“What’s up his ass?”
“I have a message from your brother,” she said softly. “He asked me to tell you before the Justice.”
“What, he says I should die fighting?”
“His exact words were Once we’re done with your beat-down, get your stupid dog ass out of that goddamn simichair and fuck off for the gate. There’s a guy coming through. He doesn’t look it and he won’t smell it, but he’s Tanner. Play nice. We need him. I’ll be in touch.”
Orbek said, “Fuck me …”
“He worried that you—your body, this body, this Smoke Hunt fetch you’re controlling by technology from Earth—will die before he can tell you himself.”
“Yah? He must know something I don’t.”
“He is singularly well informed.”
As the crowds settled back down, Markham came stomping out into the Ring. “Lady Khlaylock!” he boomed. “How is it you do not declare your title?”
“Hm,” she said softly, nodding to herself. “He said this would happen.”
She stepped forward to address the Lord Righteous, and all the assembled crowds. “My Lord, I have declared every title I lawfully hold.”
“But—” Markham blinked as though she were a blinding light. “But you are Khryl’s Own Fist!”
“No more.”
“You have been Champion longer than any Lord in two hundred years!”
“I was.” Her voice rang like a brass bell. “This noontide I ventured to assault an Armed Combatant. I was defeated, and thus hold no formal title beyond my rank and my uncle’s lands.”
“Defeated?” Markham looked dazed. “You?”
“I have said so.” Her balance shifted subtly, and a dangerous spark glittered in her eyes. “Do you undertake to doubt a Khlaylock’s word? In public?”
The Lord Righteous stiffened. “This Justice—this was to be Khryl’s Fist against the—”
“I have no interest in what this Justice was to be. My sole concern—the sole concern of every true Soldier of Khryl—is to ensure that Justice assayed is justice done. Neither less nor more.”
Markham reddened to the roots of his hair. She swept past him and opened her arms to the Lords Legendary and the assembled ogrilloi of Hell above them. “Many here believed that you would today see the Lord of Battle’s affirmation, or denial, that enslaving ogrilloi was and is a righteous act. And some would have argued the question based upon an outcome of trial between the chieftain of the Black Knives and Khryl’s Living Fist. There will never be such an outcome. I am not Khryl’s Champion, and this creature is not kwatcharr of the Black Knives.”
This brought a dangerous rumble up from the humans and down from the ogrilloi both.
She raised her hand. “Must I kill or die to reveal a truth that every living creature here today already knows? Must I shed blood to defend crime? Hazard my skill, my life, and Khryl’s Strength in service to contemptible injustice? Were Our Lord of Battle among us today, He would weep with shame at what has been done in His Name.”
Markham’s eyes bulged and cords twisted in his neck. “What are you doing?”
“Speaking truth, as I am Sworn to do.” Scalding contempt joined the dangerous glitter in her indigo eyes. “What are you doing?”
He wheeled on Orbek. “Say that you are kwatcharr.”
Orbek’s head winched downward.
“Say it!”
“I am Orbek, Black Knife kwatcharr.”
Markham flinched like he’d been slapped.
“You hear. Khryl hears.” Angvasse lifted her chin along with her voice. “Every Sworn Knight and Lord within the sound of his voice knows Khryl hears this lie! Whatever you all hoped to see today will not happen. Will never happen.”
“You cannot do this,” Markham growled.
“I can. I do.”
“The Black Knife must submit to Khryl.”
“It will not happen.”
“How can you say this?”
“Khryl’s Champion affirmed it to me himself, as did the Black Knife. There will be neither submission nor battle. Ever.”
“ ‘Affirmed it’ to you alone?”
“Should you think I have been misled, or have mistaken his meaning, you are welcome to ask him yourself.”
“Him? Which one?”
“There is only one.”
With a curiously pleasurable frisson—one that gave her a hint of why the new Champion was so fond of theatrics—she waved toward the retaining wall of Hell’s first tier, above and directly behind the dais where sat the Lords Legendary.
“He’s right up there.”
As all eyes turned to the face of Hell, there came a peal of thunder that blasted away all other sound, and the city fell into midnight as though some god had extinguished the sun. The shocked blind silence lasted only as long as taking a breath, and then the darkness was sliced open by a ragged pillar of lightning that danced and writhed and crashed into thunder … and with this second peal light returned to the city, and on the spot she had indicated—still smoking from the lightning’s fury—stood a slim man with salted black hair and greying beard, clad in tunic, pants, and boots of stained, half-faded black leather, and each of his hands held a black-bladed knife.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said in a tone of cheerful mockery. “Did I miss anything?”
“What—but—what—?” Markham sputtered. “You can’t—this can’t be—”
Orbek only stood and stared with a sullen scowl.
“Give the Champion his due,” Angvasse Khlaylock murmured. “He does know how to make an entrance.”
He took one step for momentum and hurled himself headlong into space to execute an elegant flip and land with a resonant boom on the dais of the Lords Legendary. “Hi, boys. Don’t get up.
“Seriously. Don’t,” he said, as a couple of them were rising, hands to their weapons. “I haven’t killed any good guys today. Don’t be first.”
He backflipped off the dais and landed on the Ring of Justice in a three-point kneel, head inclined, and took just a second to reflect how much better he was at pretty much everything when he was showing off.
Maybe Kollberg had been right, all those years ago: maybe the only power he needed was star power.
“My Lords,” he said gravely, and when he rose, the riot guns of several hundred armsmen were pointed in his general direction. He lifted his right hand. “Lady Khlaylock!”
Amplified until it seemed the shout had come from the world entire, his words boomed back from the face of Hell and thundered through the whitestone streets of Purthin’s Ford.
“Who is Champion? Who is the Living Fist of Khryl?”
She stepped forward. “You are, my Lord!”
He stood and waited until the roars of disbelief and outrage began to fade. “What is my name?”
“Men call you Caine, my Lord!”
Silence dropped like a boulder big enough to crush the city.
“What is my full name?”
Angvasse Khlaylock took a knee.
Rumblings from the crowds like a distant earthquake.
“My Lord Champion, you are Caine Black Knife, kwatcharr of the Boedecken ogrilloi.”
In later years, it would come to be said that the roar from the crowds present on that day to witness the Declaration of Caine swelled until it cracked the world.
This was only a metaphor, of course—a poetic exaggeration invented to underscore the significance of the event—and it would later come to be a commonplace cliché for any cataclysm to be referred to as “like another Declaration of Caine.” Eventually, the reference would be applied to anything loud, even if not dramatic. During a severe thunderstorm, for instance, someone would customarily say words to the effect of “Well, Caine’s Declarin’ the hell out of us today”; someone who wished to underscore implacable determination might say, “Let Caine Declare what he may.” In the fullness of time, the phrase would be used most often with derision, as a sarcastic hyperbole for something mer
ely trivial.
It would also be said, among the common run of superstitious folk, that the Declaration of Caine cracked not the world, but the heavens above and all hells below, and that the roar greeting the Declaration came not from the throats of humanity and ogrilloi, but from the fear and despair of every living god and demon and angel and deva as they first heard the name of the Black Knife.
Unlike the proverbial expressions above, however, this was not only a metaphor.
• • •
He waited for the roar to fade.
He turned then, gazing out into the crowds, slowly, as though to meet every pair of eyes in turn. He cast the knives down so that they stabbed into the Ring of Justice at his feet, and shivered there. Then he unlaced his tunic, and as he took it off, he spoke.
“Any man, woman, buck, or bitch who would deny me either title, step up and get in line. I want to count how many people I have to kill today.”
Now bare to the waist, his webwork of scars on full display, he went over to where Markham and Orbek stood, and Angvasse knelt.
Angvasse lowered her head. “My Lord Champion.”
He touched her shoulder. “Good evening and well met, Lady Khlaylock. Rise.”
Even in a normal tone, his words boomed across the Battleground.
Orbek growled under his breath, “Fucking Kierendal. Go figure. Elf slag sells me out.”
“Nobody’s selling anybody, big dog. Shut up and sit down.”
“Don’t take your orders, me. Not anymore.”
“Like that, is it?”
“You know it is.”
“Yeah, whatever.” He looked around. “Anybody else?”
No one seemed to be leaping in.
“Come on, some fucking idiot around here has to be brain-dead enough to think he can take me.”
“I can take you, little fucker,” Orbek growled.
“Yeah, except you’re not a fucking idiot.”
Markham’s face darkened and hardened. He paced away toward the center of the Ring.
“I am Markham Tarkanen of Purthin’s Ford, Lord Righteous of the Order of Khryl,” he said distinctly, “and I proclaim that this supposed Caine Black Knife is not Khryl’s Champion, has never been Khryl’s Champion, and will never be Khryl’s Champion. If any dispute this proclamation, I will undertake to prove its truth upon their bodies in this place and at this time.”
“That’s what I’m talking about. Thanks, Markham.” He grinned. “I knew I’d have to kill a Knight today. I’m glad it’s you.”
“I have defeated you before.”
“By ambush, you Craven Recreant whateverthefuck. Raise a hand to me here, and I will smoke your Knight ass like a cheap cigar. In this place and at this time. Believe it.”
The Lord Righteous touched his mailed hand to his brushed-steel breastplate. “Shall I disarm?”
“Nobody wants to see you naked.”
“Very well.” Markham set his helm upon his head. “Choose your weapon.”
“I have every weapon I need right here. Use whatever suits you.”
Markham strode over to the dais of the Lords Legendary. One of them handed him a morningstar. “At your pleasure.”
“Hey, I’ve got an idea. Orbek, you think you can whip me and become the Black Knife, right?”
“You know I can, little human fucker.”
“And you, Markham, think you can whip me and become the Champion.”
“Should Khryl so decree.”
“Sure. How about instead I whip both of you? At the same time. It’s getting late and I’ve got shit to do.”
Orbek’s face darkened too, and his eyes took on a suspicious slant. “What trick you think you play, little fucker?”
“You’ve got an easy way to find out.”
He pulled his two blades out of the Ring floor and tossed them casually near Orbek’s feet. “What do you think? Just like a story, huh? The ogrillo with black knives, the Knight with the morningstar in his hand, and me with the only pair of balls in the Ring. I’m thinking after I kill both of you, everybody else will probably shut the fuck up.”
Orbek picked up the knives and weighed them in his hands. “What do you do for weapon?”
“I’m pretty sure I know where to put my hands on two or three. If I need them.”
“This is ridiculous.” Markham turned toward the Lords Legendary. “He makes a mockery of Khryl’s Justice.”
“Khryl’s Justice was mockery already.”
“It’s unprecedented—”
“Oh, sure, and you’ve had a Monastic assassin Champion plenty of times. Come on, bitches. What are you afraid of? Losing, or winning? Because, y’know, if you win you’ll be Champion and he’ll be kwatcharr and you two sissies will get to stage your precious fucking pillow fight.”
Orbek tilted his head to one side, then the other, cracking his neck with a sound like a drumroll. “If Khrylbitches are ready, Black Knives are ready.”
The Lords Legendary weren’t having any, of course; maintaining tradition, dignity, and decorum was their job. But he saw the dangerous glitter within the eye-slits of Markham’s helm, and he knew he could make this happen.
Besides, nobody in the crowd could hear a word the Lords Legendary said.
“I’m kwatcharr, and I say to hold back is submission!” he barked at Orbek, then turned to Markham. “I am Khryl’s Champion, and I proclaim Lord Tarkanen’s hesitation displays the same cowardice for which I killed Purthin Khlaylock!”
And when those words thundered out across the Battleground, there was no one not on their feet, no one not shouting, no one not craving blood, and he went to the center of the Ring of Justice, exactly between Orbek and Markham, spread his arms, and said, “Come on, then.”
Markham lowered his head, roared, “For the glory of Khryl!” and charged; Orbek just roared, and charged twice as fast. In the middle of the Ring, exactly between them, Caine Black Knife said only one word.
“Angvasse.”
With preternatural speed, the former Champion’s right hand slipped up under the back of her tunic to the holster fixed to her trouser belt at the small of her back.
The knives in Orbek’s hands exploded into blinding white fire as though they’d been forged from thermite, too intense to even register as heat. “Gahhh—”
He reeled to one side, frantically whipping his hands to cast away the blades, but they had burned themselves into his flesh and into his bone and his feet tangled and he went down on his face, rolling in hopes of smothering the insatiable flame.
Markham shouted, “Tashonnall!” and blue witchfire erupted over his armor and his velocity instantly tripled, turning his body into a lethal missile that would certainly have splattered Caine into bloody gobbets of flesh and sprayed them over half of Purthin’s Ford had Caine not snatched neatly from the air the large black pistol that Angvasse had tossed to him and then put a couple tristack shatterslugs precisely through Markham’s eyeballs.
The shatterslugs didn’t penetrate the back curve of the Lord Righteous’s helm, and thus when his corpse went facedown skidding across the Ring, the streak it left was a pudding of Markham’s face, brain, and skull. Caine stepped back to let the corpse slide on past him. He couldn’t help smiling.
Jesus, it felt great to get off a good one once in a while.
“Orbek.”
“Wha—?” The dazed ogrillo made it up to his knees, burning hands jammed into his now-also-burning armpits. His jaw hung slack.
“That’s how you do a pitch-out, big dog. Maybe you should take notes.”
“Fucker. You fucker. What fucking happens to you being a fucking crappy fucking shot?”
“You believed that? Shit, I guess I can act.” Caine shook his head, chuckling. “Say hi to Tanner,” he said, and shot Orbek in the face.
The three shatterslugs snapped Orbek’s head back, then he fell forward and lay on the Ring, still on fire, as was now the Ring itself around him.
He cast aside the pist
ol, and did not mark where it fell. “And three rounds is plenty.”
The crowds fell so suddenly silent that for some seconds birdsong and the soft plash of ripples in the Caineway could be heard.
He stepped back into the center of the burning Ring, threw wide his arms, and shouted at the top of his considerable lungs, further amplified by the magicks of Kierendal.
“Did anybody NOT see that? Does anybody need it EXPLAINED?”
Nobody volunteered a question. The Lords Legendary looked to be arguing about what Khryl wanted them to do now. A couple hundred armsmen fiddled nervously with their riot guns, swinging them back and forth trying to get a clear line of fire at him and control the crowds at the same time.
Well, all right, then.
“Twenty-five years ago, I stood in this place. I told the Black Knife Nation that this place is MINE. I told them that here for them is DEATH. I told them their bitches will HOWL and their pups will STARVE.
“I said for Black Knives, this place is HELL.
“Some of you heard me on that day. Many more know some who did. Did I LIE? Was I MISTAKEN? Was I JOKING?”
The answering roar made the Ring shudder like a drumhead.
“What is my WORD? Is it FALSE? Is it EMPTY?”
This time the answer had words, a rhythm, becoming a chant.
Skinwalker’s word is LAW
Skinwalker’s word is LAW
He couldn’t help smiling. Kaiggez, all over the job. Nice.
The Lords Legendary seemed to have come to some kind of decision, as every one of them was now on his feet, unlimbering weapons and affixing helms.
He held up a hand, and the chanting fell away.
“Then, I warned Black Knives.
“Now I warn SOLDIERS OF KHRYL.
“This place is NOT THE BATTLEGROUND. This place is NOT PURTHIN’S FORD
“This place is MINE.”
He gave them half a breath for effect.
“Whose PLACE is this?”
The answer from two hundred thousand throats:
YOUR PLACE
“Who AM I?”
SKINWALKER