Warlords Of Gaikon rb-18 Read online

  Then the tension dissolved as Yezjaro and Doifuzan burst through the door behind Blade. They dashed into the center of the room and the other dabuni hastily made a clear space for them.

  Both men were pale and held themselves unnaturally straight as they stood in the middle of the room, hands behind their backs. But their eyes moved steadily around the room, taking in everything. Their expressions hardened. Doifuzan managed to keep his face almost under control. But Yezjaro's face set in a savage glare that made the dabuni unable to meet his eyes. It seemed that anyone he looked at directly would go up in a cloud of greasy smoke and leave nothing behind but a charred spot on the mats.

  Yezjaro was also the first to speak. «What is this-this stupid running around like a bunch of chickens? Have you all gone mad? We've enough trouble already without you fools adding to it!» He glared around the room, daring anyone to move or speak.

  There were men twice Yezjaro's age among the dabuni in the room, men Blade had heard mutter about «loudmouthed young swordsmen who didn't know enough to properly respect their elders.» For a moment Blade wasn't sure that Yezjaro's outburst hadn't made things worse instead of better: He crouched, ready to move forward to pull down anyone who might draw against Yezjaro.

  Fortunately Doifuzan agreed with this hot-headed younger comrade. «The Honorable Instructor has asked a very good question, brothers. What folly has driven you to this rage? It cannot serve your lord, it cannot serve yourselves or your honor. What purpose does it serve, then? I ask. Shall I be answered?» Doifuzan's voice was low, but every word dropped clearly and precisely into the silence. The first dabuno was normally a quiet man, whose words were few and formal. But he was respected as much for his personal qualities as for his position. When he did speak, the dabuni of Lord Tsekuin listened.

  One of the dabuni took on himself the unwelcome task of answering, «Honorable Instructor, Honorable First Dabuno, it was thus. The news of our lord's shame-«

  He told the whole story in a few sentences. When he had finished, he fell on his knees on the mat before Doifuzan. After a moment, the other dabuni did the same. Only Blade was left in his combat stance by the door.

  Doifuzan pulled at his chin. «You tell a story that is not to the credit of your wits. You tell it plainly, which is honorable. For that I praise you. But by the splendor of Kunkoi, I will not praise the folly that so nearly led you into monstrous action, that would have doomed us all! Only the courage and swiftness of your brother Blade stood between all of you and the price of your own folly. The brother Blade, a man I have heard many of you speak of with scorn. Speak of him thus no more, however long you may yet have tongues to speak with. Instead, bow to him, for this day he has done much for the honor of the clan-and may yet do more.»

  The last words snapped out with an angry edge to them. For a moment the dabuni once more seemed paralyzed. Then slowly, one by one, they turned and bowed deeply to Blade.

  As he returned the bows, Blade found it hard to keep his face straight. Suddenly he was a man to be honored among Lord Tsekuin's warriors. But just as suddenly, Lord Tsekuin's own folly had made him a lord who would soon have no need for warriors at all.

  The Hongshu's axe did not fall on Lord Tsekuin at once.

  Yezjaro told Blade what the normal course of events was in such a breach of etiquette.

  «Lord Tsekuin will of course have to commit ritual suicide. Of course he will also have the right to make a final request of the Hongshu, who must grant it. That is ancient custom. But after that Lord Tsekuin must die by his own hand. His household will be abolished, the clan stricken from the records and laws of Gaikon, and all the people scattered. The castle and all its lands will be confiscated by the Hongshu.»

  «Including the diamond mines?»

  «Especially the diamond mines,» said Yezjaro bitterly. «The Hongshu's dream has been realized.»

  «What happens to the dabuni after they are scattered?»

  «They become uroi-dabuni without masters. Their fates are as their own skill and wisdom and the will of Kunkoi would have it. No act that even the Hongshu can call rebellion has taken place, thanks largely to your quick wits. Therefore I suppose in time most of those who once served Lord Tsekuin will find other masters elsewhere in Gaikon, and come to whatever destiny may be theirs in as much peace as ever falls to the lot of a dabuno.»

  Those were the instructor's words. But Blade's trained ears heard other meanings lurking beneath those words. Here in the palace the walls had ears. It would be foolish to even ask what Yezjaro had in mind. There would be no answer in any case. But Blade was certain of one thing. The Hongshu and his servant Lord Geron had not heard the last of Lord Tsekuin's dabuni.

  To change the subject, Blade asked, «Has Lord Tsekuin decided what his last request shall be?»

  «Not yet,» said Yezjaro. «I think he wishes to give it some thought, to make it as memorable as possible. In his position, would you not do likewise?»

  It was several more days before Lord Tsekuin reached his decision. It was several days after that before he announced it. Meanwhile the dabuni stayed silently in their cubicles, except for those allowed to leave the palace to take the bad news back to the castle. Those who remained ate little and said less. The knowledge that their lord was disgraced and they themselves doomed to be cast adrift seemed to be sinking in.

  Blade detected a certain resentment against him growing again during those days. Perhaps he had indeed saved them from making fatal mistakes in their anger. But he was still a stranger, a man with no roots in Gaikon, a man who could easily pick up his spear and vanish over the horizon if necessary. Blade was particularly careful during those days to keep his mouth shut and hide his comparative detachment from Lord Tsekuin's fate.

  Nearly two weeks after the fatal incident, Lord Tsekuin finally announced his decision. Yezjaro, Doifuzan, and Blade were the only ones present when he announced it.

  «I shall play a master game of Hu against the Hongshu,» he said, twining his fingers together. He had lost enough weight so that his hands seemed as thin and pale as those of a skeleton.

  Blade's first thought was, «Is that all?» Then he looked at Yezjaro and Doifuzan. They were waiting expectantly for more.

  «Yes,» said Lord Tsekuin. «I shall play a master game with the Hongshu. And you»-he shot a finger out at Blade- «shall take your spear and be the first warrior of my hand.»

  That made no sense to Blade. But obviously it meant a good deal to the other two warriors. Both had grim smiles on their faces-the first smiles Blade had seen there for weeks.

  «Ah, Blade,» said Doifuzan. «I see you do not understand what our lord would have you do?»

  Blade bowed and spoke formally. «Honorable First Dabuno, I confess my ignorance and ask that you enlighten me.»

  «It is simple. The master game of Hu is played by the Hongshu with each of the five pieces of the hand represented by a living dabuno. You will be the first warrior, the most powerful piece of the hand. It is known that with your spear you are all but invincible, so this is proper.»

  Doifuzan's smile broadened. «You will honorably represent our lord, Blade. And you will make this game of Hu memorable for the Hongshu as well. When a piece captures another in it, they fight. To the death.»

  Blade bowed. «I am honored by our lord's confidence in me.» There was nothing else he could appropriately say. Besides, this was certainly being at the center of things!

  Chapter 14

  Blade stood in the first warrior's black square and stared out across the enormous Hu-board pattern that covered the entire floor of the huge chamber. The black and white squares gleamed in the light of the lamps swinging from the beams overhead. Behind him Lord Tsekuin sat on a chair cushioned with white silk. At the opposite corner of the board sat the Hongshu. Beside him Lord Geron lay on a litter. Lord Tsekuin had not wounded the second chancellor as seriously as it had been believed at first. But it would be several weeks more before he could walk about normally. The sid
e of his face that was now swathed in bandages would be scarred for life.

  Beside Lord Tsekuin sat Doifuzan. Other than the two players and their companions, the only people in the chamber were the five «pieces» of each player's hand. Blade had wondered why the Hongshu thought he would be safe facing a man whom he had disgraced and doomed.

  «You may wonder that,» Doifuzan had said. «But not aloud. To even think of striking at the person of the Hongshu is an abomination. Were any of us to do that, the whole clan would be swept from the land. Castles and huts alike would burn, fields would be plowed up and sown with salt, men, women, children, warriors, and peasants-all would perish by fire or steel or slow torture. Do not speak the least word of rebellion against the person of the Hongshu.»

  Blade saw the wisdom of that. It was not the time or place to point out that dead Hongshus execute no rebels. It was also not the time to ask what might be done against other enemies than the Hongshu himself. Blade was sure that Yezjaro and Doifuzan were already thinking about this. He was just as sure they would not welcome his questions about it.

  Blade threw a brief glance at the Hongshu. He was on the small side, but he wore his hair tied higher than usual and sat very erect to conceal the fact. He looked lean and in fighting trim, although a full beard suggested something about his face that he preferred to conceal. His eyes moved continuously about the chamber. In another man this might have given the impression of restlessness. In this man it gave the impression of a ceaseless curiosity, a constant ferreting out of other people's secrets.

  A formidable man, Blade suspected. Perhaps there was reason why even the Hongshu's enemies preferred his ironhanded rule to that of the present overeducated, weak-willed emperor.

  But the politics of Gaikon meant nothing one way or the other in this chamber. Blade turned his eyes to the five dabuni of the Hongshu's hand. The man had certainly picked them for size. There wasn't one of them less than six feet tall or lighter than two hundred pounds. Their swords and spears were in proportion. But did they have skill to match their brawn?

  All four of Blade's own comrades were at least competent fighters. Two carried spears, two carried swords. But Blade suspected he was going to wind up doing most of the fighting.

  The sound of another of Gaikon's thousands of gongs broke into his thoughts. The Hongshu rose from his chair and stepped forward to stand beside his first warrior. Lord Tsekuin did the same with Blade. Lord Tsekuin bowed deeply; the Hongshu bowed much less deeply. The Hongshu stepped back and intoned in a surprisingly deep voice:

  «We meet here in the master game of Hu. Such is the wish of Lord Tsekuin. Such wish is his right by the laws and customs of proper obedience, as established by the Hongshu Korlo in the fifty-fourth year of the power of this house. Let it be witnessed that this is his wish, and to it we consent.»

  Lord Geron and Doifuzan spoke together. «It is witnessed.»

  The Hongshu nodded slowly. «Then let the game commence.» He sat down again, while the gongs sounded again from above. Then he folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, waiting for Lord Tsekuin to declare the first move.

  Even with only ten pieces on its forty-eight-square board, Hu was a complicated game. Each of the five pieces of each hand-first warrior, first and second swordsman, first and second spearman-had about thirty different moves. Some they could make at all times, others only under certain conditions. Blade remembered his remark when Yezjaro first summarized the rules and moves for him.

  «It sounds like a long game.»

  «It is. Two truly skilled players have been known to sit at a board for three days continuously, without food or sleep. A normal game can last six or seven hours.»

  But this game would not last even a few hours, let alone several days. There would be no captures, only death, and the blood on the tiled squares would be entirely real.

  The gongs died away. From behind him Blade heard the rustle of Lord Tsekuin's robes as he sat down. Then the man's voice rang out in the sudden silence of the chamber, loud enough to echo.

  «Second spearman-Jufon move to square six-five.»

  Both players devoted their first few moves to maneuvering their five pieces out toward the center of the board. The Hongshu seemed to prefer a more open formation, Lord Tsekuin a tight one. Blade suspected that was to make it easier for him to move into action against any of his five possible opponents. There were strategies in the regular game of Hu built around the first warrior in just that way. They made even more sense here.

  After that came a quick series of another half-dozen moves, most of them unnecessarily intricate. When that was finished, the two clusters of warriors were almost exactly where they had started. Blade suspected the two players were trying to either impress or confuse each other with their skill at the more intricate moves of the game.

  But both players were too experienced to let a show-off opponent's tricks bother them. When the sequence of moves was done, Blade shot a quick look behind him. Lord Tsekuin sat motionless in his chair, arms crossed on his chest, his face a mask as immobile as if it had been cast in bronze. Blade's respect for the doomed lord rose. Keeping that iron calm under the circumstances was admirable.

  A long silent pause followed. The moment for the first blood was approaching. Blade knew that neither player was hesitating out of any fear of that moment. But now the price of a wrong move had suddenly risen. Now it could throw away a warrior of the hand, and perhaps the game.

  It was the Hongshu's turn now. One of his swordsmen made a simple move out to the right. Simple-but it brought him to where one of Lord Tsekuin's spearmen could engage him by any of half a dozen moves.

  The Hongshu had thrown out his challenge. Now the decision lay in Lord Tsekuin's hands. Blood now or later?

  Lord Tsekuin rose to the challenge. He called out a move in clipped, cool tones. The spearman moved to engage. He was the youngest of the five dabuni in Tsekuin's hand. Could he have any chance against the Hongshu's swordsman?

  His opponent was half again as large as the spearman and looked larger still. With a rasp of metal he drew his sword. The spearman's weapon rose into position and he dropped into fighting stance. The silence in the chamber deepened. The two opponents stood motionless, their weapons raised. From where Blade stood, he couldn't even see them breathe.

  Suddenly the two frozen figures in the center of the chamber exploded in sound and movement. The swordsman's weapon swung wide, leaving him open to the spearman's thrust. The spearpoint flashed forward. The sword whipped back as fast as it had swung out. Steel point and steel blade crashed against each other with an echoing clang that filled the chamber. The spearpoint dropped down, the sword blade rose up. It flicked out toward the young spearman, but he seemed to twist aside at the last second. He stood as his opponent pulled his sword back and raised it again. Blade wondered why the young man didn't turn back to face his opponent.

  Then the spearman's point dropped further, to rest against the floor. His fingers opened and the spear clattered to the floor. A moment later the spearman followed it. As he struck the floor and lay full length on it, blood began to gush from the wound in his side, under his armpit. Blade looked more closely. The gash went in halfway through the chest. Had it gone straight into the heart, with that single split second blow?

  As if to answer Blade's question, the spearman gave a final convulsive jerk, gurgled, coughed, and lay still. Blood trickled out of his mouth to join the spreading pool on the tiles.

  Blade took a tighter grip on his own spear. That was a quick kill even by Gaikon's deadly standards. It now seemed quite likely that the Hongshu's dabuni were as skilled as they were big.

  The Hongshu wore a smug, arrogant grin. Blade risked another look behind him, at Lord Tsekuin and Doifuzan. Then he looked again. Both men had their eyes fixed on the Hongshu. As his grin broadened, they began to have trouble keeping their own faces straight. Blade swung his eyes back across the body on the floor to the triumphant Hongshu. Then the light dawned
for him.

  Lord Tsekuin had deliberately sacrificed the young spearman, who was after all the least important dabuno of his hand. He had cold-bloodedly sacrificed him to make the Hongshu overconfident, judging by the other man's expression, he had succeeded. And the young spearman had gone to his death with no regard for anything but his lord's orders, although he knew what was coming.

  Blade suspected that there were two games being played today. There was the deadly master game of Hu here in the chamber. There was another, larger, deadlier game being played for far higher stakes all over Gaikon, of which this game of Hu might be only a part.

  Blade clutched his spear so tightly in both hands that his knuckles stood out white. He managed to give a slight tremble to both his lower lip and his knees, and swallowed rapidly several times. He wanted to give the impression of a man suddenly realizing the deadly stakes of this game, and half-unnerved by his discovery. As he turned away from the two men behind him his eyes briefly met Doifuzan's. The old dabuno's lips flickered apart in a brief smile, one that the Hongshu would never see. Blade turned back to stare across the chamber at the enemy. The Hongshu was rubbing his hands on the knees of his white silk trousers, and the visible half of Lord Geron's face was split by a broad grin.

  Good. They looked like men who would be half-blind with triumph and anticipation of an easy victory. Blade relaxed his grip on his spear and waited for Lord Tsekuin to announce his next move. He suspected it would bring him into the play.

  He was wrong. Lord Tsekuin apparently decided it would help if he also acted like a man who had lost his self-control because of the death of the spearman. He indulged in a flurry of moves, simple and complex, varying them without any apparent pattern. He didn't pay much attention to the Hongshu's responses, either. Blade hoped Lord Tsekuin wouldn't carry the act too far. If the Hongshu decided to move in for a quick victory while Tsekuin was doing his imitation of a frightened, indecisive man, things could get very nasty very quickly.