Piers Anthony - Steppe

"You couldn't have done it when Hun was in his prime!" Alp muttered wrathfully. Uigur was of the Turk family, with Hunnic blood in his ancestry...

Chapter 8

PARTS AND PLAYERS

But there was not time enough to view the rest of the Game history; the huge center cluster of the galaxy was upon the fleet, and Hun's descendant Uigur had to deal directly with Han's descendant T'ang. The horses had to slow way down to maneuver deviously along established channels between the myriads of stars and clusters and nebulae. These were the lowlands, with a hundred Chinese planets for every Uigur planet and population to match.

They landed at the Emperor's city-planet of Changan. Its Game-surface was a fertile riverside marsh given over to extensive rice and millet culture. Stolid, bent-over peasants worked the fields, and their junks floated in the wide river. There was hardly decent footing for a horse.

Alp felt stifled here in this unnatural congestion. But he knew that his nomad impulse to burn all the buildings and plow the fields into fallow pasture was mistaken. There was, unfortunately, much to be said in favor of civilization.

The architecture was awesome to a born Uigur. Inside the palace were elegant hangings and extremely realistic murals. Uga was less impressed than Alp, perhaps because outside the Game Uga was accustomed to the opulence of twenty-fourth century existence.

The Emperor was too busy at the moment to see them.

Every Minute of the Game was six hours historically. Four Minutes was a full twenty-four hour day. Half an Hour was about a week. The Uigur envoys had traversed a major section of the galaxy to call on this derivative of fat Han—who was now entertaining himself by making the nomads wait. Alp showed no more emotion than the others did, but he seethed.

A full Hour passed, and another commenced.

The Uigurs were vastly outnumbered here, and by protocol had no weapons inside the palace. They had to wait the Emperor's pleasure.

After a full historical month, Uga talked as privately as was possible with his lieutenants. "It's a studied insult," he said. "How should we best react?"

"We must wait," Pei-li counseled. "We dare not return without an answer for the Khagan."

"The only answer the Khagan wants is news of Uga's death," Alp said. "We know he will get no T'ang bride. Why should we tolerate this lowlander insolence? There is nothing to be lost by a little judicious violence."

Pei-li, no coward, shook his head negatively. "On honest open plains I would fire an arrow up the Emperor's fat posterior. Here in his home-city it would be disastrous to try it. Our corpses would not even be honored."

Spoken like a genuine Uigur! Alp thought, liking the gruff noble better. Of course the matter of proper burial was academic; there were no literal corpses in the Game.

Still, his own time was running out. Alp had to achieve a good position within ten Days or lose his advantage and probably his life. He could not afford to sit idle far from the sources of Steppe power while that precious time expired. "Neither of you will die on this tour," he reminded them. "With no legitimate mission to accomplish and no risk—"

"I do not care to gamble the fortune of my part on the word of a recruit player," Pei-li said shortly.

Uga spoke quickly, preventing Alp's response. "Ko-lo's counsel is tempting—but if we survived we should not know whether it was the result of Game predetermination or sheer luck. If we die, no one would care. So we shall let discretion guide us and wait."

So they waited. After the third Hour they went out to look at the city—and discovered T'ang troops surrounding their horses and men.

Uga's jaw tightened. "Do they think mere Chinese could hold us if we choose to leave?" he snorted. But he made no overt issue of the matter.

More time passed. When the palace attendants became openly insolent, Uga finally had enough. "Inform the Emperor we shall see him now," he said, walking toward the throne room.

Guards appeared, swords drawn. Alp and Pei-li, unarmed, moved as one man to flank the chief on right and left and shield him with their bodies. Uga forged straight ahead, pushing through the archway leading to the throne room.

Weapons flashed. This was the pretext the palace guards had been waiting for: a technically aggressive move against the Emperor. Alp, on the right, leaped right, his boot sweeping up to catch the wrist of the attacking guard and kick free the descending sword. Pei-li, on the left, blocked the left-hand guard with a length of wood he seemed to have smuggled in, disarming the man similarly. Suddenly the two Uigurs were armed!

Uga, true to his diplomatic mission, left his own hands open. He pushed through the archway.

Now a dozen more guards converged, blades lifted. But Uga marched on as if oblivious to danger. Alp and Pei-li turned to face the men behind, but had to keep pace with their chief by marching backward.

Two T'ang guards charged. Alp, now defending leftward because of his backwards position, had to parry awkwardly from his right. His sword met that of his attacker—and blue sparks crackled where the two blades came together. Alp yanked his own back, and the band of light re-formed. This was an uncommon variety of swordplay, and he didn't like it! Was it impossible to parry a stroke?

But Pei-li was showing how it was done. When a Chinese sword came at him, he rotated his own so that the flat of it made contact—and the other sword bounced off, its light-edge momentarily disrupted. Then Pei-li struck—and though the light sliced through the guard without visible effect, the man toppled, stunned.

Three more guards charged. This became ticklish, because while two were being fended off, the third could strike Uga down from behind. Alp turned his sword sidewise and put all his force into a sweep that knocked his man's weapon into that of the center man, fouling the thrust of each in a shower of sparks. Pei-li, meanwhile overcoming his own man, then sliced across both guards engaging Alp and dropped them to the floor.

Pei-li might be gruff of speech and sharp of suspicion, but he could indeed fight—and that was the important thing. The man's technique was distinct from Alp's, but by no means inferior. Not all Galactics were decadent!

Still Uga marched on. paying no attention.

With five of their number out of the Game, the remaining guards were more respectful of nomad prowess. They followed closely but for the moment did not attack. Alp appreciated the guards' tactical problem: on a one-to-one basis the Uigurs were supreme; but when the Chinese ganged up they crowded each other and became vulnerable in another way. Yet they had to protect the Emperor—or suffer consequences perhaps less pleasant than elimination by sword.

They were still in an anteroom of this capacious palace. Uga parted the heavy curtains shrouding the entrance to the throne room proper and stepped boldly through as Alp and Pei-li waged another defensive action against the furious lunge of four more guards.

The vast room was empty. The throne was bare.

"Not even here!" Uga said, disgusted. "Probably carousing with young boys in some other decadent city. Bastard never intended to see us!"

"Might as well go home," Alp said, glad the scheme had been exposed, so that no more time would be wasted.

"Not without a damned princess!" Uga said.

Pei-li shook his shaggy head. "I agree with Ko-lo. The Emperor will not give us a princess—especially not after this mischief in his palace. We have dispatched eight—"

"Nine," Alp said, running another through.

"Who said anything about giving? " Uga demanded, cheerfully grim. "Are we not Uigurs? The Chinese exist only to provide spoils for the sons of the Turk!"