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“I got your message before, Sergeant,” MacKi
“Yes, sir.”
“What message?” Mary asked.
“Hal thinks I ought to stay here as king of this city rather than return to Jikar.”
“But you can’t do that! Haven is depending on you, all of Prince Samual’s World — Nathan, you wouldn’t really do that!”
But we could, she thought. We could stay. She thought of Hiaro as she’d first seen him. And the children of Batav. The Empire wouldn’t help them. Someone should. But not us! We’ve our own world to save, and even if I don’t like Haven as much as I once did, it’s my home, and this is my duty.
“Wouldn’t I? Who’s to stop me?” he asked.
She drew away from him, then began to laugh. “Why, you are, Iron Man! I suppose you really could get away with it. The Imperial Navy wouldn’t like that, but with their Archbishop on your side you’d be all right.” She spoke tauntingly now. “Go on, Your Majesty. Forget your oaths. Why don’t you take me into the nearest building and ravish me while you’re at it? Who’s to stop you? I have no protector here. No one but you.”
MacKi
They were approaching a large group, peasants, soldiers off duty, knights in mail, all gathered around a cart in the center of a public square. One mailed warrior in bright surcoat stood atop the cart, his head tilted back in song.
“Look, there’s Brett,” Nathan said. “Let’s go listen.”
Two pikemen saw MacKi
“In the public house to die, is my resolution,
Let wine to my lips be nigh, at life’s dissolution!
That will make the angels cry, with glad elocution,
’Grant this drunkard, God on high, grace and absolution!’ ”
Brett ended his song and seized a flagon of wine. As he drained it he saw MacKi
“Oh mistress mine, where are you—”
He had hardly begun when he broke off and straightened in horror. “Hal! Behind you! Guard the colonel!” Brett tore his sword from its sheath and leaped from the cart.
It all happened so fast that Mary had no time to react. A short, brown man rushed through the crowd. He brandished a heavy curved knife. A bedlam of shouting erupted, but the intruder ran in deadly silence. When a pikeman moved to intercept him the kriss flashed, lopping off the soldier’s arm at the elbow. There were more shouts, of warning and terror. The kriss swung again and again, and more of MacKi
“Haigh!” A soldier flung his javelin from somewhere behind her. The meter-and-a-half dart took the charging warrior below the chest, but the man plucked the javelin from his body and charged on, still dealing terrible blows to everyone in his path. Then there was no one but Stark between him and the colonel.
Hal had no time to draw his sword. Instead, he moved in front of Mary and MacKi
And the brown man was still coming forward, directly toward her, toward Nathan, the great curved knife held high. Nathan took his stance, his face determined but calm, no fear at all as he held the point of his sword leveled at the enemy—
And the man, impaled on the sword, still ran forward down the blade toward MacKi
“Haigh!” Brett shouted a curse similar to the assassin’s. His broadsword flashed, catching the descending wrist to cut it off. Brett lifted his weapon again and cut viciously at the head, then again. The stocky warrior slumped, his weight tearing MacKi
“Haigh!” Brett shouted again. “In time! Hal, do you live?”
“Yeah.” Stark eased himself gingerly to his feet and clutched his right shoulder with his left hand. “Man, he swings that thing hard! Caught me more with the flat than the edge, damn good thing I didn’t take off my mail after duty today … “he tested his arm. “Go
“Better that than lose the arm,” Brett said quietly.
The crowd was milling about the square, and men and women were shouting, “The colonel lives!” Brett leaped to his wagon and shouted it again. “He lives. The colonel lives!”
“Glory be to God!” Someone screamed. A Temple priest began to pray loudly.
It was only then that the reaction took her. She was still shaking when MacKi
Nathan climbed down from the cart. A near thing, he thought. As near as ever I came to buying it.
Now that it was over he’d get the shakes. It almost always happened. When there was work to do, danger only made him calmer, but when it was over … He found Mary in the crowd. She seemed calm enough, but subdued, and he took her hand.
A hastily assembled squad of pikemen escorted them back to the Temple compound. They walked in silence to MacKi
“It don’t feel broke,” Stark said. He moved his arm gingerly. “But it sure don’t feel too good, either. Could you pour me some wine, Colonel?”
“Sure.” MacKi
“A mari fanatic,” Brett said. “Sent to kill you. The juramentados are usually very high-ranking members of the clan, and they never come back alive. You should feel complimented. They think killing you is important.”
“They’re right, too,” Stark said. “Without the colonel.”
Brett nodded. “They’ll have the Temple within a year. Probably sooner.”
“Damn it, now both of you are after me,” MacKi
“Nothing you can do, Colonel,” Stark said. “You took on a job, and you wouldn’t be who you are if it was in you to throw off your duty. Still, it’s a pity. Those are good lads.”
There was a long silence. Hal broke it at last. “Maybe Brett and I, between us, could hold onto this place.”
“But-”
“You won’t be needing me to get home,” Stark said. “Not really. MacLean and Todd and Loholo can handle the ship. And there’s nothing much for me after we get back.”
Nathan still didn’t say anything.
“Damn it,” Hal said, “I don’t like splitting up any better than you do. But — Colonel, we made soldiers out of those peasants. Don’t we owe them?”
“It could be our salvation,” Brett said. “I know the maris. As you suspect, although I was not born one of them, I grew up in a mari clan, and I know them. When they hear that you are gone, they will return, and who can fight them? I ca
Stark gri
“You might have time to build a good military force,” Nathan said. “Good enough to hold the maris. But what about the politics? Sergeant—”
“Colonel, don’t order me to come with you.”
I don’t think he ever interrupted me before, MacKi
“I’ll take care of these new Wolves for you,” Stark said. “Just until you come back for us. Let’s leave it like that.”
Except we both know I’ll never get back, MacKi