Blade saw two of the men look at the others and point to a wrecked table, saw four others go over and pick it up, raising it on end to act as a shield. A human battering ram with the table as its striking end! Blade looked at Tralthos and grimaced. They would have to back up the stairs. If they stayed put, they would be smashed and stunned by the coming charge.
It seemed to Blade that all the sights and sounds in the room were coming to his senses with incredible clarity-the hacked-off hand still clutching a wine cup flattened by a boot heel, the long splintery sword scar across the polished top of the table facing them, the heavy breathing of the men lifting it to the vertical. Then suddenly a gurgling scream floated down the corridor. The assassins whirled around to look behind them, dropping the table with a crash-and Blade and Tralthos charged out of the doorway.
Blade vaulted over the table into the midst of the enemy, scattering them, knocking one man clear off his feet so that Tralthos could run him through a split second later. Then he was whirling around, both sword and dagger weaving a deadly pattern, and the assassins were no longer trying to stand and fight, but scattering. Blade sprang aside from one frantic lunge, tripped over a body and went down. His emboldened opponent thrust again, missing Blade's shoulder but laying open his tunic. Blade dropped his own sword, rolled over like a log straight into the man, took his legs out from under him. Before the man could rise, Blade snatched up the leg of a chair and laid it across the back of his head. The man went limp:
Blade was conscious of Tralthos skewering one more man with contempt in every line of his thrust. Then there was a tremendous uproar in the corridor, with flaring torches and thundering boots and screams as the last of the assassins went down before a charge of the Royal Guard, a whole company coming down the corridor at a dead run. Tralthos had to stand over Blade waving the Guardsmen away, or they would have laid into him also.
Blade rose and took Tralthos' hand. The captain had redeemed himself twenty times over for the little moments of pettifoggery, with four assassins at least to his personal credit. The captain grinned, then quickly knelt down as King Pelthros appeared in the doorway, sword in hand, followed by the countess.
Not much to Blade's surprise, the lady found words for the occasion. «Your Majesty, look at this chamber. It is filled with the bodies of men who were coming to kill you-and of faithful servants who died in your defense. Now say if my reports of plots are imagination only!»
Pelthros, less nimble with his tongue, was silent for a considerable time. Then he said slowly, «It seems that some of it at least was the truth. I think it is time that I spoke to the Chancellor.»
«If you can find him, Your Majesty. He may well be fled to the camp of the Ninth Brigade, which he intended to lead into the city once you were dead or captive.»
«A whole Brigade of my army in Indhios' pay?» The King looked appalled. «This is beyond reason!»
«Perhaps beyond reason, Your Majesty,» said the countess, «but not beyond Indhios' deviousness and treason.»
«Yes, yes, I understand, I think. Now, my Lady, let me retire to my chambers and peruse these documents you have offered me. After that I will send for Indhios and ask him to explain his doings of late.»
One does not, with impunity, lose one's temper and berate a King like an erring schoolboy, but Blade felt himself on the edge of doing so. From Larina's expression he judged that she did not feel differently. But they could only bite their tongues and shrug their shoulders as the King disappeared up the stairs and shut the door firmly behind him.
Tralthos looked at Blade. «Gods above deliver us from our King's lust for justice above everything else,» he groaned. «While he sits like a clerk in his chambers, Indhios may even now-«
«Of course,» said Blade. «But we need not join the King in sitting idly. Captain, could you take a few of these men and go to Indhios' apartments? He will not be there, but there may be some of his henchmen to be found who can be made to talk.»
Blade saw from the expressions on the Guardsmen's faces that he had struck the proper note and responded to a widespread desire for action. None of the Guardsmen shared Pelthros' scruples about going straight into action against whoever was responsible for the heaped corpses lying about this very chamber. Tralthos picked out a dozen of the toughest-looking soldiers and led them off at a noisy trot, while Blade mapped out his strategy and snapped out his orders. Actually they were only urgings rather than orders, for he had no more legal authority to command the Guard than he had possessed an hour before. But he had the far more effective authority of a man who sees what-needs to be done and has already risked his life doing some of it. His words were obeyed as readily as if they came from the King or the Commander of the Guard, and squads and sections marched away in all directions.
Some went as messengers to alert the rest of the Guard-all twenty-two companies-plus the three Brigades of the army barracked in and around High Royth, the city constabulary, and the Wardens of the Port who helped patrol the dockyards. (Blade hoped Brora had properly dealt with any trouble there but could not be sure.) Some went to patrol the corridors of the palace and keep the innocent from roaming about and the guilty from escaping by shooing everybody impartially back into their chambers. (Blade hoped the soldiers would not be too quick with their swords.) Some went to reinforce the guards on the walls to make absolutely sure that Indhios could send no one into the palace for a second attempt at storming the royal apartments. And some remained with Blade, clearing away the bodies and wreckage as much as possible, with eyes flickering constantly down the corridor in case it spewed out more surprises.
Except for Blade's orders, affairs hung in their royally decreed state of suspended animation until well after dawn. It was then that Pelthros came down from his chambers, even more red-eyed than before, with the crumpled papers under his arm, and took the countess by the hand. «My Lady, you have done the Realm and Our House a great service.» He had recovered his wits enough to have reverted to the royal «we,» and Blade felt it appropriate to bow.
«And you too, Champion Blahyd. Never in the four centuries there have been Champions for the Kings of Royth has a Champion so well earned his name.» He swept his arm around the chamber in a gesture as theatrical as anything the countess had ever used. He was obviously about to launch into another fulsome sentence when an officer of the Guard appeared, leading a party of a dozen men dressed like sailors and carrying two large brass-bound sea chests.
«From the dockyard, Your Majesty. They say-«
«Ay-y-y, Blahyd!» shouted a familiar voice from among the sailors, and Brora dashed forward and grabbed Blade by the shoulders. «I see ye've had a rare good night, aye?»
«Yes, we have.»
«As was w' us,» said Brora with a grin. «Your Majesty, there were some traitors among your officers i' the dockyard. Here they be.» He motioned the men behind him to set the chests on the floor, then strode over to them and flung open both lids.
The King gasped, the countess gave a little scream and reeled against him; even Blade found his stomach churning. Each chest held a dozen human heads, neatly or not so neatly severed, lying on blood-drenched sailcloth. It was quite a long time before anybody recovered his voice enough to thank Brora, who stood beaming at them over his handiwork. Remembering Festival and Cayla's hobbies, Blade could not find it in him to become too indignant over Brora's methods.