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Then Blade froze. Coming out of the guardhouse was the guard who had gone off to get the duty officer. Behind him followed a fast-striding, erect figure, with an entirely too familiar scarred face.
Descares.
Blade instinctively stepped away from the wall and dropped into fighting stance, one hand near the hilt of his sword. The motion drew Descares' eye. He turned, then also froze.
«Blade!» he roared.
«Gursun! To me!» Blade thundered, even louder. The big Nessiri spun around, drew his sword, and dashed toward Blade. At the same time the slaves pushing the breakfast cart broke into a run, panicked by the sudden shouts. They dashed across the courtyard, forcing Descares to jump aside.
Blade shouted to Gursun again. «Quick! Grab that cart!» Gursun made a furious lunge, knocked two of the slaves aside, and grabbed the handles of the cart. Blade broke away from the stu
«Quick! Which way to Duke Pardes' apartment?»
«T-t-throoo t'gate and t'ird door t'left, m-m-m-master. D-don't kill-«
«Hang on and we won't!» Blade nodded to Gursun and the two big men shoved hard on the cart. It went rumbling across the courtyard, heading straight for the gate.
Descares was screaming, «Guards! Guards! Assassins! Stop them! Stop-!» as he leaped wildly aside again to keep from being flattened on the tiles of the courtyard. Blade and Gursun ducked as one of the gate guards threw a spear. It struck one of the silver dishes and knocked the lid off, sending a roasted chicken tumbling to the ground. Then the massive cart crashed into the i
The two men headed to the right and began to run, feet crunching on the gravel walks of the garden, vaulting bushes, zig-zagging like foxes with the hounds after them. Blade wasn't sure they would be able to make it to cover in time, but kept on ru
Then a massive figure loomed out of the shadows under the gallery ahead. Pardes wore a white robe, and walked slowly and carefully, using his massive club now as a walking stick. His appearance drew another yell from Descares.
«Lord! Assassins! Hide yourself!» He raised his arm and hurled one of his spears. But his targets were moving too fast and his aim was too uncertain. The spear came nowhere near either Blade or Gursun. It soared through the air and instead cracked into a marble pillar beside Pardes, only a foot above his head.
Pardes jumped a foot into the air and let out a bellow of fury that echoed around the courtyard. «I thought you were against me, Descares! Now I know! Guards, seize Descares for treason! NOW!»
Descares stopped as if he had run into a brick wall, and the other guards did the same. But Pardes' roar paralyzed them so thoroughly they couldn't move to obey his orders. Descares screamed hysterically, ran a few feet toward Pardes, and threw his other spear. No one could doubt that this one was aimed straight at Pardes.
But it never reached him. As it whistled across the grass, suddenly Gursun was there in its path. Perhaps the Nessiri intended to catch it in mid-air. Instead it drove into his stomach, so hard that the point drove out through his back. It gleamed in the sunlight, wet with Gursun's blood.
For a moment, it seemed that everyone was totally paralyzed. Pardes stood, mouth and eyes open with surprise and rage. Gursun stood, the spear jutting out of him, shock glazing his expression. Blade stood, eyes focusing on Descares. The soldiers just stood, completely at a loss for what to do.
Then movement began again. Gursun gave a choked cry and fell with a thud to the ground, his face twisted in pain. Pardes moved forward, looking as formidable as a charging elephant. Descares' eyes flickered wildly about him as he looked for some place to run or hide. He was still looking when Blade walked up to him and put both hands around his throat.
After that there was quite a long time when Blade didn't know what was going on. The first thing he knew clearly was Pardes' voice sounding behind him as he pounded Descares' head on the ground.
«Blade?»
Blade looked at the bloody thing Descares had become, wiped his hands on the grass, and stood up.
«Yes, sir?»
«Perhaps you would tell me how you-let us say, how you managed to rise from the dead. And also other things.» He turned and led Blade toward the privacy of his own rooms.
Chapter 23
Pardes read the message and listened to Blade in silence. After that he was quite willing to forgive Blade for disrupting his breakfast, breaking down his gate, and strewing his garden with bodies. He would have liked to hear more details, but Blade cut him off.
«Sir, I will talk more later. But for now there is Gursun. Without him I would not be here. He is certainly dying, and I can at least give him the comfort of my being there, if nothing else.» Pardes nodded and Blade hurried away.
Blade arrived while Gursun was still conscious. He had refused any drugs because he wanted to be awake to talk to Blade. His face was ashy and his lip bled where he had bitten it because of the pain. He gripped Blade's outstretched hand so hard that Blade thought the fingers would snap. «Blade-your promise-for the Nessiri slaves-remember-remember.»
Then the doctors scurried around, to fill Gursun with drugs so that he could at least die peacefully. Three hours later he was gone, and after that Blade was able to give Pardes a more detailed version of his recent adventures. He also gave him Gursun's request.
Pardes leaned back in his massive chair of state and threw the last chicken bone from his second breakfast into a silver basin, washed his hands with scented water, and sat up.
«Iscaros and Amadora will not live more hours than there are fingers on this hand,» he said, raising his left hand. «Those who wish to complain of this haste and immoderation can complain afterward. I am sure that Sores will not be among them, in any case.»
«I doubt it,» said Blade.
«It is because of you and Gursun that this will be so. It is because of Gursun that I will live to carry it out.» He sipped at spiced wine. «If he had lived, I should perhaps have rewarded him, and him alone. But he no longer lives to be rewarded. I would not wish to leave his memory with no proper monument, so I think I shall do as he asked. The estates of Iscaros and Amadora are both large, and all of this will be forfeit to the Coral Throne. I think there will be enough gold to purchase with ease the freedom of all the Nessiri slaves and still leave some for the Imperial treasury.»
«Not to mention some for you,» said Blade. Exhaustion and bitterness made him careless in his choice of words.
«You think that?» said Pardes, quietly.
«I do. I have seen much in Karan, and liked very little of it.»
«It does not matter now whether or not you were right then,» said Pardes. «But I say to you now that you are wrong. For the moment the intrigues of Karan are a thing of the past. We must stand together to save the Empire from the Scadori.»
«Yes, I suppose you can afford to think that way, now that you are on top,» said Blade.
Pardes shrugged. «Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I would not be so willing for there to be peace if my foremost enemies were not defeated and doomed. I do not know, and I doubt if even the gods do. But it does not matter. What does matter is that I see as clearly as you do that this is a moment of deadly danger. I see as clearly as you do that we must fight the Scadori, not each other. I swear to you that your comrade Gursun died not to give me power, but for the safety of Karan and all who live in it. I will swear this in any temple, by any god that you care to name. I will swear it, because there must be trust between us if we are to do our best for Karan.»