The Fell Sword by Miles Cameron Read Free Book Online

Derkensun said. He schooled himself not to roll his eyes or give away his contempt.
    The two looked at each other.
    ‘You do know the passwords?’ Derkensun said. He dismounted, and in the process his axe switched hands, so that the head was under his right hand and the iron-shod butt was in his left.
    ‘Stay back,’ said the smaller one.
    ‘I’ll kill both of you if you don’t give me the countersign immediately,’ Derkensun said. He couldn’t tell if they were fools or conspirators.
    ‘Quarter guard!’ bellowed the small man. And then, in a strained voice, ‘Help!’
    The taller of the two Scholae stood his ground and levelled his short, heavy spear. He looked intelligent. He was beautifully dressed in a fine Eastern kaftan and tall leather boots over his knees, tasseled in gold. Even for a courtier, he looked magnificent.
    ‘Damn me,’ he said, over his spear. ‘It is the password, Guardsman. We were just put on duty – damn. It’s – Caesar something. Caesar – Imperator.’ He paused.
    Derkensun relaxed his guard. ‘That’s right,’ he said.
    The taller man lowered his spear. ‘I’m supposed to be getting married today,’ he said. ‘We were summoned to the palace half an hour ago.’
    The smaller man exhaled. ‘By our sweet saviour, I’ll never fail to listen to the password again.’ He looked behind him. ‘Where’s the fucking quarter guard?’
    Derkensun stepped forward. ‘I have no time,’ he said. ‘I give my word that it is a matter of the most urgency.’
    The two men looked at each other a moment and the bridegroom nodded. ‘He has the password,’ he said.
    They parted.
    The bridegroom bowed. ‘I’ll escort you, Guardsman.’
    Derkensun didn’t pause to argue. He trotted through the gates and down the great courtyard, lined in marble stoas that stretched a long bowshot across the flagstones of the Emperor’s Yard. It was liberally studded with statues portraying men and women who had given their lives for the Empire. Derkensun imagined Ser Raoul joining them, his cruel mouth set in marble with his drinker’s nose above it.
    He’d died well. Brilliantly, in fact.
    They ran along the northern stoa and entered the palace through the little-used service gate which was closed but not locked, and there was no guard.
    Bridegroom shook his head. ‘We stationed a man here when the Chamberlain summoned us,’ he said.
    The gate led them into the palace over the main stable block, bypassing the Outer Court, where most of the business of running the palace was transacted – shipments of food and tradesmen and so on. Derkensun knew the palace blindfolded. Literally. Part of the Nordik Guard’s training was to move about the palace with blindfolds on.
    Even as he jogged across the great store room that was the upper storey of the stable block – with its hundreds of bags of grain, onions, garlic, oregano, and vats of olive oil – he tried to decide where he was going. The Mayor’s office was off the stable block. Men referred to the Mayor as the Lord of the Outer Court, and it was more than a joke. But the Mayor of the Palace was not always a friend of the Guard.
    He sighed and turned at the top of the storehouse steps.
    ‘I’m ruining my clothes,’ Bridegroom said.
    ‘I don’t need you,’ Derkensun said.
    ‘You’re welcome, I’m sure,’ said the panting man.
    Derkensun leaped the last four steps and landed on the smooth flags of the stable floor, turned right, and ran past the Emperor’s own mounts – sixteen stalls hung in purple, including two of the best warhorses in the world – and turned right again when he’d passed Bucephalus, the Emperor’s favourite. The old horse raised its head as he ran by and out into the sun. The Mayor’s office door was open and the outer office was empty, where there should have been three very busy scribes.
    Far away, on the breeze that blew constantly through the main buildings of the palace, he could hear the unmistakable sound