Caine Black Knife

“No-no you can’t-can’t send me back. . can’t give me to them. . please-”

I already have. Officers? Time is short. If you’ll bring him this way, please.“

Stop, goddammit. . stop-”

Hanging from the wire-laced gloves of the Social Police, hands stripcuffed behind me, ankles bound together with the same wire-reinforced plastic, naked, retching, unable to stand, unable to see, I still somehow snarled myself an internal sword of sunfire to cut through the fog inside my head and burn it away. No matter how broken I am, somehow I can always get pissed enough to kill somebody.

Because, y’know, I’ve never been the type to go gentle into that et cetera.

The room snapped into focus. It looked like the hideout of a half-successful caravan raider. Expensive furniture that didn’t match, delicately carved where it wasn’t notched and starting to splinter, upholstered in beautiful leathers and crushed velvets and brocades that couldn’t hide the stains and wear of careless overuse. The rug that filled the whole room had once been fine as anything I’d put in the Abbey, my San Francisco mansion back when I was a star, but now it bore a grey-brown smear of ground-in wear track between the door and the overlarge, overcarved big-dick I’m The Boss desk in overstained cherry. And there were wall hangings and shit that framed silver hookstands holding blackened glass lamps, but the silver was tarnished and the tapestries smudged with lampblack and the walls they hung on were cheap whitewashed plaster tracked with blue-grey mildew. The whole place looked impermanent, half-abandoned already, like this Faller guy had boosted the best of Duke Kithin’s furnishings before he’d left Thorncleft, then had just stashed the shit in some shack so he could piss on it like a bear before leaving it behind.

In that raider’s cave of a room-besides me and the Social Police and Markham Lord Situational Fucking Ethics and the middle sixties-looking guy who was Rababal’s ghost or twin brother or identical goddamn cousin or whateverthefuck that I didn’t care about right then because he was a problem for another time-stood a magnificent man in magnificent armor, the kind of Radiant Mantle of Kingship sonofabitch that doesn’t really exist outside of stories and songs; you know, Arthur, Charlemagne, Frederick Barbarossa, Richard Cour de Lion, all those blood- drunk thugs with good enough press agents to somehow end up heroes to way too many gullible losers.

Not unlike me, I guess. But let that go.

The armor was chrome steel, curves and angles of mirror that gleamed like dawn’s own rhodos goddamn dactylos in the lamplight. The guy inside was your basic snow-topped mountain of Biblical Patriarch, but in the blossom of mature strength-y’know, like that white brow and beard salted his face only to give the calm certainty in his eye a translucent shimmer of Revealed Truth.

When I say eye, by the way, that’s literal.

Half his face had that carved-from-God’s-Own-Granite agelessly rugged beauty that well befits said legendary king. The other half, well. .

His left eye socket was a crumpled ruin of empty scar above a deep ragged dent that once had been nobly jutting cheekbone; it looked a lot like some vicious ghetto punk had, about twenty-five years ago, say, sneak- punched him with his own morningstar.

This appearance was not, as smart people might have guessed already, coincidental.

With all the mental and physical clarity my internal sunblade could bring me, I managed to gasp, “I was never his prisoner. .”

“All that matters,” the soapy on my left said in very credible Westerling, “is that you’re our prisoner now,” and he and his partner kept on hauling me toward where Rababal’s ghost twin cousin was holding the door for us until six foot nine of chrome steel and Biblical Patriarch moved into our way with the reluctantly majestic unstoppability of an entire glacier cracking free of a mountainside to slide into an arctic sea.

The Social Police, wisely, stopped. So did I, perforce.

Purthin, Lord Khlaylock, Justiciar Impeccable of the Order of the Knights of Khryl, turned that Revealed Truth glare on Markham, Lord Tarkanen, Lord Righteous in service to the Champion of Khryl. “Is this truth?”

Markham didn’t so much as blink, let alone flush. “I was tasked by My Lord Justiciar to deliver this man without fail,” he said simply. “I did not fail.”

“Ambushed me. .” I slurred. “Abducted. . while I w’s tryin’ t’ save people. .”

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.”