The Fourth Book Of Lost Swords : Farslayer's Story (Saberhagen's Lost Swords 4), Fred Saberhagen [100 best novels of all time TXT] 📗

object had been protection, the armor had done him no good, for just over his heart a broad-bladed weapon had punched through as if the steel were so much paper.

      Zoltan, still walking thoughtfully among the tables, gently touched a dead arm chosen randomly. It was as stiff” as wood. Gesner, now moving quietly at his side, informed him that these bodies had been here on these tables since the morning after the slaughter. Ever since then, the surviving family members, all half- demented, had been trying to think of a way to conduct a secret burial or at least a mass cremation, without giving away the extent of the clan’s loss.

      “We’d need help to bury or bum them all, you see. And then outsiders would be certain to find out how many were dead.”

      “The Lady Yambu and I are outsiders.”

      “We must begin to do something. Better to trust complete outsiders like yourselves than—”

      A servant chose that moment to enter the vault, bringing a private message for Bonar.

      Bonar, after the man had whispered in his ear, turned to his sisters. “The mercenaries are at the back door. Two of them, anyway, Koszalin and his sergeant.”

Chapter Six

      Yambu asked: “Mercenaries?”

      Violet spoke up. “Fourteen or fifteen men and their commander, whom we’ve had in our pay since before the slaughter. They’re camped in the woods nearby, and I’m sure they know by now that we’ve been seriously weakened. We’ve been refusing to talk to them. If those blackguards ever find out exactly how much the clan has been reduced, they’ll turn on us and rob us. Then the damned Senones will attack.”

      “It seems to me,” said Zoltan, “that if you and the Senones exchanged blow for blow with Farslayer, as you say, then your enemies can hardly be in any better shape than you are. They’ll have trouble carrying out an attack.”

      Violet glowered. “They were a larger family than us to begin with.”

      Yambu indicated the bodies. “Did I understand you to say that none of these is the man Cosmo, who you say began the fight?”

      The surviving family were uniformly scornful. Bonar said: “No, that coward is not here. When it should have been his turn to use the Sword, he seized it, pulled it out of a dead kinsman’s body, and ran out of the house. He mounted a riding-beast and was gone before we realized what was happening.”

      Talk of Cosmo ended when another one of the old retainers came into the vaulted room to report fearfully that the two mercenaries at the rear door of the house were growing impatient, demanding to be admitted to present their demands.

      Rose was fearful. “Demands? That’s new. What demands will they have now?”

      “I suppose you ought to ask them,” said Yambu. Then she volunteered: “If you like, I will speak to them. I have handled a few rebellious soldiers in my time.”

      The offer was accepted by default; at least none of the family spoke up to reject it out of hand, and none appeared really ready to assume leadership of their own cause. So, with Zoltan at her side, and guided by a servant, the former queen proceeded through the kitchen to deal with the mercenaries. Lady Yambu took her time about getting to the door, while Bonar brought her up to date on the clan’s relationship with their hired soldiers.

      “You said there were fourteen or fifteen of them. Are you sure that number’s accurate?” Yambu asked him.

      The siblings conferred briefly among themselves. “Can’t be more than a dozen,” Bonar reported.

      “Too many for us to overawe, I suppose. Then let us buy them off with gold, for the time being at least,” Yambu suggested. “I suppose you do have some modest stock of gold available?”

      “Gold?” Violet looked almost shocked. “Hardly.”

      “But there are pearls.” This came from Rose in a fearful whisper.

      “Do you mean freshwater pearls?” asked Zoltan. “Not worth much, are they?”

      “These are.” Violet expressed a certain indignation. “Of high quality indeed.”

      The other family members, after some hesitation, admitted that a few good-quality pearls were available. Urged on by a savage pounding on the door, they at last produced a small handful of pale rounded gems, which Yambu pronounced more than sufficient to buy off a dozen rascals. Shaking her head, she thrust most of the gems back into Bonar’s unsteady hands. “To offer them too much at this stage would be worse than to give them too little. Now, Zoltan, attend me. Stand here, and let them see that you are armed and ready!”

      When Gesner unbarred and opened the door at last, the two men outside started to push their way into the house. But then they halted on the threshold. The appearance in the kitchen of an unexpected stranger, armed and resolute, and of an unknown lady of queenly bearing, was enough to delay them momentarily. And that moment was long enough for the Lady Yambu’s commanding presence to take over. In a firm voice she demanded to know just who these intruders thought they were and what they thought they wanted.

      “Captain Koszalin, ma’am. I’m in charge of the defenses here. This is Shotoku, first sergeant in my company.”

      “Are you indeed? Those defenses seem singularly ineffective, not to say inoperative. My party was not challenged approaching the house, and I daresay that if we had been a full company bent on an attack, the result would have been the same. Were I your commanding officer, you’d be in trouble.”

      Zoltan grinned inwardly, in admiration of the way Yambu had managed to suggest the presence of an armed escort besides himself.

      Koszalin was not a large man, but gave the impression of fierce energy, now under tight control. He and the massive Sergeant Shotoku, who stood stoically behind him, both wore scraps of armor and dirty green scarves, evidently as a kind of company insignia.

      Under pointed questioning by Lady Yambu, Koszalin claimed to have twenty men at his command. He had come pounding on the door, he said, to collect the gold that was