Empire Of Blood

«BOARDERS AWAY! FOLLOW ME!»

There were those aboard Avenger who said afterward that Blade went onto the enemy's deck in a single leap or flew up the mast without his feet touching it. Certainly he had no memory of his feet touching anything from the moment he left Avenger's deck to the moment he landed on the enemy ship.

There were seventy or eighty eunuchs and armed sailors on the flagship's upper deck. Blade ran up to join Prince Durouman; then the two leaders leaped down from the foc'sle almost together and went to work.

The eunuchs and the sailors fought well because they were fighting for their lives, but they could not fight well enough to stand against men who were more than half berserk, who did not care about living or dying, only about killing anyone who wore Kul-Nam's colors and lifted a weapon to defend him. They did not fight at all against Blade and Prince Durouman, who strode forward shoulder to shoulder, their swords never still, carving a path through their opponents like a mowing machine through ripe wheat.

Behind the leaders Avenger's musketeers and archers crowded the foc'sle. They fired and shot, reloaded and recocked their weapons, fired and shot again. Their bullets and bolts sailed over the leaders' heads into the rear ranks of the defenders. Man by man the sailors and the eunuchs fell away; rank by rank they dissolved under the attack from front and rear together.

Blade saw a sailor in front of him hesitate, turn away, and make a dash for the ship's side. He had one leg over the bulwarks, ready to leap, when a spear suddenly drove into his back. He looked down at the sharp silver point thrusting out through his chest, coughed up a huge mass of blood, then fell back onto the deck.

Blade's eyes leaped from the fallen sailor to the red tassel on the end of the spear, and from there to the squat figure in the gilded armor standing in the cabin door at the far end of the main deck. Another spear flashed across the deck, this one aimed at Prince Durouman's face. The prince leaped to one side and took the spear in his shoulder. It drove through his armor, slamming him back up against the foremast. Before Kul-Nam could throw his last spear, Blade was charging him, hoping to strike him down before he could draw his sword.

Kul-Nam was too fast. The sword seemed to leap from its scabbard, then split the air inches from Blade's nose. The force of Kul-Nam's swing took the sword around in a great arc, biting through the seasoned wood of the railing as if it were balsa. Blade realized that Kul-Nam was wielding a sword that would go through his armor and his body too if the Emperor had room to swing it with all his strength. The Emperor did.

Blade knew he had to close in to live. He drew his short sword and the commando knife. Then he charged again.

Kul-Nam drove Blade back three times, scraping the point of his sword across Blade's armor twice, slashing his cheek the third time. Then Kul-Nam's own lust to kill overcame him at last, and he tried to close.

His sword flashed in from Blade's left, and Blade's short sword met it. The two weapons came together with a terrible clang and Kul-Nam's sword bit halfway through Blade's. For a moment the Emperor's weapon was locked and immobilized.

Blade didn't dare move his sword. That would have risked snapping it off and freeing Kul-Nam's sword. Instead he held his left arm steady and pivoted on his left foot. His booted right foot crashed into Kul-Nam's face. The Emperor's brute strength kept him on his feet, but he was not seeing too clearly. Blade let go of his short sword and pivoted again. His left hand closed on the Emperor's pigtail where it hung out from under his helmet and jerked hard. Then Blade's right hand struck, thrusting the commando knife up under Kul-Nam's jaw into the Emperor's brain. Kul-Nam died on his feet, his eyes staring into Blade's as the life went out of them.

Blade pulled his knife free and let Kul-Nam's body fall to the deck with a thud. Then he turned. Prince Durouman was leaning against the foremast, his face twisted as he slowly worked the spear out of his shoulder. Finally it came free. He threw it to the deck and his eyes shifted to Blade-and to Kul-Nam sprawled at Blade's feet. His breath went out of him in a great sigh. For a moment it seemed that he would fall to the deck.

Somehow Prince Durouman found the strength to stay on his feet. It was Blade who went down onto the deck-down on one knee, the commando knife raised, wanting to shout with triumph. Instead he was silent as he gave Prince Durouman the salute due the Emperor of Saram.

Chapter 27

Kul-Nam was not the last man in the two fleets to die. It took a while to hoist Prince Durouman's standard to the flagship's masthead. It took a while after that for every one to see it and realize what it meant. It took an even longer time to convince everyone aboard the ships of Saram that they could surrender safely. Most expected to have their throats cut or be pitched overboard the moment they laid down their arms.

No one gave such promises to the Corps of Eunuchs. It would have been a waste of breath, and anyone who even suggested it would probably have been heaved overboard, along with most of the corps. Like Avenger's former slavemasters, they were no great loss. They had been Kul-Nam's personal terror weapon, and now that Kul-Nam was dead there was nothing for them to do except follow their master.

There was another man whom Blade and Prince Durouman would cheerfully have dealt with in the same way-the treacherous commandant of Parine. He had not only told Kul-Nam of the princess's moves against him, thus provoking the attack. He had also revealed all the secrets and weaknesses of Parine's fortifications, thus helping to make the attack a success.

Emass was frank about what should be done with the commandant. «We should take him back to Parine and there torture him to death the same way Princess Tarassa died.»

Blade shook his head. «As much as I want his blood, I don't want it that way. There should be no more torture or painful executions under Prince-ah, Emperor-Durouman rule. That will make a great and welcome contrast with Kul-Nam.» They would not have understood his suggesting that torture was wrong-it was that sort of Dimension.

In any case, the question turned out to be meaningless. They discovered that the commandant had fallen in the attack on Parine, along with nearly five thousand more of Kul-Nam's men. He had made the attack on Parine a success, but he had not made it easy, nor had he lived to collect his hoped-for reward of becoming Prince of Parine. Along with the five thousand men had gone twenty galleys, five sailing ships, and nearly half of Kul-Nam's store of ammunition.

Two large groups of men who had spent most of the day trying to kill each other did not become sworn comrades overnight. But everyone was too exhausted and too relieved that Kul-Nam was dead to bear anyone any ill will. By morning everyone had slept enough to realize that a new and perhaps better time for all of them was dawning with the new day. The battered fleets set sail for Garis with everyone in much better spirits.

The voyage to Garis took three days. The arrival of the combined fleets and the news they brought first stu

The only thing that marred the procession was the number of bodies that littered the streets and road-Kul-Nam's informers or officials, his police or merely those who had supported him too loudly in the past and hadn't turned their colors fast enough. Durouman didn't much care for the sight.