The Death of Nnanji (25 page)

“Rabid dogs are exactly what we shall need, but I do understand your nervousness. There are some gem mines just inland from Cross Plo, and a few temporary horse-hunter camps toward the Soo side, although those are probably not in use at this time of year. If you send a band of men to such a place with orders to kill every living thing present and burn the buildings, will you be obeyed?”

“Including women and children?”

“Including caged song birds and goldfish.”

Pollex despised squeamish people, but he had to swallow hard before he said, “Yes. If I specifically order that.”

“You will specifically order that. You are to turn the Mule Hills from here to Soo into a desert, is that clear? The Tryst must not find one scrap of food or drinking water on its march. Its swordsmen are to arrive exhausted, weakened by hunger, and crazed by thirst, so that they will stagger up to our guns to die.”

As if to emphasize the point, the shadow shifted for a moment, letting the sun blaze down on them.

“Guns? Like that brass thing? Why so big? You expect them to line up like fence posts?”

Krandrak stared at him with open contempt for a moment. “Whatever the queen sees in you certainly can’t be your sparkling intelligence. You must have some compensatory facility. That little toy of mine will shoot a ball through a stone wall, but—as you so astutely observed—we do not expect Lord Shonsu to bring stone walls with him. Some of those crates contain cannonballs that will burst into flames when they strike. Just one of them will turn a ship into an inferno, understand? You will also find sealed leather bags full of rusty nails, packed in horse dung. Those burst in flight and arrive like metal hail. They will rip platoons of swordsmen to mincemeat. You know why the horse dung, vassal?”

Pollex just shook his head.

“Because a wound contaminated with horse dung, even a tiny puncture, will lead to death by lockjaw. Our purpose is not just to put the Tryst to flight. We must wipe them out to the last man, no survivors. I expect the news will filter back to Casr in time.”

The tiny settlement known as Cross Plo had been transformed. The few permanent inhabitants had disappeared; Pollex did not know how or where to, and certainly did not want to know. The dilapidated jetty had been replaced by a major pier, capable of unloading horses and oxen. A small tent city had sprung up in the background. This side of the Mule Hills lacked running water, and the grass had been scorched to tinder by the summer sun. The danger of wildfire was perfectly obvious to a swordsman—Sutra 423 specifically mentioned it—but apparently sorcerers could see it for themselves, for the ground had been deliberately charred to black for a mile or more back from the shore, and the air stank of burning.

Pollex slept on the ground with his men that night and tried not to think of what must happen when they arrived at Soo the next day.

Chapter 7

Wallie’s battle plan collapsed in ruins when
Triumph
docked at a small town named Ivo, one day before the army was due to start arriving at Soo.

He called in at Ivo to provision, because a little place like Soo would be unable to feed an invasion of two thousand hungry swordsmen. Food was going to be problem, for whatever the calendar said, the sun was behaving as if this were midsummer. Until the harvest was gathered in, many larders would be bare.

Very few of the swordsmen who had sailed with him from Ki Mer were still aboard. He had unloaded the rest during the last eight weeks to lead and train the various contingents that he had requisitioned. Even the low ranks had gone, because they had accompanied their mentors ashore. The only man aboard below the rank of Third was Novice Addis. Officially he remained because Vixini did, and Vixini because his own mentor, Filurz, did, but Wallie could see the boy was sulky at being singled out, and blamed his parentage for it. He was being paradoxical, because he knew perfectly well that his parentage was the only reason he hadn’t been left back home in Casr. Although Wallie could still not quite understand his reasons for bringing the lad along, it still felt weirdly right that Nnanji’s son should be present when the Tryst avenged its dead.

The absent middle ranks had been replaced almost entirely with Thirds, so the ship was now full of strangers. Filurz and a couple of others were trying to shape them into a team, but that was an almost impossible job when they had nowhere to drill or fence. Even learning their names well enough to shout orders in action was no simple task. Wallie was going to land at Soo with an unknown, unorganized force. He hadn’t foreseen that weakness in his plan. There were others, as he rapidly discovered.

Ivo was a town of plastered walls and thick, heavy-browed thatch roofs. Its docks showed no special facilities for handling livestock, so it did not compete against Soo in the horse trade. Almost all the vessels in sight were tiny fishing boats, but there was a higher dock for larger ships, and the traders’ booths along it all seemed to be offering ceramic ware, so the town might have grown up near a deposit of good clay.

The moment the port official came aboard to extort docking fees from the captain, Wallie went ashore. He should have waited for clearance, but no one argued with a Seventh, especially a swordsman Seventh. He glanced around to see if there might be a swordsman in sight, and was astonished to see three of them striding along the dock towards him, two reds and a blue. A town as small as Ivo couldn’t possibly justify having a seventh as reeve. Of course an aging seventh might decide to retire to his birthplace and accept a posting as honorary… no, this man was no geriatric. It was Yoningu, reeve of Gra.

Wallie chuckled. Efficient as ever, Yoningu had overtaken him on the River somewhere and would no doubt complain about wasting time waiting. As they drew closer, he saw the expression on the reeve’s face and knew he had been mistaken. Not even the scar dragging up his mouth could make that glower into a smile. Yoningu stamped to a halt and rushed through his salute. He barely gave Wallie time for his response.

“They know we’re coming!” he snapped. “They got there first.”

“Soo?”

“Soo is gone. The buildings have been burned, the dock ripped apart, and the people massacred. Vultures are feeding in the street.”

Oh, Goddess!
About five hundred inhabitants, Swordsman Nostra had guessed. Vultures in the streets meant no survivors to chase them away, and probably no sorcerers lurking in ambush, either, although that must be confirmed. “Go on!”

“We got tipped off by a fishing boat,” Yoningu said. “Went close and scouted, but didn’t try to land. Could’ve been a trap. Up to you to make the call. Not even sure we
can
land. The water’s low, the bank’s high, at least twenty feet. You can still see where they had a long ramp for the horses, but the decking’s all gone from the dock, just the piles left. Those’ll rip the hull right out of a ship.”

Wallie had at least eighteen hundred swordsmen heading for Soo. He had been chewing over as many problems as he could handle even before this news. Now what? Go in with a fleet of small boats, get men ashore, make certain there were no enemy sharpshooters skulking about, rebuild the dock, and only
then
start bringing in the rest of the army? It would take weeks. Fifteen years ago, he had outmaneuvered the sorcerers because they hadn’t been trained fighters, just well-armed civilians. That no longer seemed to be the case.

“Our opponents have been studying tactics.”

“They have help,” said Endrasti, one of the two masters at Yoningu’s back. He had been left behind at Gra to brief Yoningu on the whole story. “We’ve been hearing here about a man named Pollex, reeve of Plo. The king is a historical curiosity and Pollex runs the city like his personal cattle ranch. He’s the sort of filth that Lord Nnanji would challenge personally and dispose of.”

Wallie stared bleakly into the face of failure. He had been outmaneuvered. His excuse was communications, of course. The sorcerers had known exactly what he was doing, and he had known nothing about them. More than ever, he saw that the Tryst could not survive without better communications.

Passersby were starting to loiter, curious to see such a gathering of high ranks.

“We’d better discuss it with…” He glanced at the other master swordsman, a stranger, who promptly drew his sword to introduce himself as the local reeve.“Let’s sit down somewhere and talk this over,” Wallie said.

“There he goes,” Addis said, watching the port official lumber down the gangplank. “Permission to go ashore, mentor?”

“Got any money?”

“Three birds, one spade, a spider, a couple of anchors, several assorted fish, and something that is either a tree or a pregnant heron.” Every city on the River issued its own currency, stamped with a variety of symbols. Buying anything usually involved huge arguments about value.

Vixini chuckled. “Sounds like plenty. I’d better come with you to make sure you don’t spend it all in the cat house.” In fact he had to go, because no First of any craft was legally allowed to own anything. Addis’s hoard was all copper mites, close to worthless.

Master Filurz had already grudgingly granted them permission to disembark so that the novice could acquire new boots. Addis had outgrown the pair he had been given when he was sworn, and they would cripple him if he had to march for several days in them. Master Filurz had ordered Vixi to be as quick as possible.

The rest of the army of Thirds lining the rail had not been let loose and raised a terrible chorus of boos as the two ran down the gangplank. Shouts of, “Daddy’s little pet!” made Vixi growl and turn red. He looked so like Shonsu that he couldn’t deny being his son. Addis sometimes wished they would pick on him the way they did on Vixi, because the only reason they didn’t was that he was too insignificant. Hassling someone Vixi’s size needed verve. Picking on Addis would be about as sporting as salting slugs.

“This way!” Vixi said, heading to the nearest trader stall. The woman tending it looked understandably surprised that two young sword bangers would be interested in buying her jugs and plates. Cordwainer shops? Ah, if the noble swordsman would go along that way as far as the sausage stall, and then turn left…

Ivo was bigger and hillier than it looked. Vixi had to ask several times before he reached a door marked with a sign in the shape of a shoe. It stood open, for the day was already stiflingly hot, and he ducked inside with Addis at his heels. The cobbler Third was at work, sitting cross-legged on a low table, tapping away at his last. He scrambled up and saluted Vixi.

The news that the First was to be his customer disappointed him. Footwear was normally custom made to fit the buyer’s foot and all Firsts wore castoffs. And yet, surprisingly, the cordwainer found a brand new pair in stock that fit. They weren’t quite swordsman boots, but they would do until the right thing could be ordered and made. Of course these had been tailor-made for one of the elders of the town and were of superior workmanship, made of the very best Soo leather, and his honor was expecting them that very day. All that went without saying. It was said, but not believed. The boots had been very dusty when first produced.

Addis walked up and down in them, politely asked if he might try them in the street, and did so. He came back—to the cordwainer’s obvious relief—and said they were perfect, the most comfortable footwear he had ever worn. That made Vixi grin, because that made them the best of two. Now came the haggling. Vixi pulled some coins from his pouch. The cobbler brought out his scales.

Addis went back out again to look around. He had spent very little time ashore in the last half year, and all-male company was starting to feel inadequate. There was a grocer’s shop opposite, a draper’s, an apothecary’s, a grog shop, a couple of real-eye stopper girls—wow!—and a swordsman.

“Novice, Lord Shonsu wants you.”

Addis said, “Huh?” suspiciously. He didn’t recognize the man, but that could be because he was a local. He certainly looked like a swordsman: kilt, three swords tattooed on his forehead, sword on his back at the proper angle to draw, proper boots.

“The liege is just around that corner and wants Novice Addis—right now!”

Addis shrugged and went along to the corner to see.

BOOK FOUR:

HOW THE SWORDSMEN

FOUGHT THE WAR

Chapter 1

Vixini emerged from the cordwainer shop with the usual certainty that he had just been rooked out of a year’s wages. Even Mom dickered better than he did, and most swordsmen considered their first offer binding. Addis? Left? Right? No Addis. He would
murder
the little turd! He stormed across to a booth where a buxom matron of the Third was selling beakers of watered wine.

“Tapster, have you see my protégé in the last few moments? A First. He was standing right—”

“I seed him,” said a customer. “He wend round the corner wit’ a Third, a swordsman Third.”

“He what?” Oh Goddess! Vixi bulled back across the street, brutally jostling people out of his way. Hadn’t Dad told them,
Trust nobody, not even swordsmen
? The alley was narrow and crowded, but he could see over heads and there was no sign of Addis’s sword hilt anywhere. A group of women were chatting over the shopping baskets. “Any of you ladies seen a novice swordsman?”

“I saw him,” said a bareass youth, one of a pair. “They banged him on the head with a sap; threw him on a cart; covered him with a rug.”

“What sort of cart? Which way did they go? Come on!” Vixini grabbed them both and charged down the alley with a spindly arm in each hand. He promised them money, but they seemed eager to help. They might be part of the plot, of course, and be leading him into a trap, but they were the only lead he had. He began yelling at people to get out of his way, but his size did more good than anything else did.