An Empire Unacquainted With Defeat

  AN EMPIRE UNACQUAINTED WITH DEFEAT

  Stories Of The Dread Empire

  Glen Cook

  Night Shade Books

  San Francisco

  An Empire Unacquainted with Defeat © 2009 by Glen Cook

  This edition of An Empire Unacquainted with Defeat

  © 2009 by Night Shade Books

  Jacket art © 2008 by Raymond Swanland

  Jacket design by Claudia Noble

  Interior layout and design by Jeremy Lassen

  All rights reserved

  Digital Edition

  ISBN: 978-1-59780-140-9 (Trade Hardcover)

  ISBN: 978-1-59780-141-6 (Limited Edition)

  Night Shade Books

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  "Soldier of an Empire Unacquainted with Defeat" first appeared in The Berkley Showcase, Volume 2, Berkley Books, August 1980, Victoria Schochet & John Silbersack, editors. ©1980 by Glen Cook.

  "The Nights of Dreadful Silence" first appeared in Fantastic Stories, September, 1973. ©1973 by Ultimate Publishing Co., Inc.

  "Finding Svale's Daughter" appears here for the first time.

  "Ghost Stalk" first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May 1978. ©1978 by Mercury Press, Inc.

  "Filed Teeth" first appeared in Dragons of Darkness, Ace Books, November 1981, Orson Scott Card, editor. ©1981 by Glen Cook.

  "Castle of Tears" first appeared in Whispers, October 1979. ©1979 by Stuart David Schiff.

  "Call for the Dead" first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 1980. ©1980 by Mercury Press, Inc.

  "Severed Heads" first appeared in Sword & Sorceress I, DAW Books, 1984, Marion Zimmer Bradley, editor. ©1984 by Glen Cook.

  "Silverheels" first appeared in slightly different form in Witchcraft & Sorcery, May 1971. ©1971 by Fantasy Publishing Co., Inc.

  "Hell's Forge" appears here for the first time.

  Introduction

  The world of the Dread Empire, from the beginning, was conceived as the stage for numerous, often unrelated stories. The earliest were intended to center on the characters Bragi Ragnarson, Mocker, and Haroun bin Yousif. Most of those stories have never been published. Some were quite amusing. Like the novelette about the sorcerers' convention inspired by the insanity witnessed at my first science fiction convention, the St. Louis Con Worldcon of 1969. There were a whole string of stories, back to back, that, in time, would have filled several volumes set before the events chronicled in The Fire in His Hands and, mainly, between With Mercy Toward None and A Shadow of All Night Falling. Only a minority of those got written and fewer saw publication. Of those actually written only a handful can be located anymore. See below.

  The Dread Empire world grew fast, over a decade, going through several reincarnations, before A Shadow of All Night Falling actually found a publisher capable of surviving long enough to get it into the bookstores. It was accepted twice in the earlier 1970s. The first publisher went bankrupt. The second suffered a devastating fire in its production and storage facilities. Its business response was to turn back all non-bestseller titles scheduled for the next two years.

  In 1980, when the first books appeared, the Dread Empire series was expected to consist of fourteen volumes, the central feature of which would be one vast mega-novel, in multiple volumes, spanning the lives of Bragi Ragnarson and Haroun bin Yousif. Seven of those titles did see print. Two more, Wake the Cruel Storm and The Wrath of Kings, were started but never finished. The former, following on from An Ill Fate Marshalling, was 85% complete. The manuscript and all associated developmental materials have disappeared, presumably appropriated by a visitor to my home who just had to know what would happen next. There are no viable suspects in this or several other disappearances of rare artifacts from my earliest writing career.

  About 15% of The Wrath of Kings survives, fragments of draft material that happened to be outside my filing cabinets, lost in the mess of the house, whenever the rest of the material disappeared. A few of the short pieces, some of which appear here for the first time, survived by hiding in my agent's files and came home to Papa when the passing of the head of the agency caused it to shut down. Among these was a novelette entitled "The Funeral," which would be the capstone—or headstone—for the entire series. I'd completely forgotten having written it till I came on it while putting this collection together.

  The published stories are presented here as they appeared in print, less typographical errors, however tempted I was to make improvements. Bad grammar, run-on sentences, squirrelly punctuation and all. Much of the latter not having been my fault but that of a couple of editors whose relationship with proper punctuation was somewhere beyond the second cousin twice removed state. Only "Silverheels" received even cosmetic revisions. I felt it important to show any evolution that might have occurred.

  Soldier of An Empire

  Unacquainted

  With Defeat

  The following novella was the longest of the published short fiction pieces in the Dread Empire world setting. It is a sidelight involving none of the characters from the several novels.

  Possibly the best received of all my short fiction, this garnered numerous excellent reviews, was on the Locus recommended reading list, and was chosen one of the five best novellas of 1980 in the Locus Readers' Poll.

  The world of the Dread Empire is, of course, the most important character of the series. It is always there, always on stage, always a stage, but never to be taken for granted.

  I

  His name was Tain and he was a man to beware. The lacquered armor of the Dread Empire rode in the packs on his mule.

  The pass was narrow, treacherous, and, therefore, little used. The crumbled slate lay loose and deep, clacking underfoot with the ivory-on-ivory sound of punji counters in the senyo game. More threatened momentary avalanche off the precarious slopes. A cautious man, Tain walked. He led the roan gelding. His mule's tether he had knotted to the roan's saddle.

  An end to the shale walk came. Tain breathed deeply, relieved. His muscles ached with the strain of maintaining his footing.

  A flint-tipped arrow shaved the gray over his right ear.

  The black longsword leapt into his right hand, the equally dark shortsword into his left. He vanished among the rocks before the bowstring's echoes died.

  Silence.

  Not a bird chirped. Not one chipmunk scurried across the slope, pursuing the arcane business of that gentle breed. High above, one lone eagle floated majestically against an intense blue backdrop of cloudless sky. Its shadow skittered down the ragged mountainside like some frenetic daytime ghost. The only scent on the breeze was that of old and brittle stone.

  A man's scream butchered the stillness.

  Tain wiped his shortsword on his victim's greasy furs. The dark blade's polish appeared oily. It glinted sullen indigoes and purples when the sun hit right.

  Similar blades had taught half a world the meaning of fear.

  A voice called a name. Another responded with an apparent, "Shut up!" Tain couldn't be sure. The languages of the mountain tribes were mysteries to him.

  He remained kneeling, allowing trained senses to roam. A fly landed on the dead man's face. It made nervous patrols in ever-smaller circles till it started exploring the corpse's mouth.

  Tain moved.

  The next one died without a sound. The third celebrated his passing by plunging downhill in a clatter of pebbles.

  Tain knelt again, waiting. There were two more. One wore an aura of Power. A shaman. He might prove difficult.

  Another shadow fluttered across the mountainside, Tain smiled thinly. Death
's daughters were clinging to her skirts today.

  The vulture circled warily, not dropping lower till a dozen sisters had joined its grim pavane.

  Tain took a jar from his travel pouch, spooned part of its contents with two fingers. A cinnamon-like smell sweetened the air briefly, to be pursued by an odor as foul as death. He rubbed his hands till they were thoroughly greased. Then he exchanged the jar for a small silver box containing what appeared to be dried peas. He rolled one pea round his palm, stared at it intently. Then he boxed his hands, concentrated on the shaman, and sighed.

  The vultures swooped lower. A dog crept onto the trail below, slunk to the corpse there. It sniffed, barked tentatively, then whined. It was a mangy auburn bitch with teats stretched by the suckling of pups.

  Tain breathed gently between his thumbs.

  A pale cerulean light leaked between his fingers. Its blue quickly grew as intense as that of the topless sky. The glow penetrated his flesh, limning his finger bones.

  Tain gasped, opened his hands. A blinding blue ball drifted away.

  He wiped his palms on straggles of mountain grass, followed up with a dirt wash. He would need firm grips on his swords.

  His gaze never left the bobbing blue ball, nor did his thoughts abandon the shaman.

  The ball drifted into a stand of odd, conical rocks. They had a crude, monumental look.

  A man started screaming. Tain took up his blades.

  The screams were those of a beast in torment. They went on and on and on.

  Tain stepped up onto a boulder, looked down. The shaman writhed below him. The blue ball finished consuming his right forearm. It started on the flesh above his elbow. A scabby, wild-haired youth beat the flame with a tattered blanket.

  Tain's shadow fell across the shaman. The boy looked up into brown eyes that had never learned pity. Terror drained his face.

  A black viper's tongue flicked once, surely.

  Tain hesitated before he finished the shaman. The wild wizard wouldn't have shown him the same mercy.

  He broke each of the shaman's fetishes. A skull on a lance he saved and planted like a grave marker. The witch-doctor's people couldn't misapprehend that message.

  Time had silvered Tain's temples, but he remained a man to beware.

  Once he had been an Aspirant. For a decade he had been dedicated to the study of the Power. The Tervola, the sorcerer-lords of his homeland, to whose peerage he had aspired, had proclaimed him a Candidate at three. But he had never shown the cold will necessary, nor had he developed the inalterable discipline needed, to attain Select status. He had recognized, faced, and accepted his shortcomings. Unlike so many others, he had learned to live with the knowledge that he couldn't become one of his motherland's masters.

  He had become one of her soldiers instead, and his Aspirant training had served him well.

  Thirty years with the legions. And all he had brought away was a superbly trained gelding, a cranky mule, knowledge, and his arms and armor. And his memories. The golden markings on the breastplate in his mule packs declared him a leading centurion of the Demon Guard, and proclaimed the many honors he had won.

  But a wild western sorcerer had murdered the Demon Prince. The Guard had no body to protect. Tain had no one to command . . . . And now the Tervola warred among themselves, with the throne of the Dread Empire as prize.

  Never before had legion fought legion.

  Tain had departed. He was weary of the soldier's life. He had seen too many wars, too many battles, too many pairs of lifeless eyes staring up with "Why?" reflected in their dead pupils. He had done too many evils without questioning, without receiving justification. His limit had come when Shinsan had turned upon herself like a rabid bitch able to find no other victim.

  He couldn't be party to the motherland's self-immolation. He couldn't bear consecrated blades against men with whom he had shared honorable fields.

  He had deserted rather than do so.

  There were many honors upon his breastplate. In thirty years he had done many dread and dire deeds

  The soldiers of Shinsan were unacquainted with defeat. They were the world's best, invincible, pitiless, and continuously employed. They were feared far beyond the lands where their boots had trod and their drums had beaten their battle signals.

  Tain hoped to begin his new life in a land unfamiliar with that fear.

  He continued into the mountains.

  One by one, Death's daughters descended to the feast.

  II

  The ivory candle illuminated a featureless cell. A man in black faced it. He sat in the lotus position on a barren granite floor. Behind a panther mask of hammered gold his eyes remained closed.

  He wasn't sleeping. He was listening with a hearing familiar only to masters of the Power.

  He had been doing this for months, alternating with a fellow Aspirant. He had begun to grow bored.

  He was Tervola Candidate Kai Ling. He was pursuing an assignment which could hasten his elevation to Select. He had been fighting for the promotion for decades, never swerving in his determination to seize what seemed forever beyond his grasp.

  His body jerked, then settled into a tense lean. Little temblors stirred his extremities.

  "West," he murmured. "Far, far to the west." The part of him that listened extended itself, analyzed, fixed a location.

  An hour passed.

  Finally, Kai Ling rose. He donned a black cape which hung beside the nearly invisible door. He smiled thinly behind his mask. Poor Chong. Chong wouldn't know which of them had won till he arrived for his turn on watch.

  III

  Tain rested, observing.

  It seemed a calm and peaceful hamlet in a calm and peaceful land. A dozen rude houses crowded an earthen track which meandered on across green swales toward a distant watchtower. The squat stronghold could be discerned only from the highest hilltops. Solitary shepherds' steads lay sprinkled across the countryside, their numbers proclaiming the base for the regional economy.

  The mountains Tain had crossed sheltered the land from the east. The ivory teeth of another gigantic range glimmered above the haze to the north. Tain grazed his animals and wondered if this might be the land he sought.

  He sat on a hillside studying it. He was in no hurry to penetrate it. Masterless now, with no fixed destination, he felt no need to rush. Too, he was reluctant. Human contact meant finalization of the decision he had reached months ago, in Shinsan.

  Intellectually he knew it was too late, but his heart kept saying that he could still change his mind. It would take the imminent encounter to sever his heartlines home.

  It was . . . scary . . . this being on his own.

  As a soldier he had often operated alone. But then he had been ordered to go, to do, and always he had had his legion or the Guard waiting. His legion had been home and family. Though the centurion was the keystone of the army, his father-Tervola chose his companions, and made most of his decisions and did most of his thinking for him.

  Tain had wrestled with himself for a year before abandoning the Demon Guard.

  A tiny smile tugged his lips. All those thousands who wept on hearing the distant mutter of drums—what would they think, learning that a soldier of the Dread Empire suffered fears and uncertainties too?

  "You may as well come out," he called gently. A boy was watching him from the brushy brookside down to his right. "I'm not going anywhere for hours."

  Tain hoped he had chosen the right language. He wasn't sure where he had exited the Dragon's Teeth. The peaks to the north, he reasoned, should be the Kratchnodians. That meant he would be in the part of Shara butting against East Heatherland. The nomadic Sharans didn't build homes and herd sheep, so these people would be immigrants from the west. They would speak Iwa Skolovdan.

  It was one of four western tongues he had mastered when the Demon Prince had looked westward, anticipating Shinsan's expansion thither.

  "I haven't eaten a shepherd in years." An unattended flock had be
trayed the boy.

  The lad left cover fearfully, warily, but with a show of bravado. He carried a ready sling in his right hand. He had well-kempt blond hair, pageboy trimmed, and huge blue eyes. He looked about eight.

  Tain cautioned himself: the child was no legion entry embarking upon the years of education, training, and discipline which gradually molded a soldier of Shinsan. He was a westerner, a genuine child, as free as a wild dog and probably as unpredictable.

  "Hello, shepherd. My name is Tain. What town would that be?"

  "Hello." The boy moved several steps closer. He eyed the gelding uncertainly.

  "Watch the mule. She's the mean one."

  "You talk funny. Where did you come from? Your skin is funny, too."

  Tain grinned. He saw things in reverse. But this was a land of round-eyes. He would be the stranger, the guest. He would have to remember, or suffer a cruel passage.

  Arrogant basic assumptions were drilled into the soldiers of Shinsan. Remaining humble under stress might be difficult.

  "I came from the east."

  "But the hill people . . . . They rob and kill everybody. Papa said." He edged closer, fascinated by Tain's swords.

  "Sometimes their luck isn't good. Don't you have a name?"

  The boy relented reluctantly. "Steban Kleckla. Are those swords? Real swords?"

  "Longsword and shortsword. I used to be a soldier." He winced. It hurt to let go of his past.

  "My Uncle Mikla has a sword. He was a soldier. He went all the way to Hellin Daimiel. That was in the El Murid Wars. He was a hero."

  "Really? I'll have to meet your uncle."

  "Were you a hero when you were a soldier? Did you see any wars?"

  "A few. They weren't much fun, Steban." How could he explain to a boy from this remote land, when all his knowledge was second-hand, through an uncle whose tales had grown with the years?