The Warlord's Domain Page 5

  It was Etzel who closed his eyes and screamed, but only very briefly and in a small, lost voice before the thing that had been Voord's hand reached out and pulled his face off.

  Woydach Etzel, erstwhile Grand Warlord of the Drusalan Empire and would-be maker of emperors, was grateful for the shock that stopped his heart an instant later and permitted him to die…

  When Voord's nausea had faded, all that remained was the tremble of realization that his offered sacrifice had proven so acceptable that the Old Ones had used his hand to take it for themselves. "Their gifted power of deathlessness was freshly renewed in his body, the corpse of an enemy lay at his feet and the insignia of still more power glittered about that corpse's neck.

  En sh'Va't'Chaal was its formal name in the inventories of State Regalia; t'Chaal, the Jewel, so much a symbol of the Grand Warlord that it had been incorporated into the sigil and cresting of the rank. Voord stooped to fumble with the catch of Etzel's collar of office, undid the snap at last and lifted the Jewel from the puddle of blood and slime where it had lain…

  Then swore at the sudden freezing chill of the thing, stabbing through his leather glove, and all but dropped it again. Glove or no glove, had the Jewel not been crusted almost an inch thick in frozen gore it would have taken the flesh off his hand. Voord's studies had taught him about many objects which radiated such appalling cold, but none of them were things that any Imperial-race Drusalan of the Central Provinces would wear openly around his neck. Cautiously he lifted it higher, and even the slight warmth from his exhaled breath was so different in temperature from the Jewel and its bloody casing that the crust shattered and fell away in tiny splinters of crimson ice. Small wonder that it was mounted in so elaborate a framing of gold filigree and fine velvet, for no man born of woman could wear such a thing against his skin. Looking at it more closely, and glad in his heart of hearts to have something to distract him from the sights and the smells that went with violent death, Voord wondered from what mine the gem had come and how in the name of the Dark it had been mined.

  It was rectangular, and small enough to rest comfortably in the palm of his hand had he been fool enough to place it there; colorless in itself, but cored with green and a delicate cobwebbing of gold that seemed to lead out to the minute gold studs which crowded three of its edges. Voord breathed on it again, watching as the warm exhalation" in that warm room became first cold-weather mist and then a heavy downward roll of white smoke that tinkled faintly with the ice-crystals in it. Whether it was man-made or demon-made was of little consequence to Voord right now. All that mattered to him was that he was alive when he had expected to be dead, and that the confirmation of his ultimate promotion dangled from his fist.

  Securing the collar around his neck was difficult with only one usable hand—the left had retracted back into the crippled talon to which he had grown accustomed— but he managed the task at last. It was heavy, and for all the filigree and velvet he could feel the coldness of the Jewel seeping through into his flesh. Nor was the Grand Warlord's seat as comfortable as he thought it might have been, when he sat down in it and tried to relax his nerves from the jangling tensions of the past few minutes.

  And now he was Grand Warlord. He had aspired to the position for years, from the time when his first promotion had proved how one man might rise more quickly than others equally capable if he was that much more ruthless—and had the proper support. There would be no questioning of his right, not once the soldiers of the Tlakh-Woydan regiment had been thoroughly sweetened with gold. Apart from the occasions when they had themselves seen fit to take a hand, the Bodyguard had shown small interest in who—or what—carried the title of Grand Warlord. Just so long as they were accorded the respect, the privileges and the high pay they regarded as their due, the regiment had as little interest in the political machinations of those who struggled for places at the top of the heap as they would have in the squirmings of a bucketful of crabs.

  The air in the chamber stank of blood and sweat and he looked at the mess of death—shivered slightly, wondering: Was it worth all this?

  The unaccustomed self-doubt startled him. Of course it was. A little killing, something to which he was more than accustomed, and let him become the most powerful man in the Empire, stronger than Lord General Goth and his whelp of an Emperor, backed by elite military forces and by powers that no other man would dare to call upon or challenge.

  The question now was, what to do with all this newfound power… ?

  Voord looked around the room again and knew quite well what he was going to do with it, at least for the next few minutes. "Hault," he called, "get in here."

  The soldier came in at once, so quickly that Voord might have suspected him of listening outside the door— except that Hault was beyond all such suspicion since the man would have listened as a matter of course, just as Voord would have done, and had done in similar circumstances. Information gleaned from the wrangling of senior officers could prove useful in all sorts of ways to an ambitious subordinate, and if there was one characteristic shared by the men of the Secret Police on either side of the Empire's political divide, it was ambition. Whoever they claimed to serve, the foremost was always themselves.

  Hault would have been well aware that he had been sent away so that he could with perfect truth deny that he had witnessed murder done. He would have been expecting to see Etzel's body on the floor when he was summoned back, for a trooper serving with Lord-Commander Voord—or who was acquainted with any man who had—knew of the hautheisart's predeliction for dreadful violence as the final solution to almost any problem. But from the expression on his face as he rolled the corpse over—an expression fortunately shad-owed for the most part by the peak and cheek-plates of his helmet—even he had not expected a response quite so drastic as this. "At your command, sir," the soldier said in a flat voice meant to conceal what he was really thinking.

  The attempt failed; Voord knew the men who served him far too well for their collective peace of mind and now was no exception. "Call some servants, have them get this garbage out of my throne room, summon Tagen and five men and take that bloody disapproving look off your face right now."

  Hault flinched. That "my throne room" had not been lost on him. For diplomacy's sake he went through the full sequence of an Imperial parade salute and carefully changed his acknowledgment of the order from "sir" to Woydach. It seemed to Voord that the man was even more grateful to be dismissed this time than before. The notion brought a smile of sorts to the new Grand Warlord's thin lips that would have made Hault hurry even faster to get out.

  No matter what they said about me then, they'll sing a new song now. To a tune of my own choosing. Voord sat back in the uncomfortable chair, determining privately to have it replaced—or at least reupholstered— and then closed his eyes and let his mind wander far away from the here and the now.

  They were pleasant memories, perhaps the only truly innocent pleasure that he still possessed. Voord seldom indulged in reminiscence; it was a sign of softness, of weakness—and a waste of valuable time in so busy a life as he lived now. But just once in a while he deliberately let the defenses slip, to try to remember how things used to be. The trying had slowly grown more difficult over the past year, almost as if those few pleasant recollections were being rubbed off the slate of his memory. Maybe the things that he had heard said behind his back when the speakers thought him out of earshot held more accurate observation than the veiled insults or crude jests they seemed. Perhaps he was going mad after all, losing his mind a piece at a time. It had never been like this before… Before. Voord took care never to let that thought go any further.

  He had been born not far from Drakkesborg, and on clear days the lowering citadel at the heart of the city had been visible on the horizon. His father Eban had served there, first as an ordinary soldier and then, with accumulated merits and good conduct awards, as a sergeant and an officer. One of the images that still remained, one of the very few that were a
s clear as the very first time, was that of vosjh' Eban sitting in the kitchen with his parade harness on the big table in front of him, encircled by the admiring audience of his family as he clipped the paired silver bars of kortagor rank in place for the first time. And that was as high as he had gone despite all the other merit marks that he gained in the rest of his career. A short career. Of the wife and four children who had watched him apply the shiny new insignia, not one could have dreamed that in ten more months their father would be dead of the lung fever contracted during urban patrol on a particularly cold, wet night. That he was buried with the partial military honors due an officer who died as a result of duty but not active service was small comfort. Nor was the meager pension due the dependents of an officer dying in such circumstances of any real use to a widow with a growing family. Voord—third child, only son and already listed for entry in the Service—had two long years before he entered barracks to wonder what a bowl of porridge would be like if he had salt and honey and milk to stir into it, enough to taste and even some to spill. Or to eat it only when he wanted to and not because that was all his mother could afford. What was most frightening was the way his mouth forgot the flavors of other food, even that of the thick, rich oatmeal of cold winter nights, and could remember only the dismal taste of the thin gruel. The hungry time had been Voord's first step toward acquiring high military rank, regardless of arm of service or specialization, just so long as its duties did not include late-night patrols in dirty weather. And even now, nine years later, he still loathed the taste of porridge plain and unadorned…

  * * * *

  The servants who mopped blood from the tiled floor at Voord's feet and carried out the slack-limbed corpses were no strangers to the task, since Warlord Etzel and at least two of his predecessors were accustomed to order executions in the perfunctory manner of men swatting flies, and have the killing done at once where they could see it. They went about their business of swabbing and lifting and dragging with lowered eyes, taking care not to see things they were not expressly directed to see, not even noticing that one of the bodies they took away was that of Etzel. Any servant in the Warlord's citadel who noticed such things out of turn was one who was soon dragged away himself.

  Lost in his own thoughts, Voord didn't even see them; he noticed only that the floor became clean and the room cleared of all unpleasantness except for his precious books. He looked down at the fat grimoire resting now in his lap, and stroked it as another man might stroke a cat. It and the others would soon be restored to their locked cabinet, and the cabinet itself moved to the Woydach's luxurious living apartments. Soon—his fingers caressed the sleek black leather of the grimoire's cover—very soon …

  "My lord?" Hault spoke from the door, reluctant to come any closer to Voord than he had to "My lord, Kortagor Tagen is here."

  Voord favored him with a sleepy, heavy-lidded look; his lazy touching of the black book did not falter by so much as a single stroke, and he seemed to gain some sort of comfort from the contact. "Then send him in, idiot!" he said. "You should know not to keep my close friends waiting. And Hault… ?"

  "My lord?"

  "What else is on your mind?"

  The soldier said nothing, but the corner of his mouth quirked in a way that might have suggested either amused surprise or startled apprehension. Had he been standing closer Voord could have been sure, but the muscle spasm had at least confirmed as correct what he had heard in Hault's voice. Certainly it did his own reputation no harm at all…

  "Yes. Something else. I can read you as easily as this book, friend Hault." His eyes opened a little wider and fixed Hault with an interested stare. "Probably more so. What goes on that I should know about?"

  "You have a visitor, Woydach. Or rather, there's a man asking for Eldheisart Voord. I don't think anyone's corrected him so far, not until you give the word." Hault's bearded lips stretched into a kind of smile, a baring of teeth rather than anything much more humorous. "Though most of those who might tell are already wrong themselves. The news hasn't traveled yet."

  "So. Then once I'm done with Tagen, send him in alone."

  "He's alone already, lord."

  "Ah. What kind of a man is he, then, this visitor looking for me at the rank I held six months ago? Old? Young? Rich? Poor… ? Describe him."

  "Elderly, my lord—at least fifty years; comfortable, by his clothes. Comfortable, but not wealthy. He looks," said Hault disdainfully, "like a successful merchant."

  "I grow intrigued. Go on, go on, let in Kortagor Tagen to see me and then bring in your comfortable merchant— but be sure to search him first. Just in case of accidents, eh?"

  Hault gave Voord an odd look at that, not understanding such caution in a commander who had proved so graphically that he had nothing to fear from weapons. Watching him as he went through a salute before leaving the room, Voord could see the thoughts and questions chasing one another across the soldier's face. He grinned, quickly and privately, then wiped the expression from his face before anyone might see it and draw the wrong conclusion. No matter that steel could do him no permanent harm, its passage through his flesh still hurt more than he had been willing to show before witnesses, and he saw no reason to risk discomfort for the sake of such precautions as any high-ranked officer would be expected to take; and besides, the habits of the many years before the Gift were hard to break.

  Tagen and his five troopers came to heel-stamping attention just inside the doorway and gave Voord the full salute due to his rank with all the precision and cere-mony of the Bodyguard regiment to which they nominally belonged. Tagen looked much as the men and women on Voord's personal staff always did; young, broad-shouldered and handsome in Tlakh-Woydan half-armor, with the wary eyes and expressionless faces of those friends considered intimate enough to share in the secrets of Voord Ebanesj.

  He and Voord had been together since Officer-School; the younger man had recognized even then—because Voord had explained it to him—that he was in the company of a star determined to rise no matter who or what was cremated in the process. Impressed, Tagen had remained with him, surviving where others had not during a meteoric career which had been politically upward and morally downward all the way. During those chaotic years they had shared everything—food and wine and women, bed and bloodshed, advantages and enemies. Nowadays the advantages were many and the enemies few—Voord's connections with Kagh' Ernvakh had seen to that—but there were still some names remaining on the list. In such killing matters Tagen had long since abandoned the allocation of innocence or guilt. That was Voord's affair; he just followed orders… except when the matter became personal.

  "Tagen, sh'voda moy. Yar vajaal dath-Aalban'r Aldric Talvalin?" Tagen nodded. Of course he remembered. "Inak dor Drakkesborg'cha. Slijei?"

  Tagen's impassive face split in a broad grin. This was one of the personal matters. Because of Aldric Talvalin, he had been ordered to kill his very good friend Garet; Commander Voord had given the command, so he had done as he was told—but he hadn't enjoyed following his orders as much as usual. Because of Aldric Talvalin, he had been promoted only a single grade after the affair at Egisburg, instead of the three grades he had been promised; Commander Voord had been very sorry, but of course Tagen had to understand that since he had failed in his duty… Tagen understood very well. He understood that he was being made a scapegoat for the Alban and though he and Voord had made it up later— because it hadn't been Voord's personal decision to re-strict the promotion but just something which had to be done—Tagen had put Aldric Talvalin at the top of his own private list of names and faces. Work to do in his spare time, so to speak. To discover that the Alban was more than just his own concern, that Commander Voord wanted him dealt with as well, and to be told of it in the Vlechan dialect which they both shared was a delight.

  "Slij'hah, hautach! His head only, or do you wish other parts also?"

  "No! No, Tagen. Understand me clearly. All of him… and unharmed. To me, here in Drakkesborg. Via
j-chu, Slijei?"

  Tagen was disappointed, and didn't trouble to keep the emotion hidden. It had been just the same that last time in Tuenafen, when Garet was still alive. For some reason they hadn't been allowed to hurt the Alban, and Commander Voord had even kept the woman Kathur all to himself. It wasn't fair, and it wasn't like the Commander to be so selfish; after he had finished questioning or punishment, they were always given their turn. Maybe he was getting soft. Tagen glanced up at him, wondering, then looked quickly away and squashed the thought down into the back of his mind where not even the Commander could see it. Or maybe—a happier notion—he wanted the Alban here to play with him in comfort. Yes, that would be it. Commander Voord wasn't getting soft at all; he just wanted to enjoy all the luxuries he had worked so very hard to gain.

  "Yes, sir. I understand quite clearly now. But sir, if he resists—"

  "Then you overcome the resistance."

  "I know that, sir. But in Tuenafen when the action squads went out you gave us drugs to put him to sleep when we caught him."

  "Soporifics, yes, I remember that. Go on. What's the difficulty? Do you," Voord smiled thinly, "not use drugs anymore?"

  "That's not the problem, sir. You know that."

  "Then," and Voord's smile vanished as if it had never existed, "get to the point."

  "Sir, I'd rather he wasn't put to sleep this time."

  "I said unharmed, Tagen. And I meant it."

  "But sir, please, just something for him to remember Garet by… Just a few minutes, that's all I'd take."

  "We all miss Garet," said Voord wearily, his tone that of a man who had been through all the permutations of this argument before, "and there'll be plenty of time for mementos, but I gave you an order. Obey it."

  "Yes, sir." If he had dared, Tagen would have let his voice sound sullen, but he had learned through painful experience that he could not do that to Voord and expect to get away with it. Instead he did as usual, tucking away his anger with all the other thoughts and ideas that he didn't want the Commander to know about, keeping them safe until he could let them out. When that happened someone died, but there were always chances to relieve his feelings in the line of duty, and anyway the people who died were Enemies of the State—Commander Voord always made sure of that. Tagen liked the way the Commander said Enemies of the State as if they were written in big letters, because it meant that the people Tagen killed were more important than the enemies ordinary soldiers killed. He knew that because Commander Voord had explained it to him.