Kingdom of Royth Part 7

She sighed. It was a marvelously dramatic sigh. "I know that, Your Majesty. But-would you ask me to keep silent about such treason?" Her tone of voice was that of a person who has been driven after long hours of agonizing self-doubt to a yet more agonizing decision. It was also, it seemed to Blade, the tone of a person who hopes to see her remarks someday recorded in history books for the edification of children. If Blade had not known the quality of the mind behind this series of poses, he suspected he would have been either appalled or disgusted or both. As it was, the countess' acting was so splendid that Blade almost forgot the deadly stakes in the game they were playing.

Seconds later he was abruptly reminded of them. Feet clattered on the stairs and the door burst open so violently that it crashed against the wall. One of the countess' guards tumbled into the bedroom, gasping incoherently, blood pouring from his mouth. Behind him other noises poured up the stairs-the clang of steel, furniture cras.h.i.+ng over, Tralthos shouting, "Treason! To the King!" at the top of his lungs. Blade grabbed for his sword, remembered as he encountered an empty scabbard that Tralthos had disarmed him, cursed, and charged down the stairs.

As he came down the stairs at a dead run he met four men with drawn swords charging upward at a pace only slightly slower than his own. Before he could ask who they were, two of them answered the question for him with wild lunges at his chest. They were too excited and hasty to aim properly. He flung himself aside, pivoting on one leg as he bounced off the wall and kicking out in a savage stroke with the other foot. It caught one of the swordsmen off balance, hurling him down the stairs to land with a scream and a thud. Blade chopped the next man across the side of the neck with the edge of his hand, plucked his sword out of the air as the man's hand went limp and released it, then engaged the other two. They were better swordsmen than their comrades, but far from good enough to match Blade. In a matter of seconds he met one with a stop-thrust, kicked his legs out from under him, thrust the other through the chest while his swing was blocked by his toppling comrade, then slashed down at the fallen man, lopping his head off as neatly as a bunch of grapes. Without waiting to check whether all four were dead, Blade s.n.a.t.c.hed a dagger from the belt of the headless corpse and bounded down the blood-slick stairs.

He arrived perhaps five seconds after a sweating, swearing gang of nearly a dozen men had backed Tralthos into the entrance to the stairs, where for a moment they could only come at him one or two at a time. Some of the men wore plain tunics whose borders and rich sheen yet indicated high rank; some wore the leather and wool of hired bravos, one the uniform of a Guardsman. Behind them in the chamber Tralthos' three companions, the countess' other two guards, and half a dozen more a.s.sa.s.sins sprawled silent or groaning amid a litter of dropped weapons, smashed furniture, and bloodstained carpeting.

Blade stormed down the stairs and crashed past Tralthos into the ranks of the a.s.sa.s.sins with the force of an avalanche. They gave way. In sheer terror at the gigantic bloodspattered figure, eyes incandescent with fury, two of them turned and ran headlong down the corridor, pursued by curses from some of their comrades. Others silently turned to face Blade, wasting none of the breath needed for fighting.

Odds of ten to one (or ten to two, counting Tralthos) were long but not impossible, since Blade knew himself to be stronger and three times angrier than any of his opponents. He beat down his first opponent's guard by sheer force and thrust him through the throat, then picked up a second opponent as easily as he would have picked up a wine bottle and hurled him onto the sword point of a third. Two more came at him together. He blocked, backed away into the stair opening, and smashed one man's weapon down so that he was unguarded long enough for Tralthos to run him through the body.

There was a moment's pause as the surviving a.s.sa.s.sins backed away into the center of the wrecked chamber and stared at the two opponents standing in the doorway-standing between them and the King. Blade was not relieved by this pause. The men were desperate, their lives already forfeit, and if it occurred to them to plough through by sheer weight of numbers the seven survivors might break through the two. Then it would be up to Larina's dying guardsman and King Pelthros himself. Blade hoped the King knew how to use that sword he had put on.

Blade saw two of the men look at the others and point to a wrecked table, saw four others go over and pick it up, raising it on end to act as a s.h.i.+eld. A human battering ram with the table as its striking end! Blade looked at Tralthos and grimaced. They would have to back up the stairs. If they stayed put, they would be smashed and stunned by the coming charge.

It seemed to Blade that all the sights and sounds in the room were coming to his senses with incredible clarity-the hacked-off hand still clutching a wine cup flattened by a boot heel, the long splintery sword scar across the polished top of the table facing them, the heavy breathing of the men lifting it to the vertical. Then suddenly a gurgling scream floated down the corridor. The a.s.sa.s.sins whirled around to look behind them, dropping the table with a crash-and Blade and Tralthos charged out of the doorway.

Blade vaulted over the table into the midst of the enemy, scattering them, knocking one man clear off his feet so that Tralthos could run him through a split second later. Then he was whirling around, both sword and dagger weaving a deadly pattern, and the a.s.sa.s.sins were no longer trying to stand and fight, but scattering. Blade sprang aside from one frantic lunge, tripped over a body and went down. His emboldened opponent thrust again, missing Blade's shoulder but laying open his tunic. Blade dropped his own sword, rolled over like a log straight into the man, took his legs out from under him. Before the man could rise, Blade s.n.a.t.c.hed up the leg of a chair and laid it across the back of his head. The man went limp: Blade was conscious of Tralthos skewering one more man with contempt in every line of his thrust. Then there was a tremendous uproar in the corridor, with flaring torches and thundering boots and screams as the last of the a.s.sa.s.sins went down before a charge of the Royal Guard, a whole company coming down the corridor at a dead run. Tralthos had to stand over Blade waving the Guardsmen away, or they would have laid into him also.

Blade rose and took Tralthos' hand. The captain had redeemed himself twenty times over for the little moments of pettifoggery, with four a.s.sa.s.sins at least to his personal credit. The captain grinned, then quickly knelt down as King Pelthros appeared in the doorway, sword in hand, followed by the countess.

Not much to Blade's surprise, the lady found words for the occasion. "Your Majesty, look at this chamber. It is filled with the bodies of men who were coming to kill you-and of faithful servants who died in your defense. Now say if my reports of plots are imagination only!"

Pelthros, less nimble with his tongue, was silent for a considerable time. Then he said slowly, "It seems that some of it at least was the truth. I think it is time that I spoke to the Chancellor."

"If you can find him, Your Majesty. He may well be fled to the camp of the Ninth Brigade, which he intended to lead into the city once you were dead or captive."

"A whole Brigade of my army in Indhios' pay?" The King looked appalled. "This is beyond reason!"

"Perhaps beyond reason, Your Majesty," said the countess, "but not beyond Indhios' deviousness and treason."

"Yes, yes, I understand, I think. Now, my Lady, let me retire to my chambers and peruse these doc.u.ments you have offered me. After that I will send for Indhios and ask him to explain his doings of late."

One does not, with impunity, lose one's temper and berate a King like an erring schoolboy, but Blade felt himself on the edge of doing so. From Larina's expression he judged that she did not feel differently. But they could only bite their tongues and shrug their shoulders as the King disappeared up the stairs and shut the door firmly behind him.

Tralthos looked at Blade. "G.o.ds above deliver us from our King's l.u.s.t for justice above everything else," he groaned. "While he sits like a clerk in his chambers, Indhios may even now-"

"Of course," said Blade. "But we need not join the King in sitting idly. Captain, could you take a few of these men and go to Indhios' apartments? He will not be there, but there may be some of his henchmen to be found who can be made to talk."

Blade saw from the expressions on the Guardsmen's faces that he had struck the proper note and responded to a widespread desire for action. None of the Guardsmen shared Pelthros' scruples about going straight into action against whoever was responsible for the heaped corpses lying about this very chamber. Tralthos picked out a dozen of the toughest-looking soldiers and led them off at a noisy trot, while Blade mapped out his strategy and snapped out his orders. Actually they were only urgings rather than orders, for he had no more legal authority to command the Guard than he had possessed an hour before. But he had the far more effective authority of a man who sees what-needs to be done and has already risked his life doing some of it. His words were obeyed as readily as if they came from the King or the Commander of the Guard, and squads and sections marched away in all directions.

Some went as messengers to alert the rest of the Guard-all twenty-two companies-plus the three Brigades of the army barracked in and around High Royth, the city constabulary, and the Wardens of the Port who helped patrol the dockyards. (Blade hoped Brora had properly dealt with any trouble there but could not be sure.) Some went to patrol the corridors of the palace and keep the innocent from roaming about and the guilty from escaping by shooing everybody impartially back into their chambers. (Blade hoped the soldiers would not be too quick with their swords.) Some went to reinforce the guards on the walls to make absolutely sure that Indhios could send no one into the palace for a second attempt at storming the royal apartments. And some remained with Blade, clearing away the bodies and wreckage as much as possible, with eyes flickering constantly down the corridor in case it spewed out more surprises.

Except for Blade's orders, affairs hung in their royally decreed state of suspended animation until well after dawn. It was then that Pelthros came down from his chambers, even more red-eyed than before, with the crumpled papers under his arm, and took the countess by the hand. "My Lady, you have done the Realm and Our House a great service." He had recovered his wits enough to have reverted to the royal "we," and Blade felt it appropriate to bow.

"And you too, Champion Blahyd. Never in the four centuries there have been Champions for the Kings of Royth has a Champion so well earned his name." He swept his arm around the chamber in a gesture as theatrical as anything the countess had ever used. He was obviously about to launch into another fulsome sentence when an officer of the Guard appeared, leading a party of a dozen men dressed like sailors and carrying two large bra.s.s-bound sea chests.

"From the dockyard, Your Majesty. They say-"

"Ay-y-y, Blahyd!" shouted a familiar voice from among the sailors, and Brora dashed forward and grabbed Blade by the shoulders. "I see ye've had a rare good night, aye?"

"Yes, we have."

"As was w' us," said Brora with a grin. "Your Majesty, there were some traitors among your officers i' the dockyard. Here they be." He motioned the men behind him to set the chests on the floor, then strode over to them and flung open both lids.

The King gasped, the countess gave a little scream and reeled against him; even Blade found his stomach churning. Each chest held a dozen human heads, neatly or not so neatly severed, lying on blood-drenched sailcloth. It was quite a long time before anybody recovered his voice enough to thank Brora, who stood beaming at them over his handiwork. Remembering Festival and Cayla's hobbies, Blade could not find it in him to become too indignant over Brora's methods.

"Well, Brora Lanthal's son," said Pelthros finally, then paused again. "You are a-a-thorough man, indeed." He was apparently trying to find some way of phrasing a compliment, when the countess as usual stepped in (although Blade noticed she kept her eyes averted from the heads).

"A good spectacle indeed, Your Majesty," she said. "And perhaps some day soon we shall see all your enemies both here and abroad in a similar state. That would be an even better spectacle."

One of these days, thought Blade, Larina was going to overreach herself in seeking for dramatic comments to make at key moments, offend the King, and see all her hopes go up in smoke. Meanwhile, however, she provided a certain amount of entertainment in a situation that promised little besides a long, grim struggle.

CHAPTER 17.

With the King resolved to move against Indhios, it became possible to send orders instead of merely advice to all the people Blade had previously alerted. Pelthros, to his credit, did not resent Blade's having jumped the gun. In fact, when he heard what Blade had done, he delivered several fulsome sentences declaring Blade's wits to be as sound as his arm and appointed him a High Constable of Royth.

This made Blade the equivalent of a general and made it possible for him to go right on giving orders, which he did. Fortunately, most of the people to whom he gave them did not resent his sudden promotion. They respected him, even though they might have second thoughts about King Pelthros.

Putting three Brigades plus the Royal Guard on the alert meant twenty thousand regular soldiers available for whatever was needed. This, Pelthros decided, included cordoning off the whole city and conducting a house-by-house search for weapons. Inevitably, this meant confiscating an immense quant.i.ty of swords, cutla.s.ses, daggers, pikes, and rusty armor from thousands of peaceable citizens. This in turn led to incidents, some of them fatal to one or both sides. And of course, riots then broke out, and by nightfall a good part of the soldiers were patrolling the streets, keeping High Royth calm, rather than marching out of the city toward the camp of the Ninth Brigade.

Blade was not entirely surprised that the King's zeal for action outstripped his judgment about what action should be taken, but he was entirely unhappy about it. As the sunset turned the range of hills beyond the city purple, and the smoke spiraling up from burning houses in the waterfront district obscured the seascape, Blade sat with Larina on a high balcony of the palace and toyed with his gold cup and silver tableware. An ample meal-roast chicken stuffed with chestnuts and raisins, venison pastries, fresh bread, fruit, and bottles of wine-covered a black marble table between them. Blade had not eaten anything substantial since the night before and should have been demolis.h.i.+ng the meal at a great rate. But the uncertainty that still dominated the situation was knotting his stomach and making it impossible for him to eat and barely possible for him to sit still.

Finally, he could sit no longer; he drained his wine cup and stood up. "King Pelthros has done one wise thing so far in this crisis. He has made me a High Constable" His voice was bitter, so bitter that Larina neither smiled nor threw back a witty remark. "I am going to take advantage of that." He began to stride back and forth, even less able to remain motionless now that he was planning, talking in a low voice.

"The key to the whole situation is still Indhios. The conspiracy will live until we take off its head by taking off his. And the most likely place for Indhios is the camp of the Ninth Brigade. That camp hasn't been taken. It hasn't been attacked. It hasn't been besieged or even properly patrolled! The local troops and the Guard are all too busy fighting some poor wretch of a shopkeeper over his grandfather's halberd! We don't even know that the Ninth Brigade isn't marching on High Royth at this very moment! If it is, there's nothing to stop it but a few cavalry patrols. And once it's through the gates and over the walls, the citizens that Pelthros' d.a.m.ned foolish orders have alienated will join it, and we'll finally have the popular uprising we couldn't have had otherwise!" He was so furious at Pelthros' obstinate folly that he let his voice rise almost to a shout.

With an effort he controlled himself. "A small force of picked men, disguised and heavily armed, might be able to make it into the camp and kill or capture Indhios. After that, I doubt if the Brigade's officers will move on their own. They'll probably try to make terms. If Pelthros has any sense, he'll at least cas.h.i.+er them all."

Larina smiled knowingly. "And you will be leading this small force? I might have guessed it."

Blade shrugged. "As I said, I'm a High Constable of Royth. I should be able to find arms and horses for fifty men without anybody asking stupid questions. Could you call two of your guards, Larina? I would like to send messages to Captain Tralthos and Brora."

No matter how many orders a general gives, it still takes a certain amount of time to pick fifty good fighting men, equip them, and brief them for a complex and dangerous mission where any one of fifty things could go disastrously wrong. Although Blade did his best, he could not be in six places at once. It was nearly midnight before he led his force out of High Royth. They pa.s.sed out through the West Gate, the same one he had pa.s.sed through from the other direction as a chained prisoner only a few months before, and moved out on the Royal South Road at a canter.

When they were safely clear of the rich men's villas and scattered farms that clung to the fringes of the city, they turned sharply back to the west. Although the road narrowed almost to a trail, they kept on without slackening their speed. The raid was a desperate project at best; it would be simple suicide in daylight. By the road they were using, the camp was no more than three hours' ride west of High Royth, which should with luck give them two full hours of darkness for their work.

Blade's estimate was close enough. The chimes in the camp's shrine to Myonra, the war G.o.d, were chiming the third hour as they stopped their horses just in sight of the camp but beyond the ranges of its sentries. The turncoat soldiers were apparently concentrating entirely on defending their camp and not bothering to send out patrols, even foot ones, to cover the surrounding roads. This was a mistake, and Blade intended to take full advantage of it.

The light of the moon and the torches in the camp made it fully visible. It was a rectangle two hundred yards by three hundred, with rammed-earth walls eight feet high surmounted by a row of wooden palisades rising another five feet and sliced through all along their length by arrow slits. Inside, the tents were arrayed in smaller rectangles, each company with its own defined s.p.a.ce, and in the center bulked the larger, permanent buildings. A whitewashed shrine, a red-painted hospital, the black squat a.r.s.enal and forge, with clangings and smoke floating up from inside it, the green-painted storehouses. In the very center was a small, square building whose gilded ornamentation blazed in the light reflected from numerous torches burning inside it and also those carried by the cordon of sentries around it. That cordon of sentries meant only one thing to Blade-someone or something important was inside that building. And there could be only one person that important in the camp-Indhios. He turned to Brora and grinned savagely.

"Ready."

Brora nodded and pulled out a black hood and a length of rope. In a few moments Blade and Tralthos were hooded and bound with knots that would instantly slip apart the moment they exerted a little force. Then one of Brora's own men bound and hooded him, one of Tralthos' sergeants took the lead, and the whole cavalcade clattered down the hill, making as much noise as possible with hoofbeats and jangling equipment and whoops of joy.

Inside the hood, Blade could only judge their progress from the sounds that came to his ears. He heard the sentries challenge and an explosion of trumpet calls as the guard was called out, and the sergeant's voice replying gleefully: "We have some prisoners that Indhios might be interested in seeing."

There was a moment's silence. Blade found himself holding his breath.

"The count is asleep," replied the guard cautiously. Blade now found himself having to fight to keep from triumphantly shouting a war cry.

"I don't think he'll mind being awakened for these three," said the sergeant with a laugh. "Remove the masks."

Blade found himself in the middle of a sea of half-dressed soldiers holding torches and lanterns, all staring at him and the other "prisoners" as if they were some prodigious monsters. He tried to look fearful and uncertain. He hoped his expression didn't show the red blood l.u.s.t that was filling him at the antic.i.p.ation of finally coming to grips with Indhios.

The guard commander returned. "The count will see you with the prisoners. Your men can dismount and stable their horses with us."

Blade waited to see if the sergeant would come through with the cover story prepared as an answer to just that question. "Thank you, but no. We have our own base some miles from here, and our own women and wine waiting there. But you will be welcome to our hospitality there soon. The disturbances in Royth will be making many a wealthy man pack up and head for the country, and the pickings should be rich." The sergeant had the expression, of a man almost licking his lips in antic.i.p.ation of plunder.

"Very well. Come with me." They followed the guard through the gate of the camp. Half a dozen of the troop stayed with the three "prisoners," leading their horses at a walk up the main street of the camp, while the rest milled around by the gate. They approached the gilt-encrusted budding, its torches seeming even brighter at close range. The sentries drew back to let the hors.e.m.e.n ride up to the door, then turned and snapped to attention as Indhios came out.

He wore a plum-colored robe with black fur trim and a gold chain around his neck, none of the rich attire doing anything to diminish his grossness. The fat hands that came up in a gesture of childish delight at the sight of Blade were covered with rings that winked in the light.

"Ah, the pirate Blahyd. This meeting will be most interesting, though I fear profitable only for myself. I shall have to tell Alixa that you are here. I am sure the poor creature will want to see you, although whether you will find much pleasure in seeing her, as she is now. . ."

There being no good reason for further delay and no hope of controlling himself much longer, Blade moved. His wrists flew apart, jerking the ropes clear, and he vaulted out of the saddle straight onto Indhios. The Chancellor weighed more than Blade, but he crashed to the ground under the attack. Before the Chancellor could regain his breath or draw any of his weapons, Blade grabbed the greasy beard and hair and hammered the ma.s.sive skull hard against the ground until the man stopped struggling.

Now the sentries reacted, swarming in toward the men on the ground, and found the mounted men spurring their mounts forward and bringing their swords out, to form a wall of horses and flas.h.i.+ng steel around Blade and his prisoner. Tralthos slashed the astounded guard commander out of his saddle, jumped to the ground, and helped Blade heave the ma.s.sive form of the Chancellor over the vacant saddle and tie him in place.

By this time the other soldiers in the camp were joining in the circle forming around the hors.e.m.e.n. They were just in time to be hit in the rear by a ma.s.sed charge of the rest of the raiders. Every man in the force except for half a dozen holding the gate came riding in, swords swinging, to scatter the soldiers in all directions or drive them forward onto the equally busy swords of the men around Blade.

But they could not leave just yet. Blade laid about him furiously for a few moments, cutting a swathe in the men driven back toward him, then grabbed the count by the beard and thrust a torch toward his face. The piggish eyes opened.

"Where is Alixa?"

"I-" The count winced and closed his eyes against the glare and the heat.

"Where?"

"The--the back room. You-"

But Blade had already dashed the torch to the ground and charged into the house, chopping down one soldier who tried to bar his way so much by reflex that he hardly noticed the man falling and writhing on the floor. He spotted a door leading to what must be the back, tested it, found it locked. He stepped back a pace, seized the count's chair, a ma.s.sive thing suitable for a ma.s.sive man, and hurled it like a catapult stone against the door. Lock and hinges both screeched apart and the door fell with a crash.

Alixa stumbled out. Her eyes were blank and staring, her hair tangled and hanging down her back, and she wore only a greasy and blood-specked white s.h.i.+ft. She was not a small woman, but Blade scooped her up under one ma.s.sive arm as though she were a child and left the building at a run. He flung her over his horse as easily as he would a basket of fruit, vaulted into the saddle, and pulled her against him as he bellowed: "All right, everybody. Time to move out!"

A few hardy souls tried to form an infantry line across the main street of the camp, but the full weight of the fifty charging hors.e.m.e.n swept over them and left them lying motionless or writhing on the trampled and blood-smeared earth. The troop charged out into the darkness, swung left to get onto the Royal West Road, and settled down to put as much distance between them and the camp as possible in as short a time as possible.

Whether because they were too stunned or simply because they had no cavalry to spare, the Ninth Brigade did not pursue the raiders. The first sign of military activity Blade and his men met, in fact, was just after dawn when they rode back into the suburbs of High Royth and met a troop of the Guard Cavalry. The captain of the troop was a trifle skeptical of Blade's story until he saw who was riding trussed like a slaughtered deer across the back of a horse in the middle of the band following Blade. After that, he grinned broadly and waved them on. Blade rode into the city with a great confidence in the good sense of the soldiers of Royth, whatever he might think of their King.

They had to interrupt Pelthros at breakfast to present Indhios, a breakfast he was eating with the countess on the very balcony where she and Blade had dined the evening before. Pelthros, Blade noticed, looked clear-eyed now, and he was wearing a mail coat and a rather more efficient-looking sword than his former ceremonial weapon. He rose as they approached, laid down knife and fork, and stepped forward a pace to glare at Indhios.

"Well, Chancellor. If you are responsible for what has happened these past two days, there is a heavy burden on you. And there will be a heavy punishment, if you are indeed guilty."

Blade once again wanted to take Pelthros by his beard the way he had taken Indhios and bang the King's head against something hard in the hope of knocking some sense into it. Wouldn't the King ever come to a decision about this traitor who had all but ruined Royth?

"You can punish me if you want to," growled Indhios. "But it won't do you any good. You won't outlive me by much, you artistic fool! And that b.i.t.c.h-wh.o.r.e beside you-" Before anyone could react, he swung one clublike arm into the stomach of the guard on his right, s.n.a.t.c.hed the man's sword with the other hand, and charged straight at the King. Pelthros jumped one way, the countess jumped the other-not fast enough. The sword drove through her just below the right breast and came out her back. Letting go of the sword, Indhios turned to face them.

"You'll be d.a.m.ned lucky to die this easy," he growled, turned back to the railing, and with one heave of his arms pulled himself up and over. Blade snapped from his paralysis in time to see Indhios land on the stone a hundred feet below. He didn't bounce. Soldiers were already cl.u.s.tering around the body when Blade turned back to the countess.

"Larina, I was a fool to-"

"He-was a desperate man. I-should have-told-you-he might do-this. Don't blame-yourself." Her hand clutched at his, and she died.

Blade was conscious of Pelthros bending over his shoulder, looking down at the small, still body. There were tears in his eyes. "She shall be buried among the Queens of Royth. She did as much as any of them." He rose and looked out over his capital. "And we have much to do, to complete the work that she-and you-began."

CHAPTER 18.

Whatever had kept Pelthros from hurling himself and his Kingdom unrestrainedly into action, the death of Indhios and the countess seemed to remove it. Pelthros was at his desk or in council for forty hours out of the next forty-eight. At the end of that time, much of what could be done to prepare the Kingdom of Royth for the attack of the pirates had been done.

The army was mobilized and the coastal garrisons reinforced. The navy was to be fully manned and most of its strength concentrated at High Royth, except for the s.h.i.+ps out on patrol. The Wardens of the Port were alert for any efforts at sabotage, and patrolled so industriously that no small number of innocent people ended up sharing prison cells with those already arrested during the arms confiscation riots. These riots themselves faded out within a few hours after reports of the true situation were pa.s.sed around. Most of the citizens of High Royth had not much use for their King but even less for the Neraler pirates.

The dockyards and a.r.s.enals were set to work on building new s.h.i.+ps and weapons, refurbis.h.i.+ng those in storage, and issuing full equipment to those s.h.i.+ps and soldiers already serving. The Ninth Brigade was stripped of its standards, most of its officers cas.h.i.+ered, and the enlisted men parceled out into reinforcements a.s.signed to garrisons on the western frontier of the Kingdom, a month's march from the coast. All the coastal villages were given small garrisons and all the coastal roads patrolled by cavalry.

And there were minor details, such as burying Indhios in a pauper's grave, making arrangements for a state funeral for the countess, and honoring Blade, Tralthos, and Brora. Tralthos was knighted and given command of a Guards battalion, Brora raised to the rank of captain and given a wars.h.i.+p, and Blade further honored with the award of most of Indhios' estates. It was only when he sat down and forced his mind into old memories that he recalled there was another Blade, who would someday soon (but hopefully not too soon) be called Home, and leave behind all these splendid estates-as well as Alixa.

Alixa had indeed been heavily drugged and kept drugged all during her "protective confinement" in Indhios' hands. But that was all. Even the drugs wore off within twenty-four hours, leaving her sick, shaken, weak as a kitten, but alive and ready to regain her strength with proper care. Pelthros saw to the proper care personally. Within a week Blade and Alixa could look out at the palace and the lights burning late from their bed.

Blade, however, found himself with little time for Alixa. He was, for better or worse, one of King Pelthros' generals, and he felt it was high time he started earning his pay. The latest reports to come in (admittedly several weeks out of date, but perhaps the more ominous for that very reason) suggested that the pirates had acc.u.mulated nearly four hundred s.h.i.+ps at Neral. Half of these at least would be their own war galleys, half hired merchantmen and sailing wars.h.i.+ps. With such an armada they would have no trouble transporting every one of their fifty thousand fighters and even the ten thousand mercenaries that one horrid rumor reported. By now, the great harbor at Neral must contain so many s.h.i.+ps that one could cross it dry shod by leaping from deck to deck.

No one was seriously suggesting that the fleet of Royth should sally out against the island. That would be like asking a flea to put out a furnace by jumping into it, and even the retired generals and admirals whose wine-soaked brains could think of nothing but "the honor of Royth" admitted that much. Without allies, the royal navy could muster perhaps a hundred and twenty wars.h.i.+ps and seventy to ninety supporting vessels, barely enough to give it some hope of fighting a defensive battle. And they would be without allies. Even if there had been time to negotiate and sign an alliance, the other three Kingdoms had been openly contemptuous of Royth's declining maritime power for years and were now openly skeptical of its chances of meeting the pirate attack. Royth was going to stand alone.

On land, though, the situation of the Kingdom was far better and gave Blade much food for thought. The royal army of Royth would number eighty thousand men when fully mobilized, and there were also fifty thousand more in local militia units, police forces, customs guards, the Wardens of the Port, and the like-perhaps untrained but not unenthusiastic. Considering the pirates' lack of experience in large-scale land warfare, it should in theory be easy to meet and defeat them once they got ash.o.r.e.

The problem was that these troops had to defend two thousand miles of land frontiers as well as six hundred miles of coast, at least half of that coast suitable for the landing of the pirate host. Scattered thus, it would be a miracle if the royal army could ma.s.s more than fifteen thousand men in any one place without leaving undefended some place that needed defense. And even a.s.sembling that many would take several days, during which time the pirates could put their whole force ash.o.r.e anywhere along the usable coastline and march inland, ravaging the countryside wherever they went. When the royal army came down on them, they would have plenty of warning and plenty of time to force it to meet them on ground and at a time of their own choosing. Under such circ.u.mstances, experience or no experience, the pirates might well win a devastating victory, breaking King Pelthros' army and the morale of his subjects.

But there was an idea glimmering in Blade's mind all through one sleepless night. In the morning he rose, sat down at his desk and wrote it up in a form fit for presentation to the War Council.

The pirates would never send their full strength ash.o.r.e until they had met and defeated the royal fleet. Suppose that they were led to believe that the royal fleet was as good as defeated even before they appeared on the coast? They would hardly be able to turn down such an opportunity for an easy victory. They would most probably make straight for the nearest spot of coast, anchor their s.h.i.+ps, and set to plundering. Blade knew the pirates' lack of discipline when it came to easy loot; they would scatter all over the countryside in a matter of days, out of all control by their captains. That was the great reason why the pirates had never managed a full-scale invasion before, even more than their lack of prowess at land fighting.

And suppose the pirates could be induced to land and then scatter their forces in a stretch of country within easy striking distance of a large force of royal troops? Springing out of concealment, thirty thousand royal troops could sweep up the pirate detachments one by one. Even if the royal fleet could not then move out and take the undermanned and immobilized pirate fleet in the rear, the blow to the pirates' strength in manpower would be devastating.

Blade realized that without many details which he did not yet have the local knowledge to supply, the whole plan had an armchair-general flavor that made him pause and would certainly make others object. But those others might also be able to fill in the details. It would certainly start people thinking about ways to get out of the dilemma caused by the pirates' ability to strike whenever they wished with their whole force. That dilemma was paralyzing the ability of the War Council to plan. Blade realized that Royth was not weak, nor were its leaders, when all was said and done. But they had a problem-a flaw that might be about to become fatal-in their inability to see the strengths they possessed.

So he drew up his plan in as much detail as he could and presented it that evening to the War Council. "Fantastic" was the mildest word he heard used about it, and if the situation had been less desperate, Blade had no doubt that Pelthros himself would have come down hard on the side of his older and allegedly wiser military leaders and refused even to permit a debate. But the situation was desperate, the debate took place, and in it some of the younger officers who had held their peace while their seniors fulminated spoke up for Blade.

"There is a river in Northcoast Province where we could hide the fleet secure from discovery," said a young squadron commander. "It's called the Keltz, and the country around it is so wooded and spa.r.s.ely populated that we could hide ten fleets and three armies there until they died of old age. And we could make it possible for the fleet to get out again in a hurry, too. There's only one usable pa.s.sage through the sandbars at the mouth of the river now, but we could dredge out several more in a week's work. It's never been done before because there aren't enough people up there to make it worthwhile."