Michael Stackpole - Chartomancy

The Lady of Jet and Jade’s eyes sharpened. “If I told you that I made love with Prince Jarus Turcol on this spot, and was willing to have him because he was a prince, you would be driven to take the throne and have me here and many other places. You are not satisfied with your life, so you seek victories that are foolish and petty.”

The westron raised an eyebrow. “Am I that transparent, my lady?”

“Prince Jarus Turcol was. It’s in your blood.”

Turcol’s expression hardened. “And would I have to be a prince to enjoy your company?”

“It would be a step.”

Cyron laughed and stepped forward. “My lord, you don’t see her joking often, do you?”

“She was serious, Highness. And she was right.” Turcol planted two fingers in his mouth and whistled aloud. A dozen men and women emerged from the forest depths. Half of them carried bows with arrows fitted to them already. The others had clubs, save for two with swords. They spread out in a semicircle, with two of the archers mounting the stone slab.

Cyron stared hard at Turcol. “You will explain this, please.”

“Only because you have been so gracious in explaining your confidence in me, Highness.” Turcol rested his hands on his saddle-horn and leaned forward. “You’ve ruined our nation and left it open to threats from both north and south. You have beggared and humiliated the western counties. We now face a military crisis, and you are ill suited to deal with it. Were you any sort of warrior at all, you’d be out here with more than just a dagger.”

The Prince nodded. “And so you hired these bandits. You will explain how you fought them valiantly and while you were able to drive them off, it was not before we were slain, all three of us.”

“Not three; two.” He looked down at the Lady of Jet and Jade. “I will have you here and wherever else I desire. Unless, of course, you want to die.”

She shook her head and stepped away from Cyron. “Not for a long time. Forgive me, Highness.”

Cyron shook his head. “Nothing to forgive, my lady.” He looked up at Turcol. “You know it will have to be a convincing act. You can’t come away from it unscathed. Perhaps there, in your right shoulder, an arrow. Not life-threatening, but serious enough to convince many of your effort. My doctor, Geselkir, will take care of it.”

Turcol snorted. “Perhaps you’re right, Highness, but that’s a detail I can work out later.”

“Another thing a prince cannot do, Turcol, procrastinate.” Cyron pointed up at the westron. “His right shoulder. Shoot him now.”

The archer above the Prince drew and loosed in one easy motion. The black barbed arrow pierced Turcol’s shoulder and darkness began to seep into his midnight-blue robe. He looked from his shoulder to the archer and back again.

Turcol bit back any cry of pain, clenched his teeth, then looked up at the archers. “You idiots! I give the orders. Shoot him!”

Bows twanged in unison. Down the hill, the quartet of attendants fell, each stuck through the chest with an arrow.

Turcol blinked and slumped in his saddle. “This is not happening. This is not how it was planned.”

“Not how you planned it, Turcol.” Cyron shook his head. “Had you not made your approaches to Grand Minister Vniel quite so obvious, my Lord of Shadows would not have discovered what you were up to. Hiring assassins in Moriande was a second mistake. That is my realm, and loyalties to me run high.”

“Loyalties to you?” Turcol shook his head with disbelief. “They are assassins.”

“So they are. And I pay well each year to make certain they do not act against me. Surely you did not believe you were the first noble to think of killing me?”

The count started to answer, then closed his mouth. Moving slowly, he dismounted, then sank to his knees. “In the spirit of the day, the spirit of this place and tradition, I ask for mercy.”

Prince Eiran laughed aloud. “Are you insane? You’ve committed treason and you want mercy?”

Cyron held up a hand. “Just a moment, Prince Eiran. I am not deaf to your appeal, Count Turcol. In the spirit of this place, you wish what my grandfather gave his predecessor? Is this it? Nothing less will satisfy you?”

“That’s what I want, my lord.”

“I can grant you that.” Cyron folded his arms over his chest. “The legend is true. My grandfather spared his predecessor’s life; but his predecessor was much like you. Bold, brash, ambitious. He was a man who did not know when he was beaten. He planned, even as you do now, of returning to power and returning his dynasty to the throne.

“And he was like you in one other regard. He had no children.”

Turcol nodded, puzzled.

“My grandfather didn’t kill him, he gelded him. Then he sent him to live in a monastery on the coast of the Dark Sea. So, I’ll give you what you say you desire.”

Turcol’s shoulders sagged with resignation, then he launched himself at the Prince. He reached his feet in a heartbeat and drew his dagger in the next. As he raised it, two arrows narrowly missed him. Fury burning in his grey eyes, he rushed forward.

And might have reached Cyron, save for the Lady of Jet and Jade, who stuck a foot out and tripped him. Turcol went down heavily, the arrow’s shaft breaking. Eiran delivered a sharp kick to the man’s head, and he remained down.

Cyron bowed deeply to the concubine, then to the Helosundian Prince. “You are both yet more dear to me for saving my life.”

They returned the bows, but said nothing.

Cyron turned to the nearest swordsman and gave him the slightest shake of his head. In commanding his master assassin to supplant those Turcol had hired, he also asked that Eiran and the Lady of Jet and Jade be left free to act. He’d informed neither of them of what would happen, and in the unlikely event either proved a coconspirator, they would have died as Turcol had.

The Prince pulled back the left sleeve of his robe. “We will tell everyone what Turcol intended to say. Bandits found us out here and sought to rob us, not realizing who we were. Turcol and his men fought them valiantly, driving them off, but not before the count and his men died of their wounds.

“Eiran, because the count so graciously made you his cocommander, you will lead the Helosundian Dragons north and watch over them. Tell them we think the bandits were truly Desei assassins who intended to kill Turcol, so much does Pyrust fear him and his men on the border. That will put steel in their spines.”

Eiran bowed his head. “As you will it, Highness.”

The Lady of Jet and Jade regarded him openly. “Orders for me, Highness?”

“Yes. Please avert your eyes.” Cyron waited until she had turned away, then nodded to his Lord of Shadows and lifted his bared arm. The assassin drew a dagger and held it high.

Cyron sighed and nodded. “It has to be believable, our story, and so it shall be.”

The blade fell.

14th day, Month of the Dragon, Year of the Rat

10th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th year since the Cataclysm

Quunkun, Kelewan (The Illustrated City)

Erumvirine

Though our number was pared severely in that first encounter with what we came to call the kwajiin-their blue skin having made that name inescapable-we reached Kelewan without much further incident. Probes did still arrive, and we fought them back, but the invasion moved at a steadier pace. And as we traveled west, more refugees joined us and the breadth of the invasion became clear.

Ranai had seen it begin at Derros-or, rather, had seen one of the beginnings. Towns and villages along the Green River had been hit, as well as locations as far north as the Central Mountains. All the reports talked of total slaughter, which was what Dunos had seen. The general lack of refugees on the roads confirmed that few had escaped the invaders.