David Drake: Reformer

Swing. Swing. Throw .

His hand moved in blank obedience to Center's direction, fingers releasing the thong when the red dot blinked. The firebomb— molotov —arched out with a steady, inevitable trajectory. He could hear it shatter against the breastplate of the officer in the launch, and hear the man's scream as the flames took him even more clearly. Luck — Adrian's, not the man's in the launch — pitched him forward into the arms of his men, to spatter fire among them, lighting hair and tunics and the wood of the craft with impartial ferocity.

"Row, gods condemn you!" Adrian roared to Simun and his nephew.

The towers had seen what was happening, and worse, where he was going. He felt at the burlap sack; three more molotovs . Arrows fell around them, and more stuck quivering in the wood of the skiff. One passed by his ear, close enough for the feathers to sting; two inches left, and the last sound he ever would have heard would have been that one crunching into his brain.

Shock of impact; the prow of the boat was level with the railing of the sunken rock-filled merchant ship. The wood was splintery under his hands as he vaulted aboard, the deck wet and unstable underneath his feet. Two ships down, a party from the tower was clambering towards him, shields up and assegais out. Their faces were red with the light of the burning camp; he must be a black outline to them, a figure out of darkness and night.

"Behind you!" he screamed at them. "Your tower's burning too, you velipad fuckers!"

Swing. Swing. Throw .

The molotov whipped out, not at the soldiers but at the wooden fortress behind them. Heads followed it, and saw where it left a streak of red fire on the wood.

Swing. Swing. Throw . A sharp pain in his leg, above the knee, and the limb threatened to buckle. The pain was distant, and he ignored it. Ignored the weakness, forcing the muscle rigid. Swing. Swing. Throw . A last crackle against the wood of the tower.

One of the troopers clambering towards him bawled in panic and threw away his shield, leaping into the sea; not quite total madness, since he hadn't had time to don his mail shirt. He struck out for the other side of the harbor with a clumsy threshing stroke. As if that had been the first rock of an avalanche, men began to throw themselves out of the tower into the water.

Adrian felt a great tension drain, and his strength along with it. The leg gave under him, and he found himself somehow seated on the deck, staring without belief at the black-fletched arrow through the fleshy part of his thigh. Then the pain struck, and he bit his lip to hold back a moan.

Simun was bending over him. "Not serious, sir. Head's right through, clean. Here, I'll break it off and pull this out—"

" Nnnghg! "

"There we go, m'lord, right as rain when I tie it up—"

"Uncle."

Simun looked up, and saw the last two Confed troopers clambering onto the prow of the merchantman. "Well, fuck me, some people don't know when they're not welcome," he said, scooping up Adrian's staff-sling. He scrabbled in his own belt pouch, came out with a lead bullet the size of a small plum, and dropped it into the cup.

Crack . The first Confed pitched backward, with an oval hole in his forehead and his eyes bulging with hydrostatic shock from the blow that had homogenized his brain.

Simun dropped the sling and drew his sword, unhooking the small buckler from his belt. "Spread out, Davad," he told his nephew.

The two Emeralds did, and the Confed began backing up — he had shield, helmet and assegai, but not his mail shirt.

"And hurry up," Simun said, moving forward, light on his feet. "We've got to get the boat over this whore of a hulk and out to where Lord Esmond's waiting for us. The commander ought to get to the surgeon, too."

THIRTEEN

"Why do I feel as if this is a noose?" Esmond muttered under his breath as he backed away from King Casull with the chain of gold and emeralds bouncing on his chest.

The mutter might have gone unheard in the screaming roar of the crowd, if Center had not been filtering Adrian's perceptions. I wish you could make the leg hurt less, he thought. To his brother: "It well might be, if we're not careful."

The King of the Isles was all benevolence as he waved from the dais on the harborfront to the crowds, spreading an arm to indicate the Gellerts. Adrian didn't miss the slight narrowing of eyes as the cheers mounted into hysterical abandon. The Gellerts were far too popular now, with the Confed fleet in ashes and all but a precautionary garrison retreating eastward. Far too popular, and far too likely to be candidates to rule Preble themselves. The populace certainly wouldn't object; the problem would be to keep them from deifying Esmond and Adrian both, and sacrificing to them. After months with the horrors of a Confed sack hanging over the city, it wasn't surprising.

Nor safe, from Casull's point of view, Adrian thought, as the sons of the Syndics of Preble — who'd vied for the honor — picked up the poles of the carrying chair, to take him to the state banquet. And I don't think he's the type to forget Tenny, either.

"In a week," he said to his brother — they were close in the sedan chair, "he'll have convinced himself we deliberately set Tenny up, so we could seize Preble ourselves and set up as kings."

Esmond's eyes narrowed. "It's what he'd have done himself," he pointed out. Adrian nodded; King Casull IV was no son of Casull III, after all — he'd started out as an ambitious general. "In fact," Esmond went on, "it's not a half-bad idea. We could cause the Confederacy no end of grief here, running things."

Adrian looked around in alarm, fast enough to draw a fresh throb of pain from his bandaged leg. It was healing so quickly as to be near miraculous in this hot climate — Center had had some hints about spirits of wine — but it was a serious wound.

"No, don't worry, little brother," Esmond said. "We couldn't get away with it — not between Casull and the Confeds. The Confeds might take us on as client-kings, but that's out of the question, of course." His smile became a little strange. "Their camp burned, but Vanbert still stands. . and Nanya's not avenged yet."

Adrian swallowed and looked away. "Well, there's an idea I've had," he said. I and my friends. "It would get us away from Chalice, which Casull would like; it'll cause the Confeds a lot of grief, which we'll both like—" though you more than me, brother, he thought sadly. Center's merciless visions left a man little of the loyalties he'd been brought up with. " — and I think it might really change things."

"As long as it's a change the Confeds hate, I'm for it," Esmond said, waving to a bevy of hareem beauties leaning out of a window and throwing dried flower petals. The sons of the Syndics were making heavy weather of the crowds on the way to the Town Hall, even with a squad of Esmond's Strikers going before them with active spear butts. "Tell me more."

* * *

"O King, live forever, your favor has been lavished on us like the Sun's light on the fields," Adrian said, gagging slightly on his own fulsomeness. It didn't sound quite so bad in Islander, but he could see why his ancestors had fought so hard in the League Wars to keep the Islanders out of the Emerald cities. "We wrack our brains for a means whereby we may repay a tenth, a thousandth of the kindness you have shown our unworthy, outland selves."

When you're dealing with an autarch, lay it on with a trowel, lad, Raj's voice said. At least, when he's got the jump on you. Part of the cost of doing business.