“As slaves again.”
“Even so,—Sufaki ways would survive; and if that survives, little by little, you gain. Fight them, spend lives, fall; in the end, the same result: Sufaki ways seep in among the Indras and theirs among you. Bow to good sense. Be patient.”
“My people would curse me for a traitor.”
“It is too late to do otherwise,” said Kurt.
“Are the Families agreed?” Bel asked Kta.
“A vote was taken in the fleet. Enough houses were present to bind the Families to the decision; the Upei’s vote would be a formality.”
“That is not unusual,” said Bel, and suddenly looked at Aimu, who sat listening to everything, pained and silent. “Aimu,—do you have counsel for me?”
“No,” she said. “No counsel. Only that you do what you think best. If your honored father were here,—my lord, he surely would have advice for you, being Sufaki, being elder. What could I tell you?”
Bel bowed his head and thought a time, and made a gesture of deep distress. “It is a fair answer, Aimu,” he said at last. “I only hate the choice. Tonight—tonight, when it is possible to move without having my throat cut by one of your men, my brother Kta, I will go to what men of my father’s persuasion I can reach. I leave t’Tefur to you. I will not kill Sufaki. I assume you are going to try to take the Afen?”
Kta was slow to answer, and Bel’s look was one of bitter humor, as if challenging his trust. “Yes,” said Kta.
“Then we go our separate ways this evening. I hope your men will exercise the sense to stay off the harbor-front. Or is it a night attack Indresul plans?”
“If that should happen,” said Kta, “you will know that we of the Families have been deceived. I tell you the truth, Bel: I do not anticipate that.”
Men came to the door of Elas from time to time as the day sank toward evening,—representatives of the houses, reporting decisions, urging actions. Ian t’Ilev came, to report the street at last under firm control all along the wall of the Afen gate. He brought too the unwelcome news that Res t’Benit had been wounded from ambush at the lower end of the street, grim forecast of trouble to come, when night made the Families’ position vulnerable.
“Where did it happen?” asked Kta.
“At Imas,” said Ian. It was the house that faced the Sufaki district. “But the assassin ran and we could not follow him into the—”
He stopped cold as he saw Bel standing in the triangular arch of the
rhmei.
Bel walked forward. “Do you think me the enemy, Ian t’IIev?”
“T’Osanef.” Ian covered his confusion with a courteous bow. “No, I was only surprised to find you here.”
“That is strange. Most of my people would not be.”
“Bel,” Kta reproved him.
“You and I know how things stand,” said Bel. “If you will pardon me, I see things are getting down to business and the sun is sinking. I think it is time for me to leave.”
“Bel, be careful. Wait until it is securely dark.”
“I will be careful,” he said, a little warmth returning to his voice. “Kta, take care for Aimu.”
“Gods, are you leaving this moment? What am I to tell her?”
“I have said to her what I need to say.” Bel delayed a moment more, his hand upon the door, and looked back. “She was your best argument; I remain grateful you did not stoop to that. I will omit to wish you success, Kta. Do not be surprised if some of my people choose to die rather than agree with you. I will not even pray for t’Tefur’s death, when it may be the last the world will see of the nation we were. The name, my Indras friends, was Chtelek, not Sufak. But that probably will not matter hereafter.”
“Bel,” said Kta, “at least arm yourself.”
“Against whom? Yours—or mine? Thank you, no, Kta. I will see you at the harbor—or be in it tomorrow morning, whichever fortune brings me.”
The heavy door closed behind him, echoing through the empty halls, and Kta looked at Ian with a troubled expression.
“Do you trust him that far?” Ian t’Ilev asked.
“Begin no action against the Sufaki beyond Imas. I insist on that, Ian.”
“Is everything still according to original plan?”
“I will be there at nightfall. But one thing you can do: take Aimu with you and put her safely in a defended house. Elas will be no protection to her tonight.”
“She will be safe in Ilev. There will be men left to guard it, as many as we can spare: Uset’s women will be there too.”
“That will ease my mind greatly,” said Kta.
Aimu wept at the parting, as she had already been crying and trying not to. Before she did leave the house, she went to the
phusmeha
and cast into the holy fire her silken scarf. It exploded into brief flame, and she held out her hands in prayer. Then she came and put herself in the charge of Ian t’Ilev.
Kurt felt deeply sorry for her and found it hard to think Kta would not make some special farewell, but he bowed to her and she to him with the same formality that had always been between them.
“Heaven guard you, my brother,” she said softly.
“The Guardians of Elas watch over thee, my little sister, once of this house.”
It was all. Ian opened the door for her and shepherded her out into the street, casting an anxious eye across and up where the guards still stood on the rooftops, a reassuring presence. Kta closed the door again.
“How much longer?” Kurt asked. “It’s near dark. Shan t’Tefur undoubtedly has ideas of his own.”
“We are about to leave.”—T’Nethim appeared silently among the shadows of the further hall. Kta gave a jerk of his head and t’Nethim came forward to join them. “Stay by the threshold,” he ordered t’Nethim. “And be still. What I have yet to do does not involve you. I forbid you to invoke your Guardians in this house.”
T’Nethim looked uneasy, but bowed and assumed his accustomed place by the door, laying his sword on the floor before him.
Kta with Kurt walked into the firelit
rhmei,
and Kurt realized then the nature of Kta’s warning to t’Nethim, for he walked to the left wall of the
rhmei,
where hung the Sword of Elas, Isthain. The
ypan-sul
had hung undisturbed for nine generations, untouched since the expulsion of the humans from Nephane, but for the sometime attention that kept its metal bright and its leather-wrapped hilt in good repair. The
ypai-sulim,
the Great Weapons, were unique to their houses and full of the history of them. Isthain, forged in Indresul when Nephane was still a colony, nearly a thousand years before, had been dedicated in the blood of a Sufaki captive in the barbaric past, carved into battle by eleven men before.
Kta’s hand hesitated at taking the age-dark hilt of it, but then he lifted it down, sheath and all, and went to the hearthfire. There he knelt and laid the great Sword on the floor, hands outstretched over it.
“Guardians of Elas,” he said, “waken, waken and hear me, all ye spirits who have ever known me or wielded this blade. I, Kta t’Elas u Nym, last of this house, invoke ye; know my presence and that of Kurt Liam t’Morgan u Patrick Edward, friend to this house. Know that at our threshold sits Lhe t’Nethim u Kma. Let your powers shield my friend and myself, and do no harm to him at our door. We take Isthain against Shan t’Tefur u Tlekef, and the cause of it you well know.—And you, Isthain, you shall have t’Tefur’s blood or mine. Against t’Tefur direct your anger and against no others. Long have you slept undisturbed, my dread sister, and I know the tribute due you when you are wakened. It will be paid by morning’s light, and after that time you will sleep again. Judge me, ye Guardians, and if my cause is just, give me strength. Bring peace again to Elas, by t’Tefur’s death or mine.”
So saying he took up the sheathed blade and drew it, the holy light running up and down the length of it as it came forth in his hand. Etched in its shining surface was the lightning emblem of the house, seeming to flash to life in the darkness of the
rhmei.
In both hands he lifted the blade to the light and rose, lifted it heavenward and brought it down again, then recovered the sheath and made it fast in his belt.
“It is done,” he said to Kurt. “Have a care of me now, though your human soul has its doubts of such powers. Isthain last drank of human life, and she is an evil creature, hard to put to sleep once wakened. She is eldest of the
Sulim
in Nephane, and self-willed.”
Kurt nodded and answered nothing. Whatever the temper of the spirit that lived in the metal, he knew the one which lived in Kta t’Elas. Gentle Kta had prepared himself to kill and, in truth, he did not want to stand too near, or to find any friend in Kta’s path.
And when they came to the threshold where t’Nethim waited, Lhe t’Nethim bowed his face to the stone floor and let Kta pass the door before he would rise; but when Kurt delayed to close the door of Elas and secure it, t’Nethim gathered himself up and crept out into the gathering dark, the look on his perspiring face that of a man who had indeed been brushed by something that sought his life.
“He has prayed your safety,” Kurt ventured to tell him.
“Sometimes,” said Lhe t’Nethim, “that is not enough. Go ahead, t’Morgan, but be careful of him. It is the dead of Elas who live in that thing. Mim my cousin—”
He ceased with a shiver, and Kurt put the nemet superstition out of mind with a horror that Mim’s name could be entangled in the bloody history of Isthain.
He ran to overtake Kta, and knew that Lhe t’Nethim, at a safe distance, was still behind them.
23
“There” said Ian t’Ilev,nodding at the iron gate of the Afen. “They have several archers stationed inside. We are bound to take a few arrows. You and Kurt must have most care: they will be directly facing you for a few moments.”
Kta studied the situation from the vantage point in the door of Irain. It was dark, and there were only ill-defined shapes to be seen, the wall and the Afen a hulking mass. “We cannot help that. Let us go. Now.”
Ian t’Ilev bowed shortly, then broke from cover, darting across the street.
In an instant came a heart-stopping shriek, and from the main street poured a force of men bearing torches and weapons: the Indras-descended came in direct attack against the iron gate of the Afen, bearing a ram with them.
White light illuminated the court of the Afen, blinding, and there was an answering Sufak ululation from inside the wall. The blows of the ram began to resound against the iron bars.
Kurt and Kta held a moment, while men from Isulan poured around them. Then Kta broke forth and they followed him to the shadow of the wall. Scaling-poles went up.
The first man took with him the line that would aid their descent on the other side. He gained the top and rolled over, the line jerking taut in the hands of those who secured it on the hitherside.
The next man swarmed up to the top and then it was Kurt’s turn. Floodlights swung over to them now, spotting them, arrows beginning to fly in their direction. One hissed over Kurt’s head. He hooked a leg over the wall, flung himself over and slid for the bottom, stripping skin from his hands on the knotted line.
The man behind him made it, but the next came plummeting to earth, knocking the other man to the ground. There was no time to help either. Kta landed on his feet beside him, broke the securing thong and ripped Isthain from its sheath. Kurt drew his own
ypan
as they ran, trying to dodge clear of the tracking floodlight.
The wall of the Afen itself provided them shelter, and there they regrouped. Of the twenty-four who had begun, at least six were missing.
T’Nethim was the last into shelter. They were nineteen.
Kta gestured toward the door of the Afen itself, and they slipped along the wall toward it, the place where the Methi’s guard had taken their stand. Men, they knew those, but there was no mercy in the arrows which had already taken toll of them, and none in the plans they had laid. The door must be forced.
With a crash of iron the wall-gate gave way and the Indras under Ian t’Ilev surged forward in a frontal assault on the door to the Afen,—the Sufaki archers, standing and kneeling, firing as rapidly as they could; and Kta’s small force hit the bowmen from the flank, creating precious seconds of diversion. Isthain struck without mercy, and Kurt wielded his own blade with less skill but no less determination.
The swordless archers gave up the bows at such unexpected short range and resorted to long daggers, but they had no chance against the
ypai,
cut down and overrushed. The charge of the Indras carried to the very door, over the bodies of the Methi’s valiant guard, bringing the ram’s metal-spiked weight to bear with slow and shattering force against the bronze-plated wood.
From inside, over all the booming and shouting, came a brief piercing whine. Kurt knew it, froze inside, caught Kta by the shoulder and pulled him back, shouting for the others to drop, but few heard him.
The Afen door dissolved in a sheet of flame and the ram and the men who wielded it were slag and ashes in the same instant. The Indras still standing were paralyzed with shock or they might have fled; and there came the click and whine as the alien field-piece in the inner hall built up power for the next burst of fire.
Kurt flung himself through the smoking doorway, to the wall inside and out of the line of fire. The gunners swung the barrel about on its tripod to aim at him against the wall, and he dropped, sliding as it moved, the beam passing over his head with a crackle of energy and a breath of heat.
The wall shattered, the support beams turning to ash in that instant; and Kurt scrambled up now with a shout as wild as that of the Indras, several seconds his before the weapon could fire again.
He took the gunner with a sweep of his blade, his ears hurting as the unmanned gun gathered force again, a wild scream of energy. A second man tried to turn it on the Indras who were pouring through the door.