"I see." Shih-ka'i's stomach tightened into a hard little knot. Politics had caught him after all. He was considered beholden to Lord Kuo. He remained stiffly erect. "What does that have to do with the business at hand? We're an army at war. Consider the situation map. We're nearly surrounded. Southern Army's situation is worse. The empire is in dire peril. What the hell do you think you're doing? Silence! For me, it's a matter of supreme indifference who sits the imperial throne. I'm Tervola! I am an officer of the imperial army. My sole function is to defend, preserve, expand. Your function is to help me fulfill mine. It's neither my right nor yours to crown or uncrown emperors. It is of no moment who sits a damned throne four thousand miles away. Even so, the games you play on your own time are yours. Make kings if you like. But on my time you make war. And, gentlemen, when Lord Ssu-ma Shih-ka'i makes war, he does so every second of the day. Resume your posts."
He thought that would do it. He had allowed emotion full vent, and they had quaked before its gale.
Lord Chang responded, "Admirably spoken, Lord Ssu-ma. We hear the voice of an elder age. It tells us what we need to know."
Pan ku's sword whispered from its scabbard behind Shih-ka'i. Shih-ka'i glared at Lord Chang. Sheng stared back. Shih-ka'i thought, I should've known they wouldn't bend. They're not recruits. They're veteran intriguers.
Sheng said, "I suggest we carry out Lord Ssu-ma's instructions. The Deliverer cares naught for our aspirations, either."
The legion commanders turned away. Their underlings resumed work. Shih-ka'i allowed himself a moment to relax. Then, "Lord Chang."
Sheng turned. "Lord?"
"You said ‘Deliverer.' What did you mean?"
"Lord Yuan's man Mo-Jo took live captives. They called the leader of the dead Deliverer. They claimed that was because he came from the land where gods dwelt in the age before the desert. They think he'll restore a lost paradise."
"Does the idea have currency with the tribes?"
"No, Lord. The majority are fleeing across the Tusghus. They have a full measure of the savage's fear of the dead."
"Good. I'll be in my quarters." He whispered, "Pan ku, put that ridiculous toad-stabber away." He did not wait to see if his directive were accepted. He knew Pan ku.
He slept for a few hours, then wakened suddenly. Something had disturbed him. For a moment he thought it was concern about his commanders. But no, that was settled. They had spoken their pieces. A decision had been reached. He commanded Eastern Army. His writ stemmed from the empire, not its ruler. They would follow him while he remained faithful to that ideal.
No political concern had wakened him. Was it a prescient flash? Were the dead about to begin battering the next obstacle blocking their westward path? He stared at the ceiling, allowed his Tervola-trained senses to roam.
He could detect nothing.
Pan ku burst in. He did not apologize for his presumption. "Flyers, Lord." He snatched up Shih-ka'i's mask and stationed himself by his master's armor.
"They're attacking?"
"Yes, Lord."
In minutes Shih-ka'i stood on a balcony overlooking one of the drillyards.
The night was full of dragons; he guessed at least five hundred. The waning moon illuminated them perfectly. They dropped to deposit riders. There were two aboard each, the usual skullface and another behind. Most of the skullfaces remained mounted, urging their beasts back into the air while hurling bolts of power into the fortress. They took no particular aim.
The dead warriors rushed here and there without apparent purpose. When they encountered members of the garrison, they fought.
Chaos ruled. Shih-ka'i spotted a half dozen fires.
The dragons raced back to the desert to collect another wave of invaders.
"We'll go to the map room," Shih-ka'i said. "We'll organize from the heart outward." He scanned the east wall. The men were holding their posts. Good. There would be an attack when the Deliverer believed he had created enough confusion.
They had to cross a court to reach the building where the map room lay. Raiders caught them there.
They came out of the darkness, in total silence. Shih-ka'i was uncertain how many there were. One skullface, for sure, and at least six of the pudgy warriors. They flung themselves forward as if recognizing him. He blasted two with a small spell. Pan ku separated another from his head. Then blades were flashing in Shih-ka'i's face, and for the first time in a long life, he was wielding a sword in his own defense.
He had drilled a thousand times, as training demanded, and had performed well, but had always wondered how he would do against a deadly opponent. He was not sure he could kill a man.
The training took over: He did not think, he acted. His blade became a spider weaving a web of protection. The short sword in his left hand darted like a serpent's tongue, making the deadly strikes from dangerous angles. Pan ku guarded his back for the few seconds it took to even the odds.
Then Shih-ka'i faced no one but the skullface. Bodies lay scattered about them. Would he have the stomach to dismember them? He couldn't leave them lay...
The dragon rider bore a sword in keeping with its size. It was a good six feet long. The creature swung it in great screaming arcs. Shih-ka'i reeled each time he turned a stroke. Fear knotted his stomach.
There was an astonishingly loud clang. The skullface staggered forward, fell to one knee. Shih-ka'i found its eye with his shortsword, then followed with a vicious overhand chop with his longsword. Pan ku struck another two-handed blow.
And the damned monster tried to rise!
They hacked away till it surrendered its unnatural life.
Panting, Shih-ka'i and Pan ku considered one another over the body. Pan ku grinned. "He was a tough one, Lord."
"That he was. Let's get them carved up. We've wasted too much time already."
Shih-ka'i had seen any number of corpses dismembered, but there was a difference between observing and doing. His gorge threatened to rise. He wondered if that happened to the men. The world saw them as battalions of heartless torturers... They were men. Mere men, superbly trained and superbly in command of themselves. They had pride...
I have to be as strong as that centurion Mo-Jo, he told himself. I am the leader. I have to be the toughest and best.
"Finished, Lord," Pan ku said.
"Let's go."
"Grim work, eh?"
"Indeed. I had less stomach for it than I expected."
"This will be a grisly campaign, won't it, Lord?"
"We've never seen its like, Pan ku."
As they entered the map room from one end, a doorway at the other exploded. The planks of it flew about like autumn leaves in a gale. A dozen dead warriors burst through, spearheaded by three skullfaces.
Tasi-feng met them with a burst of power which flung the smaller warriors round like ragdolls in the jaws of mastiffs. The skullfaces were unaffected. The other Tervola hit them with as many killing spells as there were spellcasters. Noxious clouds boiled off the collapsing bodies. For a time it was difficult to breathe.
Shih-ka'i joined Chang Sheng over a map of the fortress and its environs. Sheng said, "They're attacking here and here, into the joints between the encampments and the fortress."
The palisades and trenches surrounding the camps were puny compared to the defenses of the fortress itself. Sheng continued, "Their assault hasn't developed sufficiently to betray their intent. Their logical course would be to encircle and reduce the encampments. But they're concentrating their dragons and wizardry on us."
"Trying to keep us pinned down."
A Tervola approached. Shih-ka'i remembered him from the deep probe into the desert. "Yes, Ou-yan?"