Miles Cameron - The Fell Sword

But it stuck in his head that Ser Raoul had died trying to bring word of whatever had happened. And they’d captured the Emperor. And the Logothete and the Spatharios had put the Guard on high alert.

He came down the last hill, and the mare, who was really quite young, began to labour, but her hooves continued to throw sparks from the streets, and the sound of his passage proceeded him, so women flattened themselves against arched buildings, and pulled their children close; men cursed him when he was far enough away not to hear.

The palace gates were closed.

The men on guard were Scholae. The Guard’s inveterate rivals in brawls; and the household cavalry of native Moreans. He didn’t know either of the men on the gate – both young Moreans with trimmed beards, aristocratic, and worried.

Nor was he entirely sure what to say.

He settled for Archaic dignity. ‘I need to see the Mayor of the Palace. Failing that, your officer,’ he said.

The two men shifted back and forth. Like most of the aristocratic scions in the Scholae they had probably never stood guard before. He leaned forward. ‘Christos Pantokrator,’ he said quietly.

The smaller one glowered at him. ‘What?’

‘It’s today’s password,’ Derkensun said. He schooled himself not to roll his eyes or give away his contempt.

The two looked at each other.

‘You do know the passwords?’ Derkensun said. He dismounted, and in the process his axe switched hands, so that the head was under his right hand and the iron-shod butt was in his left.

‘Stay back,’ said the smaller one.

‘I’ll kill both of you if you don’t give me the countersign immediately,’ Derkensun said. He couldn’t tell if they were fools or conspirators.

‘Quarter guard!’ bellowed the small man. And then, in a strained voice, ‘Help!’

The taller of the two Scholae stood his ground and levelled his short, heavy spear. He looked intelligent. He was beautifully dressed in a fine Eastern kaftan and tall leather boots over his knees, tasseled in gold. Even for a courtier, he looked magnificent.

‘Damn me,’ he said, over his spear. ‘It is the password, Guardsman. We were just put on duty – damn. It’s – Caesar something. Caesar – Imperator.’ He paused.

Derkensun relaxed his guard. ‘That’s right,’ he said.

The taller man lowered his spear. ‘I’m supposed to be getting married today,’ he said. ‘We were summoned to the palace half an hour ago.’

The smaller man exhaled. ‘By our sweet saviour, I’ll never fail to listen to the password again.’ He looked behind him. ‘Where’s the fucking quarter guard?’

Derkensun stepped forward. ‘I have no time,’ he said. ‘I give my word that it is a matter of the most urgency.’

The two men looked at each other a moment and the bridegroom nodded. ‘He has the password,’ he said.

They parted.

The bridegroom bowed. ‘I’ll escort you, Guardsman.’

Derkensun didn’t pause to argue. He trotted through the gates and down the great courtyard, lined in marble stoas that stretched a long bowshot across the flagstones of the Emperor’s Yard. It was liberally studded with statues portraying men and women who had given their lives for the Empire. Derkensun imagined Ser Raoul joining them, his cruel mouth set in marble with his drinker’s nose above it.

He’d died well. Brilliantly, in fact.

They ran along the northern stoa and entered the palace through the little-used service gate which was closed but not locked, and there was no guard.

Bridegroom shook his head. ‘We stationed a man here when the Chamberlain summoned us,’ he said.

The gate led them into the palace over the main stable block, bypassing the Outer Court, where most of the business of running the palace was transacted – shipments of food and tradesmen and so on. Derkensun knew the palace blindfolded. Literally. Part of the Nordik Guard’s training was to move about the palace with blindfolds on.

Even as he jogged across the great store room that was the upper storey of the stable block – with its hundreds of bags of grain, onions, garlic, oregano, and vats of olive oil – he tried to decide where he was going. The Mayor’s office was off the stable block. Men referred to the Mayor as the Lord of the Outer Court, and it was more than a joke. But the Mayor of the Palace was not always a friend of the Guard.

He sighed and turned at the top of the storehouse steps.

‘I’m ruining my clothes,’ Bridegroom said.

‘I don’t need you,’ Derkensun said.

‘You’re welcome, I’m sure,’ said the panting man.

Derkensun leaped the last four steps and landed on the smooth flags of the stable floor, turned right, and ran past the Emperor’s own mounts – sixteen stalls hung in purple, including two of the best warhorses in the world – and turned right again when he’d passed Bucephalus, the Emperor’s favourite. The old horse raised its head as he ran by and out into the sun. The Mayor’s office door was open and the outer office was empty, where there should have been three very busy scribes.

Far away, on the breeze that blew constantly through the main buildings of the palace, he could hear the unmistakable sound of men fighting.

Derkensun’s eyes met the Scholae trooper’s and he fleetingly considered hacking the other man down. Just to be sure. He had no doubt he could take him.

But the bridegroom’s eyes were steady and without duplicity. ‘I don’t know either,’ he said. ‘But I’m for the Emperor and I know that something’s wrong. Whatever you do, I’ll back you.’ He drew himself up. ‘Unless you’re a rebel. If you are, then let’s get this over with.’

Derkensun grinned.

‘Follow me,’ he said.

It took them two long minutes to find the fighting.

By then, almost everyone was dead.

The Porphyrogenetrix, Irene, was curled in a corner, her long robes sodden with blood. She’d taken a blow at some point and two of her women stood over her with sharp scissors in hand, facing a dozen assailants.

The Mayor was dead. So was the Chamberlain. And so was the Scholae’s quarter guard.

The princess’s last defenders – besides the two women – were an unlikely pair. A monk and a bishop, one with a staff, the other with his crozier. Derkensun took them in instantly, as well as their assailants – who looked to him like palace Ordinaries with weapons.

They had more facial scars than real palace Ordinaries, though, who were selected for good looks among other qualities.

‘For the Emperor!’ he shouted, in Archaic, and began to kill.

His axe swept back and he cut down on a shocked assassin, shearing about a third of the man’s head from the rest with an economy of effort and turning the blade in the air to cut through the shoulder of a second man as he turned. The man screamed as his right arm fell to the floor.

The Morean bishop pointed his crozier’s tip and roared, ‘In the name of God the Father!’ and white light flashed. The monk brought his staff down on a swordsman’s outstretched arms, breaking both of them.

In the far doorway, a tall man in mail raised a long sword. ‘Take them, brothers!’ he called. ‘Kill the princess and the day is ours!’

Even as he spoke a hidden crossbowman put a bolt into the bishop’s groin, and he went down screaming. The monk fell back a step and swung his staff two-handed. A swordsman tried to slip past him, and a grey-haired woman in silk plunged her long-bladed scissors into the assassin’s unprotected back.

Derkensun cut twice, forward and back, and men fell back before him.

‘Now the Guardsman,’ said the mailed man, at the other side of the room. He raised his sword. ‘And the women. Kill them all.’