Tarnished Empire (Dark Shores)

by Danielle L. Jensen

  Marcus watched Grypus saunter away in the company of his shivering women, then he turned to where Felix and Servius and the rest of his escort stood waiting. “Pull them out.”

  “Sir?” Felix frowned at him.

  “Pull the Thirty-Seventh out of Hydrilla. And my orders on conduct still stand. Those who violate them will be punished accordingly.”

  “Yes, sir.” Felix relayed instructions to the signalman, horn blasts filling the night. “Anything else, sir?”

  “Get me numbers.”

  It was time for him to learn the true cost of what they had achieved tonight.

  34

  Agrippa

  They’d done it.

  They were free of the Twenty-Ninth. And despite having left twenty-six of the men under his command dead or badly injured, Agrippa had to believe it was worth it. Had to believe that the Thirty-Seventh being liberated from Hostus and Grypus was worth the loss of his friends and brothers.

  And they weren’t the only thing he was going to lose tonight.

  The ache in his heart rivaled that of his battered body, because he had to say goodbye to her. The Thirty-Seventh was his life, the men in it, his brothers. Which meant wherever the legion’s standard went, he’d follow, because he’d never abandon his family.

  But that didn’t mean he intended to abandon her, either.

  Striding toward the medical tent, he wove his way among men carrying stretchers of injured, most of them Thirty-Seventh. Inside, he quickly caught sight of Quintus and Miki, the former clenching his teeth as one of the medics stitched a deep slice across his thigh.

  “And you had such pretty legs,” he said. “No wonder Miki looks so upset.”

  “You’re such a bastard,” Miki growled, but Agrippa only sang, “Guilty!”

  He retrieved a bar of soap and scrubbed his hands clean, then motioned for the medic to move. “I can finish this. There are others more in need of your skill.”

  “Yes, sir.” The medic handed him the needle, then moved in the direction of screams. Bending low, Agrippa examined the injury, then began to work, drawing the flesh together with neat stitches. “We’re done with the Twenty-Ninth,” he said softly. “Grypus has cut the apron strings and tomorrow, we’ll move out.”

  “You better not be joking,” Quintus said between clenched teeth. “If this is one of your bullshit stories…”

  “It’s not. On the Thirty-Seventh’s standard, I swear it.” He looked up from his work to see both of his friends grinning. “Everything’s going to get better for us going forward, I promise.”

  Finishing the stitches, he wrapped a bandage around Quintus’s thigh. “I need a favor, though.”

  “Should’ve known you weren’t doing this out of the goodness of your heart,” his friend muttered.

  “In another life, I’d have been a tailor my stitches are so perfect, so quit your whining.” Sitting on his heels, he said, “Give me all the coin you have on you.” Then, because Miki was likely to have more, he added, “Both of you.”

  “What for? You lose a bet and can’t cover your wager?”

  “Never mind what it’s for. Just give it to me and I’ll pay you back, all right?”

  Grumbling, both of his friends dug into their belt pouches, handing him an assortment of coins. Not much, but enough for her to get out of that camp and start a new life. He tucked them away and said, “Keep to large groups of our own. The Twenty-Ninth’s taken a shaming tonight and they’ll be looking for blood where they can find it.”

  “Where are you going?”

  Without answering, Agrippa rose and started toward the entrance of the tent, calling back over his shoulder, “Keep that clean!” before ducking out into the organized chaos of camp.

  He stopped first at his tent, pulling off his gore-coated armor and tossing his dented helmet inside to deal with later. Taking Quintus’s cloak, he pulled it over his shoulders and then headed toward the camp gates, falling in with a patrol that was moving out to search the woods for rebels who’d escaped. Though if the rebels were wise, they’d be running as hard and fast as they could.

  Torches guttered in the wind, lighting the snow-covered path down to the dimly lit followers’ camp, and his stomach clenched knowing it would be cold tonight. And that this time, he couldn’t stay with her.

  Crossing the bridge, he broke into a trot, the camp quiet compared to the one he’d left behind. They’d have been told to stay in their tents lest they be mistaken for rebels and killed, but even within, all he heard were muffled voices and the sobs of women crying, though what about, he couldn’t have said.

  Faint light glowed through the canvas of her tiny tent, and he paused outside, whispering, “Silvara?”

  He heard a flurry of motion inside, and her gasp of “Agrippa?” A second later, the tent flap was pulled open and her arms were around his neck. “You’re alive!”

  “I’m hard to kill.” He pushed her into the tent. “Hydrilla has fallen and is under our control. The surviving rebels are fleeing north. It’s over.”

  She went still in his arms. “Fallen…”

  “Yes, we won. But that’s not why I’m here.” He managed to get the words out, then his voice failed him.

  Because he didn’t want to say goodbye.

  The thought of never seeing her again, of never hearing her laugh, hollowed out his chest. He had another thirty years of service to the Empire. Another thirty years to earn out his indenture, and even if he managed to survive to retirement, this moment would be too deep in the past to ever resurrect in the present.

  It’s over, you coward, he chastised himself. You owe her the truth.

  “What’s happening to those in Hydrilla?”

  “Many escaped down the cliffs.” He exhaled. “But Grypus has given the Twenty-Ninth free rein, so any who didn’t make it out are likely dead. Or wish they were.”

  Her knees buckled and he barely managed to catch her before she dropped. “Silvara? What’s wrong?”

  “My family...” A ragged sob tore from her throat. “My family is dead.”

  Dread punched him in the gut, his mouth going sour. “What are you talking about?”

  “My father was in Hydrilla.” She was shaking. “My brother.”

  How many men had he killed tonight? Fifteen? Twenty? More? Nameless people, and faceless, because he’d learned long ago not to look too hard. Those you saw were the ones who haunted you. Except they were somebody to someone. They might have been somebody to her. “They might have got out. Hundreds fled; we left them an opening for it.”

  “It has to have been worth it,” she whispered, barely seeming to have heard him. “It cannot have been in vain.”

  “What are you talking about?” he demanded.

  Except he knew. If her family was in Hydrilla, that meant they were rebels. Which meant Silvara was a—

  Agrippa didn’t have a chance to finish the thought, because cold steel suddenly pressed against his throat.

  35

  Marcus

  He was running on adrenaline, it requiring all his willpower to remain on his feet. The world seemed far too bright despite it being the middle of the night. Blood oozed down his side, having already soaked through his bandages, and the pain seemed to intensify with each breath he took.

  Get through this one last meeting, he ordered himself. Then you can let Racker dose you with narcotics and Felix will take care of the rest.

  “Where is your man of the hour?” Grypus stretched, rubbing at the belly he’d been stuffing while Hydrilla was sacked. The pink smears of lip varnish on the side of his face suggested he’d satisfied more than one urge during the intervening hours. “Given he did the heavy lifting, so to speak, I’d think you’d want him here for this.”

  Agrippa had survived the battle more or less unscathed, Marcus knew that much. “Likely in medical. It’s his men who are injured, and he’s as good with a needle as most of my medics.”

  “Fetch him.” Grypus filled his wine cu
p with the bottle sitting on the table. “I want a firsthand account of the battle while it’s fresh in his head. Something to regale my fellows with when I return to Celendrial.”

  You’re a twisted, selfish bastard, Marcus wanted to snarl, but instead he nodded at Felix. “Send someone to fetch Agrippa.”

  As Felix moved to step out of the tent, Hostus shoved his way inside. The other legatus was splattered with blood and gore, his mouth smeared with crimson, and his emerald eyes were wild with fury. “This had better be good,” he snarled. “I don’t like being interrupted.”

  Marcus’s felt nausea burn the back of his throat with the knowledge of what Hostus had been doing, the other man taking advantage of carnage and chaos to indulge his twisted proclivities. The sort of creature who was the stuff of nightmares and yet the Senate seemed content for him to remain in command.

  “You will come when you are bid,” Grypus snapped back. “Else I’ll not toss you the scraps again, understood?”

  A shiver of rage ran over the Twenty-Ninth’s commander, but then he smiled, revealing teeth still red with blood. “As you say, Proconsul. What is it that I can do for you?”

  Unrolling a thick piece of paper stamped with the consul’s seal, Grypus said, “This is a directive from the Senate. The Thirty-Seventh has completed their training and has been granted status with honors for their victory tonight. At dawn, they will return to the coast, where they will be redeployed at the Senate’s whim. The Twenty-Ninth will remain in Hydrilla, tasked with hunting down the remaining rebels and seeing to their executions.”

  Hostus slowly rotated to stare at Marcus. “You think I’m going to allow you to walk away?” He jerked out his gladius. “Your life is mine.”

  But before he could move, Felix was behind him, the tip of his weapon pressed against Hostus’s throat. More of the Thirty-Seventh had entered behind him, weapons in hand. “Sir?”

  For years, Marcus had suffered Hostus’s torture while the man had claimed his strategies and victories as his own. But no longer. “Stand down.”

  Felix lowered his weapon with obvious reluctance, but then reached forward to twist Hostus’s gladius out of his hand before tossing it in the corner.

  “We are through, Hostus,” Marcus said. “And there is nothing you can do about it, because you no longer outrank me.” Stepping closer so that they were eye to eye, Marcus inhaled the stench of blood on Hostus’s breath. “And without me to prop you up and win you honors, I think it won’t be long until you fall so far out of favor with the Senate that the Twenty-Ninth will be relegated to collecting taxes in the worst shithole the Empire has to offer. At least, that’s what you should hope for, because if you ever fall under my command, I’ll do my level best to see every last one of you put in the ground.”

  Hostus stared back at him, murder in his eyes. “You’d best hope if you ever cross paths with me again that you aren’t alone, Marcus.”

  Gibzen chose that moment to step into the tent. Still splattered with blood and sporting fresh stitches on his face, he looked between them, then said, “Agrippa isn’t in camp, sir.”

  “What do you mean, he’s not in camp?” Marcus demanded. “It’s primarily his men who are injured, why isn’t he in medical?”

  “Was the first place I looked,” Gibzen said. “Miki said he was there briefly. Stitched up Quintus and then left.”

  “Never where he’s supposed to be, our Agrippa,” Hostus murmured, moving to sit in his chair, one leg hooked over the arm. “Let me give you one last piece of advice, Marcus: avoid choosing officers with their own agendas.”

  Unease filled Marcus’s chest, because there was no love lost between Agrippa and the Twenty-Ninth and tonight would be their last chance to extract a pound of flesh from him. “Get Miki in here now.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Minutes passed, and Marcus would’ve paced the tent but moving hurt. Breathing hurt. If he and Agrippa had managed to earn the Thirty-Seventh’s freedom only for the Twenty-Ninth to murder Agrippa in retaliation, there would be a reckoning. Hostus wouldn’t survive the night.

  As if sensing his thoughts, Hostus smiled, then sipped at his wine.

  Gibzen stepped back in the tent with Miki, supporting a limping Quintus, in tow. Both of them were battered, their eyes shadowed and faces drawn, but they saluted sharply.

  “Where’s Agrippa?”

  They exchanged looks, obviously weighing the choice of getting their friend in trouble versus getting him out of whatever trouble he might already be in. “He said he had something to do,” Miki finally said. “Asked to borrow what coin we had on us and that’s the last we saw of him. His gear is in the tent, though, so he couldn’t have gone far.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Twenty minutes, maybe.”

  Marcus could feel Hostus’s eyes boring into his back. “Where do you think he went?”

  Miki looked at the ground at his feet, and Marcus knew. “The laundress.”

  “Oh my,” Hostus crooned. “What scandal. Abandoning his post to go see a girl for one last go before the legion ships out. Though it is commendable that he obviously intended to pay her out.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Quintus snapped. “She was with him because she liked him.”

  “You do realize,” Hostus said softly, “that that’s even worse.”

  “And no longer your problem.” Marcus stepped between them, pain lancing up his side with the motion. “Gibzen, take ten men to followers’ camp and find him. Now.”

  36

  Silvara

  Agrippa stiffened as a hand pressing a knife blade to his throat, and a heartbeat later, a familiar voice said, “Not a move, not a word, Primus, or we kill the girl.”

  “Carina,” Silvara gasped, her trepidation growing as Hecktor entered the tent, a knife in his hand. “What are you doing?”

  “Shut up, you stupid girl! Now take his weapons from him!”

  That was the last thing she wanted to do, because them revealing themselves meant they intended to kill Agrippa. But as she hesitated, Hecktor pressed his knife into her back, the tip slicing through her clothes and into her flesh, and she cried out.

  “Do what they say, Silvara,” Agrippa told her. “Take my weapons. You know where they are.”

  She fumbled at his belt, pulling out his knife.

  “This isn’t the moment to grow brave,” Hecktor said, and Silvara winced, trying to twist away from the knife digging into her flesh, but Hecktor only caught her by the hair and held her still.

  “Drop it on the ground,” Agrippa told her, the tonelessness in his voice making her shiver. “Get the rest.”

  Two more knives and then his gladius clattered to the ground.

  “Bind him,” Carina ordered, and a familiar face stepped into the tent, shock rendering Silvara speechless. It was her brother. How had he escaped Hydrilla? And why was he looking at her like that?

  Like she was the enemy.

  “Jac?” she finally managed to say. “You’re here. How—”

  “No thanks to you, Sister.” His voice was harsh and full of accusation, and he jerked roughly on Agrippa’s arms as he bound them.

  “I suppose it’s safe to assume the lot of you are rebels.” Agrippa’s eyes were on her, and Silvara found she couldn’t meet them.

  I’m sorry, she wanted to plead. Except to do so would be a lie. Everything she’d done had been to try to save her family, her people.

  “Who we are doesn’t matter,” Carina said. “You try anything, and I’ll slit your throat. Understood?”

  “Understood,” Agrippa answered, the expression on his face not one she’d seen before. Cold and dangerous. No longer the boy but the primus.

  Hecktor pressed the tip of his knife into her back, forcing her forward, the others following. No one stirred from the tents as they passed through them, the legion camp loud in the distance, but not loud enough to drown out the screams of people still being slaughtered in the fortress.
<
br />   “Their blood is on your hands, Silvara,” Carina snarled. “You chose to protect your lover instead of your people, and now your people are dead. If you’d only done your duty, winter would have come and the legions would have retreated.”

  What was Carina talking about? She’d told them everything she knew. Had betrayed Agrippa and revealed that Marcus was the mind behind the strategies.

  “If you’re going to cast blame, at least be accurate about it, you hag,” Agrippa said. “If the attack hadn’t worked, the plan was to winterize and starve the rebels out. Your victory was never in the cards. Everyone in that fortress was destined to die regardless of what Silvara did or didn’t tell you.”

  “Now we’ll never know.”

  They reached the edge of the river, where the frozen rapids rushed past, reflecting the flames of the torches on the bridge. In the distance, the waterfall roared, filling the air with icy mist.

  Carina pushed Agrippa to his knees next to the bank, her knife still at his throat. “Kill him, Silvara,” she demanded. “Kill him and prove your loyalty to Bardeen, and we will forgive this transgression.”

  “What transgression?” She clenched her teeth, unable to look at Agrippa though she felt his eyes on her. She’d betrayed him, and that could not be undone, but she refused to allow Carina to murder him for something not his fault. “I told you everything he knew, none of which made a difference. Killing him changes nothing.”

  Carina laughed, the tone cutting and cruel. “What was that you said, Primus? To be accurate when casting blame. Would you like to tell her the truth or should I?”

  Dread filled Silvara’s chest, and she turned to meet Agrippa’s gaze to find he was staring at the ground.

  “You were right that the Thirty-Seventh’s legatus was the mind behind their strategy but a fool to believe the boy’s primus wasn’t aware of all his plans. That he wasn’t a critical part of them. It was your lover who crawled up from a hole they dug under the city and slaughtered our people from the rear. Who slaughtered your father with his own blade.”