Bring all you find there here, as many alive as possible.”
Ahankk saluted as he ran out: obedience counted before courtesy in Temuchin’s horde.
Temuchin paced back and forth in a vile temper, and the officers and men withdrew silently, from the camach or back against its walls. Only Jason stood firm, even when the angry man stopped and shook his large fist just under Jason’s nose.
“Why do I allow you to do this?” he said with cold fury. “Why?”
“May I answer?” Jason asked quietly.
“Speak!” Temuchin roared, hanging over him like a falling mountain.
“I left Temuchin’s presence because it was the only way I coulcr be sure that justice would be done. What enabled me to do this is a fact I have concealed from you.”
Temuchin did not speak, though his eyes blazed with anger.
“Jongleurs know no tribe and wear no totem. This is the way it should be, for they go from tribe to tribe and should bear no allegiance. But I must tell you that I was born in the Pyrran tribe. They made me leave and that is why I became a jongleur.”
Temuchin would not ask the obvious question and Jason did not allow the expectant silence to become too long.
“I had to leave because, this is very hard to say, compared to the other Pyrrans… I was so weak and cowardly.”
Temuchin swayed slightly and his face suffused with blood. He bent and his mouth opened, and he roared with laughter. Still laughing, he went to his throne and dropped into it. None of the watchers knew what to make of this; therefore they were silent. Jason allowed himself the slightest smile but said nothing. Temuchin waved over the servant with a leathern blackjack of achadh, which he drained at a single swallow. The laughing died away to a chuckle, then to silence. He was his cold, controlled self once more.
“I enjoyed that,” he said. “I find very little to laugh at. I think you are intelligent, perhaps too intelligent for your own good, and you may someday have to die for that. Now you will tell me about your Pyrrans.”
“We live in the mountain valleys to the north and rarely go down to the plains.” Jason had been working on this cover story since he had first joined the nomads; now was the time to put it to the Pest. ‘We believe in the nile of might, but also the rule of law. Therefore we seldom leave our valleys and we kill anyone who trespasses. We are the Pyrrans of the eagle totem, which is our strength, so that even one of our women can kill a plains warrior with her hands. We have heard that Temuchin is bringing law to the plains, so I was sent to find out if this were true. If it is true, the Pyrrans will join Temuchin—”
They both looked up at the sudden interruption, Temuchin because there were shouts and commands as a group of inoropes reined up outside the camach, Jason because a weak voice had very clearly said “Jason” inside his head. He could not tell whether it was Meta or Grif.
Ahankk and his warriors came in through the entrance, half carrying, half pushing their prisoners. One wounded man, drenched with blood, and his unharmed companion, Jason recognized as two of the nomads from Shanin’s tribe. Meta and Grif were brought in and dropped onto the ground, bloody, battered and unmoving. Grif opened his one uninjured eye and said “Jason…,” then slumped unconscious again. Jason. started forward, then had enough self-control to halt, clenching his fists until his nails dug deep into his palms.
“Report,” Temuchin ordered. Ahankk stepped forward.
“We did as you ordered, Temuchin. Rode fast to this tribe and the one Shanin took us to a camach. We entered and fought. None escaped, but we had to kill to subdue them. Two have been captured. The slaves breathe so I think they are alive.”
Temuchin rubbed his jaw in obvious thought. Jason took a long chance and spoke.
“Do I have Temuchin’s permission to ask a question?”
Temuchin gave him a long, hard look, then nodded agreement.
“What is the penalty for rebellion and private vengeance in your horde?”
“Death. Is there any other punishment?”
“Then I would like to answer a question that you asked earlier. You wanted to know what Pyrrans are like. I am the weakest of all the Pyrrans. I would like to kill the unwounded prisoner, with one hand, with a dagger alone, with one stroke, no matter how he is armed. Even with a sword. He looks to be a good warrior.”
“He does,” Temuchin said, looking at the big, burly man who was almost a head taller than Jason. “I think that will be a very good idea.”
“Tie my hand,” Jason ordered the nearest guard, placing his left arm behind his back. The prisoner was going to die in any case, and if his
death could be put to a good use, that would probably be more than the man had contributed to any decent cause in his entire lifetime. Being a hypocrite, Jason? a tiny inner voice asked, and he did not answer because there was a great deal of truth in the charge. At one time he had disliked death and violence and sought to evade it. Now he appeared to be actively seeking it.
Then he looked at Meta, unconscious and curled in pain upon the ground, and his knife whispered from its sheath. A demonstration of unusual fighting ability would interest Temuchin. And that ignorant barbarian with the hint of a smug smile badly needed killing.
Or he would be killed himself if he hadn’t planted the suggestion strongly enough. If they gave that brute a spear or a club, he would easily butcher Jason in a few minutes.
Jason did not change expression when the soldiers released the man and Ahankk handed him his own long two-handed officer’s sword. Good old Ahankk: it sometimes helped to make an enemy. The man still remembered the thumb, twisting and was getting his own back. Jason slapped his broad, bladed knife against his side and let it hang straight down. It was an unusual knife that he had forged and tempered himself, after an ancient design called the “bowie.” It was as broad as his hand, with one edge sharpened the length of the blade, the other for less than half. It could cut up or down and could stab, and it weighed more than two kilos. And it was made of the best tool steel.
The man with the sword shouted once and swung the sword high, running forward. One blow would do it, a swing with all of his weight behind it that no knife could possibly stop. Jason stood as calmly as he could and waited.
Only when the sword was swinging down did he move, stepping forward with his right foot and bracing his legs. He swung the knife up, with his arm held straight and his elbow locked, then took the force of the blow full on the edge of his knife. The strength of the swing almost knocked the knife from his hand and drove him to his knees. But there was a brittle clang as the mild steel struck the toolsteel edge, all of the impact coming suddenly on this small area, and the sword snapped in two.
Jason had the barest glimpse of the shocked expression on his face as the man’s arms swung down, his hands still locked tightly about the hilt that supported the merest stub of a blade. The force of the blow had knocked Jason’s arm down and he moved with the motion, letting the knife swing down and around, and up.
The point tore through the leather clothing and struck the man iow in the abdomen, penetrating to the hilt. Bracing himself, Jason jerked upward with all his strength, cutting a deep and hideous wound through the man’s internal organs until the blade grated against the clavicle in his chest. He held the knife there as the man’s eyeballs rolled back into his head and Jason knew thet he was dead.
Jason pulled the knife out and stepped back. The corpse slid to the floor at his feet.
“I will see that knife,” Temuchin said.
“We have very good iron in our valley,” Jason told him, bending to wipe the knife on the dead man’s clothing. “It makes good steel.” He flipped the knife in the air, catching it by the tip, and extended the hilt to Temuchin, who examined it for a moment, then called to the soldiers.
“Hold the wounded one’s neck out,” he said.
The man struggled for a moment, then sank into the apathy of one already dead. Two soldiers held him while a third clutched his long hair with both hands and pulled him forward, face downward, with his dirt-lined neck bare and straight. Temuchin walked over, balancing the knife in his hand, then raised it straight over his head.
With a single galvanic thrust of his muscles, he swung the knife down against the neck and a meaty chunnk filled the silent cainach.
The tension released, the soldier moved back a step, the severed head swinging from his fingers. The blood- spurting body was unceremoniously dropped to the ground.
