The Skies Discrowned (17 page)

Frank tensed; very quickly he leaned forward on his lead leg and then kicked off with his rear leg in a rushing fleche attack that drove his blade into the man’s chest and snapped it off a foot above the bell guard. He spun to meet the remaining man, whose point was rushing at Frank’s neck, and parried the thrust with his right-hand blade. Frank then drove his shortened left-hand sword dagger-style upward, with a sound of tearing cloth, into the man’s heart. After a few seconds Frank’s rigid arm released the grip and the body dropped to the pavement.

Hodges stubbed out his cigarette and stood up. The hall was full tonight—more members had shown up than he had known there were. Shouts and whistles and a low roar of talking were amplified in the cathedral-like hall until people had to cup their hands and shout to be heard.

Hodges glanced to his right into the sacristy and saw Blanchard, his hair and beard newly combed, give him a nod. Hodges banged on the speaker’s stand with a gavel, but to no avail. He gave it a stronger blow and the head flew off into the crowd. Somebody threw it back at him and he had to leap aside to avoid being hit. He could be seen to be mouthing words like “Shut up, dammit, you idiots!” but in the general roar his shouts couldn’t be heard.

Blanchard strode out onto the platform carrying a ceremonial shotgun, and fired it at the ceiling, where a few other ripped-up areas provided reminders of times in the past when this had been necessary. The sharp roar of the gun silenced the crowd abruptly, and the bits of stone and shot whining around the hall were all that could be heard.

“All right then,” Blanchard growled. “Let’s get down to business. The first thing we’ve got to get straight is—”

“The question of your successor!” called Lord Tolley Christensen, who stood up now from his fourth-row seat.

“What’s the problem, Tolley?” asked Blanchard quietly.

“There’s no problem, sire. I’m just invoking a precedent—one you’re familiar with yourself.”

“That precedent being … ?”

“The
ius gladii.”

Hodges stared at Tolley in amazement, and there were shocked gasps from those thieves who knew what was being mentioned.

“All right.” Blanchard raised his voice so that everyone in the hall could hear him. “Lord Tolley Christensen has invoked the
ius gladii
and challenged me to a duel. The winner will be your king. Here, two of you move this table out of here. Hodges, get my sword.”

Lord Emsley stood sweating in the vestibule. He had posted six experienced, expensive killers in each of the three corridors Rovzar might have taken to get to the hall, and he had little doubt that Rovzar would be killed. Also, he had great confidence in Tolley’s swordsmanship—still, he’d be happier when this evening was over.

Blanchard and Tolley now faced each other on the wide marble speaker’s stand. They drew their swords and saluted; then they took the on guard position and cautiously advanced at each other.

Tolley tried a feint-and-lunge, Blanchard parried it and riposted, Tolley extended a stop-thrust that Blanchard got a bind on, Tolley released, and they both stepped back, panting a little. The assembled thieves growled and muttered among themselves.

Tolley hopped forward, attacking fiercely now, and the clang and rasp of the thrust-parry-riposte-cut-parry filled the hall. Tolley had Blanchard retreating, thrusting savagely and constantly at the old king. Finally a quick over-the-top jab hit the king in the chest; Tolley redoubled the attack and drove the blade into Blanchard’s heart.

Angry yells came from the crowd as the old king fell and rolled off the back of the platform, and several of the thieves leaped up, waving their swords. Hodges, looking grim, raised his hand.

“There’s nothing you can do,” he said in a rasping, levelly controlled voice. “Tolley Christensen is the King of the Subterranean Companions. The only way to dispute that is to challenge him to a single combat. Are there … any members who want to do that?”

There was silence. Lord Tolley’s swordsmanship was almost legendary.

“I’ll challenge him,” came a voice from the vestibule. All heads turned to see who spoke, and Tolley’s eyes widened when he saw Frank Rovzar standing in the doorway. Damn that inefficient Emsley! Tolley thought furiously.

Frank shoved the gaping, pale-faced Lord Emsley aside and strode up the central aisle to the altar-like speaker’s platform. As he approached he
saw Tolley smile—he’s noticing my bloody shirt, Frank thought. Good; I hope he overestimates the injury. He swung up onto the platform and nodded politely to both Tolley and Hodges.

“Did you hope to become equal to him by killing him?” he asked Tolley with a wild, brittle cheerfulness. “It didn’t work—you’re still a Transport-loving slug whom I wouldn’t trust to clean privies.” Frank knew Tolley hated the Transport as much as anyone, but wanted to enrage him. He succeeded, especially when many of the thieves in the crowd snickered at Frank’s words.

“Ordinarily, Rovzar,” Tolley said through clenched teeth, “I’d scorn to smear my sword with the watery blood of a kitchen boy. Since you’re such an offensive and conceited one, though, I’ll make an exception.”

Hodges stood up and faced Frank. “Do you mean,” he asked wearily, “to invoke the
ius gladii
against his majesty here?”

“Yes,” said Frank politely. Cheers sounded in various parts of the hall. “Nail the bastard, Frank!” someone shouted.

Tolley, thoroughly angered, raised his sword and whistled it through the air in a curt salute. Frank unsheathed his own sword, the rapier Orcrist had been wearing, and saluted courteously.

“Go to it, gentlemen,” said Hodges, sitting down. Frank relaxed into the on guard position, with his sword well extended to keep a comfortable distance. He met Tolleys gaze and smiled. “It was you who hired those six bravos to kill me, wasn’t it?” Frank asked softly, with a tentative tap at Tolley’s blade.

“Emsley hired them,” replied Tolley in a likewise low voice. “I told him to. I guess the idiot hired inferior swordsmen.” Tolley tried a quick feint and jab to Frank’s wrist; Frank caught Tolley’s point and whirled a riposte that nearly punctured Tolley’s elbow. They both backed off then, measuring each other.

“They weren’t inferior,” Frank said. “If they hadn’t killed Orcrist before turning to me, they’d have earned whatever Emsley paid them.”

Tolley backed away a step. “They killed Orcrist?” he asked, beginning to look a little fearful. “That’s right,” said Frank.

Tolley took another step back, lowering his point—and then leaped forward, jabbing at Frank like an enraged scorpion. His blade was everywhere: now flashing at Frank’s throat, now ducking for his stomach, now jabbing at his knee. Frank devoted all his energy to parrying, waiting to riposte until, inevitably, Tolley should tire. He retreated a step; then another; and then felt with his rear foot the edge of the marble block. Desperately, he parried an eye-jab in prime and riposted awkwardly at Tolley’s throat, leaping forward as he did it. Tolley backed off
two steps, deflected Frank’s thrust and flipped his blade back at Frank’s face. Frank felt the fine-whetted edge bite through his cheek and grate against his cheekbone.

He struck Tolley’s blade away and forced himself to relax and stay alert, to resist the impulse to attack wildly.

“You’re on your way out, Rovzar,” grinned Tolley fiercely. Frank drove a most convincing-looking thrust at Tolley’s throat—Tolley raised his sword to meet it—and Frank ducked low, still in his lunge, and punched his sword-point through Tolley’s thigh. He whipped it out and, grinning, threw aside the older man’s convulsive riposte.

“Cut your throat, you bastard, and save me the trouble,” hissed Frank.

Tolley stole a glance downward and paled visibly to see the widening red stain on his pants. Frank threw a quick thrust at him and cut him slightly in the arm. Blood was trickling down Frank’s cheek and neck, and when he licked his lips he caught its rusty taste.

Tolley ran at Frank now in a fleché attack; the thrust missed, but Tolley collided heavily with Frank and they both pitched off the platform. As they rolled to their feet on the floor, Frank jabbed Tolley hard behind the kneecap, and the lord cried out with the pain.

“Damn you
!” the older man snarled, aiming a slash at Frank’s head. Frank ducked it and Tolley swung backhand at him again. Frank jarringly caught the sword with the forte of his own and half-lifted, half-threw Tolley away from him.

“It’s time for the finish, Tolley,” Frank gasped. Sweat ran from his matted hair and dripped from the end of his nose. “Have you ever seen the self-inflicted foot parry?”

Tolley said nothing, but lunged high at Frank, hoping to catch him while he was still talking. Frank carefully took Tolley’s blade with his own, whirled it up and then whipped it, hard, down.

Tolley crouched amazed, staring at his foot, which was nailed to the floor by his own sword. Derisive laughter sounded from all sides. Frank drove his own sword with savage force into Tolley’s stomach. “This is for Orcrist,” he grinned. “And this,” he said, with a punching slash that opened Tolley’s throat, “is for Blanchard.”

Tolley’s spouting body arched backward and sprawled, arms outflung, on the floor. His sword still stood up from his foot like a butterfly-collector’s pin.

Frank sank exhausted to his knees and panted until he’d begun to get his breath back. A minute later he stood up, pushed his bronze ear back into place and vaulted onto the platform.

“I present King Rovzar of the Subterranean Companions,” Hodges called loudly. “Are there any further challenges?”

There were none. Lord Rutledge began clapping, and in a moment the entire hall echoed to the sound of applause and whistling. Frank grinned mirthlessly and raised his bloody sword in a salute. Nobody who’d known him a year ago would have recognized as Francisco Rovzar this savage figure standing above a multitude of cheering thieves, his long, uneven black hair flung back and his face a gleaming mask of sweat and blood.

Bright torchlight flickered on the faces of the seven men seated around the oak table. A nearly-empty brandy bottle and a litter of used clay pipes gave testimony to the length of the conference, and one or two of the men were obviously stifling yawns.

“However you argue it,” said one of them, obviously not for the first time, “you can’t
hold the
palace. You might just be able to take it, as you suggest, with an army of thieves and evicted farmers. But without a prince of the royal blood to set on the throne, you’d be thrown out within the week and your army would be cut to bits and driven into the hills to starve.”

“I guess you’re right, Hodges,” said the man at the head of the table. “We … shelve that idea, then. But you haven’t given me a reason why you oppose the idea of night raids on the Transport shipment between Barclay and the palace.”

“Well,” said Hodges doubtfully, scratching his chin, “I guess I don’t really
oppose
it … but there are two reasons why I don’t entirely like it. First, you’re saying we should make a direct raid on the Transport, which is bigger meat than the Companions usually go for. Second, it would be on the surface, and our boys aren’t used to working without a roof overhead and a sewer or two to scuttle down if things get tight.”

“Well, our boys are going to have to
get
used to it,” growled the leader. “You know as well as I do what that Transport last week whispered before he died. Their home base, their system headquarters, is what they plan to make of this planet. And do you think they’ll allow our little thieves’ union to continue when Octavio is nothing but a Transport office and parking lot? Not likely. We’ve
got
to impede them, as seriously as we can, or we’ll all be shipped off to some prison planet within the year.”

Hodges shrugged, frowning uncertainly. “That’s true,” he said. “But the morale won’t be good among those who have to go on the raids.”

The leader stood up and laid his smoking pipe on the table. The scar of a sword-cut showed paler against his pale cheek, and a glittering bronze ear hung on the side of his head.
Quite a piratical character he looks
, thought
Hodges,
but I wish he’d be more realistic about policy
. “Would they feel better about it,” the leader asked, “if the man who led the raid was their king?”

“You can’t,” said Hodges.

“Would they?”

“Sure. They’d feel even better if God led them in a glowing chariot. But neither one is possible.”

“Don’t be so … hidebound, Hodges. I can lead them, and I will. The next shipment of supplies will be this Thursday night. I’ll take ten of our best men and capture the shipment; then we’ll all have a late dinner and be in bed before one o’clock. No trouble at all.”

“It’s a
very
bad idea,” Hodges insisted.

“Most good ideas look like bad ones at first,” Frank informed him.

The moon was a shaving of silver in the sky, and Cromlech Road lay in total darkness. Crickets chirped a monotonous litany in the shrubbery beside the paved road, and frogs chuckled gutturally to each other in the swamps a mile to the east. The only motion came with the night breeze that swept among the treetops from time to time.

Frank crouched on a thick branch that hung out over the middle of the road, about twenty feet above the asphalt. He wore a knitted wool cap pulled low and a scarf wrapped around his face just under the eyes, and his sweater and pants were of black wool. His rapier hung scabbarded from his belt on one side; a long knife was tucked into the other. He was as motionless as the branch; even in daylight he’d have been hard to see.

Five men, also armed, hidden and silent, waited in the shrubbery on the east side of the road, and five more crouched on the west. None of them had moved or spoken for the last hour, and crickets and spiders had begun to build nests around their boots.

Frank stared at the empty stretch of the road south, only dimly visible to him, and tried to figure out what time it was. We’ve been out here about an hour, he thought, which would make it roughly nine o’clock now. About a half hour, then, until they come by.