Hero in the Shadows (11 page)

“Stay with me,” Kysumu said calmly.

“You could have just asked me!” grumbled Yu Yu, rubbing furiously at his bruised backside.

Kysumu backed away to the center of the camp. The guards and bearers had all gathered there and were gazing fearfully at the mist and listening in silent horror to the strange sounds clicking and tapping just out of vision.

The mist swirled up. Kysumu cut his sword into it. Blue lightning flashed once more, and weird howls of pain could be heard from within the fog. Yu Yu appeared alongside him.

“What is this?” asked Yu Yu, swinging his sword.

Kysumu ignored him. Two of the horses screamed and went down. “Stay here! Keep the mist back,” said Kysumu, turning and running across the clearing. The mist parted before him. Something moved to his left. Kysumu dived to his right, rolling and coming to his feet in one smooth motion. A long taloned arm slashed down toward his face. Kysumu swayed back and sent the glittering sword straight through the limb. There was a howl of agony, and for a heartbeat only Kysumu saw a ghastly face with huge protruding red eyes and wickedly curved fangs. Then it was gone, back into the mist.

The sky began to lighten, the mist flowing back toward the trees.

Within moments the sun shone above the mountains, and the clearing was calm. Two of the horses were dead, their bellies ripped open. Of the missing sentry there was no sign.

As sunlight bathed the scene, Kysumu’s sword ceased to shine, fading back to silver steel.

On the ground at his feet the taloned arm continued to writhe. Then, as sunlight touched it, the skin blistered and turned black, peeling away from gray bone. Smoke rose from it, the stench filling the air.

Kysumu walked back across the clearing. Yu Yu Liang joined him.

“Whatever they were,” said Yu Yu happily, “they were no match for two
Rajnee.
”

Matze Chai opened the flap of his tent and stepped out into the open. “What is the meaning of this noise?” he asked.

“We were attacked,” Kysumu said quietly. “One man is dead, and we lost two horses.”

“Attacked? The robbers came back?”

“No, not robbers,” Kysumu told him. “I think we should move from here. And swiftly.”

“As you wish,
Rajnee.
” Matze Chai leaned forward and peered at Yu Yu Liang. “And who is this … this … person?”

“I am Yu Yu Liang. And I helped fight the demons.” Yu Yu raised his sword and puffed out his chest. “When the demons came, we leapt and cut—” he began excitedly.

“Stop!” said Matze Chai, raising a slender hand. Yu Yu fell silent. “Stand still and say nothing.” Matze Chai turned his attention to Kysumu. “You and I will continue this conversation in my palanquin once we are on our way.”

Casting a malevolent glance at Yu Yu, the merchant disappeared back inside his tent. Kysumu walked away. Yu Yu ran after him. “I didn’t know these swords could shine like that.”

“Neither did I.”

“Oh. I thought you could explain it to me. We make a good team, though, hey?”

Kysumu wondered briefly if he had committed some great sin in a former life and Yu Yu was a punishment for it. He glanced up into the taller man’s bearded face, then walked away without a word.

“Good team,” he heard Yu Yu say.

Walking back across the camp, Kysumu could find no trace of the severed arm, but on the edge of the woods he found many tracks of three-toed taloned feet. Liu, the young
captain of the guard, approached him. The man’s eyes were frightened, and he cast nervous glances into the woods.

“I heard your pupil say they were demons.”

“He is not my pupil.”

“Ah, forgive me, sir. But you think they were demons?”

“I have never before seen a demon,” Kysumu said softly. “But we can discuss it once we are on the road and away from these woods.”

“Yes, sir. Whatever they were, it was fortunate that your … your friend was on hand to aid us with his shining sword.”

“He is not my friend,” said Kysumu. “But yes, it was fortunate.”

Matze Chai sat in his palanquin, the silk curtains drawn shut. “You think they were demons?” he asked the little swordsman.

“I can think of no other alternative. I cut the limb from one, and it burned in the sunlight as if in a furnace.”

“I have not heard of demons in this part of the world, but then, my knowledge of Kydor is limited. My client said nothing of them when he invited me here.” Matze Chai fell silent. He had once used a sorcerer to summon a demon to kill a business rival. The rival had been found the following morning with his heart torn out. Matze Chai had never really known whether the supernatural had genuinely been involved or whether the sorcerer had merely hired a killer. The sorcerer himself had been impaled two years later after an attempted coup against the Gothir emperor. It was said that a horned demon had appeared in the palace and killed several guards. Could it be, he wondered, that one of his many enemies had hired a magicker to send the creatures in the mist to kill him? He dismissed the thought almost immediately. The murdered sentry had been at the far end of the camp, farthest from his tent, as had the butchered horses. Surely a spell aimed at Matze Chai himself would have focused on the tent where he lay. A random incident, then, but a disquieting one. “Liu
tells me that your sword shone like the brightest moonlight. I have not heard of this before. Are the swords of the
Rajnee
magical?”

“I had not thought them to be,” said Kysumu.

“Can you think of an explanation?”

“The rituals of the
Rajnee
are ancient. Each sword is blessed with one hundred forty-four incantations. The iron ore is blessed before smelting, the steel is blessed, and the armorer priest tempers it with his own blood after three days of fasting and prayer. Finally it is laid upon the temple altar at Ri-ashon, and all the monks join together in that most holy of places to give the sword its name and its final blessing. The swords of the
Rajnee
are unique. No one knows the origins of many of the incantations, and some are spoken in a language no longer understood even by the priests who utter them.”

Matze Chai sat silently as Kysumu spoke. It was the longest speech he had heard from the normally laconic swordsman.

“I am not an expert in military matters,” said Matze Chai, “but it seems to me that the swords of the
Rajnee
must have been created originally for a purpose other than merely battling enemy swordsmen. Why else would they display such mystical properties when demons are close?”

“I agree,” said Kysumu. “It is a matter I must ponder upon.”

“While you do so, might you explain the appearance of the loud oaf in the foul-smelling wolfskin?” asked Matze Chai.

“He is a ditchdigger,” answered the
Rajnee
, his face expressionless.

“We were aided by a ditchdigger?”

Kysumu nodded. “With a stolen
Rajnee
sword.”

Matze Chai looked into the swordsman’s face. “How was it that you happened upon him?”

“He was one of the robbers who attacked us. I went to their camp. The rest ran away, but he stood his ground.”

“Why was it that you did not slay him?”

“Because of the sword.”

“You feared it?” asked Matze Chai, his surprise making him momentarily forget his manners.

Kysumu seemed untroubled by the remark. “No, I did not fear it. When a
Rajnee
dies, his sword dies with him. It shivers and cracks, the blade shattering. The sword is linked to the soul of the bearer and travels with him to the world beyond.”

“Then perhaps he stole it from a living
Rajnee
who still hunts for it.”

“No. Yu Yu did not lie when he said he took it from the body of a dead
Rajnee
. I would have known. I believe the sword chose him. It also led him to this land and, ultimately, to our campsite.”

“You believe the swords are sentient?”

“I cannot explain it to you, Matze Chai. I underwent five years of intensive study before I began to grasp the concept. So let me say this by way of explanation: You have wondered since we met why I accepted this assignment. You came to me because you were told I was the best. But you did not expect me to agree to journey from the lands of the Chiatze. Not so?”

“Indeed,” agreed Matze Chai.

“I had many requests to consider. As I was taught, I went to the holy place and sat with my sword in my lap to meditate, to request the guidance of the Great One. And then, when my mind was purged of all selfish desire, I considered the many offers. When I came to yours, I felt the sword grow warm in my hands. I knew then that I had to journey to Kydor.”

“Does the sword then yearn for peril?” asked Matze Chai.

“Perhaps. But I believe it merely shows the
Rajnee
a path toward the will of the Great One.”

“And these paths inevitably carry you toward evil?”

“Yes,” said Kysumu.

“Hardly a comforting thought,” said Matze Chai, deciding
he had no wish to elicit further explanation. He disliked excitement of any kind, and this journey had already contained too many incidents. Now it seemed that the mere presence of Kysumu guaranteed further adventure.

Pushing thoughts of demons and swords from his mind, he closed his eyes, picturing his garden and the scented flowering trees. The image calmed him.

From outside the palanquin came a raucous noise. The ditchdigger was singing in a loud, horrible, discordant voice. Matze Chai’s eyes snapped open. The song was in a broad northern Chiatze dialect and concerned the physical endowments and unnatural body hair of a young pleasure woman.

A small pain began behind Matze Chai’s left eye.

Kysumu rang the bell, and the palanquin came to a smooth halt. The
Rajnee
opened the door and leapt lightly to the ground. The singing stopped.

Matze Chai heard the loud oaf say: “But the next verse is really funny.”

Lalitia was a woman not easily surprised. She had learned all there was to know about men by the time she was fourteen, and her capacity for surprise had been exhausted long before that. Orphaned and living on the streets of the capital at the age of eight, she had learned to steal, to beg, to run, and to hide. Sleeping on the sand beneath the wharf timbers, she had sometimes huddled in the dark and watched the cutthroats drag victims to the water’s edge before knifing them viciously and hurling the bodies into the surf. She had listened as the cheap tavern whores plied their trade, rutting with their customers in the moon shadows. On many occasions she was close by when the officers of the watch came around to collect their bribes from the tavern women before taking turns enjoying free sport with them.

The redheaded child learned swiftly. By the age of twelve she was leading a gang of juvenile cutpurses, operating
throughout the market squares, paying out a tenth of their earnings to the watch to insure that they were never caught.

For two years Lalitia—Sly Red as she was known then—hoarded her own takings, hiding the coin where no one would find it. She spent her spare time crouched in alleyways watching the rich enjoying their meals in the finer taverns, noting the way the great ladies moved and spoke, the languid grace they displayed, the faint air of boredom they assumed when in the company of men. Their backs were always straight, their movements slow, smooth, and assured. Their skin was creamy white, untanned—indeed, untouched—by the sun. In summer they wore wide-brimmed hats with gossamer veils. Sly Red watched and absorbed their movements, carefully storing them in the vaults of memory.

At fourteen her luck had run out. While running from a merchant whose money pouch strings she had neatly sliced, she had slipped on a piece of rotten fruit and fallen heavily to the cobbles. The merchant had held her until the watch soldiers had arrived, and they had dragged her away.

“Can’t help you this time, Red,” one of them had said. “You just robbed Vanis, and he’s an important man.”

The magistrate had sentenced her to twelve years. She served three in a rat-infested dungeon before being summoned one day to the office of the jail captain, a young officer named Aric. He was slim and cold-eyed, even handsome in a vaguely dissolute manner.

“I saw you walking by the far wall this morning,” he told the seventeen-year-old girl. “You do not appear to be a peasant.”

Sly Red had been using her hour of daylight to practice the movements she had observed among the great ladies of the capital. She said nothing to the captain. “Come closer, let me look at you,” he said. She stepped forward. He moved in, then recoiled. “You have lice,” he said.

“Aye,” she said huskily, “and fleas. I think the bath in my
apartment is out of order. Perhaps you could assign a servant to repair it.”

He grinned at her. “Of course, my lady. You should have brought it to my attention sooner.”

“I would have,” she said, adopting a languid pose, “but there are so many calls upon my time.”

Aric summoned the guard and had her returned to her cell. An hour later two soldiers came to collect her. She was marched through the prison to a private wing and brought to a bathroom. In it was a bronze hip tub brimming with perfumed water. Two female prisoners were waiting beside it. The male guards ordered her to disrobe, and she removed the filthy dress she wore and stepped into the tub. One of the women poured warm water over her greasy red hair, then massaged sweet-smelling soap into it. The other woman began to scrub her skin. The feeling was exquisite, and Sly Red closed her eyes. Tension seeped from her muscles.

When the bath was completed and her hair dried, combed, and braided, she was dressed in a green gown of faded satin.

The larger of the two women leaned in to her. “Don’t get too used to this, dearie,” she whispered. “Not one of his girls lasts more than a week. He is easily bored.”

Sly Red lasted a year, and at eighteen was given a full pardon. Aric at first amused himself with her, then began teaching her the more esoteric secrets of noble behavior. The pardon was hard-earned, for Aric’s carnal desires were wide-ranging and sometimes painful. In return for the pardon Sly Red agreed to become a plaything for men Aric needed to impress, rivals he desired to exploit, and enemies he was determined to destroy. In the years that followed, Lalitia, as Sly Red became known, found men only too eager to surrender their secrets. It seemed that arousal loosened tongues and brains in equal measure. Bright and brilliant men became like children, anxious to please. Secrets long hidden spilled out as they sought to impress her with their cleverness. Stupid men!