Empire of War - An Epic Fantasy (The Empire of War Trilogy Book 1)

by Victor Methos

  “How did you survive?”

  “I hid under the bed until I heard my father’s voice. Then I ran outside. They didn’t kill me. He told me that he’d wished he’d known I was there.”

  Slesh said nothing but poked the stick into the fire some more. “It made you strong.”

  “It made me what?” I said, shocked.

  “I have rarely seen anyone so skilled. You would not be such if Kandarian hadn’t done what he did.”

  “I don’t care about strength. There’s no joy for me in strength. What I want is a family. Children. But even the thought of a man touching me makes me wish to vomit. I want to have a normal life.”

  “Sorry to disappoint but there’s no such thing. We live, we suffer, and we die. The only thing we have is a choice. You can choose to participate in that suffering or you can rise above it.”

  I looked to the fire of the other men. “No, we have other choices.”

  A commotion broke out of the jungle a short distance away. The men were roused and grabbed their weapons and Slesh did the same.

  “Wait here,” he said.

  SLESH OF ULRIK

  I listened to her story and sadness would have filled my heart if I still let sadness touch me. But it didn’t. I knew there were hundreds of grown women with the same story, maybe thousands. Men were savages and women were the ones who mostly suffered for it.

  I heard voices and the rustling of bushes and shouts of men. I took my swords and rose.

  “Wait here.”

  I walked over across the sand but could see that they weren’t orcs. They were men, more than a dozen of them. Other survivors. They hugged the men they knew and joked about the gods letting them survive. I counted them; there were now twenty of them and only two of us.

  “Chloe!” I heard Aysta yell.

  A young girl ran over. She threw her arms around Aysta and she wept. Aysta kept telling her that it was all right, that she had survived and that there was no need for weeping now. I looked back to the men. They were happy and distracted. Now was the time to leave.

  “We need to go,” I said.

  “Where?” Aysta said.

  “Into the jungle.”

  “Back with the orcs?”

  “We can avoid the orcs,” I said. “We can’t avoid them. The only reason the old man didn’t want us fighting is ‘cause he knew we’d take some of his men with us. But now they can overwhelm us and they will. Tonight.”

  “We have her to protect. I’m not taking her into the jungle in the middle of the night.”

  I leaned down. “Do you know what they will do to her? They will rape her for days straight, taking turns. They will rape her so much she will die. Have you ever seen that, young Shade? A girl raped to death? I have. By comparison, a quick death with an orc ripping out your throat is far preferable.”

  She was silent a moment. “Take her.”

  “You’re coming too.”

  “I’m not leaving without Kandarian’s head.”

  “You won’t be able to take his head without one of your own. We’re leaving, now. You’ll have your revenge one day but it’s not today.”

  She tried to get up on her own and fell back. She was so weak she couldn’t even stand. I tried to help her but she pushed me away, though she let the young girl help her. I looked back to the men as we slipped into the jungle, and disappeared.

  The night was cool and it felt good on my burnt skin. I kept Aysta and the girl in front of me so I could watch them and make sure Aysta didn’t collapse from the pain. She had to lean on trees and vines but she walked and didn’t complain. She was tough, maybe tougher than me, but she was sweating much more than she needed to be. The corruption might have already spread from her wound and gotten to the heart. If it had, she would be dead in a matter of days.

  The other one, Chloe, kept quiet, but helped Aysta when she faltered. She would look back to me every so often as if she didn’t trust me. And she was right not to trust me, or anyone. I wasn’t about to change her mind of that.

  “Turn here,” I said.

  The Star of Tirin told me we were now heading east, away from the orc encampment. Night was when orcs were most active. But there was something different about these orcs. They seemed to walk and work during the day like men. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they slept during the night like men too. I was curious enough to go see them but I didn’t want to leave these two alone. So we kept walking.

  Around us, parts of the jungle had grown so thick that they blotted out the moon and we had to feel our way in the dark. Squeals of howlers and the low growls of panthers and chirps of birds and insects, it was so loud in places I couldn’t hear the women speak unless they shouted.

  I could tell the young one was getting unnerved as we broke into an open clearing.

  “You’ve never been to a jungle before,” I said.

  “I’ve never left my city before just a handful of days ago.”

  “Really? And why did you leave your city?”

  “To be a maiden for the emperor abiding.”

  “Is that what you wanted?”

  She turned forward and kept her head low. “No. My parents gave me away. Said it was a good life. A better one than they could provide.”

  “A life of a slave isn’t a better life than anything.”

  We passed the clearing and were back among the jungle vines and the howling and growling. Aysta was weakening. She was moving more slowly and the wound had been torn open by Kandarian and was bleeding again.

  “We need to cauterize the wound again,” I said.

  “Not now.”

  “You don’t even know where we’re going.”

  “I thought you said we had to get away.”

  “I did, and we are. But that doesn’t change the fact that we have to cauterize your wound again. Stop here. We can’t go to the beach, they’ll be looking for us there.”

  Aysta stopped and weakly leaned against a tree though she attempted to portray strength. I told the young girl, “Help me find some dry wood.”

  We went about the task and found some wood; I struck up a fire again and placed her sword in it. Aysta appeared tired and frail. In the light of the fire I could see nothing but pale skin and light blue lips. Blood was flowing out of her too quickly.

  When the blade glowed red, I took it out and walked to her. She was shaking now, afraid of the pain that was certain to come. But there was no other way. I thrust it over the wound and it sizzled again, the blood bubbling and popping. The young girl grimaced and had to look away.

  When I was through, I gathered some large moss leaves and laid them down as a bed by the fire and helped Aysta lay on her stomach over them. She didn’t have the power to fight me now. Being too dark to see, I couldn’t gather food or run to the sea to get water for boiling. On the morrow I would do those things, if she survived the night.

  I sat down across from her and the girl was sitting next to her.

  “Your name is Chloe?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you an assassin too?” She looked at me, confused. “Nevermind.”

  “How was she injured?”

  “Orcs.”

  “Orcs? Here?”

  “Yes, much more ferocious than the ones you’re used to, child. So I would probably keep my voice down if I were you.”

  “Won’t they come get us?”

  “Orcs are scared of two things: fire and water. We have a fire, and as long as it burns they won’t come near it.”

  She stayed quiet a bit and then said, “When I was in the sea I thought I was going to die. I heard the gorgon below me and I thought he would swallow me into blackness and that I would be dead.”

  “Is that your first time almost dying?” She nodded. “You get used to it … with time.”

  “How many times has it happened to you?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t really count anymore. Happens every day, I suppose.”

  “You almost die every day?
And that’s all right with you?”

  “Never said it was all right with me. I just said it happens.”

  She was quiet a moment. “She’s going to die, isn’t she?”

  “She’s young and strong. And orcs, despite the way they look, keep their mouths as clean as they can, though it’s still disgusting by our standards. They can’t afford to have all their teeth fall out, you see. Because then the females won’t want to mate with them. The size of their teeth is a show of dominance. And they can’t eat leaves so if they don’t have any teeth they’ll starve.”

  “How do you know so much about orcs?”

  “I used to kill them for sport. There was a time, girl, when I killed everything that walked or scuttled on this world.”

  “Why?”

  “I had a blackness in me. A darkness that would come out whenever I wasn’t paying attention. But I don’t have it much anymore. I only let it out sometimes.”

  “How do you do that?”

  “I met someone, someone named Emma, who helped me. She got rid of the darkness for me, and whenever I felt it coming back I would think about her and it would go away again. But now she’s gone … and I’m scared.”

  “You’re, scared? You don’t look like you’re scared of anything.”

  “I’m scared that … I won’t be able to control myself anymore. That the darkness will just take over again.” I looked to her. “If that happens, girl, and you’re there to see it, promise me something: promise me you’ll kill me. I won’t go back to what I was. Promise me.”

  Silence between us.

  “Okay,” she finally said. “I promise.”

  CHLOE

  After the ship had been destroyed I drifted in the sea, holding tightly on to the very bed Aysta had shoved me under. The waves grew large and they were pushing us toward mountains far off in the distance.

  When I finally came to shore, what I found were men from the ship. They gave me curious looks but left me alone. We were all hungry and tired and wounded and the men wanted nothing to do with me for now. But I knew men. I knew what they wanted, even from a young girl like me. When their strength returned they would come for it. So I kept my distance and didn’t speak to any of them.

  Within a short time they had decided that we needed to search this strange place we had all ended up. Some wanted to travel alone, some wanted to travel as a group. I did not care which and they didn’t include me in the discussions.

  Finally they decided that we must search the island for other survivors and they set off together. I sat and watched them at first, and wondered if I should just stay by myself. But I didn’t know what was on the island and thought that perhaps my best chance at surviving was with other people. So I followed behind them.

  We searched for a long time and then heard a commotion coming from down the shore. We ran, as best we could with injured men, and by nightfall came upon a camp. I saw the emperor abiding and some of his royal guards; then I heard someone shout my name. I looked over and saw Aysta on the ground near another fire farther away. I ran to her and forced myself to throw my arms around her.

  Another man was there. He was good looking but had too many scars, and his arms and legs were black with what I thought was dirt and maybe dried blood. He and Aysta debated whether to leave and finally the man convinced her that they needed to and we headed into the jungle unnoticed.

  I kept looking at him. For all I knew, he was going to slit my throat when I lost attention. But he would grin at me and for some reason I wasn’t afraid. But Aysta was severely injured. She could barely walk and a chunk of her shoulder had been ripped out of her. The man, whose name I learned was Slesh, had to cauterize it with a hot sword. Slesh was very gentle with her and made her a little bed and carefully placed her down on it near the fire.

  He sat with me then and we talked about his life. He spoke very simply and plain, like my mother, and it made me miss her, because I was in the middle of a dark jungle surrounded by orcs and men that may have been more dangerous, and seated next to me was a killer. Though something about him made it so I wasn’t frightened, I knew he was a killer. I could just tell with the way he moved and the way he spit and the scars that adorned his body like stripes on a tiger.

  As I was finally falling to sleep on the cold ground, I saw Slesh sitting next to the fire with his hands on his knees. When I awoke the next morning he was sitting in exactly the same pose and staring at the same spot in the fire, which by now had died down to nothing but embers. He noticed me and turned his head and for a long while just stared at me, like he didn’t know who I was.

  I rose and checked on Aysta. She was asleep, and though the wound on her back had closed, it was surrounded by a red rim. Corruption had gotten inside her body and was eating away at her. My mother had me deal with it when it happened by chewing giblye plant until it formed a paste and then spreading it over the wound, but I doubt I could have found any there. I walked close to Slesh so Aysta couldn’t hear me.

  “She has corruption in the wound,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “So what are we going to do about it?”

  “There’s nothing we can do. Except keep going.”

  “Where?”

  “I know a way back to the Empire from here.”

  “How far away is it?”

  “About ten days journey.”

  “Ten days! She won’t last that long.”

  “I’m sorry, little dove, that’s as long as it takes.”

  “But she’ll die before then.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry.”

  “There must be something. We can’t just let her die.”

  He stood up and walked over to her and felt her forehead. She wasn’t awake but mumbled something, sweat still pouring out her.

  “She has the fever,” he said.

  “There has to be someone here that can help her.”

  “I know only one person here that could help but she would refuse.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  He looked at me and held my gaze. “No, I guess I don’t.”

  “Please, she saved my life. We have to help her.”

  He grunted like a pig and then bent down and put her arm around his neck and lifted her up. He spit into the ashes of the fire and then turned and began walking.

  I followed close behind and kept my eyes on Aysta. She wasn’t aware of her surroundings anymore. Her face was pale as the winter’s snow, and she would mumble and speak words that didn’t make sense. It amused me so I turned to watch the jungle instead to hide my amusement.

  Despite the ruggedness of it, the jungle was quite pretty and had many flowers that stuck out on the path. I bent down to pick one when I felt a boot hit my wrist and my hand flew back just as the flower bared teeth and bit down into air. It hissed like a snake and then went back to where it had been.

  “Even the flowers here want to kill you,” Slesh said. “Just keep walking.”

  EMPEROR VANGLY KARDARIAN

  “Highness! Highness! You must wake.”

  I opened my eyes slowly and looked to the ceiling as the light of the morn came through the open windows. The room was uncluttered as I preferred it and contained almost no decoration. It was comforting and warm and I did not desire to move. But I forced my head to turn as Ial’s fat body came bouncing through my door.

  “Highness, we have news of the emperor abiding. I was told to come retrieve you, day or night, once we received word.”

  I sighed, yawned and stretched. I swung my legs out of bed as two servants came and placed a silk robe and slippers on me. They brought the washbasin and began cleaning my teeth and massaging my gums with their fingers. Ial waited impatiently until I was through.

  “Go ahead,” I said, as I left the room and walked the corridor of the palace.

  “Highness … this is not easy.”

  “Nothing is. Just say it, you fat fool.”

  “He was lost.”

  I stopped an
d turned to him. He swallowed and the fear so overtook his face that I thought he might faint. “What do you mean lost?”

  “His ship was … lost, Highness. On the Savage Sea.”

  “I forbade him that journey.”

  “The message must not have arrived to him in time, Highness. Or he chose to ignore it.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Fishermen in Yul, Highness. They reported that bits of the vessel were found floating atop the sea. They believe that the ship was attacked.”

  “Attacked by who?”

  “A … gorgon, highness.”

  “Gorgon?” I scoffed. “Fishermen do love their fairy tales.”

  “My father claims to have seen one, once long ago. But that’s beside the point, Highness. The emperor abiding is lost, however it happened.”

  I kept walking. I turned into a large chamber where two young boys awaited me. Stripping down nude, I pointed to an item of clothing that hung on the wall, a purple robe with leather chest guard, as well as some hard leather boots. As they dressed me, I contemplated what Ial had said and he waited for my orders.

  “He wanted to go to the Darklands,” I said. “It’s possible he made it and what the fishermen saw were remnants of other ships that were with him. Or the Axerians attacked his vessel. Either way, I want our five fastest ships to cross the Savage Sea and search for him.”

  “Highness….”

  “Yes, Ial, believe it or not I’m actually listening. What is it?”

  “Perhaps one of the ships will make the crossing, Highness, but it seems imprudent to send our fastest ships. Just that with the Kingdom of Axeria now gearing for war….”

  “The Axerians know nothing about war. They are descendants of whores and merchants and grew rich and fat off the work of others. Their soldiers are soft and untested. They do not want war, Ial, they want peace. And that is exactly what they believe we will give them. And when the time is right, I will burn their capital to the ground and slaughter their armies. I will enslave their women and children, and Axeria will be no more.”