Master of Whitestorm (25 page)

Daylight brought the official a fierce hangover and no recollection of his evening activities. He rose nursing an overblown mood of self-pity, and ordered Iloreth to fetch his clothing and boots. Once dressed, he departed in search of hot drink and a sweet roll. When the house steward inquired after his pleasure, he cradled his suffering hangover and pleaded no change in accommodations. Left the task of straightening tumbled sheets, Iloreth wrestled hopelessness, that the freedom so near at hand should relentlessly pass her by. If she could have laid hand on a knife, she might have ended her misery, but even embassies to a land as savage as Datha carried no arms; the furnishings of the guest suite contained no suitable substitute.

Released at midmorning to make rounds of the palace chamber pots, Iloreth hid among the flowering shrubs inside the sultan’s seraglio on the bald-faced chance she might elude the Arhagan’s attentions. The head gardener discovered her and at once second-guessed her intent. His report earned her a beating. The house steward took care not to mark her, since she was presently favored by a guest. Yet welts that stung red and then faded offered nothing by way of consolation; more lasting punishment would await the envoy’s departure.

Returned under guard to the guest chamber, Iloreth stared at the street beyond the scrolled brass grille across the window. Her thumbless hands were incapable of drawing the pins that secured the ornamental grate; and the medallion which framed the central aperture was barely a palm span across. A sparrow might have sailed through between wing beats; a slave was helplessly imprisoned.

Tropical dusk fell swiftly. A shaved crescent moon sank over the roofs of Telssina and stars burned like lamps on blue silk. Huddled forlornly on a hassock beside the hearth, Iloreth sat with dry eyes and wondered whether Korendir would wait long in the room that housed her sleeping mat. She thought of her parents as the wall sconces were lighted in the street, and the distorted shadow of the window grille leapt and wavered across the floor. Hours passed. Songs from late-night revellers heralded the closing of feasting halls and taverns. Knowing the Arhagan would be along soon, the princess sat listlessly. At any instant the bleak comfort of solitude would end, along with her last hope of home.

That moment the wall sconce by the window hissed and went dark.

Normally in Telssina such lights burned until morning, but Iloreth had no chance to reflect why the torch had precipitously failed. The latch of the guest suite tripped up and the door opened. Moved by less welcome than she would have awarded the palace executioner, Iloreth arose, her scarred face set with distaste.

The Arhagan crossed the threshold. “Come to me, ugly one,” he invited. He leaned on the panel as it swung shut, his lips parted over teeth that gleamed faintly from the shadows. He was quite sober.

“A fine thought, thee had, to leave my chambers dark. We shall make sport together, yes?”

The Arhagan smiled again.

A shadow moved at the grate. Steel flashed in an arc through the bars and struck with the speed of a snake. The Arhagan’s look of lust froze into horror. He gurgled, clutched at the blade embedded in his throat, then crashed full-length on the floor.

Iloreth recoiled from her tormentor’s dying struggles, and stared wide-eyed through the window. A man crouched there, black-clad and nimble. Before the Arhagan gasped his last, a brass pin chimed on the tile. The grille swung open and in wafted the unmistakable scent of desert fern.

“Come quickly, Your Grace,” whispered Korendir. “Dead envoys are bad luck in any country.”

XIV

SCOURGE OF THE DATHEI

ILORETH
rushed forward. The mercenary in the window caught hold of her. His sure grasp raised her up and over the sill, then bundled a cloak over her thin silk robes. Half stunned by her change in luck, Iloreth felt herself hurried across the palace street and into a side alley, where a rope dangled from the grille of a gallery.

“Climb,” said Korendir in her ear.

Loops had been spliced into the rope, forming a ladder for thumbless hands. Iloreth swung herself upward. Steadied by the hands of the northerner, she went quickly. Before the Arhagan left behind in the guest chambers ceased bleeding, she reached the roof and clung to the ceramic of the rain gutter.

“Hold here, Your Grace.” Korendir reached past her, grasped the lip of the tile, and kicked free of the rope. He slung himself up with the agility of a lizard, then crouched and caught Iloreth’s wrists. Hoisted in the grip of the swordsman, she landed, breathless, above the eaves.

“Go across,” Korendir instructed. “Over the rooftop on the far side, you’ll find another rope fastened to a chimney. Start down if you can. I’ll be along.”

Determined to carry her own weight, Iloreth choked back her fear of falling. She scaled the slippery roof tiles and located the line Korendir had left. She caught her fingers in the top loop, clenched her jaw, and slid over the lip of the rain gutter.

The mercenary arrived at the roof edge just as the princess reached the ground. The rope previously used for ascent was hooked into coils over his shoulder; the other he severed at the knot. Iloreth gathered up the length which cascaded to her feet, while above her, Korendir swung onto a gallery. A movement saw him hanging full length from the brasswork adorning the lower railing; from there he dropped the short distance to street level.

The second he recovered his balance, he was flanked by a hunched figure in black.

Iloreth was startled into panic. If she became recaptured, the agonies that awaited at the hand of the sultan’s torturer raised a horror that overwhelmed caution. A scream arose in her throat, stopped by Korendir’s hard fingers.

He shook her once, sharply, and his whisper restored her to reason. “Look again.”

Shaking with rattled nerves, Iloreth discovered who sheltered beneath the cloak hood. Tears welled in her eyes. Korendir had stolen Daide from the sultan’s seraglio, but his sympathies did not extend to delay for sentiment or gratitude. The mercenary grasped the hands of both women and hauled them urgently into a run.

Telssina’s thoroughfares were never quiet. Caravans from the south commonly scheduled night arrivals, and last watch’s guardsmen loitered between gambling halls and wineshops, making each street corner a hazard. Korendir had chosen his route to compensate; he and his refugees utilized rooftops to cross the most crowded quarters of the city. They were challenged only once, while Daide descended by rope from a second floor balcony. Korendir answered the soldier’s query with a throwing knife, and pressed on without pause to recover his weapon. The gravest risk lay ahead. Between the inner city and freedom lay the double walls of the sultan’s fortifications. The avenue which paralleled these defenseworks was the haunt of beggars, blackmarketeers, and disease-ridden, one-coin prostitutes, every one of them desperate enough to turn informer for the hope of a guardsman’s copper. At no hour of the day or night was the street deserted, and a division of the sultan’s cavalry patrolled constantly to manage the crime.

Korendir had no intention of fighting what could not be changed. He sheltered Daide and Iloreth beneath the canvas cover of a refuse cart, then catfooted through the gutters to an alley two streets down. There he broke into the warehouse which held the confiscated goods of Elshaid the erstwhile camel trader. In short order he left four tuns of fine northern wines to roll unattended into the avenue beneath the walls.

Excited shouts proclaimed their discovery by the resident riff-raff. The barrels were broached with abandon, and as celebration drew every lowborn citizen within earshot, the spoils of Elshaid’s misfortune were shared out and imbibed and fought over.

Korendir slipped off into shadow. He ducked beneath the cart that hid the women and waited while Telssina’s eastern quarter brewed up a riot of swaying bodies, drunken laughter, and brawlers who cheerfully cursed and cracked heads and battered one another with an assortment of ill-gotten weaponry. The Sultan’s horsemen descended like a swarm of yellow hornets upon the site. Forced to dismount and dirty themselves manhandling commoners, their angry oaths rang out above the noise.

Korendir chose his moment and started ascent of the wall. He slung his first rope over a merlon behind a gate house and climbed to the top without sound. The guardsman on duty died with a shudder and never a chance to cry out. The mercenary leaped before the body stopped twitching and swiftly doused the watch torch. Quick as a spider he swung onto the roof of the battlement which joined the guard embrasure with the far wall. As the soldier on the outer defenseworks peered across to determine what mishap had befallen the light, his face showed briefly in silhouette. The third of the armorer’s throwing knives found its mark, and a second corpse crashed on the stone. Korendir completed his crossing of the arch, blackened the next torch, and set the rope for descent over the spikes which crowned the outer rampart.

The margin he had before discovery at best could be counted in seconds. Racing to beat odds, Korendir retraced his steps and fetched the two women from hiding. He delivered his instructions in a voice breathlessly curt. Iloreth and Daide were to climb, covered from the rear by his weapons. They were told where horses awaited, tethered in a hollow under cover; orders were to ride without thought for whatever might arise behind them.

“Her Grace leads,” Korendir finished. “Go, and on your lives and honor, don’t either of you look back.”

The fugitives hurried across the avenue and faded into shadow by the gate house. Korendir set his shoulder against the wall, the last rope hooked loosely through his elbow. He caught Iloreth’s waist and hefted her upward, hastening the start of her climb. Daide followed more awkwardly. Five months with child by the sultan’s heir, she raised not a murmur of complaint, though pregnaricy added clumsiness to her hardship. As Korendir boosted her after the princess, her frail hands caught the rope as though it held her last hope in life. Daide climbed at Iloreth’s heels, her hooded head tilted upward toward the battlement and freedom.

In that most vulnerable moment, the night echoed with approaching hoofbeats. Down the street a staff messenger sent after reinforcements spurred clear of the riot. As his sweat-lathered horse jibbed through an unruly corner, the rider chanced to look up; he spotted dark-clad figures in the act of scaling the wall.

Korendir’s thrown dagger found the man’s heart too late to prevent outcry. As the messenger toppled from his saddle his dying scream rang the length of the avenue.

Sentries in the adjoining gate houses raced out at the disturbance; mounted patrols abandoned the fray that still raged in tangles around the wine tuns. Someone on the battlements sounded an alarm bell, and pursuit converged from both directions.

Korendir flipped the rope from his forearm. He spun and faced the galleries that overhung the thoroughfare along the inner wall. His throw sent coils snaking upward. Multiple loops snagged over ornamental spikes and grille railings that extended along the balconies above his head. Earlier, the pins which secured the brass panels had been replaced with the dowels from the carpenter. Unobtrusive twists of wire joined one panel to another above the level of the street. Grim as death, and as ruthless, Korendir bent the tail of the line around a lamp post. Then he slammed his weight against the end.

Spice wood slivered under stress. Jerked askew, a sixfoot panel dove over the brink. Korendir tugged again. Wrenched in chain reaction that carried the length of the block, the grilles on the second-storey galleries cartwheeled into the air and fell twisting over the lances of the oncoming cavalry. Upset like a row of dominoes, ponderous pounds of wrought brass scythed down horses, men, and bystanders with the mangling force of a cataclysm.

The dissonant chime of metal blended with the screams of casualties. Pinned like insects, the victims scrabbled to escape the shift of tumbled grilles which snapped limbs and crushed skulls without distinction. An officer unhurt in the wreckage tried vainly to bellow orders.

Korendir shrugged clear of the rope that had set his diversion in motion. He footed across jumbled panels to the wall and glanced skyward. Iloreth was safely up and over the upper battlement; Daide negotiated the topmost spikes.

An arrow glanced, chattering over masonry. Korendir ducked a gritty fall of mortar. Somewhere, perhaps in the adjoining gate house, an archer remained with a clear head. The mercenary set the rope swinging to hamper the bowman’s aim, then furiously began to climb. Darkness made him a poor target and a relief charge sent in by the cavalry commander served only to abet his escape.

The mounted division swept through the wine riot at full gallop. Beggars and drunken prostitutes shied clear, shrieking imprecations; not a few were trampled down. The horses surged past unimpeded. Korendir never looked back as the cries of the lead riders cut like a knife through night.

Their mounts were first to suffer. Slender forelegs clanged through the open scrollwork of the fallen grilles and momentum did the rest. Caught short, the thousand-pound chargers flipped like trouts on a line. Their riders were messily crushed. A tangle of snapped limbs and agony, the war horses thrashed. Their hooves rained smashing ruin upon those unfortunate survivors pinned within range.

Korendir topped the wall as the second rank of cavalry pressed haplessly to ruin by the riders that galloped behind; twenty-two horses were broken before the charge could be halted. The rear ranks avoided the carnage only to find themselves preoccupied by mounts that shied from the smell of fresh blood.

Only the archer in the gate house remained to defend the walls. His aim was righteously vindictive.

Korendir crossed the bridging arch amid a clattering fall of shafts. He caught the descent rope by touch and flung himself over the brink. Before he dropped, a war arrow hammered into his forearm. His grip tore loose. Left one hand and friction to brake his fall, he plunged in an uncontrolled slide. Skin ripped from his palm. He lost the rope, hit ground in a rolling sprawl that allowed no chance to correct mistakes. The war shaft jabbed earth, drove cleanly through flesh and muscle, and snapped off. Korendir struck a ditch with a force that slammed the last air from his lungs. For a prolonged and dangerous moment he lay doubled, utterly unable to rise.

His chest unlocked at length. Breath and then movement returned. Korendir shoved to his knees. Daide lay in a heap of wilted cloth to his left, an unlucky victim of the archer. Iloreth had gone on to the hollow where horses awaited. Against orders, she returned, leading all three mounts by their bridles.

Korendir swore. He drew out the headless fragment of the arrow, threw it down, and regained his feet. Telssina’s walls were still manned, and the disaster unleashed in the streets would no longer serve as protection. The sultan’s faithful would regroup and pursue in a passion for vengeance, while guards would recover from shock. If Iloreth attracted notice from a wall sentry, reparation would be instant and this time no cover was prearranged.

Korendir bent swiftly over Daide. A check with his good hand established the fact she still breathed. When the princess arrived he commanded her to help lift, and with combined effort the injured woman was hauled across the saddle of a nerve-jumpy gelding. A cut length of rope secured her unconscious body over its withers. Korendir gestured Iloreth up behind, then vaulted astride the larger of the remaining two mounts. He whipped both animals to a gallop, driving the riderless one ahead.

The thunder of horses in flight raised noise impossible to overlook.

The throaty wail of a horn split the night at their backs. Lights blossomed in the guard tower, while to the east, Telssina’s steel-wrought gates swung wide and disgorged a yelling company of horsemen. Oiled bodies shone beneath streaming cressets, and each man’s drawn scimitar deflected needle-thin reflections against the darkened wall.

Korendir measured the situation at a glance. He directed the princess and Daide under cover in a thorn thicket, then headed off the spare horse. A one-fisted haul on the bridle turned his own mount after the gelding’s high-flung tail. Korendir rode with eyes narrowed against pain. Carefully he judged distance, then veered his pair of fear-maddened horses in an arc across the warriors’ charge.

When the company wheeled to give chase, Korendir dropped his reins. He unsheathed his next to last knife and flicked his wrist in a throw. The blade spun flat and buried hilt deep in the flank of the riderless horse.

Tormented by the bite of the steel, the gelding coughed and shot ahead. Korendir felt his own mount quicken to keep pace. He freed his toes from the stirrups and snapped off in a flying dismount. His injured wrist marred his balance; instead of landing upright, he stumbled head over heels and smashed to a bruising stop in a thicket. Nettled by more than clumsiness, he looked up to ascertain that both horses pounded in panic ahead of the oncoming cavalry.