“Vost,” he said, after a moment's thought, “stay here with Vendhrik's and Stalost's cohorts. Arnring's cohort, dismount and follow me.” And he rode into the dark gate, past the dark gatehouse onto the bridge over the river Tilion. When he was halfway across he paused, raising his hand. The cohort halted on the bridge behind him.

“Arnring,” he said to the cohort's commander, “I have a dangerous mission which I can entrust only to you.”

“Yes, sir!” Arnring replied eagerly.

“I want you to enter the castle Ambrose and engage in reconnaissance. I believe the Ambrosii may be somewhere within. Enter the castle, take possession of the key points, and return to me a message when your men are in place.”