Now Markham did have the grace to flush, just a little bit. So I twisted the knife. It’s what I do. “While I was doing his duty. . defending the Civility of the Battleground. .”
It was more than moderately gratifying to watch color rise through the face of that supercilious Lipkan asscob all the way to the roots of his crewcut.
“A direct order-my duty is to the-”
“Everybody’s got. . a fucking excuse. .” Adrenaline sang in my ears. I didn’t know the words but I could sure as hell hum the goddamn tune. “You abandoned your people to danger. . you swore an oath to Khryl H’mself. . the word’s recreant, yeah? You ambushed me. . without warning or Challenge-makes you, ah-craven-”
The red in Markham’s face had gone white around the eyes. He wheeled on Khlaylock. “My Lord Justiciar-this abuse, my Lord-”
His niece’s jaw had looked like it could split logs; his could crack rocks. “You need not suffer it.”
“He seeks only to cheat the carnifex.”
“It is never wise,” Purthin Khlaylock murmured mordantly around that rock-breaker jaw, “to assume that one knows this man’s intention.”
He didn’t actually lift a gauntlet to the ruin of his empty eye socket, but I’ll bet my nuts he was thinking about it.
Markham aimed that Lipkan nose toward my face like a blade at garde, then waved a mailed hand as he turned away. “I see no reason to allow a personal affair of honor to interfere with the course of justice.”
“Personal. .?” I forced out. “I’m an Armed Motherfucking Combatant. .”
Markham went still. So did Khlaylock.
“ ’S your fucking Law. .”
“It is Khryl’s Law,” Mount Khlaylock rumbled above me, “and you would do well to mind your-”
“Yeah. . sure. Whatever.” My shrug made my head hurt worse, which helped me grin and kept the haze at bay for a few seconds so my mouth could work. “I did not Yield, and I was not defeated in Combat. Markham, Lord Tarkanen, is no true Knight, but is a whatthefuck-a recreant craven ambusher and common criminal, yeah-and I call upon Khryl and His Justiciar to Witness the truth of my charge. I swear by your God and His Law, I am by right a free man.”
This looks on the page a lot more impressive than it sounded drooling out of the smashed-up mouth of a middle-aged blood- and puke-smeared naked guy with stripcuffed wrists and ankles who was hanging from the grips of a pair of homicidal supercops in high-tech body armor, but it worked.
Markham stared like I’d invited him to bend over and lube his asshole. Rababal-Faller-dropped his face into one hand with an English “Ohhh, for Christ’s God damn sake.” The soapies tilted their mirrors at each other, then pointed them back at Khlaylock.
“Legality is moot,” one said. “Administrator Michaelson is our prisoner now.”
“No.” If the stone tablets on which God carved the Ten Commandents could talk, they would have sounded a lot like Khlaylock’s voice did then. “Khryl is Lord of Justice. If Our Lord affirms his charge, this man is free. It is the Law.”
He faced Markham. “Lord Tarkanen, will you Answer?”
Markham looked appalled. “My Lord, he is but grade six-hardly more than an armsman-and his injury. . I misdoubt he can so much as stand-”
“If the Lord refuses my Challenge, I’ll do more than stand.” I tried to sound like I believed it. “I’ll walk right the fuck out of here, and it’s your goddamn duty to make sure I-”
“Do not presume to instruct me on Khryl’s Law.” Khlaylock’s stare never wavered from Markham. Maybe he didn’t want to dirty his eyes with the image of my face. Deliberate as the planet’s turn, and as relentless, he said, “Will you Answer?”
Markham sighed. “My Lord, I will.”
Khlaylock lowered his head. “So let it be. I will Witness.”
“You were here-you’ll tell them, you have to tell them-” Rababal was babbling at the soapies, who were again pointing the mirror-masks of those helmets at each other. “He was alive when I delivered him to you-this is not my fault-”
“And he will be alive when we deliver him to Social Court,” Soapy One said.
“That remains to be seen.” Khlaylock paused at Markham’s side and set his gauntlet across the top curve of the Lord Righteous’s pauldron. “Markham-entertain no assumptions, and cherish no confidence of victory. He would not make such Challenge had he no stratagem to defeat you.”
This was true, but hardly sporting of him to bring up right then.
Markham’s bleak grey stare settled on my presumably short future. “My Lord, your words are heard.”
“Nor depend upon Our Lord, even with truth on your side. This man uses the Law only to serve his ends. He knows nothing of honor.”
This, on the other hand, was a damn lie; I know plenty about honor. It just happens to be a luxury I can’t fucking afford.
He had good enough reason to dislike and distrust me. Twenty-five years ago, when he was still the Knight Captain commanding the Khryllian garrison at North Rahndhing, just outside the southeastern fringe of the Boedecken, and I was nearing the end of the Adventure that was making me a star, we had a minor disagreement about the tactical approach we should take in dealing with the remnants of the Black Knife Nation. This disagreement became a dispute, which I settled in a less-than-strictly-honorable fashion-because in a straight fight he would have killed me before I could blink-and our working relationship ended with me leaving him for dead in the hands of the surviving Black Knives.
Regardless that it turned out pretty well for him in the end, I admit this was a rotten thing to do. I was a very bad man in those days. I’m not much of a good man now.
Which is not an excuse.
I’m not trying to rationalize anything, or even to explain anything. Actions justify themselves, or they don’t. Words can’t make them right or wrong. Dad used to say, “If you need to justify something, you shouldn’t have done it.” Like I said when I started this: it’s about what happened. Not why.
So this is what happened.
I met Purthin Khlaylock at the end of the actual retreat part of Retreat from the Boedecken. By my best count-because I don’t make a habit of reviewing my old Adventures, especially that one-it was thirty-four days, give or take, after I destroyed the Tear of Panchasell and unleashed the Caineway.
I still can’t remember how many people were in Rababal’s original expedition-thirty-nine or forty, something like that. Ten of us got out of Hell alive.
Not counting Rababal himself. But let that go.
The cook, Nollo, supposedly of Mallantrin; his lover, also supposedly of Mallantrin, Jashe, the guy everybody called the Otter; three “brothers” from Hrothnant, Tarpin, Matrin, and Karthran; a pair of surly “Jheledi” bondsmen, Kynndall and Wralltagg; and Marade and Tizarre.
And me.
By the time we made contact with the Khryllian outpost at North Rahndhing, there was Marade and Tizarre, and there was me.
It was the best month of my life.
In a straight ride-with water and spare horses-it was seven days from Hell to North Rahndhing. In friarpace-a semimagickal meditative form of running I’d trained in at Garthan Hold-I could have made it alone in five, if I’d been in top form. About as fast as a healthy ogrillo warrior, again assuming I could find water along the way.
But if we’d gone straight anywhere, they would have run us down and killed us ugly.
It’s hard to say how many Black Knives died when I unleashed the river, because nobody I’ve talked to really knows how many there were to start with. Some estimates say there were as few as seven thousand in the clan. Some put the number closer to fifteen thousand or even eighteen thousand. I can tell you this, though: those who survived that night were not the old, or the very young, or the weak, or the slow.