Dragonlord of the Savage Empire se-2 Read online

  But there were new fears as well: fear that he knew their most secret thoughts, fear that his powers were inadequate to protect them against Adept attack, and just the vague anxiety generated by another shock to people whose lives had been shattered too many times.

  I should have been Reading my people more carefully, he realized. Had he not been protecting their privacy, operating under the Readers’ Code, he might have discovered days ago that his not exhibiting special powers frightened them far more than if he had been a tyrant like Drakonius, arbitrarily setting examples to keep them in line.

  At Northgate he climbed the tower, greeted the watchman, and then turned to stare out over the city. He could have Read it from the ground, but somehow he needed the physical exertion of the climb and the actual view.

  It no longer stank. Close by the tower, he could see that the buildings were empty shells, but the basic structure of the city was intact. From here to the forum a main street ran straight and clean; the other streets radiating from the forum were all clear now to the east and south. The west-to-northwest sector, though, was rubble. There, most of the buildings had been of wood and had burned down completely.

  For now, he was having that area cleared of flammable debris and left alone. One day, after he had forged the treaty with the Aventine Empire, a new Academy would rise there, a place where Readers and Adepts would study together, share their skillsBut if that were to happen, Lenardo must first learn to rule. The dragon’s-head brand on bis arm seemed to glow in the late-afternoon sun. His people expected him to live up to that symbol. The empire, having seen it on the banners of those who attacked their walls for many generations, had deemed it the sign of the savage and used it to mark their exiles.

  And here, thought Lenardo, I am failing because I am not savage enough. He wondered how Wulfston was faring-the young black man whom he had met as Aradia’s foster brother and apprentice and to whom she had given the lands west of Lenardo’s, to the sea. Was he managing to rule without the cruelty these people seemed to demand?

  Cruelty? Or firmness? Firmness I can give them, Lenardo determined. I’m a Master Reader. I don’t have to invade people’s private thoughts to stop plots before they get as far as Bril’s poisoning the wine.

  But Lenardo was only one Reader, and if his actions that day had made many of his people feel more secure, they had also made one implacable enemy and generated enough fear to provide him with henchmen.

  It was Julia’s screaming that woke Lenardo well after midnight, just as Bril was poised to plunge a knife into his heart. Lenardo twisted, and the blade gashed his left shoulder. He hardly felt it, surging to his knees to drive his right shoulder into Bril’s midsection, knocking the man back against the wall with a howl at the pain in his injured back.

  Bril’s knife clattered to the floor, but by that time another man had grabbed Lenardo from behind, seeking to cut his throat while two more reached for his arms. They could hardly see in the faint light from the window, but Lenardo could Read. He allowed the man behind him to get a grip and set his feet, grasped his knife hand so that he could not cut, and then used him for leverage, swinging his legs up to kick out sharply at the other two attackers. One he caught squarely on the point of the breastbone, full force, and the man dropped unconscious. The other he kicked in the diaphragm, leaving him only staggered, while Lenardo’s weight drove the man behind him down, with Lenardo on top of him.

  Lenardo arched over, twisting the knife out of his attacker’s hand, bringing his full weight down on one knee on the man’s forearm to the satisfying crunch of broken bones.

  There were footsteps coming, help on the way, but Lenardo still faced two armed men, for Bril had reclaimed his weapon, mad with hopeless fury. With the growl of an animal, he launched himself at Lenardo, knife raised high, exposing himself to Lenardo’s thrust between his ribs just as soldiers with swords and torches poured through the doorway.

  Bril was falling at Lenardo’s feet, one man lay unconscious, one sat moaning with the pain of a broken arm, and the fourth turned, knife in hand, and was promptly dispatched by one of the soldiers. Lenardo, breathless, surveyed the scene of carnage, revealed in the torchlight to be spattered with blood: his own and Bril’s. His shoulder began to hurt in earnest.

  The two men Lenardo had injured were still alive, and so was Bril, although he was bleeding badly. Lenardo’s blade had missed his heart. Arkus and Helmuth were both in the room now, and Julia scooted between people’s legs to Lenardo’s side, crying, “Oh, they hurt you! Don’t die, my lord-please don’t die!”

  “I’m not going to die,” he said to reassure her.

  At once, she pointed to his fallen attackers. “Kill them, my lord. Torture them to death.”

  Lenardo looked over the child’s head to Arkus, who nodded, but it was Helmuth who said, “You must, my lord. This time you have no choice.”

  The three surviving attackers were taken to the infirmary, where Sandor put them to sleep, doing no more for Bril than to stop his bleeding so that he would survive for his execution.

  The gash across Lenardo’s shoulder was not deep. Sandor laid his hand over it, and the familiar heat of Adept healing spread through his shoulder as he sat on the edge of the infirmary table, talking with Helmuth and Arkus and Julia, who refused to be shepherded off to bed until she was certain that Lenardo was healed.

  “They killed two guards on the way in here,” Arkus said. “Slit then-throats. But my lord, I don’t understand. How could they sneak up on you? You’ve always known before.”

  “I was asleep,” he explained.

  Arkus and Helmuth looked blank, and Julia said, “So was I-and I Read them!”

  “And that, child,” said Lenardo, “is what saved my life. I thank you.”

  “But why didn’t you Read them, my lord?” Helmuth asked.

  “One of the most difficult lessons a Reader must learn,” Lenardo explained, “is not to Read in his sleep. It is not that he might discover something but that he might reveal something, for no one can control his own dreams.”

  “I still don’t understand,” Arkus said. “Who could Read your dreams?”

  “Julia or any other Reader. Where I come from, Arkus, people with varying degrees of Reading ability are as common as people with varying degrees of Adept talent are here. In the empire, a Reader with a slight talent-as you have a slight Adept talent-would be trained in an Academy to make the most he could of his ability. Can you imagine the chaos in an Academy full of children if each time one had a nightmare, it was broadcast to all the others? And what of the traumas of growing up? Consider how you might have felt had your adolescent fantasies been broadcast to all your fellow soldiers in training.”

  Arkus blushed scarlet. “I see,” he murmured.

  “But protection from embarrassment is not the main reason a Reader must guard his sleep. Theoretically, a stronger Reader might guide the dreams of a lesser one, specifically to elicit information. That is now a forbidden technique, for Readers are not gods. Because that technique, developed for teaching and for treating some of the problems Readers have, was in the past vilely misused, now every Reader is taught self-protection from earliest childhood. I shall have to teach Julia-a difficult task, as it means staying awake for many nights, monitoring her sleep. I fear it will have to wait until our situation here is much more stable.”

  “My lord,” said Helmuth, “you are going to have to tell us how to protect you.”

  “Yes,” added Arkus. “This incident tonight should have been prevented. Twice you have proved that you could Read danger and prepare for it, even recognize poisoned wine so that no one could be harmed. It crossed my mind last evening that after you revealed yourself as a Reader, I should increase the guard here, but then I thought, no, you will warn us far in advance of any attack. How much more effective to let your people see that you have no more need of an armed guard than the strongest Lord Adept.”

  “I haven’t, except when I’m asleep,” sai
d Lenardo. “But you must tell us when you are vulnerable,” Helmuth insisted. “A Lord Adept must have protection when he has used up his strength in applying his powers. Now that we know you must be guarded while you sleep, we will protect you.”

  “I’m still not used to thinking of myself as needing protection,” Lenardo explained. “A clean battle is one thing, but assassins in the night-”

  “You defeated them,” Sandor put in. “No need to spread the word that you had even a small wound. Try your shoulder, my lord. Any soreness left?”

  “No, Sandor. Thank you very much.”

  “Sandor is right,” said Helmuth. “It won’t hurt at all to let your people think you’re invulnerable. Mutiny, poison, assassination-and there you are, unscathed, while your attackers are all dead or scheduled for execution. The word will spread tomorrow, my lord. With Bril dead, there is no one with a personal grudge. This should be the last attempt on your life until your people have a chance to see how you rule. And if you rule well, it may be the last attack ever.”

  Before the executions, Lenardo had the distasteful task of Reading the condemned men to discover whether they had acted alone or represented a larger group of malcontents. It was a skill he had learned years ago, interrogating savage prisoners for the Aventine Army. To his relief, he found that Bril had trusted no one but the three who had joined him, formerly wealthy businessmen with whom he had often traded financial favors.

  When Lenardo stood once more on the steps, bracing himself to witness the executions, Julia joined him. “I told you to go to the watchtower, child.”

  “They tried to kill you. I want to see them die.” Sensing that he would have her removed bodily, she tried a different tack. “Please, my lord. I must learn my duty.”

  Lenardo waved Sandor over. “Julia insists on witnessing the executions. I’ll help her block the pain, but if it becomes too much for her, I want you to put her to sleep.”

  “It won’t be too much,” Julia insisted.

  Lenardo was astonished at the girl’s strength. He showed her how to block the worst pain of the men being flogged to death, but she had little control, and both of them were sick and shaking by the time the last of the attackers passed out. By Lenardo’s order, they were not revived; the beatings continued until all three hearts had stopped.

  Faint and nauseated, Lenardo stood his ground while the bodies were cut down. Greg and Vona stepped forward, and purifying fire consumed the bodies. Lenardo could not help but recall the burnt-out canyon in which Galen had died. A few bones were all they had ever found of the four Adepts and one Reader destroyed by powers Lenardo guided. Scavengers had made it impossible to know which of the scattered bones were whose.

  Bril and his henchmen may not be accorded funeral rites, Lenardo thought, but at least their bodies were not desecrated.

  The crowd broke up in silence, and Julia collapsed at Lenardo’s feet. He picked her up, but Sandor quickly took the child.

  “Come inside and lie down yourself, my lord.”

  Inside, Julia came to, threw up, and began to return to normal. “I should have had you carried to the tower,” Lenardo told her.

  “No,” she insisted. “People mustn’t think we’re afraid to deal out punishment just because it hurts us.”

  He agreed with her in principle. The savage child seemed to understand instinctively what he was learning through trial and error, but he was faintly repelled at the way she sought to rum her abilities into power over others. And yet that is what I must learn in order to achieve a treaty with the empire.

  As word spread that the new lord was a Reader, the population shifted. People fled across borders or into the hills, swelling the ranks of the hill bandits. In the city, as people came out of shock, Arkus’ troops had their hands full as fights, broke out between those willing to give their strange new lord a chance and those who feared his nonAdept status.

  Even those on Lenardo’s side resented his attempts to stop the regrowth of certain occupations; they were used to thievery, gambling, and prostitution as normal daily activities.

  Helmuth advised Lenardo to punish theft and accept the other activities. “Sex doesn’t harm ordinary people, my lord, and if some are foolish enough to pay for it, let them.”

  Lenardo sighed. In the Aventine Empire, prostitution was taxed along with everything else. Gambling would never stop-the problem was to prevent cheating. “Where is all the money coming from?” he asked. “We confiscated what the looters stole.”

  “You’ve been paying your army regularly.”

  “Helmuth, how can I allow-”

  “My lord, you are worrying over which way the wind blows. Unless you plan to start a fire, it doesn’t matter.”

  In the old man, Lenardo Read the wisdom of experience. “We’ve enough to do without starting fires, but all reports of anyone robbed or cheated come directly to me. It’s easy enough for a Reader to discover who’s lying.”

  Lenardo was constantly grateful for Helmuth’s advice. When the old man had volunteered to join him, claiming that Lenardo’s land was closer to Lilith’s, where he had a daughter and grandchildren, Lenardo had hesitated. But there had been few in Aradia’s land willing to throw in their lot with him, and Helmuth had quickly proved invaluable. It had been his idea to give Arkus and his troops a new chance, his connections who had scouted out Sandor, Greg, and Vona, all distantly related to him and all with the Adept powers Lenardo lacked. Josa was Helmuth’s niece, entrusted to her uncle in hopes that in a new land she might find a suitable husband.

  Once they were established in Zentli, Helmuth demonstrated new talents, for agriculture and for organizing people without antagonizing them. Lenardo couldn’t have ruled without him.

  As the summer passed, the crops were harvested, and the new lord’s reputation for fairness spread. People began to return to Lenardo’s land. There was plenty of work, as Zendi had been the central trade city and all its warehouses had been destroyed in the burning and looting. Before winter, there must be not only food but shelter and clothing for everyone. The miserable huts that had served Drakonius’ peasants were quickly replaced with more substantial homes. The materials were available, and willing hands could put up such a dwelling in a day or two, but Drakonius had never allowed them such comforts.

  Everyone with Adept talent had fled before Lenardo arrived. Now many straggled back, offering their services. Healers were desperately needed, as Lenardo found chronic disease everywhere. Some would suffer all their lives from malnutrition in childhood. It would be many years before he could hope to have the robust population he had seen in Aradia’s land.

  Meanwhile, though, very few people were worse off than they had been under Drakonius. The vast majority, for the first time in their lives, were adequately fed and housed, and they worked with a will in return. Lenardo saw Helmuth’s wisdom in not denying their leisuretime pleasures.

  He could have used a hundred Readers, and frequently longed to be rid of the one he had. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Julia; no one could help loving the child, and that was her undoing. Lenardo had little time to spend with her, and so he assigned Helmuth to teach her to read and write and Josa to teach her “whatever girls are supposed to know.” As it turned out, the old man melted at Julia’s smiles, while Josa, a plain girl of an age when her society warned her to prepare for a life of lonely spinsterhood (Twenty-jive this winter! Lenardo once caught her plaintive thought), took out her frustrated motherhood on the little girl, who, cleaned up and fed, her hair a halo of dark curls about her face, was turning into a pretty creature indeed.

  Since Julia accepted Lenardo’s authority and worked eagerly on her lessons in Reading, he did not at first realize that she was not performing equally well for her other teachers. Nor did any of them know the games she played when she was not under adult supervision.

  A ruined city was a dangerous playground. The completely burnt-out sections were off limits, but Julia did not consider that the order applied t
o her. Unfortunately, she had little trouble persuading other children to join her in exploring and treasure hunting. They stole a rope and some digging tools and went into the abandoned northwest sector, where Julia Read a cache of coins at the bottom of an old well. They lowered Julia and two strong boys into the well to bring up the treasure, but inevitably their efforts caused the walls to start to collapse. When the three children above tried to haul up the rope, the terrified ones in the well all scrambled to be pulled up at once. Their thrashing dislodged more dirt to fall in on them, along with one of the girls hauling from above.

  The other two children ran screaming for help, but long before they could reach the forum, Lenardo’s mind was torn with, //Master Lenardo! My lord! Help!// and then a mental screech of panic, //Father! Father,// and a terrifying sense of suffocation.

  “The gods help us,” he cried, setting off at a run across the forum, Reading the whole picture before he had gone twenty paces.

  Arkus loomed before him. “My lord-”

  “Get men, ropes-follow me! Hurry!”

  Arkus relayed the order and quickly caught up with Lenardo. When they encountered the two breathless children, Lenardo stopped only long enough to tell them: “We know. Help is on die way.”

  All the while, he was projecting to Julia, //I’m coming. Don’t move,// for the struggles of the children threatened to bring more dirt down on them.

  At the site, Lenardo Read all four children alive. The girl who had fallen in had a broken arm, but the other three were only scratched and bruised. They were half buried, though, and more wall threatened to cave in. “Where are those ropes?”

  “They’re coming, my lord,” Arkus replied, peering cautiously into the depths of the well. “Who’s down there?”

  “Julia. Three other children. They know better!”

  “Father?” a frightened voice called up to them.

  “Hush! We’re here. Keep still, all of you.” Men arrived with ropes, followed by Josa, Helmuth, and Sandor.