Iuthagaar was burning. Mobs rioted in the streets and howled with fear and rage and the madness of catastrophe.
The remnants of Penda’s army had abandoned the town and were fleeing northward before the advancing southern rebels. They would be harried by Torric’s guerrillas, who in turn were the fragments of a force smashed by Earl Morgaar after Penda was slain by Kortan’s assassins. Morgaar himself was dead and his rebels broken by Nartheof. The earl’s own band had been riddled by corruption and greed and had fallen apart before the royalists’ counterblow.
But Nartheof was dead too, at the hands of Nornagast’s vengeful relatives. His own seizure of supreme power and attempt at reorganization had created little but confusion, which grew worse when he was gone. Now the royalists were a beaten force somewhere out in space, savagely attacked by their erstwhile allies, driven off the revolting conquered planets, and swept away before the remorselessly advancing Terrestrial fleet.
The Scothanian empire had fallen into a hundred shards, snapping at each other and trying desperately to retrieve their own with no thought for the whole. Lost in an incomprehensibly complex network of intrigue and betrayal, the great leaders fell, or pulled out of the mess and made hasty peace with Terra. War and anarchy flamed between the stars — but limited war, a petty struggle really. The resources and organization for real war and its attendant destruction just weren’t there any more.
A few guards still held the almost deserted palace, waiting for the Terrestrials to come and end the strife. There was nothing they could do but wait.
Captain Flandry stood at a window and looked over the city. He felt no great elation. Nor was he safe yet. Cerdic was loose somewhere on the planet, and Cerdic had undoubtedly guessed who was responsible.
Gunli came to the human. She was very pale. She hadn’t expected Penda’s death and it had hurt her. But there was nothing to do now but go through with the business.
“Who would have thought it?” she whispered. “Who would have dreamed we would ever come to this? That mighty Scotha would lie at the conqueror’s feet?”
“I would,” said Flandry tonelessly. “Such jerry-built empires as yours never last. Barbarians just don’t have the talent and the knowledge to run them. Being only out for plunder, they don’t really build.
“Of course, Scotha was especially susceptible to this kind of sabotage. Your much-vaunted honesty was your own undoing. By carefully avoiding any hint of dishonorable actions, you became completely ignorant of the techniques and the preventive measures. Your honor was never more than a latent ability for dishonor. All I had to do, essentially, was to point out to your key men the rewards of betrayal. If they’d been really honest, I’d have died at the first suggestion. Instead, they grabbed at the chance. So it was easy to set them against each other until no one knew whom he could trust.” He smiled humorlessly. “Not many Scothani objected to bribery or murder or treachery when it was shown to be to their advantage. I assure you, most Terrestrials would have thought further, been able to see beyond their own noses and realized the ultimate disaster it would bring.”
“Still — honor is honor, and I have lost mine and so have all my people.” Gunli looked at him with a strange light in her eyes. “Dominic, disgrace can only be wiped out in blood.”
He felt a sudden tightening of his nerves and muscles, an awareness of something deadly rising before him. “What do you mean?”
She had lifted the blaster from his holster and skipped out of reach before he could move. “No — stay there!” Her voice was shrill. “Dominic, you are a cunning man. But are you a brave one?”
He stood still before the menace of the weapon. “I think—” He groped for words. No, she wasn’t crazy. But she wasn’t really human, and she had the barbarian’s fanatical code in her as well. Easy, easy, or death would spit at him. “I think I took a few chances, Gunli.”
“Aye. But you never fought. You haven’t stood up man to man and battled as a warrior should.” Pain racked her thin lovely face. She was breathing hard now. “It’s for you as well as him, Dominic. He has to have his chance to avenge his father — himself — fallen Scotha — and you have to have a chance too. If you can win, then you are the stronger and have the right.”
Might makes right. It was, after all, the one unbreakable law of Scotha. The old trial by combat, here on a foreign planet many light-years from green Terra—
Cerdic came in. He had a sword in either hand, and there was a savage glee in his bloodshot eyes.
“I let him in, Dominic,” said Gunli. She was crying now. “I had to. Penda was my lord — but kill him, kill him!”
With a convulsive movement, she threw the blaster out of the window. Cerdic gave her an inquiring look. Her voice was almost inaudible: “I might not be able to stand it. I might shoot you, Cerdic.”
“Thanks!” He ripped the word out, savagely. “I’ll deal with you later, traitress. Meanwhile—” A terrible laughter bubbled in his throat — “I’ll carve your — friend — into many small pieces. Because who, among the so-civilized Terrestrials, can handle a sword?”
Gunli seemed to collapse. “O gods, O almighty gods — I didn’t think of that—”
Suddenly she flung herself on Cerdic, tooth and nail and horns, snatching at his dagger. “Get him, Dominic!” she screamed. “Get him!”
The prince swept one brawny arm out. There was a dull smack and Gunli fell heavily to the floor.
“Now,” grinned Cerdic, “choose your weapon!”
Flandry came forward and took one of the slender broadswords. Oddly, he was thinking mostly about the queen, huddled there on the floor. Poor kid, poor kid, she’d been under a greater strain than flesh and nerves were meant to bear. But give her a chance and she’d be all right.
Cerdic’s eyes were almost dreamy now. He smiled as he crossed blades. “This will make up for a lot,” he said. “Before you die, Terrestrial, you will no longer be a man—”
Steel rang in the great hall. Flandry parried the murderous slash and raked the prince’s cheek. Cerdic roared and plunged, his blade weaving a net of death before him. Flandry skipped back, sword ringing on sword, shoulders to the wall.
They stood for an instant, straining blade against blade, sweat rivering off them, and bit by bit the Scothan’s greater strength bent Flandry’s arm aside. Suddenly the Terrestrial let go, striking out almost in the same moment, and the prince’s steel hissed by his face.
He ran back and Cerdic rushed him again. The Scothan was wide open for the simplest stop thrust, but Flandry didn’t want to kill him. They closed once more, blades clashing, and the human waited for his chance.
It came, an awkward move, and then one supremely skillful twist. Cerdic’s sword went spinning out of his hand and across the room and the prince stood disarmed with Flandry’s point at his throat.
For a moment he gaped in utter stupefaction. Flandry laughed harshly and said: “My dear friend, you forget that deliberate archaism is one characteristic of a decadent society. There’s hardly a noble in the Empire who hasn’t studied scientific fencing.”
Defeat was heavy in the prince’s defiant voice: “Kill me, then. Be done with it.”
“There’s been too much killing, and you can be too useful.” Flandry threw his own weapon aside and cocked his fists. “But there’s one thing I’ve wanted to do for a long, long time.”
Despite the Scothan’s powerful but clumsy defense, Flandry proceeded to beat the living hell out of him.
“We’ve saved Scotha, all Scotha,” said Flandry. “Think, girl. What would have happened if you’d gone on into the Empire? Even if you’d won — and that was always doubtful, for Terra is mightier than you thought — you’d only have fallen into civil war. You just didn’t have the capacity to run an empire — as witness the fact that your own allies and conquests turned on you the first chance they got. You’d have fought each other over the spoils, greater powers would have moved in, Scotha would have been ripe for sacking. Eventually you’d have gone down into Galactic oblivion. The present conflict was really quite small; it took far fewer lives than even a successful invasion of the Empire would have done. And now Terra will bring the peace you longed for, Gunli.”