Demon King Read online

  “We’ll take them, soldier,” someone shouted. Ten men, oddly wearing the uniform of Nician wardens, ran up. Then I remembered the warders of Polycittara had refused their duties, and so the imperial government had to import patrols from the capital.

  The wardens wore helmets and breastplates and carried pikes, daggers, and heavy truncheons, more like riot soldiers than upholders of the law. The man who’d shouted wore the emblem of a sergeant and waved a sword about.

  “Glad to be rid of ‘em,” one of the Red Lancers said.

  “We saw what happened, sir,” the sergeant said to me. “We’ll enforce th’ law without wastin’ any of your time. Over against that wall’s a good a place as any.”

  Three wardens muscled the trio against the bricks. The others took bottles of a colorless fluid from belt pouches and went into the house.

  The old man moaned and one of the women screamed for mercy.

  “You’ll go first, bitch,” the sergeant said. “By th’ authority vested in me,” he muttered perfunctorily, and drew back his sword.

  “Sergeant!” My barracks-square bellow froze him. “What in Isa’s bloody name are you doing?”

  “Like I said, sir. Enforcin’ th’ law. Th’ prince regent’s orders’re quite clear. Anyone attackin’ a Numantian or a representative of the imperial government’s guilty of crimes against th’ state, and there’s only one penalty.”

  “Sorry, Sergeant,” I said. “But those three had nothing to do with what happened. The man that tried to kill me came and went over the rooftops.”

  “Doesn’t matter, sir. My orders are clear. Aidin’ or abettin’ an attack’s equally guilty, and their lives and property are forfeit. Soon as we execute these bastards we burn the house. I’ve already sent a man for the fire brigade, make sure the blaze don’t spread, although it’d matter none to me if the whole gods-damned city burnt. Those are orders direct from the prince regent.”

  I hesitated. Orders were orders, and it was certainly not the brightest way to begin a new posting by breaking one of your leader’s commands. But something begun wrong seldom rights itself. And what kind of peace was Reufern trying to keep? That of the grave? Marán was waiting to see what I’d do.

  “Sergeant, I understand your orders. But I’m Tribune Damastes á Cimabue, Kallio’s new military governor, and your superior-to-be. I’m countermanding that order to you right now, and I’ll rescind it for the entire province before the morrow. You may release those three and return to your duties. Their home will go unburnt.”

  He hesitated, then his jaw firmed. “Sorry, Tribune. But, like you said, orders’re orders. Stand aside, sir.”

  Again he readied his sword, and the woman, whose face had begun to show hope, whimpered.

  “Curti!”

  “Sir!”

  “If that warden moves one muscle, shoot him dead!” “Sir!”

  “Captain Lasta, send a squad in after those policemen and bring them out. By force, if necessary.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  The warden looked at Curti. The archer’s bow was drawn to his ear, the four-cross warhead aimed steady at the policeman’s throat. There was a small grin on Curti’s face. They both wear uniforms and enforce the state’s wishes, but there’s no love wasted between policemen and the army. Perhaps being on different sides in too many drunken brawls is the reason, or perhaps most soldiers feel the police are little but poseurs at danger, and actually pass their days in cozy taprooms, inveigling the proprietors into letting them drink on the cuff.

  The sergeant’s fingers opened, his sword clattered to the street, and he flushed scarlet. I walked forward, picked the blade up, and slipped it into the man’s sheath.

  “Now, as I said, go about your duties.”

  He began to salute, caught himself, spun on his heel, and pushed his way through the watching soldiery. His men trailed behind him, pointedly not looking at anyone.

  I heard a bit of laughter, broken off as men realized there was still a body sprawled in the street, a boy not many weeks off a farm who’d been pointlessly murdered by a cowardly dog.

  “We’ll bury him with the honors due a Red Lancer,” Captain Lasta said. He unstrapped his cloak from behind his saddle and spread it over the corpse.

  I got back in the coach and closed the door.

  “This is not good,” Marán said.

  “No,” I agreed. “Now, let’s continue on to the castle and find out how much worse things can get.”

  • • •

  “Did the sergeant of police inform you that those were my direct, personal orders?” The prince regent’s voice quivered a bit, but he was trying to remain calm. There was no one but the two of us in the small private audience chamber off the main throne room.

  “He did, my lord.”

  “But you still countermanded them.”

  “I did, sir. May I explain?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Sir, I’m to be your military governor. As such, I’ll be responsible for enforcing the law. I know the emperor wants Kallio to return to normal as quickly as possible.”

  “As do we all,” Reufern Tenedos said.

  “If the law in Kallio is entirely different than that of the rest of Numantia, except on certain very special occasions, how can normal times ever come? We might as well be an occupying army.”

  “There are those who say we are that now,” the regent said. He heaved a sigh, then forced a chuckle. It rang falsely. “I suppose I should find it amusing.”

  “What, my lord?”

  “Well, here you are, Damastes the cavalryman. Damastes the Fair, I’ve heard you called. Hero of a thousand battles, the emperor’s finest soldier.”

  “I doubt that, sir. I can name a thousand better, and point out a thousand more whose names I’ve never learned but whose feats I’m familiar with. But what makes you find that funny?”

  “Today there were two attempts on your life, both nearly succeeding, and you manage to maintain a peaceful air. Perhaps it should be Damastes the Kind, and you should serve a gentler god than the war god Isa, as a priest.” There was no humor in his voice, but rather bitterness.

  I said nothing, but remained at attention. He looked out a window into the huge courtyard where the Seventeenth Lancers and my Red Lancers were drawn up, awaiting his review. Then he looked back at me.

  “Damastes, for so I wish to call you since I hope our service will be combined with the warmest of friendships, perhaps you’re right. I’m assuming, though, that what happened was unique and you don’t plan on questioning all my commands.”

  “I don’t plan on questioning any of your commands, sir, not ever,” I said firmly. “You rule at the wishes of the Emperor Tenedos, and I have sworn a blood oath to him. My family’s pride and honor is that we have never broken our word or vow.”

  “Very good.” Once more, he sighed, something I learned was characteristic whenever a situation grew too complex, which happened frequently. “Let us forget about it.

  “Now, I’m most eager to renew my acquaintanceship with your lovely wife, the countess. Shall we return to the main room, then descend into the courtyard so I may welcome your rather impressive soldiery?”

  I bowed, and we left the chamber.

  “How was my brother when you last saw him?” the prince inquired.

  “Healthy. Well. Working too hard.” I didn’t tell him how concerned Tenedos was about his brother’s inability to quiet Kallio.

  “He’s always been like that. And my sisters?”

  I sought for exactly the right words, for they were also quite busy. Dalny and Leh, ten and twelve years younger than the emperor, seemed determined to ensure that the city of Nicias spent more time talking about them than about any other member of the family, including the emperor. They’d achieved this in a series of outrageous liaisons, from handsome young army officers to distinguished noblemen to diplomats both Nician and from the outer provinces. A goodly number of their lovers were married. It was hoped
by half of the noblewomen of Nicias, Marán told me, that the sisters would soon marry, and cease poaching, although no one could wish on her worst enemy a bride like either of them would likely be.

  “I don’t have many dealings with them,” I said truthfully. “But my wife tells me they’ve been quite successful helping others reach the ends they desire.”

  Reufern gave me a sharp look, and I realized I’d come a little close with my jape. He was, after all, a Tenedos, and couldn’t be entirely dull-witted.

  • • •

  The castle atop Polycittara was enormous. But even the huge staff Prince Reufern had brought with him from Nicias hadn’t been able to fill it. The Kallian administrators had vanished or, if tracked down, refused to return to their duties.

  I thought, considering the way we non-Kallians were hated, the prince would have had trouble finding servitors, but the buildings swarmed with smiling hirelings eager to do the bidding of the humblest Nician. I shrugged, guessed there was little other work to be found, and forgot about the matter.

  The prince told me to find quarters where I would, and it took Domina Bikaner, Marán, and myself most of the day to find an appropriate spot. It was a separate division of the castle that jutted out from the main complex on a rocky outcropping. It was a six-story polygonal keep, connected to the main buildings by a thick-walled spur. This spur had barracks built into its walls, which made it perfect for my Red Lancers and the Seventeenth Lancers. There was even a separate gate between the main castle and “my” section, which I had manned by sentries. I separated us in this way because I wished all Kallio to remember that they were governed by the prince and the Emperor Tenedos, and my soldiers and myself were only here temporarily, as outsiders, ensuring the laws of Numantia were obeyed.

  Marán’s and my chambers were gorgeous, with huge many-paned windows that looked over the city, the river winding toward the horizon, and the distant plateau that led toward Kallio’s eastern border. The stone walls were warmed with thick tapestries and each room had its own fireplace and an attendant to keep the fire blazing on a dank day.

  And, if nothing else, this keep was infinitely defensible. I had no wish to test my life on whether the old superstition about third attempts being successful was true.

  • • •

  Beyond the servants and the Nicians, there was a scattering of Kallian gentry in the castle, some of the oldest and most respectable names in the province.

  Their noblest member was Landgrave Molise Amboina, every inch a grandee. He was tall, slender, and his silver mane matched his exactly curled beard. His mind and wit were keen, and he had the rare gift of paying exact attention to whoever was speaking. Marán wondered whether he was actually listening, or busy composing his next line of brilliant dialogue. He’d been widowed recently, for the second time, with a son and young daughter who spent most of their time at the Amboinas’ country estate of Lanvirn.

  Disbelieving in perfection, I determined to watch him closely, especially after I found that Prince Reufern trusted him completely and confided in him far more than I thought wise, although he appeared an absolutely loyal subject of the emperor’s.

  • • •

  Our biggest problem was that Kallio was lawless. I don’t mean that it was anarchic. It was worse. Prince Reufern ruled by caprice. One day a man accused of a crime might be sentenced to death, on the next another accused of the same offense would be let off with a reprimand, or a third would have all his property confiscated and himself sold into slavery.

  I asked the prince how he determined the guilt or innocence of someone hailed before him, and he announced that he had a way of sensing honesty, of knowing whether he was dealing with a villain or an honest man. “An innocent man has a way about him that’s easy to see, Damastes. I can sense truth in a man. Just watch what I do, and perhaps you can learn it as well.” There was no proper reply to be made to that, so I withdrew.

  I came to the conclusion that if law, an evenhanded merciful law, ruled Kallio, peace might return. And there was something I could do to bring this about. I proposed to use the army. The idea of soldiers being anything other than the bloody-handed enforcer of a tyrant’s will sparks disbelieving laughter, with some justification.

  Armies are hardly to be considered peace-bringers. Isa, god of war, is correctly a manifestation of Saionji the Destroyer. But armies, and soldiers, are very strange beasts. They can be impossibly ruthless, leaving a countryside in smoking ruin and the only landmarks the piled skulls of its people, but they can also be absolute purveyors of justice.

  Many of us become soldiers because we wish to live in a world where there is right and there is wrong, with not much between them, and the military obligingly gives us a set of absolutes to live by. Soldiers are mostly young, and there’s no greater thirster for absolute right than the young. Only with age does subtlety and the wisdom of respecting other ways of thinking and behaving come.

  Give a soldier laws, tell him to enforce them equally, watch him closely so he doesn’t become corrupted by his authority … well, that may not be a perfect system, but it’ll be as good as most, and far better than some I’ve experienced. It certainly couldn’t be worse than what passed for law in Kallio.

  I already had the legal grounds to do almost anything I wanted, under the martial law that had been proclaimed.

  On the frontiers of Numantia we already used roving tribunals, soldiers who went from village to village hearing complaints and settling them on the spot, or, in the event of serious crimes, taking the accused, accusers, and witnesses to a proper court, where wizards could determine the truth. The members of these tribunals were above the local corruptions and attempted to give the best judgments possible. I’d gotten some of my first — and best — training as a leader riding out on these justice patrols.

  I had somewhat more than seven hundred men, six troops, and a headquarters element in the Seventeenth. Each troop was divided into four numbered columns. Bikaner, his troop commanders, and I considered each section leader of the Seventeenth. We ended with fifteen legates or warrants we felt could be trusted to provide drumhead justice — more than I’d expected. These fifteen leaders were given a two-day intensive training session in the law by my staff.

  When all was in readiness, I offered my plan, of course as a suggestion, to Prince Reufern. He thought it capital, and hoped it actually might slow those damned rebels down a bit if they saw a Numantian soldier wherever they turned. He also hoped any traitor would be swiftly dealt with by my soldiery. I said that while my teams would be primarily concerned with enforcing the law, they would have no authority to punish capital offenses, such as rape, murder — and treason. Anyone accused of these sins would be brought back to Polycittara, to face high justice from either the prince or myself. He muttered that “it didn’t take more than a ranker’s judgment to know when a damned Kallian needed hanging,” but looked away as he said it and didn’t countermand my instructions. I almost sighed aloud in relief — having an eighteen-year-old soldier arbitrarily saber someone accused of cursing the emperor would hardly bring peace.

  The next morning, at dawn, the heralds rode out. In each village and hamlet they shouted the people together and announced there would be a magistrate’s forum within a week. All those with crimes to report, complaints of injustice done, disputes to be settled, were advised to be present. Broadsides were tacked to trees or glued to walls, and the heralds rode on to the next settlement.

  But the Kallians also had their plans.

  • • •

  The first Ureyan Lancer to die was a new recruit who, we guessed later, had seen a young woman wink. A word, a quick promise, and he slipped away. We found him in an alley, stripped naked and mutilated. The Lancers growled threats, but they’d seen worse in the Hills, so I had no fear of murder gangs.

  Three days after that, a patrol was nearly ambushed. It was the fault of the legate in charge — he’d fallen into the comfortable sloppiness of taking the same rou
te back as he went out on. Fortunately his lance-major felt something untoward and was able to rein in just short of the killing zone. The Kallians were taking our measure.

  Some action had to be taken. I could have done as my predecessors and ordered some hapless district to be cordoned off and any male whose looks I disliked cast into prison. But we were trying to end this nonsense, not prolong it.

  The violence might have been anarchic, but there had to be areas, people, the disorders were centered around, just as a wildfire has hot spots that must be first stamped out. But I didn’t know who or where they were. The intelligence provided by Prince Reufern’s wardens and agents was useless.

  As for sorcery, which most people think can know all and tell more, that, too, was nearly worthless. Prince Reufern had been given one of Nicias’s more gifted seers, a cheery, bustling middle-aged man named Edwy. I asked what results he’d had from his magic, and he admitted to nearly none. Astonished, I asked why, and he awkwardly explained that his spells hadn’t been “taking” here. Perhaps he hadn’t as yet determined the proper methods or ingredients, although he said he saw no reason magic that worked well in Nicias wouldn’t do the same in Kallio.

  I set my own seer, an ambitious woman from Varan named Devra Sinait to work, although I wasn’t sure what to expect of her, since she’d only been with me for a short time.

  My previous magician had been fairly competent, and I’d grown use to his grumbling ways over the past five years. But old Maringnam had miscalled what would face me in Khoh, saying a mere witch couldn’t be that much of a problem. It had been fortunate — for him — that he’d died in the wild flight before that “witch’s” half-men.

  It’d been Marán who suggested I might consider a woman for his replacement, saying, dryly, that a woman might fool a man, but not another woman, at least not often.

  Sinait had been the fourth to interview, and I saw no reason to talk to another magicker. Sinait had been a buyer for one of Nicias’s most successful milliners, somehow able not only to purchase no more than the quantities needed for a year, but also to anticipate what the rich and vagaried of the capital would find stylish. She’d never considered sorcery, until Tenedos’s reign brought a fresh wind to the field, and someone suggested that anyone who could predict what foolish nobility would like should be able to predict anything — or make something desired come to occur.