Demon King Read online

  THE

  DEMON

  KING

  CHRIS BUNCH

  a division of F+W Media, Inc.

  for

  Danny Baror

  &

  The Studwells:

  Craig, Jan

  Gillian, Matthew, and Megan

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  One: The Golden Ax

  Two: Death to the Emperor!

  Three: Skirmishing

  Four: Casting the Net

  Five: Revenge

  Six: The Water Palace

  Seven: The Yellow Silk Cord

  Eight: Irrigon

  Nine: Shadows in the Palace

  Ten: Change in the Time of Dews

  Eleven: Triad

  Twelve: Games of Empire

  Thirteen: The Feast of Corn

  Fourteen: To Speak for the Emperor

  Fifteen: The Smuggler’s Track

  Sixteen: The Negaret

  Seventeen: Alegria

  Eighteen: King Bairan

  Nineteen: The Second Betrayal

  Twenty: The Azaz’s Curse

  Twenty-One: The Healing Fire

  Twenty-Two: The Breakout

  Twenty-Three: Bloody Roads South

  Twenty-Four: The Empty City

  Twenty-Five: The Doom that Came to Jarrah

  Twenty-Six: The Bridges at Sidor

  Twenty-Seven: Death on the Suebi

  Twenty-Eight: Betrayal and Flight

  Twenty-Nine: Cambiaso

  Thirty: Exile

  Thirty-One: The Message

  Also Available

  Copyright

  ONE

  THE GOLDEN AX

  The postilion’s sharp ears saved Marán’s and my lives. He heard the cracking as the great oak above us broke and toppled, and yanked at his reins. The team, whinnying surprise, veered into the ditch as the tree smashed down in front of our coach.

  Marán flew across the compartment into my arms with a shriek, and I sprawled backward as the huge carriage teetered and skidded wildly as a wheel splintered. There were shouts of men, screams of horses, and I slid from under Marán, kicked the door open and rolled out, reflexively drawing the sword that never left my reach.

  But there was no one to fight, and nothing to see except my regal coach lying like a hulk, its eight horses plunging to be freed, and a sweltering mass of cavalry as my escort milled about in confusion.

  On a far hillside I saw a plume of dust as a rider galloped for safety.

  There were cries of “sorcery,” “magic,” “get the bastard,” and Legate Balkh crying for volunteers to go after the would-be assassin, and behind that countermanding shouts from myself, Captain Lasta, and, against all rules, Lance Karjan, my bodyservant.

  My wife peered out as her squealing maids ran up from their carriage behind.

  “Are you hurt?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “Just a little shaken. What happened?”

  “Evidently,” I said, “the Kallians know of our coming, and have expressed their opinion.”

  “But how did …”

  “Come with me, and we’ll see if we can figure it out.”

  I helped her out of the huge carriage that had been more a home for the last eight years than any of my palaces, and we walked to where the huge tree lay across the road. Magic was instantly and obviously the explanation. The tree’s trunk had been cut through cleanly, not rotted and split. I spotted a glint in the grass. I picked up a tiny golden ax, no more than an inch tall, just as the regimental commander of the Seventeenth Ureyan Lancers ran to me and saluted.

  “Domina Bikaner, send a patrol to that hilltop. Tell them to look for a small oak branch that’s been cut in half.”

  “Yessir.”

  I continued examining the tree. “Look here,” I said. Marán saw where a small limb had been neatly cut. I would never have noticed except symbols were carved into the bark, symbols oozing fresh sap.

  “I’d guess that was how it was done,” I said. “The wizard notched the tree trunk, put a tiny simalcrum of his sorcerous ax in the notch, then took the branch with him. The symbols on the tree make sure that the part can become of the whole, as Emperor Tenedos would say.

  “He waited until the first troop of Lancers went past, knew our carriage for his target since it’s the biggest and plushest, and commenced to cutting the branch. When it split, the tree dropped very neatly. All that can be slighted is his timing.”

  “I don’t see how you can be so casual about this,” Marán said. “The bastard could have killed us!”

  “After the first dozen times,” I said, “ ‘could have killed me’ is quite as satisfying as ‘never even thought about it.’ ”

  “Why didn’t you let the cavalry hunt him down?”

  “Because I’ll wager he had a hundred or so friends waiting over the first hill. Magicians don’t scratch their butts without backup.”

  “Tribune Damastes, you are far too clever,” Marán said. “Now … are you through being mad at me?”

  The inn we’d stayed at the previous night had been vile, without question. The keeper had been surly, the rooms dirty, and the food so unpalatable we’d ignored it and eaten soldiers rations with the Lancers. Marán had summoned the keeper and told him, in some detail, what a worthless swine he was, and if it were hers to say she’d have the place razed as a health hazard and him whipped for general scalawaggery. The keeper was an incompetent and an ass, but he knew if Marán had been on her own lands she could, indeed, have ordered the building torched. The Agramónte name ran farther back in Numantian history than most laws.

  Marán was behaving like an arrogant bitch, and I said so when the innkeeper had quavered away. That was foolish of me. When one is born to impossible wealth, and most of mankind exists as one’s servants or underlings, it’s not likely one will suffer fools, and besides her temper was almost as volcanic as mine.

  “I am through being mad at you, madam,” I said. “Are you through snubbing me?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Men swarmed about our coach. Shouts came, and it was tipped upright and muscled back onto the road, and a spare wheel from one of the wagons in our support train was rolled up.

  “Things appear to be well in hand,” she said. “Would the noble tribune care to join me for a walk into the woods for a bit, to stretch our legs?”

  “I would.”

  “Would the noble tribune mind departing from tradition and leave his bodyguards behind?”

  “Would madam feel safe? After all, we are in Kallio now, and we’ve already seen what people seem to think of us.”

  “You have your sword, do you not? How could I fear anyone with such a brave man beside me?”

  “Aren’t you piling it a little thick?”

  Marán giggled.

  “I was wondering how long I could keep up that nonsense before you growled.”

  She led me into the small copse beside the road. Lance Karjan started after us, and I told him to stay with the carriage. It was the height of the Time of Heat, very hot, and very still once we were away from the road, except for the scuff of our boots, the whisper of her long traveling skirt against the dry grass, and the sleepy sound of bees. Marán leaned back against a rock slab that rose diagonally.

  “I love this time,” she said. “When I sweat it’s like my body’s oiled, all over.” There was a film of perspiration on her upper lip, and she licked it away, slowly.

  “Isn’t that my task?” I said, my voice a little husky.

  “It could be.” I came close and kissed her, our tongues curling around each other. Her blouse unbuttoned like a military tunic on either side, and fell away, her breasts pointing up at me, nipple
s firm.

  She lazily moved her legs apart and pulled her dress up across her smooth thighs. She wore no underclothing. She let her head fall back against the rock, lifted her legs about the backs of my thighs.

  “Yes, Damastes. Do it to me now!”

  • • •

  When we returned to the carriage, pretending innocence and ignoring our tousled clothing, I took Karjan aside and reminded him rankers generally did not make officers happy by countermanding their orders, as he’d done with Legate Balkh.

  “Yessir. Should’ve let th’ pup ride off an’ get hisself killed, an’ a lot of better men with him. Sorry, Tribune. P’raps I’d be best takin’ off th’ rank tape an’ bein’ no more’n a horseman again, if th’ tribune wishes.”

  I swore and told him I might be a tribune but I could still take him behind the stables and be the only one to walk back, if he wanted to reduce things to that level. He looked unworried. Karjan, who served me indifferently in peace and perfectly in war — saving my life on half a dozen occasions — despised rank, whether held by others or himself, and when promoted found the nearest trouble to get him reduced to the ranks again. I’d made him a lance-major seven times, and demoted him eight.

  But I counted him part of my luck, part of the trappings I had as first tribune. Some called me Damastes the Fair, which embarrassed me, although I admit I liked to dress colorfully and sometimes designed my own uniforms. They also knew me by my bodyguard, the Red Lancers, tough men who’d seen combat on the frontiers before volunteering for my service. Their horses’ saddles and bridles were trimmed in red, as were their boots and helmets. Their lances were enameled red and, sorcerously, their armor was given a scarlet tinge, and their reputation in battle fit the name as well.

  I also had the Seventeenth Ureyan Lancers, which I’d always think of as “mine,” for they were my first assignment as a legate. The emperor had grumbled when I told him I wanted the Seventeenth withdrawn from the frontier, but the task he was giving me was so difficult I could’ve had anything and anyone I wished.

  I’d asked Marán to come not only because we’d spent far too much of our marriage apart, but for her redoubtable social skills. I hoped I’d be able to keep Kallio calm enough for her to have a chance to use them.

  When the emperor and I had raised the monstrous demon that destroyed Chardin Sher and his dark magician, Mikael Yanthlus, that ended the revolt. Everyone knew it was over — everyone but the Kallians.

  Again and again they rose against the just rule of the emperor, sometimes in organized manner, sometimes in mere mobs. Worse, every man seemed to think he was his own rebel leader. Kallians had always had the reputation of thinking themselves superior to other Numantians, but they’d also been known for their respect for the law, sometimes overly so. No more.

  It mattered little whether their imperially appointed governor was a tyrant or a weakling, whether he ruled by reason, law, the sword or caprice, or if he was an outsider or a native Kallian. The moment he suggested Kallio owed obedience to the emperor in Nicias … the killing began once more.

  The cities had to be garrisoned by Numantian troops, the roads patrolled by cavalry, and a dispatch rider had to be escorted unless he wished to be found in a ditch with a second, red smile across his throat. Even civilian travelers or merchants who had no part in this feud of governments would be killed or held for ransom if they chanced the Kallian highways.

  Four times ago, the emperor had named his brother, Reufern, as prince regent for Kallio, in the hopes that the province would have some respect for the name of Tenedos and settle down.

  It hadn’t worked, and now I was going to Kallio as military governor, with orders from the emperor to ensure his brother did not fail like the others and make the name of Tenedos laughable.

  Tenedos’s brother was older than Laish Tenedos and looked quite unlike him. He was tall where the emperor was stocky, slender where the seer was always struggling with a small potbelly, and handsome in a long-faced sort of way. The emperor’s face had been round, boyishly good-looking when I first met him, but the strain of his office was already aging him, and he now appeared to carry more than the five years he had on me.

  But the biggest difference was the eyes. The emperor’s eyes caught and held you, blazing power and intensity. Reufern’s eyes were pale, washed out, and shifted uneasily when you met them directly.

  Marán and I had met Reufern on three or four court occasions, and had no more than polite conversations with him. If he had not carried the Tenedos name, I’m sure I would have forgotten him and whatever we talked about by the next morning.

  This was the “leader” whose reputation I was to save.

  But I was used to being the emperor’s fireman, and never knowing much rest.

  Eleven years ago, I had been a twenty-year-old legate in disgrace on the far frontier.

  Three years later, I was first tribune, the highest-ranking officer in the army, and I stood in the greatest church in Nicias, Numantia’s capital, and named Laish Tenedos as emperor of all Numantia, putting a strong, wise man on the throne and ending the incompetent vagaries of the Rule of Ten.

  So why hadn’t we found peace? Why, instead of being a cavalry commander in some dull garrison somewhere, or guarding my country’s frontiers against the hill tribesmen, had I spent eight years dashing about the kingdom, ending food riots here, chasing bandits there, quelling peasant uprisings in a third and fourth place, ending a regimental revolt … I would have a hard time listing all of the places I’d ridden into, proclaiming I was “on the service of the emperor,” and ordering instant obedience or face the cold steel of the soldiers behind me.

  I’d seen the scorched land and ravaged civilians the marching songs don’t dwell on, and had my own scars. Without realizing it, I touched the spot in my ribs where the sorcerously driven arrow had gone in, still tender after two years. That was but the visible sign of an utter nightmare, when I’d been sent, with three regiments, to subdue what was called a minor uprising in our farthest western state of Khoh, led by some village hag with a few spells. But she’d turned out to be a full-fledged sorceress, able to hold men’s souls in their bodies after they’d been deathly wounded, and make them fight on.

  Her ghastly minions had shattered my two regiments. I’d been carried from the field by one of my Red Lancers, treated by a village witch, and then tossed feverishly in a recovery tent for weeks, hearing the close creaking of the Wheel.

  But I’d recovered, gone back with a dozen regiments, and she and her monsters had all died.

  Still, there was a scar not just on my body, but on my soul, from that, and from other close-fought battles from one end of my country to the other.

  Numantia should have been at peace, but was not. I wondered, then shrugged. Such thinking was beyond me.

  Would that I had forced the thought, forced myself to ponder. Perhaps I could have changed things.

  Perhaps I could have prevented the doom that was coming fast upon me, and all of Numantia.

  TWO

  DEATH TO THE EMPEROR!

  It was a golden summer evening when we entered Polycittara. The city is quite old, and justly famed for being picturesque. Many centuries ago it was some fierce war lord’s solitary castle, built of heavy stone atop a great mountain to stand against now-forgotten enemies. The castle was built larger and larger and then, with peaceful times, became a town and then a city, and sprawled down to the river and plain.

  We’d stopped for a few minutes behind the last hilltop to brush off the worst of the travel dust to make a proper entrance.

  We needn’t have bothered. The gates swung open as we approached — Domina Bikaner had sent riders ahead. But, ominously, there was no cheering crowd. In fact, there was no crowd whatsoever. There was a small army band, tootling away as hard as they could. They were Numantian, as were the guards and a handful of civil servants, and they shouted greetings that echoed against the stone walls.

  Nevertheless, we ma
de our grand entrance — and then the splendor came to a rather embarrassing end as a regiment of cavalry, seven hundred horsemen, the two hundred men of the Red Lancers, plus some fifty carriages and wagons, my staff plus our household servants, tried to fit down one street.

  I heard Karjan’s voice from atop the coach, where he rode: “Goin’ out of a city’s like birdshit comin’ out of a bird. Now we’re attemptin’ to put th’ shit back in.”

  Marán and I laughed, and then everything ground to a complete halt. Officers bellowed orders, warrants screamed threats, and enlisted men muttered in their beards. I pulled on my plumed helm as I opened the coach door. The postilion whose keenness had saved us earlier dismounted, no doubt eager to further improve his reward, and hurried toward me.

  I heard a scream of “Death to the emperor!” from above, and a huge chunk of rock, nearly the size of my chest, pinwheeled down from the roof of a house. I didn’t have time to duck, but the boulder missed by inches — and crushed the postilion. The boy’s head and chest were smashed, and he returned to the Wheel without ever knowing what happened.

  “Get him!” I shouted, pointing up. Four Red Lancers jumped from their saddles and clattered up the house’s steps, but Karjan had already leapt down and was at the door. He put his back against the railing and smashed a boot heel against the door, and it fell open. Saber snaking out of its sheath, he ran inside, the others behind him.

  Captain Lasta was beside me. “I saw him, sir, after you shouted. He ran across the roof and jumped to the next building. Almost fell but recovered, damn his eyes. Young, black hair cut short. He was wearing light blue pants, tight, kind of dirty, and a white shirt. I’ll know him when next we meet.”

  I nodded, knelt over the postilion’s body, and whispered a silent prayer for Saionji to grant him the reward in his next life I had been unable to grant in this.

  There was a scuffle and Karjan and the Red Lancers came out of the house, pushing an old man and two middle-aged women.

  “This was all we found,” Karjan said. “We missed th’ shitheel. Stairs t’ th’ roof were blocked an’ th’ door was nailed shut. Took us forever t’ break through.”