Council of Blades (4 page)

Twenty swords were drawn; twenty swords were raised, clashed, and then lowered down onto a table made of purest ebony. The steel blades struck brilliant sparks of light as they crashed across a tabletop vandalized by a hundred years of such abuse.

The Blade Captains of Sumbria, commanders of caval-ry, hippogriffs, and battle sorcerers, stood behind their seats as the current tally of shares were read. The valley campaign had caused no voting adjustments.

With a nod to the accountant-general, Cappa Mannicci settled into his chair and hammered thrice upon the scarred old table.

"By the power invested in me by the company's Articles of Association, as Grand Commander and Prince-elect of Sumbria I declare this meeting opened."

"So noted."

The second came from farther down the table, and the two-hundred-and-forty-first meeting of Sumbria's ruling body had begun.

With his three thousand blades, Prince Mannicci ruled Sumbria's council. In some kingdoms, such as Lomatra, the councils elected the weakest of their number as their prince, knowing the council's votes could overrule his decrees. In other states, a single family held troops enough to dominate the entire balance of power. Here in Sumbria, the balance remained more delicate; the Mannicci family could not quite hold power on its own. The prince needed the support of other houses, who ebbed and flowed into vot-ing blocks as various needs arose.

Senior among those voting blocks were the nobles allied to Blade Captain Ilego. Unable to wrest the crown from Mannicci's hands, Ilego instead managed to act as a thorn in his prince's side.

And so, Mannicci schemed. The bride-price paid for his daughter's hand would be taken in trained soldiers, not in gold; votes enough to give sudden iron to his reign.

Outside the room, the tinkling music of the victory ball could be faintly heard. Squaring thick yellow papers against the table, the prince briskly consulted his agenda.

"Gentlemen, our first business: the campaign spoils. Twelve blade companies were deployed into active ser-vice. I propose a standard division, with double shares for the active contingents, and single shares for companies remaining in the city for garrison. How does it please?"

At the far end of the table, Ilego-slim, lean, and calm-raised a hand to stroke at his mustache.

"The brunt of the fighting was borne by hippogriff squadrons. Surely we should indemnify those comman-ders who have lost fliers and breeding stock."

"A reasonable suggestion." Old Orlando Toporello, heavy-handed captain of a thousand blades, leaned for-ward across the tabletop. "Reasonable, until we remem-ber that Blade Captain Ilego has the largest investment in these aerial novelties." The old man slammed a hand sharply down against the boards. "Let him feather his nest on someone else's profit, and not ours!"

"A word!" At the far end of the table, a noble raised his hand. "A word upon the subject of 'innovations.'

I wish to query the continued and erroneous valuation of mere handgunners as the equivalent share-value as crossbow-men and pavisiers!"

An instant furor arose. The smoke powder contention had already been shelved a dozen times before.

The pro-ponents of the crossbow now rose to bellow at the top of their lungs as the firework enthusiasts matched them tirade for tirade. Cappa Mannicci heaved a sigh and hid beneath his papers as the heated debate flared into an outright brawl.

"Innovations are our life's blood! How can you not see the value…"

"An arquebus is a weapon for a fool! How are we prof-ited by missiles that go only fifty paces range?"

"And within that fifty paces, they will pierce…"

"Pierce what? The cheeks of your bum?"

"… they will pierce through the stoutest…!"

"Order! Order!"

A mace banging on the much-scarred tabletop had lit-tle effect; only a bellow from Mannicci's sergeants restored order to the melee. As a sudden silence fell, Sumbria's prince blew out a sigh through his mustache and tilted his mace-of-office toward another man.

"Blade Captain Zuro has the floor."

Not, perhaps, the best of choices; Zuro was scarcely a sol-dier at all, and devoted most of his days to collecting ancient knickknacks and refurbishing his library. Tall, white haired, and sporting a mustache almost six inches long, old Zuro puffed himself up like a rooster before his peers.

"Gentlemen, I think it would be a sad mistake were we to dismiss smoke powder too lightly. A young man from Lomatra whom I met outside, assures me that these… 'guns' are the future. In his sketchbook he carries some of the most astonishing designs…"

"Good!" Orlando Toporello hammered both his palms onto the table with a bang. "Then Lomatra's army will play with firecrackers and twinkledust, and leave the sol-diering to those who hold good, honest blades!"

As had happened a dozen times before, Prince Mannicci forestalled the discussion.

"Remuneration of all campaign losses can be handled from the common fund. All in favor? Good." The mace banged quickly down before anyone had time to do more than blink in sheer surprise. "Next item: the increase in thievery and brigandage in the city. Please bid the com-plainants enter."

Pleased at forestalling yet another argument, Cappa Mannicci leaned back in his seat as sergeants opened up the chamber doors.

The noise instantly increased a thousandfold. A pierc-ing, operatic voice pealed forth its complaints as Prince Mannicci's wife, the Lady Ulia, led a wedge of outraged dames into the council room.

"It's a disgrace! An absolute disgrace! First emeralds, and now pearls as well! It's no longer safe for a handsome woman even to rest in her own bed!"

A clerk brought over the list of complaints-a parch-ment scroll so large it unrolled clear down to the floor. As the women battled to be heard, so the debate about smoke powder flared into life once more.

Besieged on every side and suffering from a migraine which pierced him clean from ear to ear, Prince Mannicci rested his head in his hands and prepared himself for a long and tiresome day.

A cat burglar held the city in a reign of terror. Night after night the demon had struck, robbing the palaces and town houses of their very choicest jewels. The streets were trebly patrolled, walls were garrisoned, and the price of watchdogs had quintupled in a week. And yet still the villain managed to pursue his evil trade.

House Toporello readied itself for the onslaught. Home to an antique horse bridle studded with star sapphires, the mansion offered an almost irresistible prize. Old Orlando therefore crowned his battlements with soldiers and filled his courtyards with half-starved hounds. A hip-pogriff and rider perched upon the rooftops, while cunning traps were laid crisscrossed through every room and hall. Orlando Toporello, his family and friends, thus all turned to their beds and slept in peace-apart from the occasional sounds of the cleaning staff running afoul of deadfall traps, crossbow bolts, and blades.

A trip to the privies in the dead of night was more than a body's life was worth…

Now, with midnight having come and gone, the guards were being changed. Satisfied with his arrangements, the guard sergeant stared down into the empty streets, flicked his glance up to the hippogriff roosting high above, and marched back toward the kitchens for a meal of chicken pie.

Time passed, and the night grew painfully still, leaving the guards gazing blankly out across an empty world. Far below, the sound of marching boots echoed back and forth between tall city walls.

And high above the battlements, up at the very ridge-pole of the roof, a tiny sound drifted in the breeze…

Creeping slowly about the corner of the roof came first a great razor beak, then a silly nod of plumes followed by a single yellow eye. The firebird's face peered from cover with exaggerated cunning, rolling eyeballs left and right before wiggling his brows in glee.

The soldiers walked their beats, keeping their eyes scanning the streets below. Upon a pepperbox turret far overhead, a hippogriff dozed with its eagle-head beneath one wing while its rider diligently searched the upper skies. Infinitely pleased with his own endless cleverness, the firebird fixed his beak in an idiotic grin.

The best sparklies-the very, very brightest and the shiniest of things-came from places where many people stood on guard! With great, mincing steps, the firebird slipped out of hiding and began to creep his way along the crest of Orlando Toporello's roof. With each pace, the bird stretched his long neck this way and that, scanning cautiously about himself in a ludicrous pantomime of stealth.

The city was fun! Of all the discoveries of the bird's humdrum life, this had been the one moment of crowning glory. No more mountaintops, no more trees and fruit, and endless, dreary days. The bird had tasted a fabulous new world-a world so wonderful the creature almost couldn't help but sing!

The bird's name, Tekoriikii, meant many things to many beings. In the ancient language of his close cousin the phoenix, it translated as: "He who rises early, singing." Alternatively, in the various orcish dialects of the northern Akanapeaks, it had come to mean: "Stop that awful racket, you feather-bearing nuisance."

For generations untold, the firebirds had dwelled in peaceful seclusion across the Shining Sea. The creatures were never even bothered by predators. Some Chultan legends put this down to the extreme beauty of the birds, and the curse of the gods that must surely fall upon any-one who brought such flawless grace to harm. An alter-native explanation might be that hunting requires stalk-ing, and stalking meant staying in earshot of the fire-birds for long days at a time…

Perched on a roof gutter sixty feet above the ground, plumed like a mad woman's hat and utterly vibrant with glee, Tekoriikii sniggered to himself, fluffed out his great streaming tail and pranced gaily past the lines of patrolling soldiers just below. His long tail plumes dragged unnoticed behind a crossbowman's helm; men marching back and forth in armor never heard the clum-sy click of talons up above.

Like most Blade Kingdom palaces, the Toporello resi-dence was constructed as a hollow square.

Inevitably enough, Toporello's guards were facing outward, scanning the surrounding streets, leaving Tekoriikii free to walk the inner courtyard roofs. Tekoriikii slid down the copper roof-ing on his feathered rear and landed with a thump against the palace gutters. Strutting like a gamecock, the firebird came to an apartment window, and swung his neck across the wall to peer in through the window upside down.

In a bed the size of a desert isle, a muscular old man snored boisterously in his sleep. Crushed against his chest there lay a wooden box-a box locked with triple locks and painted with every death-glyph known to the sorcerer's art.

Palace roofs were most usually made of copper sheet all soldered shut with lead. Tekoriikii scuttled busily back from the gutter, then simply pierced the sheet-metal roofing with his claws. Great yellow legs worked busily, peeling back the roof to open up a door into the ceiling space below; then, with a jump and a flourish of his plumes, the firebird disappeared into the hole.

Like most ornate buildings in the city, the Toporello home sported ceilings made of wooden boards covered over with fine plaster painted into a fantastic array of cherubs, satyrs, and woodland bowers.

Wooden boards soon surrendered to Tekoriikii's eager claws, leaving only an inch-thick shell of plaster between the firebird and his prize. At any other time, the sheer volume of noise would have alerted half the kingdom; as it was, the manic peck-peck-peck of Tekoriikii's beak went unnoticed beneath the raucous notes of Orlando Toporello's snores.

In the middle of the ceiling, amidst a nest of painted plaster nymphs, a tiny hole began to appear. Falling chunks of plaster were caught on the great velvet canopy above Toporello's head, bouncing harmlessly as they struck home on the brocade. Finally, in a great cascade of rubble, dross and dust, the nymphs disintegrated into a thousand shards.

Dusted white with plaster, Tekoriikii's face blinked down into the room. He stuck his long neck down through the open hole; then, with a flap of ungainly wings, the firebird sailed twenty feet straight down onto the lurch-ing canopy.

The four bedposts sagged under the weight of feathers, plaster, boards and bird. Bouncing happily up and down, Tekoriikii flopped his head across the rim and stared in rapture at the wooden box clasped in the old man's hands.

With a great puppy-shake of his head, Tekoriikii fluffed out his feathers; plaster dust instantly shot out into the air, filling the bedroom with a choking fog. Below the idiot bird, Blade Captain Toporello drowned beneath a swirling mist of white. The man gave an almighty sneeze-swiftly followed by another spasm so powerful it nearly catapulted him clean out of bed.

Clutching onto the mattress, the old man released his grip on his box of valuables. Striking like a well-greased cobra, Tekoriikii snatched the box in his great curved beak, then rose up into the air in a storm of dusty wings. Streaming his brilliant tail plumes in his wake, the bird clambered back into the ceiling space and out onto the palace roof.

Back in the bedroom, the chorus of snores went on. Covered with dust, splinters and the occasional chunk of plaster nymph, Blade Captain Toporello floundered his hands about the bed, finally striking a piece of broken ceiling board. With a broad smile of contentment, he hugged the piece of wood against his chest, heaved a dusty sigh and drifted deeper into sleep.

Outside the palace, Toporello's guards paced their beats, the hippogriff snored, and Tekoriikii the firebird sailed out into the nighttime skies like an ungainly kite without its string.

Winging past rooftops; past towers, broken gargoyles, and snoozing guards, the firebird flapped and rustled his way to his lair. In a tall white tower at the highest van-tage of the city, clever Tekoriikii had made himself a home. The conical roof above the balconies and battle-ments had been deftly peeled away, and the whole glori-ous wide attic space now gave Tekoriikii a roost with a view. Backing air with his wings and sweeping the palace walls with his tail, the bird tumbled into his cozy hiding place and gave a grateful sigh.

The wooden box-his latest prize-was studded with runes designed to trigger instant, messy death once a thief raised up the lid. Knowing nothing of such formalities, Tekoriikii simply bit through the bottom of the box, gasp-ing in delight as a cascade of gems spilled into the room.

There were necklaces of moonstones, horse harnesses of star sapphires, and a pendant jingling with a dozen precious stones. The firebird tossed his prizes high into the air, beginning a delighted dance to celebrate his place as the most wonderful of birds. He stepped to the left, then stepped to the right, waggled tail and wings while bobbing his head to a self-invented tune. Puffed up and dizzy with his own startling cleverness, the firebird danced his dance around an ever-growing mound of sparkly things.

Night by night, the treasure trove grew. There were old silver mirrors and chips of glass, pretty rocks and ban-ners stolen from patrolling guards. Best of all, there were now hundreds of brilliant, shiny gems that sparked like the hearts of stars before the firebird's eyes.

What bird could match Tekoriikii's brains? What female could resist his charms? Tekoriikii danced and danced, throwing back his head to swirl about in glee.

The sound of dancing claws went unnoticed in the world beyond.