Empire of Rust

by Chambers, V. J.

  Nathaniel smiled back. “All right.”

  “What should I do?” said Ezekiel.

  “Why are you asking me?” said Gabriel.

  “Because you’re the emperor… Your Eminence.”

  Gabriel took a deep breath. “Um… okay, fine. Ezekiel, go get my sword and help the villagers drive back the revenants. Buy us time to get this together.”

  Ezekiel smiled. “Yes, sir.”

  He did as Gabriel said, taking the sword, running through the hallways, down the stairs, to the main level, and then out into the night, where the villagers had made a ring around their houses and were fighting off the revenants as best as they could.

  The air smelled of smoke and burning flesh—more than one revenant had become a living torch. Everyone was screaming, grunting, and sweating. The atmosphere was chaotic. He couldn’t tell if there was anyone in charge, if there was a plan in place.

  So, Ezekiel jumped in as best as he could, wherever he saw an opening.

  He skewered revenants through the eye, drove his blade up beneath their chins, took off their heads with a swipe of his sword.

  Every time one fell, there was another ahead of it, so he kept fighting. He couldn’t tell if the others beside him were fighting or falling. He didn’t notice. He only focused on the revenants ahead of him. The more he killed, the better. That was all he cared about.

  He didn’t notice time passing, but he did begin to tire after a while. He felt himself perspiring and gasping for breath. This didn’t stop him. He kept holding his ground, cutting down the revenants as they came.

  He wasn’t sure how long it lasted, or how long he was there. He didn’t know how many revenants he killed. It seemed that no matter how many fell, there were always more, a never-ending sea of them.

  But eventually, Nathaniel and Gabriel arrived in a shower of bright sparks.

  The townspeople parted, gasping, falling to their knees as the men passed. In the dark light, it looked as if the two men were holding the bright light in their palms, as if the current was dancing from one hand to the other.

  No one was fighting the revenants anymore, and the monsters pressed forward, reaching out with dead hands to find their prey. They hungered.

  Nathaniel and Gabriel rushed at them, the sparks raining down and sizzling in the damp air.

  Ezekiel held his breath. They were running at the revenants with only an untried weapon—nothing but Gabriel’s theory that it would frighten them. Maybe it wouldn’t work. He gripped his sword, ready to pounce, to protect Gabriel from the revenants.

  The two men and their halo of sparks closed in on the revenants.

  The revenants stopped moving. They didn’t back up, though.

  Gabriel and Nathaniel dove right into the center of them.

  And the revenants backed away from the sparks.

  Immediately, the monsters all began to retreat, shambling away from the bright light, heading back the way they came as quickly as they could.

  The villagers let out a resounding cheer.

  Nathaniel and Gabriel chased them all the way back to the wall, where they bunched up in a big group, unable to get back over it into the wilderness.

  The townspeople started setting fire to the revenants, and the fire spread. Soon, the whole horde of them was ablaze. They burned there, and the sun struggled up in the east.

  * * *

  Darius felt uncomfortable in the emperor’s throne, but Michal had convinced him it was best if he did what he could to fill the role of the traditional ruler. This was his first time hearing the concerns of the common people. He’d settle disputes and do what he could to solve problems.

  Despite his reservations, he found that he was rather excited to try this out. He had noted injustices during his lifetime. This would be his chance to set things right.

  He was expecting to hear about people angry with their wages or their treatment by the nobility. But then he supposed that no one saw fit to complain about that.

  No, instead, it was drudgery. People disputing the ownership of horses and land. People coming to complain about the presence of the revenants in the capital. People angry over drunks in the street outside of taverns.

  Darius was sick of it within a half an hour, but it dragged on and on.

  Several times, he spoke to Michal about stopping, taking their leave, but each time, she convinced him that it would be better for the people’s trust of him if he stayed and listened to each of their complaints.

  So, it was quite late by the time the last petitioners came into the throne room. They were a motley band, their clothes dirty rags. They approached the throne as the others had and bowed to Darius.

  He motioned for them to rise. He was exhausted.

  The announcer announced that the people had come not from the capital, but from a village to the north.

  “What brings you to the capital?” said Darius.

  “Sir,” said one of the people, a man with a long beard, “we ran for our lives. We believe we are the only ones who have survived.”

  “What? What calamity has befallen your city?”

  “Revenants sir. They have invaded our city and killed our loved ones.” The bearded man gestured at the others. “Not one of us here are related. We are strangers who joined together. There were so many revenants, they climbed over our walls and crushed our fences. We tried to fight, but we were no match for them.”

  Darius was alarmed. He’d never heard of a such a thing. “They climbed over the walls?”

  “They climbed on top of each other, Your Eminence,” said the bearded man. “And our city is not the only one where such a thing has happened. There are many surrounding towns suffering from similar problems. It is only a matter of time before the revenants reach here.”

  Darius furrowed his brow. “How could this be? The revenants cannot get over the walls. They never have, not in my lifetime.” Even when he worked the walls in Jeffsotow, there were never so many that the revenants could climb on each other. He couldn’t quite imagine that many revenants.

  The man just bowed his head. “We come seeking sanctuary here.”

  And then an old woman at the back of the group spoke up. She had long, stringy, white hair and her skin was loose under her chin. She pointed, and when she spoke her loose skin jiggled. “It is your fault, you dark demon.”

  Michal stepped forward. “Careful. You are speaking to your emperor.”

  “Kill me, then,” said the woman. “We are all dead anyway. He is bringing calamity down upon us. The necromancer brings the revenants. When I was a girl, we all knew that. He keeps them away, but he brings them too. They are drawn to him.”

  Darius swallowed, thinking of the revenants that had followed him when he and Simon had come to the city from the north. He hadn’t called those revenants. They’d simply followed. They had been drawn to him. He looked at Michal in horror.

  But Michal wasn’t paying attention to him. She was addressing the old woman. “Nonsense. Nothing has changed. There are no more revenants than there were before. You are only trying to stir up trouble.”

  “I am telling the truth, and he knows it.” The old woman’s voice was shrill. “Murderer! Monster! Demon!”

  “Close your mouth,” said Michal. “The emperor will show mercy due to your age, old mother, but not if you cannot control yourself.”

  “He’s a demon,” said the old woman.

  Michal opened her mouth to say something.

  But Darius got to his feet, and the words died in her throat. “I have heard all I care to hear today. Begone from the receiving room.” He turned with a swirl of his robes and stalked out, hurrying through the door without looking back.

  Once out of the room, he started down the hallway. He needed to get away. He couldn’t bear the thought of this. No matter what he did, it seemed that his very presence was poison. The woman was right. He was a demon. He was a curse.

  “Darius!” Michal. She was coming after him.

&n
bsp; He didn’t want to be near her. He couldn’t stand to be parted from her. He wanted to scream. He wanted to break things.

  He turned a corner. It wasn’t a familiar route to him. He didn’t know where he was heading. He just wanted away.

  “Darius, wait!”

  He went faster. He reached a dead end. There was no way to go except up a staircase, higher into the mansion. The stairs looked worse for wear, different than the others in the building.

  “Where are you going? These wings aren’t in use.”

  He went up the stairs. He emerged in an abandoned wing. There was no glass in the windows, no carpet on the floors.

  “Darius, it’s not true,” she said. She had finally caught up to him. Her hand was on his shoulder.

  “It is true.” He turned to her. He could smell her. The scent of cinnamon overwhelmed his senses. He felt… hungry.

  “No, it’s not. It’s just an old woman saying things that she doesn’t understand—”

  “She understands.” He seized Michal by the wrist and tugged her body close to him. “She sees me for what I am. It’s you who doesn’t. You’re blind. You imagine me more civilized than I can ever be. I’m monster they claim I am.”

  Michal shook her head, but she was breathless.

  Darius ran his nose over her skin, starting with her wrist and moving up her arm.

  Michal gasped.

  He licked her, licked the crease of her elbow. Skimmed his teeth over the fleshy part of her upper arm.

  She whimpered.

  He groaned in frustration and need, trying to keep himself in check. But he couldn’t. She smelled too good. She was delectable, and she never resisted him. She let him do whatever he liked to her. If he wanted, he could bite her to death, and she’d never stop him. She couldn’t stop him, not if he really wanted her. She was so much weaker than he was. He could crush her.

  He sunk his teeth into her flesh.

  She cried out.

  Blood welled up. He sucked at it, swallowing it down. It was sweet nectar.

  “Darius,” she whispered. There was fear in her voice, but there was something else too. Release. Desire. Satisfaction.

  He flung her body away.

  She stumbled backwards. Blood was flowing down her arm.

  “Go away.” His voice was ragged.

  “But I—”

  “Get away from me!” he snarled. “If you stay, I don’t think I can stop.”

  She hesitated.

  He bared his teeth at her, knowing that they were still red with her blood.

  She turned and ran down the steps.

  Darius watched her go, shaking all over.

  Then he went to one of the open windows, felt the cold evening breeze blow over him, fluttering his robes. He gripped the sill of the window hard. So hard that his knuckles went pale.

  He let out a shuddering sound—almost a sob.

  Then he closed his eyes. He reached out—not with his mind; it was hard to understand how he was doing it, even himself, but he reached out with something inside, some part of him that was connected to them—and he felt all the revenants.

  It was staggering how many of them they were. Each of them was a web connecting to others. He followed their connections out to the edge of the city, beyond the walls in all directions. He felt the revenants coming. There were so many of them.

  He put a fist in his mouth and bit down on it.

  He tried to will them away, to send them back where they had come from, to put them all to sleep. He tried to hold them back.

  But this he couldn’t do. The force that drew the revenants to him was stronger than the force he used to control them. He could not stop them from coming.

  Darius bent down, resting his forehead against the windowsill. They were all doomed.

  And then…

  Then he realized that there was someone else he could feel. Michal was tied to him with a thread like the thread that connected him to the necromancers. He could feel her. And when she responded, pumping her will at him, he knew that she could feel him too.

  She was willing him to come to her.

  She didn’t control him, not like a revenant, so he could resist her if he chose, but the call of her was enticing.

  He pushed away from the window and made his way back down the stairs, feeling like a drunk man, unable to keep his balance.

  Michal was standing at the foot of the steps. She was surrounded by revenants.

  He could feel that they had come to her. They were drawn to her, the same as they were drawn to him.

  She held up her arm, which was whole again. There was no sign he’d ever bitten her. “Darius?” she whispered. “What’s happening to me?”

  He didn’t know.

  * * *

  “Everyone’s saying it,” said Gabriel. “Didn’t you hear the townspeople? There are reports of hordes of revenants on the move all over the empire.”

  Leah took a bite of her biscuit, which she’d slathered in butter. They were having breakfast in Gabriel’s and Ezekiel’s room, because they’d be mobbed by people in the inn’s dining room. After what they had done the night before, Nathaniel’s role as messiah was cemented, and Gabriel wasn’t far off from the same title. All of them were treated with reverence and awe. But that didn’t mean that the people were above crowding close, just to touch them or to beg for miracles. It was better to eat in private. Of course, Leah was the only one who was eating. The others were too invested in talking. Leah, on the other hand, was starving.

  “And you’re sure this is because of the necromancer?” said Nathaniel.

  “I’ve heard those stories too,” said Ezekiel. “Necromancers attract revenants. In the old days, it was no problem, because the revenants would just be added to the work force that the necromancer controlled. And there were necromancers all over—in nearly every regency. So, that meant that all of them were pulling in different directions. They canceled each other out.”

  “Right,” said Gabriel, “but we only have one necromancer now, and he’s in the capital, so he’s pulling all the revenants south. There will be more hordes coming through here.”

  “We have to remove him,” said Ezekiel. “You agree with me, don’t you, Gabriel? He can’t continue to rule the empire. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Well, he can’t stay in the capital at all,” said Gabriel. “He’ll need to be dealt with.”

  “So, you want me to rally the common people to follow me because they think I’m the messiah?” said Nathaniel. “You want me to manipulate them into fighting off the necromancer’s revenants, probably leading them all to their deaths?”

  “They’re going to die anyway,” said Ezekiel. “If we don’t do anything, wave after wave of revenants will come through. The more that reach the necromancer, the stronger his force will be.”

  Nathaniel sighed. “You might be right.” He pointed at Gabriel. “But if I help, it’s not because I’m on board with the idea of your being emperor.”

  “It will be a time of change,” said Gabriel. “And once I’m back on the throne, I can make new laws. We can introduce new seats on the council. Every regency will have a representative of the nobility and of the common people.”

  Nathaniel narrowed his eyes. “Well, that’s a start.”

  “We can continue the negotiations, of course,” said Gabriel, “but I think the most important thing is to start gathering together our forces right away. We’ll need to bring along all the able-bodied men in this village, and then begin to hit the other villages.”

  “So, you think I’ll just waltz into the village, tell them I’m the messiah, and they’ll follow me?” said Nathaniel.

  “Of course not,” said Gabriel. “You’ll do a show. Like you always have.”

  Nathaniel rubbed his chin. “I guess that could work.”

  “Of course it will work,” said Ezekiel.

  Nathaniel turned to Leah. “I guess we’re not going away on our own.”

  She
was eating another biscuit. “Yes, I gathered that.”

  “You still want to learn how to be a magician’s assistant?”

  She smiled.

  * * *

  “Do you have the script down?” Ezekiel asked. He and Nathaniel were standing in the near darkness outside a city square. Nathaniel was preparing for the show. Ezekiel had written a script for him to use, and he was determined that Nathaniel get it right. The people were gathered, and the roar of their conversation traveled through the air like excitement—like electricity itself. Gabriel had given him an earful on electricity over the past few days of preparation. Ezekiel felt like an expert.

  Nathaniel was fussing with his costume—which consisted of a long, black cape that was silver on the underside. “Yes, I memorized it. But I’m glad you’re here, because there are parts of it that I don’t like.”

  Ezekiel heaved a sigh. “You heard what Gabriel said, didn’t you? He read the script I wrote. He approved it.”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t mean I want to say all of it.” Nathaniel straightened his cape. “I don’t want to imply any of the crazy things they think about me, like that I’ll get rid of all of the revenants once and for all.”

  “And the script doesn’t say that.”

  “You want me to basically proclaim myself the second coming.”

  Ezekiel glared at him. “Do the script.”

  Nathaniel shrugged. “I have to do what I think is best.”

  Ezekiel clenched his hands into fists. “If you ruin this…”

  “Then what? You’ll do something to me? You need me.”

  “I won’t need you if you screw it up.”

  “I don’t understand you, you know,” said Nathaniel. “You realize that what you’re asking me to do—pose as the Son of God—is basically blasphemy. And how do you justify whatever the hell it is that you and Gabriel do together? Isn’t that a heinous sin? You’re a hypocrite.”

  “I’m not perfect,” said Ezekiel. “But sometimes God uses men who aren’t perfect.” He put a finger in Nathaniel’s face. “Stick to the script.”

  Sometime later, Ezekiel slunk around the outskirts of the crowd, one eye on their reactions, the other eye on the show. He had to admit that Nathaniel was quite good at what he did. His act was spellbinding, a beautiful display of gleaming, sparkling lights. The people watching were quite awed. They gazed ahead with stunned and pleasant expressions on their faces, eagerly soaking in the wonders that Nathaniel showed them.