Empire of the East (11 page)

Elslood said, “That new harem-slave, my Princess; there is a circumstance I know of, that I might be able to turn to your amusement—”

Listening, Charmian began to smile.

Following the jovial Master of the Games and the sallow chief warden through the low-roofed dungeons, Chup wrinkled his nose and tried to hold his breath against the stench. So far he had had nothing to say about the prospective gladiators but a few terse expressions of scorn. Sturdy farm lads they might once have been, but now they had rotted in their cages overlong. He suspected that all the hale ones were up above, unloading barges or building walls. Faugh! What did it serve, to pen men up like this? It served no aim that Chup could see, but only created a foulness. If the men were objectionable and useless, let them be killed. If good work was to be gotten from them, then at least house them in fresh air and feed them, like draft animals of some value.

Chup had as yet made no pilgrimage to the East, had pledged no allegiance to Som or the other mysterious lords. He supposed he would go, some day soon. All men must serve some master, or so the way of the world seemed to be. Charmian was already egging him on, to get his wizards to arrange the matter. Charmian…
why
did he want to marry her? He had women enough—ah, but none so fair. And the greatest warrior must have the fairest princess, that was one of the things a man fought for. So, once again, was the way of the world.

The warden stopped before yet another dim and noisome cage, and delicately reminded Chup of the fact that no gladiators had as yet been chosen: “We'd best pick out today whatever your Lordship decides should be reserved for the games. I think the foremen of the work-gangs will be down here soon enough, taking all the bodies that can be made to lift and haul.” And then the warden fell abruptly silent, having just got a dirty look from the Master of the Games. Probably new work-gangs were going to be sent across the pass to dig, and that business was not something to be discussed before a visitor.

Chup had a fairly good idea of what the Elephant-search was all about, and of course he was keen on learning more. He knew that if he had ridden out with Ekuman, he would not have been taken where there was anything worth the seeing. But he meant to learn in good time about whatever they found. Charmian, who would certainly have her uses, wanted very much to be the queen of an overlord. Chup's wizards had heard hints that one of the Satraps here along the coast might soon be raised to such an eminence….

“This lot here is a bit fresher than the last,” said the warden hopefully, looking into the cell.

Chup sniffed. “If no sweeter.” The cell was pretty well filled up with ten or a dozen men who at first glance looked like nothing much; but with only a quick look you could never be sure. Chup was inescapably interested in fighting and in fighters, even only in potential. The Master of the Games began to harangue this lot of wretches: brave lads raise your hands, who will step out and have a chance for glory, and so forth. If Chup had been in a cell he would not have believed a word of it for a moment. Neither did those who were in fact inside; though it stood to reason that any who were real men in there would seize even the faintest chance to take revenge for their evil fate.

On impulse, Chup took charge. “Open the door,” he ordered. He got a startled glance from the warden, whose speech he interrupted, but such was the Satrap's voice and bearing that he did not have to repeat himself.

As the warden was swinging a segment of the grillwork back, Chup drew out his sword and set it on the dirty floor. This was not his prized battle-winning weapon, of course, he would not treat that in such a style. This was a fancier-looking blade that he wore on dress-up days like this—it was serviceable enough, of course.

All were gaping at him. “Now let me borrow this,” he said. And he took the cudgel from the startled warden's belt, tried the grip of it in his hand, whipped it once or twice through the air. Then he held it down at his side.

He addressed the sullen, unbelieving faces inside the cell. “You men in there! Or whatever you are. If there be a man among you, let him come out and take this up.” He shoved with his elegant toe at the bare sword, moving it a hand's breadth nearer them. “We're at the end of a passage here, and you can set your back against a wall and hack away at me—these two with me will give us room, I doubt not. Well?”

No answer.

“Come, come, you fear to soil my fine garments? Let me tell you, I raped a dozen of your sisters this morning, ere I had my breakfast. Look, the sword is real. D'you think I'd stoop to playing pranks on such as you—well, here's a bantam with some life in him, if we can't get a man full grown.”

Putting one foot slowly in front of the other, Rolf was coming out of the cell. As soon as he was out, the warden sprang forward and clanged shut the door.

Whether it was the power of Ardneh that possessed Rolf now, or only the power of hate, it left no room in him for fear. Without taking his eyes from Chup's, he squatted and rose up again, the sword's hilt now gripped tight in his right hand. The weapon felt wonderfully deadly, longer and heavier than the only other sword that he had ever held.

The warden and the Master of the Games retreated; with cautious outrage they peered around the Satrap at this strange creature, an armed prisoner. At another time Rolf might have laughed at their expressions. The Master of the Games had one hand half-raised, almost but not quite daring to pluck at the Lord Chup's sleeve; and the warden kept muttering, something about calling for a couple of men with pikes.

Chup's eyes were locked with Rolf's, a resonance between them. In the tall Satrap's face there was a life that had not been there before. Without looking around he answered the blithering behind him: “Oh, go away if you like, and stand behind your pikemen. Only let me have a few moments' life at least out of this deadly boring day.”

And Chup was thinking:
Mountains of the East! Look how ready this one is to carve me! See in his face how little he values his own skin at this moment. If he but knew how to hold that sword, I'd be looking for pikemen myself. Ah, to lead into battle an army of men who all had something like this one's will to fight!

The youth was coming forward now, moving slowly at first, convincing himself that there was no hidden trap laid for him here. In a moment he would lunge, or hack. Chup waited, poised, holding the cudgel loosely, waist-high, pointing it horizontally like a dagger. He had grown happy, moved into the true intense life of physical danger, so much more real than any other part of life. He was going to have to exert all his powers, to win with the short stick of wood against the long keen blade and the earnest clumsy hate behind it.

Rolf's intent to attack showed itself in his face an instant before he lunged, and Chup was very glad to have the warning; he knew the young could move very fast, and utter ignorance could wield a sword with deadly unorthodoxy. Dodging back, Chup made the awkward downcurve of the blade's path miss him by something less than he in his bravest moments would have planned. Chup counterattacked, stepping in with his best speed, whacking down with the cudgel against the blade to keep a backstroke from coming up into his legs or groin, then dagger-thrusting with the blunt club. He aimed just below the youth's breastbone; he did not want to do this brave one any permanent damage.

Rolf never saw the counterthrust coming. He only felt the murderous impact of it, paralyzing him, knocking out his wind. His hand let go the sword. His knees betrayed him also, so that he fell slumping down onto the dirty stones, seeing through a reddish haze, fighting now for nothing greater than to draw a breath.

The warden and the Master of the Games, in voices loud with relief, clamored their praise for his Lordship's bravery and skill. His Lordship spat. His toe prodded Rolf, gently. “You there—you'll have another chance in a few days to draw some blood.” He handed the cudgel back to the warden, and accepted the sword the man had picked up for him.

“Feed and exercise him,” Chup ordered, nodding at Rolf. Then he surveyed for the last time the other prisoners, who were now moving restlessly inside their fetid cage, awake now when it was too late and the door was once more shut upon them. So Chup had expected, knowing men. “Faugh! Pick out what other ones you will!” He stalked away.

Rolf was not put back into the cell, but instead, when he could walk, led to a stair and so up into full daylight. Then through one small courtyard after another, amid a warren of walls and sheds and gates. By turning his head to look up at the keep and its tower, he tried to get his bearings; he was now on the eastern side of the keep, still of course within the mighty outer walls. And just as his breath was coming back strong enough to let him walk easily, Rolf saw that which made him feel that Chup's club had struck again—a small face, framed in dark hair, in a narrow window high up in the keep.

He tried to delay to look a moment longer, but the guards dragged him on. Still out-of-doors, they brought him at last to a cell that stood alone against the wall of a shed, a stone-walled cell just about big enough for a man to stand up in and long enough for him to lie down. It was quite windowless, but the door was an open grillwork of hardwood and iron bars.

Small as this cell was, it gave him more room than had the crowded one below. And this one was free of filth, and open to the air. Looking out through the grillwork of the door into the sunlight, Rolf could not see much more than the wall and corner of the adjacent shed, and more blank walls a few meters distant. The keep and its windows were not within his range of vision.

He had not been sitting long on the straw-littered floor when a warden came, bringing him a jug of water, and a plate of food surprisingly substantial and clean. Rolf drank and ate, and tried to keep himself from thinking of anything beyond the moment's satisfaction.

He was startled awake from a nervous, twitching doze by the grating of the cell's lock. One man stood at the opened door, a tough-looking soldier with a tanned, lined face, not one of the dungeon wardens. This man wore the bronze helmet of the troops, and under his arm he carried a pair of mock swords, having true handles but blunt wooden shafts instead of blades.

“All right, kid, fall out.”

Saying nothing, Rolf got up and went with him. The man led him around a corner into a small closed yard. Along one wall stout butts of timber had been set firmly in the ground; they were much hacked and splintered.

The man held out one of the practice swords to Rolf, hilt first. “Take this and come at me. Let's see what you can do.” When Rolf did not instantly obey him his voice shifted effortlessly into a heavy, threatening tone. “Come on! Or maybe you'd rather go up on the roof instead, and fight the leather wings? Up there you won't get no sword to use—you'll be strung up by your fingers.”

Slowly Rolf took the proffered weapon. Evidently seeing by Rolf's manner that he was genuinely ignorant and puzzled, the soldier ceased threatening him and explained: “Kid, you're lucky. You're gonna be put into the arena to fight. Do a good job and you'll see no more dungeons. How'd you like a chance to join the army? Have a real man's life?”

“If I get into the arena with Chup,” said Rolf, his voice low, “I'll carve his guts out if I can. He'll have to kill me. So either way I won't be in your army after that.”

The soldier rubbed his jaw. “The Lord Chup,” he said.

“He picked me out. He said I'd have another chance at him, in a few days.”

“Yeah. Yeah, well, he's like that. A real man, a real fighter, admires anybody who'll put up a scrap.”

As much as he hated the invaders, Rolf had to believe in the honesty of the man who had just beaten him, wooden stick against sword. He had been granted clean air and water and good food, and now, it seemed, one to teach him swording. He was being given a real chance, if a small one, to strike back before he was destroyed.

“All right, kid, make up your mind.”

Rolf smiled, looking down at the wooden sword in his hand. Maybe he could strike back more than once. He lunged forward suddenly and struck, aiming with his best intent to hit the other's face.

The old soldier's weapon slid easily up into place to block the blow. He returned Rolf's bitter smile. “That's it, hit first and hit hard when you can. Now let me show you how to hold a sword.”

“We must strike first, and strike hard.” Thomas spoke in a low, heavy voice, knowing their truth and at the same time knowing the grim risks that they implied.

Around him in the huge lean-to were assembled such leaders of the Free Folk as had been able to respond in time to his summons to a council. Olanthe sat at his left hand, and Loford at his right. The bird Strijeef had a place in the circle, sitting sideways and with his unwounded wing raised to shield his eyes from the firelight.

Around the island the night noises of the swamp rose and fell. Thomas went on: “When Ekuman has the Elephant, and has made himself its master—then it will be too late for us to attack or defend, even if we could raise ten thousand men. Is this not true?”

Loford nodded his great head at once. Others in the circle added their agreement. None could deny what had been said.

Thomas went on: “If we are daring enough, we may let Ekuman dig away the mountain first, then strike to take the treasure from him. But even that moment lies only a few days in the future.”

“The very day of the wedding,” said someone.

“Very likely,” Thomas agreed.

Another man, the leader of a band from the delta region, shook his head. “You want to attack him on his very doorstep. How many men can we raise in a few days, and march there with any secrecy? Hardly more than two hundred, I think!”

There was some discussion. No one could really dispute that the figure of two hundred must be approximately correct.

“Ekuman will have the Elephant-diggings guarded heavily,” the man from the delta predicted. “He must have a thousand men available, in and around the Castle.”

“Still, do you see any alternative to attacking?” Thomas asked him. Then Thomas looked around the fire-lit circle, questioning each person with his eyes. None had anything to suggest. Loford's visions, and those of the Old One before him, had convinced them all that the Elephant was the key on which the future rested.

“Then, since we
must
attack, it only remains to determine how. Don't forget that we now have new powers of magic on our side. The Thunderstone—we've already discussed some plans for that. And we'll find a way to put the Stone of Freedom to work, too. There are plenty of prisoners needing to be freed. One of them, especially, would be important to us now.”

“The boy who was in the cave,” said Olanthe.

Thomas nodded.

Mewick spoke up; with the gray still painted in his hair he looked like some grave tribal elder. “I think the soldiers who had him knew nothing of his importance, of where he had been. On his clothes was much mud, so likely they took him at the riverbank. And they had tied him most casually behind a beast, and they were in no hurry. Also Rolf was smart, he looked at me but once. If he stays smart I think they will just be using him as an ordinary slave.”

Thomas added: “The birds are watching for Rolf in the work parties that go out of the Castle at night. There are some now.” He hesitated. “Of course we can't be sure he really learned anything about the Elephant.”

“He nodded to me,” said Mewick sadly. “How could he talk? What other signal could he give? So I think that the nod means something.”

Olanthe said: “It might have meant only that he saw you.”

“Maybe.”

“Well.” With a gesture Thomas put the problem of Rolf aside. “With more knowledge of the Elephant or without it, we still must get the thing out of Ekuman's hands, or else overthrow him before he can put it to use. Now consider that our friend Ekuman is not stupid, nor are his chief officers. They know that we must act.”

“All the more hopeless then,” said the pessimistic delta-man.

“Not at all,” returned Thomas firmly. He looked round the circle and saw faces steady in their support. “For one thing, we'll arrange diversions. Draw troops from the Castle if we can, at least keep any more from being sent there. For another, we'll come at Ekuman in a way he doesn't expect.”

Bending, he scratched on the bare earth beside the fire a rough map of the Broken Lands. “Here, and here, are the likely places for us to cross the river, to get near the Castle for an attack. Ekuman will be strengthening the night patrol in those places. But we'll avoid them.”

“How?”

“It'll mean a long hike, but we can do it. Go farther south, cross the Dolles in your country, the delta. Move in small groups, mostly at night of course. Get across the mountains there in the south. Reassemble, somewhere on the desert…” Thomas's voice slowed. He felt a new idea taking shape.

Olanthe seemed to be reading his thoughts. “That's not far from the Oasis.”

Thomas faced her. “Olanthe, how many of the Oasis farmers would be willing to join us, against the odds that we'll be facing?”

“How many? Every one of them!” Her face had lighted. “Two hundred and a few more, men and boys. And some of the women will come too. If you once get the invaders off my people's necks, they'll go to the Castle and fight, they'll follow you to the Black Mountains if you like. They'll fight with their pitchforks and reaping-hooks!”

“They'll have swords and shields and arrows for the picking-up, if we can hit the Oasis garrison the way they should be hit!” It was a heady thing for Thomas to see, the hope coming into the faces of these strong people who now depended so much on his words.

The objector from the delta was ready and willing to act as an anchor on Thomas's soaring dreams. “Aye, suppose we do attack the Oasis at night! Suppose we win! Then, what, next day, when the leatherwings come out from the Castle and see what's happened? We're out there, in the midst of the desert; we'll not get back to the swamp or the mountains before Ekuman's cavalry has gobbled us up.” His voice became sarcastic. “Or maybe you think we can raid the Oasis and wipe out the garrison, and march away from it again, all in one night?” The man snorted his scorn. “It would've been done already if it was so simple.”

“We've got new powers now, remember?” Thomas pointed again to the Thunderstone, in a new pouch at Olanthe's side. “It will bring not only lightning, but sheltering clouds and rain as well. And I mean for us to use every power that it has!”

 

On his first night within the Castle walls Rolf in his great exhaustion could do nothing but sleep. In the morning he was well fed, and again at noon. And in both morning and afternoon the old soldier came to take him to the practice yard, where they spent an hour or two each time. In the afternoon they practiced with real shields as well as the mock-swords, and Rolf was given a gladiator's barbut-helm to accustom himself to wearing.

His hands were callused by farm work, and he had thought his arms well toughened too. But this new unfamiliar weight of weaponry seemed to discover new muscles and set them aching. His tutor drilled him mainly in endless repetitions of simple lunge and parry, retreat and counterstroke. It was work that soon grew dull; and for all Rolf's sullen urge to hurt his enemies, he could not manage to hit this man while the old soldier corrected Rolf's technique by jabbing and thwacking him in the ribs, seemingly at will.

As if Rolf's lessons were something semi-secret, the practice sessions were ended whenever other soldiers came to the yard to carve at the timber butts, or spar against one another. Rolf felt some curiosity at this, but there were more demanding burdens on his mind. Escape was much in his thoughts, now that he was nourished and had rested. But the high walls were all around, and only his thoughts could leap them.

Looking up from the practice-yard from time to time during the day, Rolf marked the growing preparations for the approaching wedding. Flowers and gay banners were being brought by the wagonload into the Castle, where they were at once made grotesque by their surroundings. At the direction of the Master of the Games, these were displayed on walls and parapets and railings. Rolf wondered if the bleaching human bones hanging beside the high reptile-roosts would be bedecked with flowers as well.

And somewhere not far from his cell, lively music was being rehearsed throughout the day. The Castle was preparing to work at being joyful, but Rolf could see no joy in any face, as he had seen during the preparation of farmers' weddings. Here even the Master of the Games had a prisoner's countenance.

On his second night in his privileged cell, Rolf saw the labor-gangs returning just after sunset from their work, being driven stumbling and staggering back to the dungeons from which they had been routed in the early morning. There was rockdust and sand on them tonight, not river-mud—he knew by this that most of them had been working on the north side of the pass, lifting off the mountain from Elephant's resting place.

Leaning against the cell wall beside his door, Rolf listened as two of the overseers trudged past wearily. One said that today the digging had uncovered the corner of a door, but there was days' work yet remaining. Aye, said the other. Not until after the wedding would they be done.

The voices faded. Rolf threw himself down on his bed of straw. The mount of Ardneh was almost freed—the Elephant, that belonged more to Rolf than to any other. Even his coming duel with Chup faded to secondary importance in his thoughts.

During this night a second shift of slaves went out from the dungeons to labor, a column of soldiers at their side, marching as sullenly as they. The courtyards were ablaze with torches through most of the night. Workers and messengers kept coming and going, and even the singing practice went on, so the business of the digging seemed all mixed with that of the wedding. Rolf could sleep but little with the noise and the light. And he was worried again, for his life no longer seemed valueless. He must not die, just for a chance of scratching Chup—not when the Free Folk might be facing slaughter for want of knowledge of the Elephant, knowledge that Rolf alone could give them.

When morning came and he was taken as usual from his cell to go to the barracks latrine, Rolf noticed more than one tiny burnt-out stub of torch amid the night's casual litter on the paving stones. The guard who was escorting him today had taken on either too much work or too much wine, or both, last night, so that his eyes were closed as much as they were open. Coming back, Rolf contrived to stoop and fiddle with his sandal-straps. When the door of his cell swung shut on him again, he had a little charcoal-stick closed safe within his sweating hand.

Again he was given water and good food. And again, the old soldier came to take him to practice. Rolf had contrived to hide his piece of charcoal inside a seam of his shirt. And the impulse that had prompted him to pick it up had begun to grow in his mind into something of a scheme.

Today his tutor brought swords, though dull of edge and blunt of point. During the practice Rolf's mind was kept too busy to elaborate on schemes. He was beginning to appreciate the truth of Mewick's warning—that the martial arts were not to be learned in a week. Just as he thought his sword arm had finally developed some cunning, his teacher's weapon would thump against his ribs once more.

But during the break at noon, and when he was locked once more into his cell at nightfall, he was free to think. The idea had already occurred to him that the birds must certainly come reconnoitering at night, probably every night, above the Castle. He saw that the defensive cords and nets were always carefully spread on the high places after the reptiles had come thronging back at sunset. But there was nothing to stop the birds from passing over, higher still. There would always be some scrap of information that they might gain, using their sharp eyes and their wits. Now, if he could only display some sort of message for them to read….

That night within the Castle walls was quieter than the last; it seemed that the attempt to work a double shift in clearing Elephant's hiding place had been abandoned. Maybe there were not enough slaves still driveable. Tonight there was no prodigality of torches in the courtyards, and Rolf's cell was unobserved, save by the sentry who passed by a few meters away, at reasonably predictable intervals. Rolf had realized that no one could see the roof of his cell. The adjacent shed kept it from being seen from the height of the keep.

Turning his comparatively new shirt inside out gave him a nearly white surface for a slate. After pondering for a while on how to get the most information into the fewest words possible, he set down:

 

I RODE ELE. IN CAVE

 

And then he was stuck for a way to convey what should be said of the power that he had seen and sensed. Finally all he could add was:

 

SAVE IT FROM EKUMAN

ROLF

 

He thickened and darkened the letters with double strokes of his writing-stick, and worked them into the fabric with fingers and spit. He rolled up the garment and unrolled it again; his message seemed to have a fair degree of permanence.

Now he had only to display it on his cell's flat roof, spread out straight and unwrinkled enough for a bird to read. After a little thought he reached out through the bars at the bottom of his door and gathered in some traces of the recent construction that lay there, small stones and little chunks of dried mortar. Choosing from these several that seemed of proper size, he made shift to attach them as weights to the lower edge of the shirt, loosening threads from the garment to tie them on. It took some time to make them all secure, but of hours he had plenty.

He rolled up the shirt then like a scroll, and made several practice openings of it, snapping it out to unroll quickly on the floor. One of the weights came loose and had to be retied, but he saw no reason why the scheme should not be successful.

Meanwhile he had been counting silently, roughly timing the passages of the sentry. Now Rolf waited until the man had passed once more, then went to the door. He thrust his rolled-up shirt out through the high bars, then held it by the shoulders and unrolled it with a backward snap. He heard the little stones strike with tiny clacks on the flat roof above his head.