The Emperor E-Book

Scott Michael Decker

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Seeking Sword looks to the south for only one thing: The Northern Imperial Sword, which now lies dormant in the vaults of the Eastern Empire.

Without it, Seeking Sword will always be a bandit. And to get it, he'll have to defeat the Heir.

Abandoned to bandits as an infant, Seeking Sword has known adversity, but nothing has prepared him to lead a campaign against such an adversary. It isn't the Heir's formidable fighting skills nor his tactical acumen that so dismays the bandit Emperor. It's the beloved devotion of his people.

How is Seeking Sword to fight that?

Leseprobe

THE EMPEROR

Fall of the Swords Book IV

SCOTT MICHAEL DECKER

Copyright (C) 2014 Scott Michael Decker

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2022 by Next Chapter

Published 2022 by Next Chapter

Cover art by http://www.thecovercollection.com/

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

CONTENTS

Titles by the Author

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Epilogue

About the Author

TITLES BY THE AUTHOR

If you like this novel, please post a review on the website where you purchased it, and consider other novels from among these titles by Scott Michael Decker:

Science Fiction:

Bawdy Double

Cube Rube

Doorport

Half-Breed

Inoculated

Legends of Lemuria

Organo-Topia

The Gael Gates

War Child

Alien Mysteries (Series)

- Edifice Abandoned

- Drink the Water

- Glad You're Born

Fantasy:

Fall of the Swords (Series)

- The Peasant

- The Bandit

- The Heir

- The Emperor

Gemstone Wyverns

Sword Scroll Stone

Look for these titles at your favorite e-book retailer.

To Bobby Foster,

Who gave me the idea over a cup of coffee in the town of Ft. Bragg on the north coast of California, and who to this day has no idea what an epic it became. Thank you, Bobby – SMD

PROLOGUE

It was a sword. It did not look important. Three feet long and slightly curved, the blade looked tarnished. The metal's dark color suggested it was simply brass. The edge was sharp and without a nick. The haft was pewter-colored, contoured for the human hand, and unremarkable – except for the single ruby set in the pommel.

Despite its modest appearance, the sword was skillfully constructed. The blade itself had been made from microscopic sheets of a chromium-antimony alloy layered one atop the other. The painstaking process made the blade very flexible and the edge very sharp. Even the best swordsmiths found the alloy difficult to work, however, making reproduction improbable.

In addition to its precise construction, the sword was ancient. Forged more than nine thousand years before, the sword had withstood all manner of use and misuse. The number of warriors who'd wielded the sword was a figure lost in the past. The number of warriors who'd died on its edge was many times that. The number of warriors mortally wounded while wielding this sword, however, was fewer than a hundred.

Called the Heir Sword, it assured the succession by preparing an Heir's mind for the Imperial Sword. No different in appearance, other than its slightly larger ruby, the Imperial Sword extended the range of an Emperor's psychic powers to the farthest corners of the Empire. Thus, the Imperial Sword was the figurative and literal source of the Emperor's authority. The Imperial Sword electrocuted anyone inadequately prepared by the Heir Sword, killing the unfortunate (or treacherous) soul. Thus, the Heir Sword was the only way to obtain that authority.

Each of the four Empires had its own pair of Swords, each pair adorned with a different gem. The four Imperial Swords all served the same function: To grant the current Emperor total dominion over his or her Empire. The four Heir Swords all shared their own function: To assure a smooth succession.

Although they shared the same function, the most valuable of the four Heir Swords was the one adorned with a ruby, the Heir Sword for the Northern Empire. Because of this Sword, the Eastern Empire had slaughtered all the people of the Northern Empire. Because of this Sword, a civil war had riven the Eastern Empire. Because of this Sword, bandits besieged the Eastern Empire from across its northern border. Because of this Sword, the four Empires' nine-thousand-year-old political systems were faltering, even though, ironically, the eight Swords had been forged to preserve them.

The Northern Heir Sword did not look important, but because of a single fact, it was the most important object in the world:

The Sword was missing.

1

Of the thousand ways the bandits might have retaliated against Flaming Arrow for his assassination of the five bandit leaders in 9318, the least expected was peace.—The Gathering of Power, by the Wizard Spying Eagle.

“Peace!” Aged Oak grumbled. “Five years ago I wouldn't have thought it possible!” Prefect of Cove, twelfth Patriarch of the Oak Family, and Commanding General of the Eastern Armed Forces, he glanced briefly over his shoulder at his mate, as if for reassurance.

The Matriarch Shading Oak smiled pensively. Standing beside her was the Commanding General's personal servant, Crow.

Glumly, Aged Oak looked out the rain-streaked window. “Five years ago the Eastern Armed Forces swept through the Windy Mountains in the Heir's wake like nets through a school of albacore. Eventually, we hauled in a total of thirty-five thousand bandit heads. What a catch! A full third of all bandits in the empty northern lands. We had 'em by the gills! Everybody thought Flaming Arrow was the mariner who'd ram the bandit navy from Imperial waters once and for all!”

Shading Oak smiled, knowing that the bandits had no navy. Her mate had lapsed into the dialect of Cove, the city of his youth a fishing port on the east coast. Like her mate, she was a native of Cove. Unrelated to him, she had the same surname as he. Like her mate, she was small in stature. Unlike him, she was without a wrinkle, despite her sixty-five years.

“They were wrong. I was wrong, eh? Another man beached their fleet.” Aged Oak shook his head. “I'm still not sure I believe what happened. Who'd have thought that a bandit would be the shipwright of peace? That a bandit would pilot their foundering fleet into safe harbor?” He sighed audibly. “Remember how it happened?”

Standing behind him, knowing he couldn't see her, she nodded, keeping her mind carefully shielded. When upset, he liked to be alone. Any reminder of her presence would likely annoy him. Right now, she knew he felt very upset, his years weighing on him like the overloaded hold of a ship.

“A few months after the last Imperial warrior left the empty northern lands, on a blustery autumn day, the northeasterlies were cracking open the topsails like a dolphin slapping the water. Seeking Sword—Lofty Lion's son, Purring Tiger's mate and Scowling Tiger's successor—declared himself Emperor of the Northern Empire. In the same breath of wind, he promulgated a law that penalized the initiation of hostilities against a foreign power with expulsion. The Bandit ordered all bandits to stop their banditry like a ship captain ordering all the winds to stop their blowing, eh? The audacity!

“No mystery that most of the bandits laughed at him contemptuously. The effrontery of a single man to tell them what they could and couldn't do had to be beyond belief. For over thirty years they'd roamed their seas at whim, going where the wind and the tide and their own sails would take them. Most of the bands insolently sneered at the Bandit's new law by carrying out a series of raids on both the Eastern and Western Empires.” Snorting, Aged Oak shook his head. “The pearl in that oyster stew of diplomacy is that Seeking Sword forewarned us it'd happen, sent a messenger to Emparia Castle under the Inviolate Insignia—unbelievable in itself, eh?” Aged Oak chuckled.

Shading Oak smiled, knowing her mate had forgotten her.

“Then what'd he do? Unattended and unguarded, the Bandit visited the leaders of the bands who'd violated his law. He told them that to rebuild the Northern Empire all the people who lived in the empty northern lands would have to act like citizens. During the first year after promulgation, the penalty for violating the law three times was the band's expulsion from the empty northern lands. Some leaders genuinely saw the advantages of stopping the raids, and acceded to Seeking Sword's request. Some leaders protested their inability to control their warriors, and shrugged at him. Some leaders pretended to acquiesce, and the moment he'd gone launched a raid. Some leaders laughed in his face, and ordered a raid in front of him. What a mutinous crew, eh?

“Remember the Wolverine Raiders? The Heir and I didn't leave much of them behind. They were the first band to violate Seeking Sword's law three times. The day after their third raid, the Tiger Raiders fell on the camp, bound and dampered every single member. Then they shipped them like common criminals across the border into my waiting hands. The Imperial executioner was busy that day.” Aged Oak grinned at the memory.

“After that, nearly all the other bands obeyed the Emperor Sword's law, most of them appreciating the ironic justice of his beaching the pirates onto the very beaches of the foreign power they'd attacked. The penalty changed after the first year, only individual bandits suffering the consequence for raiding.

“The Bandit brought peace to the northern border of the Eastern Empire.” Aged Oak sighed, shaking his head.

“The Emperor Sword wants more than peace, though. He wants to rebuild the Northern Empire. Shortly after stopping the raids, Seeking Sword drew up a treaty of non-aggression with the Western Empire. He negotiated for the repatriation of every homesick Western sailor stranded under his rule. During the next three years, twenty thousand bandits sailed home.

“Within the first year of the Emperor Sword's sovereignty, Snarling Jaguar joined the Infinite. Despite Stalking Jaguar's popularity and benevolence, not all citizens were content with the new Emperor. The mutinous Southern citizens sailed north, expecting to find a new home port. Instead, they received a cold welcome. Capturing them all, Seeking Sword asked the Emperor Stalking Jaguar what he should do with them. Facing charges of treason and sentences of death if the Bandit repatriated them, the emigrant Southerners were a political nightmare for Stalking Jaguar. Not wanting their blood nor the expatriates themselves on his hands, the newly-invested Emperor Jaguar left their fates to the Emperor Sword. Seeking Sword put them to work, commuting their sentences in exchange for a year of their labor, then offering them citizenship for a second year of work.

“Work they did. Expatriates and natives. Every single bandit, new and old. In five short years, they rebuilt everything that Flaming Arrow and the Eastern Armed Forces destroyed. What took Scowling Tiger and the Bandit Council fifteen years to construct, block by painstaking block, the Emperor Sword surpassed in a third of the time. Without wars to wage, the bandits turned their industry on the land. Rich with tender care, the ground bore fruit.

“Even though I still don't believe it, I welcome the peace.

“Oh, I'd like the peace between Empires to extend to the internal affairs of the Eastern Empire, but discontent grows among us like barnacles on a hull! Our own mutinous crew's becoming disaffected with the Heir, Flaming Arrow.”

Aged Oak sighed, looking out the window of his office in Cove, a city a hundred twenty miles from the northern border. “As am I.” Beyond beaded panes, rain slashed down on an already inundated city.

“I've known the Heir most my life. I don't doubt the boy myself. The brutal and callous Flaming Arrow who has emerged in the past five years dismays nearly everyone else. Oh, he denies the Bandit's every act. Most citizens simply refuse to believe that the Emperor Sword's capable of such a long succession of heinous deeds, and instead blame them all on the Heir.

“We know what the Bandit wants, eh? The Northern Empire may have stopped the raids, but they haven't stopped wanting the Imperial Sword from Flying Arrow. They've shown they'll obtain it regardless of cost, regardless of method. Cunning of the Emperor Sword to abort the senseless physical assault on the Eastern Empire and begin a personal assault on the Heir's reputation, eh? A master political strategist couldn't have planned it better.

“Remember the first incident? It seemed so insignificant. Three months after Flaming Arrow earned the title of man, he has an unpleasant encounter with a peasant—just a shoving match. Four weeks later in Nest, though, the Heir gets angry at a boy who jostles him, and grinds the boy's face into the mud. Three months later, a drunken Heir sings bawdy shanties staggering along an avenue in Emparia City at midday. Four weeks after that, the Heir accosts the mate of a merchant in Burrow. When she refuses, he drags her into a nearby alley and rapes her like he's some despicable corsair.

“That was the first year. After that, the incidents became more frequent and more reprehensible. At first, the Heir was patient, Infinitely patient, assuring the victims that they'd suffered at the Bandit's scourge and offering compensation not from Imperial coffers but from his own inestimable wealth.

“Why do you suppose Guarding Bear bequeathed the Caven Hills to Flaming Arrow five years ago, instead of his own son Rolling Bear? Smoking Arrow granted the peasant hereditary rights to the prefecture. Like a schooner tacking against the wind, Guarding Bear turns around and gives it to Smoking Arrow's grandson! Incomprehensible, eh?

“Anyway, as the opprobrious acts escalated, the victims became more disinclined to believe the Heir. Refusing his personal recompense, they sought legal redress instead. The Patriarchs and Matriarchs resolving these politically explosive situations initially ruled for the Heir, or at least pressed the litigant to accept the Heir's offer of compensation. When the incidents continued, however, the plaintiffs began to ignore the advice of their elders, insisting that the Prefects decide the Heir's punishment.

“Remember that? Right here in Cove, three thousand people watching, the Heir worked his way from one end of the marketplace to the other. He destroyed every object in his path like typhoon winds through thatch huts. Damage estimates stood at thirty-five hundred taels, a measly sum for the Heir. The litigants wanted more than damages and what they deemed 'silence taels.' They wanted the Heir's expulsion from Cove. I had to grant their request and expel him immediately to quiet the furor. After I traveled to Emparia City to consult with the Lord Emperor, Flying Arrow wisely reversed the decision, despite the protests and denunciations that followed.” Aged Oak sighed, wincing at the memory.

“Well, what could I do? What could the Heir do? Gradually, he gave up trying to convince everyone of his innocence. When accused now, he quietly denies perpetrating the Bandit's misdeeds and quietly endures the subsequent legal proceedings. Most citizens look at him these days with loathing. They don't see how he tries like the Infinite to be stoic and strong. He lives his life above reproach, his every act more exemplary than an admiral's. They don't see that, either.

“Outwardly, he's still Flaming Arrow. To me and others who know him intimately, the Heir has changed. That boy broods too much, spending time by himself too much. Even his mate Rippling Water privately longs for the Flaming Arrow of old, eh? The Flaming Arrow who'd always find time to talk with her, never ignoring his two lovely children, Trickling Water and Burning Arrow. What a pair they are, eh? Despite his exemplary execution of his offices of Heir and Prefect, Flaming Arrow virtually neglects his family and friends. Back when the waters were calm, if he and I happened to walk the same stretch of corridor, the old Heir bantered easily with me, like a crewmate who'd survived the same shipwreck. Now the Heir pleads urgent business and hurries onward, as if I've turned pirate.”

Someone discreetly scratched on the door. Shading Oak poked her head out into the corridor, nodded at the servant, and looked toward her mate apprehensively. She put her hand on Crow's shoulder, her request unspoken. The General's personal servant nodded in understanding. Shading Oak then unobtrusively left the room.

“Well, I know what he's thinking,” Aged Oak said, wincing. “Flaming Arrow reasons that if he socializes with fewer people, fewer will share his shame and perhaps his fate. Unfortunately, he presumes the effect and therefore the fate. I detest such reasoning! As if we don't know which direction the wind's blowing, eh?”

Not wanting to remember what he'd done three days ago, Aged Oak put his face close to the window. Here in the offices of his home in Cove, he felt secure. Above was the storm, below was the city, and beyond city was ocean. A sob escaped his lips. Aged Oak fell to his knees, trying to deny the memory, his gnarled and calloused hands clutching the window sill.

Aged Oak approached the gate to enter Emparia Castle. Coming the other direction was the Heir, pretending he didn't see the malevolence in the glances of passersby.

“Lord Heir,” Aged Oak called, further from the gate. He lengthened his stride to intercept him.

Flaming Arrow stopped. “Yes, Lord General?”

The General placed a hand on the burly, sun-browned shoulder. “I want to talk to you, Lord.”

The shoulder slid back, unobtrusively, intentionally. “Not now.”

“Now, Lord!”

The fire in the Heir's gray-blue eyes could have melted iron.

“I won't let you put me off like some barnacle-scraping drudge!” Aged Oak said. “I'm your friend, by the Infinite. I don't care if you have forgot the fact!”

The tension in Flaming Arrow's shoulders eased; the fire left the eyes.

“I want to know what you're going do about this seaweed-slinging Bandit, Lord Heir. Why don't you retaliate?”

“Retaliate for what, Lord General?”

Aged Oak grabbed the lapels of Flaming Arrow's robe and shook the larger man roughly. “You're just going to let him drag your reputation through the sand and give your head to the executioner?!”

“No,” the Heir said, not trying to disengage himself.

“Well, blast you to the Infinite, what are you going to do?” Aged Oak despised his speech when he became upset, the dialect of Cove marking him as a muckraking clam-digger from the east coast of the Empire.

“I'll do exactly what I need to do. If that includes telling you my plan, then I'll be the first one to inform you.”

“You insolent sea-slug!” With a strength he didn't believe he had, Aged Oak hurled Flaming Arrow at a nearby wall.

The Heir struck so hard his lungs emptied.

Spitting epithets, Aged Oak planted himself a foot from Flaming Arrow and unleashed a barrage of blows into his midsection. Several sets of hands dragged him away, the General screaming curses in a voice already hoarse and struggling to free himself to administer more blows.

Rage had so consumed him that only later in the day, as he set a grueling pace toward Cove, did he learn that the Heir hadn't lifted a pinky to defend himself.

When he arrived in Cove, Aged Oak heard the extent of the Heir's injuries on the psychic flow: Five broken ribs, a ruptured spleen, a punctured lung, multiple lacerations across the back, and bruises from navel to nipples. Ashamed of his behavior, the damage terrible, Aged Oak immediately fell to his knees, bared his abdomen and unsheathed a knife. His soul screamed for release.

From the west a psychic lance penetrated his brain. Only twice before in his life had he received a personal communication from the Emperor using the Imperial Sword. The blue and white seven-arrow quiver filled his sight, the voice of Flying Arrow ringing in his ears. “Lord Commanding General Aged Oak, the Lord Heir Flaming Arrow requests that I spare you, pending an investigation. I order you to withhold your knife from your belly. You'll wait in Cove under house arrest for further instructions, Lord Oak.” With that the six-inch wide beam of psychic energy withdrew, the message finished.

His knees in the mud, his stomach bared to the cold ocean breeze, the knife in his hand forbidden to strike, the shame of what he'd done permeating his soul, Aged Oak glimpsed for the first time how Flaming Arrow felt. The glimpse only tripled his shame.

They told him later that his scream had awakened the whole city.

He didn't remember.

Rain streaking the window, tears streaking his face, Aged Oak wished he could completely forget the past three days. The family Wizard had adjusted the General's emotional balance several times. Without those adjustments, Aged Oak's guts would've been in his lap.

Flying Arrow's two days of silence mystified everyone. Most people expected Flying Arrow to retaliate despite Flaming Arrow's request. At noon that day, the psychic flow had reported that the Heir had left Emparia Castle for the Caven Hills, sufficiently recovered from his injuries to travel. An almost palpable cloud had lifted from the Empire.

Not from Aged Oak, though. The grey, cloudy skies darkening with dusk, the General said, “Crow, summon an Imperial messenger please.”

“Yes, Lord.” Crow, the General's personal servant, relayed the order to a servant in the corridor, but did not leave the room.

Aged Oak couldn't live with this shame any longer, and wanted to request permission to fall on his knife.

Moments later Shading Oak stepped in to the office, her face beaming. Stepping up beside him, she slipped an arm around his waist. “I've brought you a visitor, my love. Smile for him, would you?”

“Don't want a visitor,” he grumbled, her presence comforting.

“This one you will,” she replied, turning him to face the door.

Soaking wet and wincing, Flaming Arrow grinned at the General. On the pommel of the Sword at his side was a diamond, confirming that this was indeed the Heir—and not the Emperor Sword.

Falling to his knees, Aged Oak put his head to the floor, sobbing.

Stepping forward a pace, the Heir gestured Shading Oak and the servant to leave. They closed the door behind them.

The two men were alone. “You were right to question me like that, Lord Oak. Someone had to pound some sense into me, eh?”

Aged Oak looked up, tears pouring down his face. “Oh, my boy, I shouldn't have struck you like that! I shouldn't have!” He rose, reaching out his arms to embrace Flaming Arrow.

With blinding speed Seeking Sword drew and slashed. The head leaped from the neck and a fountain of blood sprayed the window. From beyond the door came a scream and a thump. The Bandit grabbed the head by the hair and spat in the face. “How dare you touch the Imperial person of the Lord Heir Flaming Arrow!” He hurled the head at the window, which shattered, letting in the stormy night. Then he turned and splintered the door with a powerful kick. He stepped into the corridor, past the cringing servant, past the impassive Imperial messenger, over the dead mate of the dead General, and down the corridor toward the stairway, heaping curses upon Aged Oak the entire way.

Smashing anything in reach, kicking doors open and terrorizing the other occupants, Seeking Sword called down the wrath of the Infinite to plague the Oak Family and all its descendants. In the vaulted antechamber, the Bandit slammed opened the main door and paused on the threshold for a full minute.

“Anyone who questions the Lord Heir dies on his blade!”

Into the rainy night he went.

2

The Gathering of Power was neither a linear nor a static process. Like the growth of bacteria in a closed environment, power grew and declined in erratic cycles. The year Guarding Bear formally relinquished all titles and the year Spying Eagle became Sorcerer Apprentice, 9308, was a peak year for the Gathering. Not until ten years later, however, did power again coalesce. In 9318, the Heir launched his assault on the Windy Mountain bandits. After this tremendous discharge, the members of the Gathering dispersed widely, and five years passed before power gathered again. In 9323, with the assassination of the Commanding General Aged Oak, the Gathering began for the final time.—The Gathering of Power, by the Wizard Spying Eagle.

Wincing, Flaming Arrow slowed to another stop on the Nest-Bastion road, his breathing rough from exertion and his whole body aching. His hood pulled far forward, he stepped off the road, wondering where he was.

The road was nearly empty of traveler and muddy from rain, the footing treacherous. Flaming Arrow felt so tired, and hurt so much, that he wanted to curl up in his cloak beside the road and sleep forever. When he'd left Emparia City at noon with only his servant Cub in attendance, he'd promised Soothing Spirit he'd travel slowly. He'd expected to arrive in Bastion at dawn. Now, he doubted he'd arrive before noon.

Earlier on the journey, near sunset, just outside Nest, his servant had fallen badly and had broken his leg. The Heir had carried Cub back to Nest, to the nearest medacor's office, and then had gone on alone.

For a man of his position to travel alone was unthinkable. Usually, he had the obligatory contingent of guards. Usually, he was an invincible swordfighter. Usually, he had nothing to fear from the citizens of the Eastern Empire.

On this journey, though, he wished now that he hadn't ordered his honor guard to stay behind. His abdomen hurt like the Infinite, each breath aggravating his pain, each step shaking the tender muscles and organs.

Aged Oak had pulverized him.

Flaming Arrow couldn't have swung a sword even to save his own life. Five years ago, he would've been able to walk unarmed anywhere in the Empire. Now, he needed guards and arms. With the Bandit's help, the Heir had lost the exalted reputation he'd enjoyed after assassinating the five bandit leaders.

“But he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed,” the ancient playwright, Shaking Spear, had once said.

The Bandit had eroded the Heir's reputation until it was no better than mud on the path. He guessed that the Bandit was sick in his hatred of his double across the border, who'd killed his mate's father and ruined his life. The Bandit will do anything to obtain the Northern Imperial Sword, the Heir thought. The man is unscrupulous.

A pity no one ever found the Northern Heir Sword. The last Northerner, Lofty Lion, had died in the dungeons of Emparia Castle after attempting to assassinate Flying Arrow—without revealing where he'd hidden the Heir Sword. With him had died the bandits' hope of building the Northern Empire anew.

Why the Bandit continued to act as if he were the Northern Emperor was beyond Flaming Arrow's comprehension. The Bandit's sullying his reputation was both revenge and an effort to acquire the Northern Imperial Sword—a Sword useless to everyone.

The day before, from his bed in the infirmary of Emparia Castle, Flaming Arrow had asked his father to give Seeking Sword the Sword he sought.

“No!” Flying Arrow barked, glaring at him.

“Infinite blast your stubborn soul! Why not?” Flaming Arrow cursed. He breathed deeply to compose himself. “That's the reason the Bandit's trying to destroy my reputation,” he said calmly. “That's the reason he's trying to isolate the Eastern Empire: He's sending ambassadors both west and south, but not here. He helped the Western Empire when famine struck. He captured all those Southern expatriates when Stalking Jaguar succeeded his father. He refused to help us when the River Placid flooded everything between here and Cove. He says he'll recognize the Eastern Empire when you acknowledge his sovereignty and give him the Sword.”

“I fought hard to get that Sword,” Flying Arrow replied. “I won't give it up! Besides, he's a despicable Bandit. Like all bandits, he wants to destroy our ancient society and those of the Western and Southern Empires as well! Everything he does violates tradition! Everything! I refuse to legitimize his sovereignty in any way—especially that way!”

Four inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than Flying Arrow, Flaming Arrow gazed at his father standing above him from the foot of the infirmary bed. They both knew the Heir could dominate him in any kind of fight, regardless of weapon.

He knew his father was right, though. The Bandit's government in almost every way mocked political structures elsewhere. The apostate Emperor Sword had even made talismans explicitly legal—threatening the sovereignty of the Swords.

My father's being right doesn't correct the problem, the Heir thought. As usual his father would avoid decisive action on some pretext and wait for the situation to resolve itself. Flaming Arrow knew his father was the worst of all Emperors Arrow. Five years ago, just after Lofty Lion's assassination attempt, the Heir could have usurped the throne. Instead, he'd chosen to support his father's recovery from his injuries, knowing he lacked enough experience to be Emperor. Now, he wondered if he should have usurped the throne from his father.

Not that he is my father, Flaming Arrow thought, knowing Flying Arrow's quiver empty. The ignominy of bastardy was one of the many shames he endured because of this man. So many shames and most of them for so little reason! Infinite blast you! he thought, staring at him.

“You and I call him the Bandit, Father, but his name to everyone else is the Emperor Sword. When you failed to find the Heir Sword, you failed to conquer the Northern Empire. Give him the Sword, Father.”

“No, I told you! Impudent little runt, I ought to disinherit you for your insolence! I won't! I've decided!”

Wanting to goad him into disinheriting him, Flaming Arrow stared at his father, hating him and hating being his heir. What he mostly hated was his own impotence: He was powerless to do anything about the Bandit. Of everything he'd endured in his life, the worst was the infuriating knowledge that if he lifted a pinky to harm the Bandit, all four Empires would decry him a warmonger.

So instead of goading his father, he acquiesced. “All right, Lord Emperor,” he said caustically. “It's your Sword and your Empire. You know what I'll do with it the moment I succeed you.”

“Oh? What's that, Lord Emperor Heir?”

Flaming Arrow smiled. “Turn off the light as you leave, would you, Lord Emperor? I want to sleep.”

“Stubborn bastard,” Flying Arrow muttered loud enough for his son to hear. Turning, he limped from the room.

Flaming Arrow turned off the light himself.

Flaming Arrow turned back to the road, rested now. His pace slow, he resumed his trek across the Empire, silently blessing his mentor Guarding Bear for bequeathing him the Caven Hills.

Five years ago, the old retired General had lost his sanity upon the death of his mate, the Matriarch Bubbling Water. Mates who'd been together as long as they usually died within hours of each other, sometimes moments.

Guarding Bear hadn't died, though. His loss of sanity had invoked his final testament, as provided for by law. To everyone's surprise, his testament specified that his prefecture go to the Heir Flaming Arrow and his immense wealth to his only surviving son Rolling Bear.

Privately, Flaming Arrow had struck a deal with Rolling Bear, not wanting to incur his enmity over the Caven Hills, which rightly should have gone to him. Flaming Arrow had proposed that Rolling Bear manage the prefecture in the Heir's name. Upon succeeding Flying Arrow as Emperor, Flaming Arrow would reaffirm the Bear Patriarchy's hereditary claim.

Rolling Bear, having a jovial disposition that weathered all storms with equanimity, had smiled at Flaming Arrow. “Enmity? I could never bear you enmity, Lord Heir. Besides, Rippling Water wouldn't like her brother and her mate to be mad at each other, eh? She'd squash our heads together.”

Flaming Arrow had laughed, nodding.

Wincing, Flaming Arrow loped through a drizzle along the Nest-Bastion road, his ribcage hurting with each breath.

He was grateful Guarding Bear had bequeathed him the Caven Hills. With a source of income independent of Flying Arrow, with a whole prefecture to retreat to when he needed to retreat, with a home in each Emparia Castle, Nest and Bastion, Flaming Arrow was nearly impervious to his father's tyranny. During the last five years, he'd found these sanctuaries necessary on several occasions. He'd never allowed the hostility between himself and his father to become open.

Despite the Heir's every attempt to reassure the Emperor that he didn't want the throne and wouldn't try to usurp it, Flying Arrow refused to believe otherwise. For instance, after his manhood ritual, Flaming Arrow had encouraged Spying Eagle and Healing Hand to do everything they could to restore the Emperor's right brain. The two Wizards had worked for almost a year, the Heir openly applauding their every success, however minor. When they'd repaired the right hemisphere to the point where the Emperor had full sensorimotor control except for a slight limp, the Heir had asked Flying Arrow to reward them for their efforts.

Grudgingly, the Emperor had, but had also become more suspicious than ever, restricting the duties of the Sorcerer and the Medacor Apprentice. The Heir wondered at his father's senseless ingratitude.

Flaming Arrow trudged up a hill, his sides hurting.

Privately, Spying Eagle had told Flaming Arrow that he didn't enjoy taking orders from the Emperor, that some orders were so distasteful he refused to carry them out.

That had been four years ago. Spying Eagle had since abdicated his position. Flaming Arrow didn't know all the details, not having been at the castle for the confrontation. He knew enough about the two men to guess what had happened, though. Angry that the Sorcerer refused to obey some order, the Emperor ordered Spying Eagle to begin training a Sorcerer Apprentice whom he, the Emperor, selected. After interviewing the Wizard Delving Thought, Spying Eagle refused to train him. Flying Arrow lost his temper. Spying Eagle resigned, and Delving Thought became the Sorcerer. Now Spying Eagle lived in Emparia City, a private citizen, practicing his profession as he had twenty years ago, independent of all political affiliation. Flaming Arrow often went to see his friend.

Healing Hand had also left Imperial service, but not because of any open difference of opinion with Flying Arrow. The Imperial Medacor Soothing Spirit was one hundred twelve years old and showed no signs of flagging. Being more than capable of caring for the castle denizens, the elder man simply didn't need Healing Hand's skills. Flaming Arrow knew too that his father thought the blond-haired Medacor too closely allied with the Heir. Such hostility, however subliminal, wouldn't escape the Wizard-medacor's notice. Two years after Flaming Arrow's manhood ritual, Healing Hand had quietly resigned.

No one was sure of Healing Hand's current whereabouts. He'd told his mother and sister where he'd be, but had asked them not to disclose that information unless someone urgently needed to find him. Knowing the medacor's spiritual nature, Flaming Arrow guessed he'd gone to a retreat somewhere for reflection and meditation.

So, in the last five years, Flaming Arrow had lost two of his three allies inside Emparia Castle. Flaming Arrow didn't include his mother, the Imperial Consort, among those allies. He saw Flowering Pine so rarely, and usually in circumstances so obstructive to intimacy, that he regarded his mother as one person among thousands whom he hoped one day to know personally. Somewhere deep inside he knew he ached to have more than a passing acquaintance with her. Long ago he'd resolved to abide by her wish to have only that. Now, only a dull ache remained.

Therefore, the only person at Emparia Castle who remained unswervingly loyal to him was Aged Oak. That the man had pummeled him mercilessly was simply proof of his loyalty. The Prefect of Cove and Commanding General of the Eastern Armed Forces was a complex man acculturated by the society in which he lived to hide his true feelings behind a facade of indifference and truculence. Anyone of his station who expressed feelings even hinting at vulnerability was weak and soon lost that station. Flaming Arrow knew that Aged Oak had the highest respect for him—and loved him, an admission torture couldn't extract.

Running slowly through the rain, Flaming Arrow wondered if he should give his father a pummeling he'd never forget. The Heir laughed aloud, thinking it a strange way to express loyalty.

After Flaming Arrow's every attempt to elicit Flying Arrow's trust, the Emperor became even more suspicious than before. Perhaps I shouldn't even try, he thought. Perhaps he distrusts me because I try so hard to be trustworthy. Intuitively, he knew he was right. He reflected how rotten their society was to regard a man's motivations as the antithesis of what they actually were. To gain his father's trust he'd have to abandon his attempts to gain it. Ridiculous!

Cresting a hill, Flaming Arrow winced and slowed to a stop, his consciousness swimming in seas of pain, sparkle clouding his vision. Through the rain he saw the crossroads ahead. He was making better time than he'd thought. Crossing the Nest-Bastion road ahead was the Burrow-Eyry road. Set back from the crossroads was a small stone structure. A combination refectory and hostelry, the main part of the structure was underground, the weather torrid during summer.

While the prefecture itself extended all the way to Nest, the geographical region known as the Caven Hills began beyond the Burrow-Eyry road, the entire region studded with hills so steep they were almost inaccessible. Flaming Arrow dreaded the next leg of his journey. Usually, the hillsides didn't bother him. With his injuries he knew he'd hate every grueling climb.

He considered stopping at the hostelry, where his uncle Flaming Wolf was proprietor. Having not eaten since noon, Flaming Arrow turned toward it.

He hadn't seen his uncle in over a year, their association secret. Very few people knew that Flowering Pine was the daughter of Brazen Bear. Most people needed only a glance at her brother Flaming Wolf to guess: He looked exactly like the deceased, younger Bear.

Years ago, Scowling Tiger had implicated Brazen Bear in a plot to assassinate Smoking Arrow, the sixth Emperor Arrow. His trial and execution had rocked the Empire. Everyone had liked Brazen Bear. Few people had really believed he was a traitor, despite Scowling Tiger's proof that he'd associated with the Broken Arrows. In the end he'd died, executed for treachery.

Walking slowly toward the building, Flaming Arrow wondered how different history might have been if Brazen Bear hadn't mated Fleeting Snow. Because, as everyone knew, their mating had provoked Scowling Tiger to produce the evidence that had eventually spawned a civil war between the Bear and Tiger Patriarchies, resulting in the violent expulsion of Scowling Tiger and all his allies from the Empire. Those had been terrible times for the East.