by Matthew Ward
Melanna elected to respect one, and ignore the other. She rose from the throne as he approached. Weaponless, of course. Her Immortals would have made thorough search. “Jasaldar Jorcari.”
Grey brows beetled, his composure thrown. “Ashar Jorcari now, my Empress. My service is long done. I’m merely a citizen.”
“My father spoke well of you, and I’m glad to receive you. I apologise that it must be you alone. My Immortals grow nervous with the throne room filled with old soldiers.”
An exaggeration, for Jorcari had arrived with only a score of petitioners, cast in much the same mould as himself, and now waiting in modest comfort elsewhere. Melanna had long ago found the business of rule more easily settled in more intimate gatherings. Save for herself and Jorcari, there were only the four Immortals standing watch at the foot of her throne, and a maidservant waiting close enough for ready summons, but far enough away to grant the illusion of privacy.
Her eyes on Jorcari’s, Melanna sat. “Especially those who come with grievances.” The frown returned. Surprised by her directness, or appalled by it? Melanna had seen plenty of both, and the one turned swiftly to the other. “Can I offer refreshment?”
Impossibly, Jorcari went even more rigid. “No, savim. I came to deliver a message for Blackwind Lodge, nothing more. I will intrude no longer than I must.”
Hard not to hear the double meaning. Outwardly polite, but beneath that the distaste for being in her presence. Six years of an Empress’ rule couldn’t erase generations of patriarchal attitudes. For a man like Jorcari, a woman could master the finest arts, toil in a field or construction site, even command an army of merchant caravans… so long as she lacked the temerity to think herself a warrior. The Veteran’s Lodges were full of such men. Men who’d have laid down their lives for an Emperor without a whimper, but regarded an Empress as affront.
“And what can I do for Blackwind Lodge?”
She knew some of it. The lodges had been founded as networks for warriors no longer fit to serve in battle, whether through advancing age, or infirmity of body or mind. A generous stipend from the Imperial purse kept them afloat, complemented by tithings of income from those members still able to find employment as bodyguards, watchmen or servants. But her father’s disastrous Avitra Briganda had seen the lodges burgeon. Too many of the newcomers bore burdensome wounds, and thus became burdens themselves.
Jorcari stepped closer. Too close, by tradition. Immortals started forward, swords half-drawn.
Melanna waved them back. “Well?”
Jorcari’s lip twisted, reluctance returning. Reason so often unmanned unreasonable men. Halting at the foot of the stairs, he stared not so much at Melanna, but through her. “We need land.”
“Land?”
“Yes, my Empress. Good, tillable land. Used to be, we were few enough – and old enough – to survive on generosity while we awaited Ashana’s call. But now too many of us are young, and there’s not enough work to keep them from idleness.” At last, he met her gaze. “But if they’ve fields to tend, they can feed themselves, their kin.”
Melanna blinked. She’d expected a demand for a larger pension – one she’d have been hard-pressed to meet without howls of protest from the Chancellery of Guilds. But this? A far finer solution that balanced a man’s pride with his need to be useful. Rhaled’s treasury was no longer as capacious as it had once been, but the kingdom remained rich in farmland – if she could prise any of it from the grasp of its grain factors.
But maybe she didn’t have to. Her father’s old estate at Kinholt sat mostly empty, its expansive acres little more than overgrown muster fields for the town’s wardens and havens for squatters. Aunt Aella would quibble, perhaps – the estate’s custodianship had fallen to her – but even stripping back the wider grounds would leave generous gardens, and Aella would doubtless find consolation in being marooned upon a sea of toiling menfolk. Widowhood had, after all, done little to calm her passions, much to her sister’s disgust.
“It’s no small thing you ask,” she replied, “but nor is to lay down—”
Melanna broke off, distracted by distant trumpets. And something else beneath. A low rumble, louder all the time. The sound of battle, drawing closer.
A cold hand closing about her stomach, she sprang to her feet and beckoned to the nearest Immortal. “Candrat! Find out what’s happening!”
Tesni burst through the door, four Immortals at her back, weapons drawn. “Empress! The city is invaded! You need to come with us.”
The hand about Melanna’s stomach squeezed tight. “Invaded? The Tressians?”
There’d be cruel irony to that, given her father’s final act in the ephemeral world.
“Thirava.” Tesni slowed as she approached the throne. “Please, savim, you must come with us. You’re not safe.”
Thirava? Melanna felt no surprise, just sick inevitability and the first flicker of fear. She drew down a deep breath and sought stillness of thought. “Where’s my daughter?”
“The jasaldar’s gone for her,” said Tesni. “She’s safe, Empress. Think of yourself. We’ll take you to Penitent’s Tower. It’s easier to defend.”
Melanna glanced around. Penitent’s Tower was formidable enough, though for the unhappiest of reasons – an aunt, distant in bloodline and passing generations – caught in the twin transgressions of treason and infidelity and walled up alive in her chambers. That kind of horror sank into the stones.
True, the throne room was by no means a fortress. But that hardly mattered. The entire palace was a fortress, and guarded by Immortals. There was time yet. But was anything truly certain now? Errors had led her to this place, and more would surely follow. One thing remained true: she was Empress and Dotha Rhaled. She’d duties beyond survival. She swallowed. Yes, even beyond her daughter’s.
“I want to see the city.”
Tesni frowned. “Please, Empress, that isn’t wise. You must—”
“Must?” Ice crept into her tone. “There is very little I must do.”
Tesni shared a glance with another of the new-come Immortals. “The balcony in Prince Aeldran’s chambers would be best.”
“Agreed.” Melanna set brisk pace for the door.
Halfway there, she realised no one had followed. The maid screamed. Wet rasp of blade on flesh hurried close behind. The strike of steel and the grunt of dying men.
Melanna spun about. Tesni seized her by the throat. Blood trickled warm down her neck as the killing edge of the Immortal’s sword kissed her windpipe.
Behind Tesni, Candrat shuddered and fell, a sword buried in his scales. One of Tesni’s companions – another traitor – kicked the body clear and rounded on the maid, who fled screaming into the corridor. Jorcari backed away from another, hands held high and the warrior’s pride gone from his shrunken posture. A third traitor lay dead beside the corpses of his victims. A fourth clutched an arm whose emerald silks were bloody to the elbow.
“After the girl!” snarled Tesni.
The injured Immortal left the chamber at a run.
Melanna forgot the sword at her throat, the tumult in the city and held Tesni’s gaze as if it were the only thing in the world. Bad enough to be betrayed by one’s Immortals – an act unheard of in generations of Empire – but by a woman who’d never have held that position but for Melanna’s actions?
And Kaila. What of her? Tesni’s every word and deed was now suspect.
A question that should have awoken terror instead lit a roaring flame.
“Where is my daughter?” growled Melanna.
“You will go to Penitent’s Tower and await King Cardivan’s pleasure,” said Tesni. “Or I’ll cut your throat here and now.”
Melanna bunched her fists. A twitch of Tesni’s sword forced a gasp of pain. It too fed the rising fire. “You had my trust. Where is your honour?”
“You can’t eat honour, savim. And Cardivan pays well.” Tesni’s voice hardened, all trace of deference gone. “Now. Which is it to be?”<
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Rosa knew the sounds of strife well enough and, for all that it was unlikely, entertained hope that rescue lay at hand. She’d prepared herself for the possibility as best she could, rising and dressing in the shadowthorn robes left for her. With her whole body a bruise, she couldn’t contest her guards – much less unarmed. But if another did so on her behalf, she stood ready.
Bellowed cries and a clash of swords drew her to the window. A fight had broken out in the garden below. Immortal versus Immortal – a dozen on one side, and perhaps a shade fewer on the other – though the distinction between the two parties was otherwise indistinguishable. Already one lay motionless, his blood seeping into the sand garden. Another reeled away, then limped back for more.
Perhaps there was opportunity. Apara had promised guards beneath the window. Likely they were already part of the brawl. When it was done…
Running feet in the corridor drew Rosa’s attention to the door. They slowed, replaced by muffled voices.
“Open it up,” said one. “Cardivan wants her dead.”
“Thirava wants her to suffer.”
“And who is to be Emperor?”
Rosa cursed under her breath. No tears for Melanna Saranal if her allies had turned against her – she’d earned that and more. But typical of her own fortune to be caught up in events.
But that didn’t mean she had to roll over and die.
The lock clicked. The door crashed back. An armoured Immortal strode in, vast in the room’s confines. Ignoring the complaints of muscles barely healed, Rosa snatched the heavy drawer – carefully worked free from the wardrobe not half an hour before – from the bed, and swung.
Eyes widened an instant before the timbers shattered across the golden helm. The Immortal staggered, and then Rosa was inside the arc of his sword, reaching for the dagger buckled at his belt. Fingers closing around leather grips, she snatched the weapon free and rammed its point up under his chin. He dropped with a wet gurgle, and then Rosa had a sword. The weight of it scattered the last of her soreness, cobwebs before the wind.
A second, helmless Immortal entered the room, her eyes cold and sword steady.
Rosa raised her stolen sword in salute. A little bravado couldn’t hurt. “Until Death!”
Tavar Rasha was halfway to the throne room when the first sounds of battle reached his ears. Even in the silent contemplation of prayer, something had set instinct sparking. An Immortal was more than a warrior. He was a protector. A soldier. And a soldier knew when something was amiss.
Decorum be damned, he broke into a flat run and sifted grim possibilities. Disobedience – even riots – were not unheard of in Tregard. He’d himself drawn steel to put them down. But to hear one so close to the palace walls? And to say nothing of the timing… As jasaldar of the Imperial guard, he should have received some report, some warning.
He reached the princessa’s chambers, noting with approval that here, at least, his Immortals knew their duty. Two stood on station, one to either side of the door. Except…
Rasha slowed, unable to pin discomfort on anything save nebulous unease. “Have you heard what’s happening in the city?”
The two shared a glance. Garita and Devarni. Young men of promise, proven at Govanna.
“We’ve had no word,” said Garita. “You’ve orders for us, savir?”
“Stay with the princessa. She’s not to leave her chambers until I say otherwise. Am I understood?”
Both bowed. Rasha walked away, his mind calmer for knowing at least part of his world was as it should be. But as he took the first step, pieces of a puzzle clicked together. Its shadow revulsed him, but once witnessed could not be unseen.
“One more thing.” He turned. “The lunassera set to guard the princessa. Where are they?”
“The Empress called them away,” said Devarni.
Rasha’s heart sank further. A good answer, even a credible one. But the hesitation behind it told all. He set a hand to his sword. The minuscule twitch of Garita’s left eye confirmed suspicion. “Stand aside.”
“I don’t understand, savir,” said Devarni.
“You don’t need to understand, only obey. Move!”
A child’s shriek sounded, muffled by intervening doors but unmistakeable in character.
Devarni’s and Garita’s swords were only halfway from their scabbards when Rasha’s swept free. Folded steel shaped by the master craftsman Terrigan, a gift from Emperor Ceredic for preserving the Imperial bloodline at the Ravonn, there was no better in the palace – save the Empress’ own – and no swifter hand.
The thrust that sent Garita scrambling blurred into a back-cut barely checked by Devarni’s desperate parry. A boot against knee sent Devarni staggering, then Rasha turned his wrath upon Garita once more.
Swords screeched. The blades locked. Knowing Garita was younger, stronger, Rasha didn’t seek contest but twisted a full circle anticlockwise, sword rolling about his wrist into an underhand grip as he reached his knees. Garita, still off-balance and facing the wrong direction, screamed as the sword pierced the unarmoured back of his knee. Rasha rose as his opponent fell. His whirling blow cheated the now-wavering sword. Garita’s golden scales rushed red.
Rasha heard the strike of Devarni’s blade before he felt it. The crunch of scales at his midriff and the sharp, melodious sound of silk and flesh slicing as one. The ice-hot agony of the wound. The warm spill of blood. Those came as he hurled himself at the traitor, shoulder driving the younger man against the wall.
Impact sent a fresh jolt through Rasha’s side. A statue, struck by a flailing hand, shattered on the floor. Devarni grunted as ribs cracked. Rasha drove his sword up beneath golden scales. The grunt became a moan. Became nothing at all.
Flank sticky with his own blood, Rasha stepped away. Devarni’s twitching body dropped beside Garita’s. The sight cut deeper than pain, deeper than disappointment. His men. Recruited on his advice. What was one’s blood when set against such error?
A second cry from beyond the door renewed clarity.
Anger burning away the pain, Rasha passed through the princessa’s outer chambers. He spared no more than a glance for the crumpled lunassera barely concealed beyond the entrance, driven on by the crash of furniture and a child’s sobs.
The Immortal framed in the bedroom door never saw him coming, and Rasha chanced no hesitation. His sword took her spine, and then only one remained. He, at least, was a stranger to Rasha. An imposter garbed in armour he’d not earned. He had the sobbing princessa by the hair, but still she fought, heels dug into the carpet and tiny fists pummelling uselessly at an armoured thigh.
Her mother’s daughter.
The imposter paled as he caught sight of Rasha. Many did. Making no attempt to reach for his sword, he raised his hands. The princessa scrambled away behind the bed.
“She’s unhurt.” The imposter’s Silsarian accent was unmistakeable. “You—”
The words vanished in a wet gurgle, his throat taken. Breathing harder than he’d like, the wobble in his right leg warning that Devarni’s blow had gone deeper that he’d feared, Rasha sank to the floor beside the bed.
“Shar Rasha! Shar Rasha!” The princessa flung her arms about him, a bundle of dark-eyed disarray. “What’s happening?”
“Nothing that cannot be put right, essavim. I promise.”
He put a bloodied arm about her, holding her head close and hoped the words were truth.
Boots sounded in the passageway. A shout of alarm and drawn steel. Rasha sighed. Unfair to be caught in a lie so soon.
Kissing the princessa on the brow, he pushed her away. “Beneath the bed, essavim. Whatever comes next, you should not see.”
For a moment, he feared she’d disobey, but she scrambled readily away. Rasha’s own rising proved more of a challenge. Those parts of him that didn’t ache had already stiffened. But it was bad enough to die in a girl’s bedchamber. He’d not do so on his knees.
The anteroom filled as he reached the doorway. A
dozen eyes. None of them friendly. All Immortals. All of them young. None of them with a sliver of the honour he’d sought to instil.
“I taught you all!” he bellowed. “This is how you repay me?”
“Stand aside, savir,” said one. “Don’t make us do this the hard way.”
No. They didn’t understand. His failure, as much as theirs. Rasha gripped his sword tighter.
“Do what you must. As will I.”
Forty-Two
Palms slapped against the wall’s ragged parapet. Altiris pivoted as fingers tightened around brick, legs sweeping up and over in one smooth motion. The landing was barely half as gracious, crunching through rotting crates unseen until too late. Cold air stinging his lungs, he staggered across the dray yard with a jarred ankle and drunkard’s gait.
“After him!”
A watch bell’s toll accompanied the Drazina’s bellow. A scuff of boot on brickwork as the fellow attempted pursuit. Gauntlets showed at the wall’s crest.
Altiris stumbled through the maze of tarpaulined bundles as new bells chimed, cursing carelessness and ill fortune. He’d not welcomed a fugitive’s existence, but he’d been confident he’d survive it long enough to get his head together. But he and the city had changed since he’d last lived on the streets – the one softer, the other harder, crueller. Checkpoints and patrols, already commonplace, grew denser when you were on the run.
Breathing hard, he flung himself behind a crate and peered out. A Drazina jumped down from the wall. Another joined him. A flurry of gesticulations and they picked separate paths across the yard, swords drawn.
“Show yourself, Czaron! You’re bound by law!”
Gritting his teeth, Altiris pressed his head back against the tarpaulin. Should’ve gone south. Should’ve left the city that first night, but it’d felt too much like running away. What he hoped to achieve by staying…? Well, he’d not gotten that far.
He’d not done everything wrong. He’d steered clear of the southwealder enclaves at Gelder Lane and Bannock Hill – places the Drazina would have been watching. But he’d been too trusting. Should’ve caught the glint in the tavernkeep’s eye when he’d asked for lodging. He’d barely scrambled out of the window in time.