Caine's Law (55 page)

The Spire bristled with sharpshooters. While nearly all of them directed their attention straight across to the tiers of Hell, a surprisingly large fraction scanned the massed humanity below. The officers of Khryl’s Own understood all too well the risk of a general riot, and the dire outcome should such riot spread to become general disorder.

Simple arithmetic:

Five hundred Knights. Ten thousand armsmen. Thirty thousand sworn Soldiers of Khryl, and as many again of the unsworn Civility …

And over two hundred thousand ogrillo slaves.

Nobody wanted to find out what the final sum would be.

At the moment of Shortshadow, as noon is called on the Battleground, a young and powerfully built ogrillo hung with weighted chains had been brought up onto the Ring and there directed, as is traditional, to kneel and await the Knight Accusor. Words passed between him and the armsmen who had accompanied him, but the young ogrillo kept his feet.

This had not made the crowd any happier. Now as dusk approached, the mutterings among the spectators took on a darker tone, and were punctuated by occasional shouts of defiance, as the younger, less disciplined, and less sober encouraged one another to rush the Ring and settle this Broken Knife bastard whether Lady Khlaylock showed up or not.

He stood on the sill of a low window on the east face of the third tier, not far from the parapet from which Caine and the partners had watched the approach of the Black Knife Nation. Leaning back into a corner where this building met the next, the blood-rimmed shadows swallowed all of him save the whites of his eyes. The retaining wall in front of him was packed knife to knife with silent ogrilloi. None of them seemed to mind him watching over their shoulders.

Be different if they knew who he used to be.

Be more different if they knew who he was now.

He squinted up at the white-painted framework of the main crane’s boom as it swung out from the cargo aerie on the topmost tier. He thought he could pick out a white-clad figure near the tip, but he might have been
kidding himself. His eyes weren’t what they’d once been, and the latticed steel of the boom made effective camouflage.

He could see plenty well enough to register the seething streets around the Spire. Freedom’s Face had done their job well. As the afternoon had worn on, more and more of the assembled crowd had drifted away in disappointment, dismay, and boredom. No one understood why the Champion had not already appeared, and no one was certain what her disappearance would mean for the ogrilloi, the Khryllians, and the Battleground itself.

Things were different now.

An hour before, Kierendal’s agents had scattered throughout Purthin’s Ford to spread the word:

The Champion arrives at sunset. The last of the Black Knives will give submission to the Living Fist of Khryl, or he will die. Khryl’s Justice will be served. The Smoke Hunt will end
.

And everybody wanted to see it happen.

Funny: that was exactly what he intended to show them.

A small dais had been erected back against the wall where the two switchback ramps met in the middle. Seven chairs. Men wearing the mirror-polished full plate of Khryllian Lords sat in six of them—these would be the Lords Legendary. Every single one of them a former Champion of Khryl, and each very high on the list of people who should under no circumstances, ever, be fucked with. The empty chair in the middle was for the remaining Lord Legendary, who also happened to be Justiciar of the Order of Khryl. But he had a prior engagement.

Hosting a banquet for crows, maggots, and worms.

He wondered if any of those fuckers even knew Khlaylock was dead. It was possible Markham’s balls had finally dropped and he’d ’fessed up. Didn’t seem likely; actual testicles would be a little too human.

Maybe later on, he’d pants the sonofabitch and see for himself.

He stared down at the top of Markham’s head. The fucker was just standing there, perfectly calm in parade rest, behind and to the right of the empty chair, his helm under one arm, and jeez, if only he’d kept the Automag—

Huh. Yeah, maybe better he wasn’t strapped. He probably couldn’t have stopped himself.

While Markham might have been carved out of limestone, the Lords Legendary seemed restive—leaning toward one another as if to speak only for one another’s ears, looking around, probably wondering whether
Angvasse would show up after all—because if she was gonna make it before sundown, her processional should be already visible, and they should have been hearing the Khryllian Call of Justice anthem for the last ten minutes.

Yeah, processional. Just wait, fuckers. He had a processional for them right here.

“Kierendal,” he said softly between his teeth. “How we doing?”

In position
. Her Whisper was faint, half-buried in a breathy rustling of breeze.
T’Passe says everything is in place. One supposes we must trust her, despite her unfortunate loyalties
.

“To the Monasteries or to me?”

You pick
.

“She’s a hell of a lot more trustworthy than I am.”

Everyone is. It’s not her intentions that worry me; I warned you magick is erratic here
.

“Shit, Kier, if magick’s the only thing that doesn’t work today—”

I’m only saying that when this whole preposterous charade goes tits up, don’t count on me to save your life
.

“And that’s different from the other crazy shit we’ve done together exactly how?”

A long empty pause.

Die fighting, Caine
.

“Um—you do know that’s supposed to mean
good
luck, right?”

For both of us
.

“Always the charmer.” He looked to his left, to his right, and once more down the face of Hell. “I don’t see any reason to wait.”

Is that a go?

“Yeah. Go.”

A shattering detonation split the sky.

Everyone in Hell and Purthin’s Ford felt the explosion in their chests like a thump from a fist. A sheet of writhing silver fire whited out the sun, then shattered into thousands of blazing stars trickling down like hot rain.

Down through the storm of stars came a figure in gleaming white, brilliant and blazing, one foot in a stirrup at the bottom of a rope that reached up through the flaming sky above.

Lower, darkness gathered around the figure, which made it shine ever more, brighter and brighter until it seared the eye—but eyes adjust, and as they did a cheer went up from the crowd, answered by an oceanic roar of rage and hunger from the face of Hell.

To welcome Angvasse Khlaylock.

She received the cheers and the roars with only stillness, impassive, incalculable, until the rope reached down fully to the Ring of Justice and she stepped forth upon the linen and finally, only then, acknowledged the storm of voices by raising her right hand.

For a single breath, all voices stilled.

Her raised hand became a fist.

The answering roar rocked the Battleground from Riverdock to the Purificapex atop the Spire.

Sure, the Order of Khryl understood spectacle. They were even pretty good at it. But there is a world’s difference between knowing showmanship and being the show.

He’d been the show for half his life.

He didn’t mind somebody else taking center stage for a change. Briefly. But even that showed personal growth, he figured. A little. Maybe.

He squinted out at the unarmed woman standing where everyone expected to see the Living Fist of Khryl. He wondered briefly, for the hundredth or thousandth time, if he should have told Angvasse what lay beneath the jitney landing—what was underneath the Ring of so-called Justice: the ruins of the ancient gate to the vertical city, where once upon a time a small band of Aktiri ambushed a Black Knife scouting party and lit the fuse on this whole clusterfuckbomb in the first place.

Too late now.

He reached back over his head for the lip of the window above. With a single smooth heave he drew himself up high enough that he could kick off the wall and swing his legs up through the window and slide the rest of him after.

He went flat on the floor and rolled to the side before standing. He came up with his back to the wall and knives in his hands.

Nobody home. Which was how it was supposed to work, but he hadn’t lived this long by taking that kind of shit for granted. He moved deeper into the apartment, away from the light of the windows, and entered the webwork of halls and tunnels, back into the rock.

He didn’t bother to put away the knives.

On the Ring, Angvasse Khlaylock paced toward Orbek Black Knife with a stately ceremonial deliberation. She beckoned for the waiting pair of Knights Attendant to enter the ring and unlock the heavy chains that bound him.

Orbek peeled lip from tusk, seized chain with both hands, and with a
ripple of muscle and bulge of tendon snapped them in two. The crowds, human and ogrilloi alike, unleashed a roar. He let his broken chains fall and stepped forward, leaning into the thunder as though it had weight, and raised his fist to the tiers of Hell above. As the roar subsided, he answered it with one of his own.

“I am Black Knife! Orbek Black Knife!”

BLACK KNIFE!
The echoing roar from the tiers of Hell made the rock tremble.
ORBEK BLACK KNIFE!

“I am Orbek! Buck of God! Terror of Our Place! Today Orbek Black Knife breaks Khryl’s Own Fist. When Khryl FALLS before BLACK KNIFE, all world will know!

“From now till forever, BLACK KNIVES DON’T KNEEL!”

At his side, Angvasse warned off the Knights Attendant with a glance, then spoke only loud enough for Orbek’s ears alone. “And yet you are not Orbek,” she said, “and you are not Black Knife
kwatcharr
. Khryl punishes the faithless.”

He turned his tusks toward her. “What Khyl does or doesn’t, who fuck me cares? What I am is your death.”

“You’re not that either. Neither of us is who we thought to be, in this Ring on this day. Must this be done?”

“Do you yield?”

“Of course not.”

“Then you die.”

“It’s unlikely.”

“Don’t you Declare Yourself, or whatever fuck-me stupid shit you gotta do before I kill you?”

She nodded, and turned to the Lords Legendary on their dais. She lifted her hand, and waited for the crowds to quiet. When they had, she spoke slowly, precisely, and so clearly that she could be heard without raising her voice.

“I am Angvasse Khlaylock of Lockholm, Lady Legendary and Knight Accusor in this matter. I will see this supposed ogrillo kneel, or I will see it dead.”

No roars greeted her, only a rustling that gathered like stormwinds stirring fallen leaves.

She turned back to Orbek. “Ready?”

Orbek wore a frown that was developing toward a scowl. “Where’s your armor? Where’s your weapon?”

Her eyes softened momentarily, as though she restrained a tolerant smile. “Do I need them?”

“And what’s that
supposed
mean? Supposed ogrillo. You know my name. What do you play at?”

“If this is a game, you have lost. You are not
kwatcharr
of the Black Knives. You are barely Orbek. You’re not even an ogrillo, any more than were the Smoke Hunters.”

Cords in his neck drew his chin down, and the brush of hair on his spinal ridge stood straight out from his body, and he did not reply.

The rustling from the crowds began to develop voice, puzzled, quizzical, some astonished and more derisive. Markham Tarkanen stomped to the front of the Lords Legendary dais and raised his arms. “Silence! In the Name of Khryl Battlegod, I will have
silence
!”

“What’s up
his
ass?”

“I have a message from your brother,” she said softly. “He asked me to tell you before the Justice.”

“What, he says I should die fighting?”

“His exact words were
Once we’re done with your beat-down, get your stupid dog ass out of that goddamn simichair and fuck off for the gate. There’s a guy coming through. He doesn’t look it and he won’t smell it, but he’s Tanner. Play nice. We need him. I’ll be in touch
.”

Orbek said, “Fuck
me
 …”

“He worried that you—your body, this body, this Smoke Hunt fetch you’re controlling by technology from Earth—will die before he can tell you himself.”

“Yah? He must know something I don’t.”

“He is singularly well informed.”

As the crowds settled back down, Markham came stomping out into the Ring. “Lady Khlaylock!” he boomed. “How is it you do not declare your title?”

“Hm,” she said softly, nodding to herself. “He said this would happen.”

She stepped forward to address the Lord Righteous, and all the assembled crowds. “My Lord, I have declared every title I lawfully hold.”

“But—” Markham blinked as though she were a blinding light. “But you are Khryl’s Own Fist!”

“No more.”

“You have been Champion longer than any Lord in two hundred
years
!”

“I was.” Her voice rang like a brass bell. “This noontide I ventured to assault an Armed Combatant. I was defeated, and thus hold no formal title beyond my rank and my uncle’s lands.”

“Defeated?” Markham looked dazed. “You?”

“I have said so.” Her balance shifted subtly, and a dangerous spark glittered in her eyes. “Do you undertake to doubt a Khlaylock’s word? In public?”

The Lord Righteous stiffened. “This Justice—this was to be Khryl’s Fist against the—”

“I have no interest in what this Justice
was to be
. My sole concern—the sole concern of every
true
Soldier of Khryl—is to ensure that Justice assayed is justice
done
. Neither less nor more.”

Markham reddened to the roots of his hair. She swept past him and opened her arms to the Lords Legendary and the assembled ogrilloi of Hell above them. “Many here believed that you would today see the Lord of Battle’s affirmation, or denial, that enslaving ogrilloi was and is a righteous act. And some would have argued the question based upon an outcome of trial between the chieftain of the Black Knives and Khryl’s Living Fist. There will never be such an outcome. I am not Khryl’s Champion, and this creature is not
kwatcharr
of the Black Knives.”