“No … no. I didn’t want to kill them. I never did. I never did. But I saw her death and now I’m free. Like a prisoner in a cage that’s just been shattered.”
“Who’s death, My Prince?”
“I’m free,” I said, fading away, “I’m free.”
When I awoke again the sun was just beginning to rise and glistening dew was on the leaves surrounding me. I tried to open my eyes and my lids ached but I forced them open—I couldn’t be in the dark any longer. I didn’t feel I could move my arms or legs or speak so I just lay staring through the canopy.
“Are you awake?” Elfred said softly.
“Yes.”
My voice seemed distant, as if spoken by someone else and I just happened to be privy to the conversation. I pushed myself up and felt agony through my bones. But I didn’t want to lie there any longer, so I rose and Elfred stood and helped me up. I had been lying on leaves and grass and sand. The space was surrounded with sprays of black blood.
“You must eat and drink,” he said. “You’ve lost much blood. You’ve had the fever.”
“It’s not the fever.”
“What else would it be?”
“Something was broken that had a hold of me a long time, Elfred.”
I glanced around and noticed how much more beautiful everything looked. The leaves were glimmering gems and the sky an ocean of sapphire. The air was fresh and crisp and had the scent of the sea on it.
“I need to get home, Elfred. As quickly as possible.”
“I’m afraid we’re quite stranded. Our ships were destroyed.”
“No, there’s another way. South of here. I saw it.”
“In your fever?”
“I saw it,” I said sternly. “Along with an army of nightmares heading for the Empire. We have to go back and warn my father. The army needs to be prepared and begin heading to the outer territories.”
“An army of nightmares, My Prince?”
“Yes. Gather together anyone left. We have to get moving right away.”
I stepped out on the beach as Elfred did as I asked. I counted nineteen men. On a pit, a large rodent of some kind was roasting over a flame. I walked to it and also saw water boiled in a rusted cup and I drank it down and ate some of the rodent. The meat was chewy and flavorless but for some reason was the best thing I had ever tasted.
By the time I was through, the men were ready to go. We had nothing to pack so we would be traveling light. I rose and looked at them. They appeared worn out and starving and I realized I did not know how long we had been stranded on the beach.
“We’re heading south,” I said. “There’s a way back to the Empire. The people hunting us … are not people. There is an army of orcs on this island which will be marching right behind us, to the exact spot we are going. If we do not notify my father in time to send his troops to the southern border of the Empire, the orcs will invade. And they do not take slaves or prisoners. Your wives and your children will be eaten, if they are lucky. So do not stop. Do not ask questions of me. And I will return us to the Empire.”
I waited a moment and then turned to the jungle and began walking.
2
I marched the men so hard that Elfred stopped and informed me that one of them had fainted from heat and exhaustion. I called a short rest and we waited underneath some suckle trees for the men to re-strengthen.
That’s when I heard something behind me in the bush. I ignored it, feigning that I could not hear it, but reached for the two blades tucked firmly against my body underneath my cloak.
I whirled around and nearly impaled the face of a young girl. A lion of a man stood behind her, and he knocked my hands away.
I knew the girl. I had thought … horrific thoughts about her, about the things that I would do to her when I was alone with her. It filled me with disgust and I felt my stomach churn.
“You were with her,” I said. “I saw you on top of a blood mountain.”
“She has an army,” the girl said. “She’s going to march into the Empire.”
“I know.”
“You must stop it.”
I put the blades away. “I will try. There was another woman with you. Where is she?”
“I thought that’s who you were talking about.”
The man behind her said, “No. He was talking about his mother. She’s dead.”
“I know that too.”
“And yet you don’t take vengeance? That hardly seems like the Lucius Kandarian I know.”
“I don’t want your lives. We will need every man to make it through this jungle and to the Empire.”
“Through the jungle?” the girl said. “Do you know a way through here back to the Empire?”
“I’ve … seen it. In a dream. But I don’t know if it’s real.”
“It is,” she said. “Slesh has been there. Tell him Slesh.”
The man hesitated, and then said, “Aye, I know where it is. But I won’t take the likes of you there.”
I stepped toward him. “You know, don’t you? You know what’s coming … I’m sorry for whatever I have done to you. But this is no time for the egos of men. Please help me get back to the Empire so I may tell my father of what’s coming for him.”
“And why would I do that for a killer like you?”
“You are a killer too. You think I didn’t recognize you earlier? You were the Black General, the fiercest of my mother’s army. You call me killer, but how many orphans and widows have you made, General? How many men did not go home to their families after the swipe of your blade?”
“It’s different.”
“Is it? Did you not feel pleasure when you killed? Did you not feel the thrill of the battlefield? Well, I did not. My mother tainted my blood. It was through her eyes I saw these things.”
“You could have stopped yourself.”
“You couldn’t. You didn’t want to be back here with her I take it. And yet here you are. Do you not feel her influence in you as well? Take me to my father, General. You may do as you please afterward, but take me there now so I may protect my realm.”
The general laughed. “Protect your realm? You sound like a true politician after only a handful of nights in the Darklands. And yet you have the stink of innocent blood on you still.”
“And it will not wash off. I still see them, feel what it was to murder them. I cannot change that. But I can defend the Empire from the work of my mother. Please. Help me.”
The general thought it over, glanced down to the girl, and then said, “All right. I will lead you back. But if you betray me, if you harm another innocent, I will tear your guts out through your eye sockets.”
The journey south was easier than I had expected. The land was flat and grassy and filled with many open clearings. The animals were loud and the insects louder, but it wasn’t an entirely unpleasant walk.
My feelings were mixed. Everything appeared so beautiful that life suddenly made me wish to weep. And yet it was all tainted with the horror of the faces I saw calling me from the darkness. I saw them in the soft pink of violets, in the orange prism of the sun, in the speckled fur of the panthers that watched us pass by under their watchful eyes.
The men complained of heat and humidity but it felt new to me. I felt as if my life had only just begun. I remember clearly my youth and the days of being a young man, but something changed with the war…
The young girl was walking next to me and staring at me.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing. I have heard stories about you. I don’t know if they are true or not.”
“What stories?
“Something Aysta told me.”
I stopped. “Aysta … that was her name. The woman that leads the armies.”
“She’s the greatest warrior I’ve ever seen. You can’t defeat her.”
“I don’t need to. I need to stop her army from entering the Empire, nothing more.”
She thought a moment. “Do you want to talk to her?
”
“No,” the general said from up ahead, “she’s not Aysta anymore, girl. The queen tainted her with blood magik. She sees only war now. She’s a bringer of death, not your friend.”
“If the prince was under a spell, maybe she is too.”
“The prince is no longer because his mother died. I don’t think it’s a spell. I think this is who she really is and the queen awakened it in her. She planned this since her birth. This woman’s a monster twenty seasons in the making.”
“I wish to meet with her,” I said.
“She’ll kill you.”
“I have to try.”
The general put his hands on his hips. “Fine. I’ll take you to her.”
TEMPUS LAGE
Zeries was so massive and loud it sent shivers up my spine. You entered the city only one way: through the Gargantuan Gates. The gates were so colossal that poems had been sung about them. I stood there staring at the walls and gates that went so high they seemed to touch the clouds. I wondered what could be so frightening that they needed gates like this to protect themselves.
We entered the city to great fanfare, and I watched out the carriage windows as we rolled down the cobblestone roads and past the forum. The shops filled the space so thoroughly I wondered how merchants had not choked everything else out of existence. Some of the buildings blocked the sun. We would be in darkness a moment, then it would fade and light would return.
“You’ve never been here before,” the emperor said.
“No.”
“I wasn’t aware. I thought all citizens came to see the splendor of Zeries. I will tell you, boy, I have traveled all over the world and there is nothing like it under the sky. The city was built by our ancestors so long ago we don’t have written records of it any longer. The parchment has crumbled. But they knew what they were doing. It’s meant to last till the end of time, and I scarcely hesitate to say that it will.”
“Why are the walls and gates so large? They don’t need them that large to defend against other men.”
“Possibly. Perhaps there were horrors back then that have since died out. I do not know. But I tell you I’m grateful for it. In more than sixty centuries not one foreign nation or tribe has conquered Zeries, not without the cooperation of its inhabitants. When they used to attack the kingdom, they would attack small villages and lesser cities, attempting to force us outside the gates.”
I watched as we passed the public baths. Hundreds of nude men and women were running around in play, relaxing in the hot pools, or had slaves cleaning them with oil and frankincense. The streets were wide enough that it was a walk from one side to another and I watched as children would chase our carriage, waving to us, persisting until I waved back.
We rode for a long while before we diverted to another road which led up a hill. At the very top was the King’s Palace—what had been renamed the Emperor’s Home. My mother had told me that was where she had first met him, and where I had been conceived.
Passing through the gates and over a small bridge, we entered the palace. Gold and ivory and swirled marble filled the courtyard. Statues of long dead generals and kings were spread over freshly trimmed bushes and grasslands. A narrow gravel road led up to the main entrance into the palace and we exited the carriage, carried in a litter held aloft by slaves.
Deposited at the door, we were greeted by maids and servants and advisors. The emperor said a few words to them about what to prepare for supper and then told me to go with a portly man named Ial. Apparently, he was to be my advisor.
“Welcome to the Emperor’s Home, Your Grace,” he said with a bow. “Shall we retire for a bath and change of clothing?”
“Why not.”
I followed him up the stairs and it seemed to take an eternity simply to climb them. By the time we reached the top I could hear giggling. We turned a corner and in a large room decorated with imported crimson rugs and a gold tub were three beautiful women. They came to me without a word and stripped off my clothing and helped me get into a tub filled with hot water and rose petals.
I relaxed as one massaged my neck and head and the other two went about cutting my nails and bathing me. My eyes were closed and I was nearly asleep when I heard Ial clear his throat. I looked to him and saw him standing with a line of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. At least twenty of them.
“The prince’s harem, Your Grace. Now your harem.”
I smiled to the girls. I think I’m going to enjoy it here.
CHLOE
It was a long journey north but not entirely difficult if you knew where you were going. Slesh just somehow knew and navigated us well. But without him we would have been lost in the dark forest until we starved to death. There was almost no food or water, only a few warthogs and deer and some snakes, and we survived off them while we marched.
The days were filled with nothing but walking and everyone was too tired to speak. But at night some of the men would revel in stories of past battles and women they had slept with. Lucius and Slesh never engaged in these stories. They were both men who preferred to think by themselves.
I heard them speaking one night when everyone else had gone to bed. They thought I was asleep and couldn’t hear.
“You hate me,” Kandarian said, “and yet I don’t even know what I’ve done to offend you.”
“One of the women you slaughtered, Emma … she was very dear to me.”
“Emma … I’m sorry, I didn’t know their names.”
“I still haven’t decided whether I should gut you for it or not.”
“I won’t fight you if you try.”
“You’ll let me cut out your guts without a fight? I don’t believe you.”
“I deserve to die. I won’t fight, you have my word. But before you kill me let me warn my father.” He was silent a while. “This army of orcs, I’ve seen them in my dreams; they burn entire cities, raping the women and children before eating them alive.”
“They certainly would do that.”
“Where did they come from?”
“Your guess is as valid as mine.”
“Well I’d like to hear your guess.”
Slesh paused and then said, “I knew a man that lived here once. I made a bargain with him, me and your mother. It was his line that cursed this place, that cursed the sea. My guess is that the orcs that were here were cursed as well. Instead of little thieves and nuisances, they became monsters.”
“What kind of bargain did my mother make?”
“That she would provide this man with children and be his wife. But I don’t think that happened. I think she learned all she could from him and then killed him.”
“How many times have you been here?”
“I would visit your mother once every handful of seasons at first, and then something changed in her. Something sinister. I stopped visiting after that.”
“How many orcs are here?”
“Who knows? But I don’t think it’s the orcs you have to worry about. Tomorrow we’ll be at the red mountain, and you will meet Aysta.”
At dawn we began our march and I could see the red mountain in the distance. Slesh came to me and walked beside me.
“You won’t be going up, girl. You’ll stay at the bottom.”
“No, I’m coming.”
“No you’re not.”
“I was closest to her. And I’m a woman.”
“You’re a girl, and one that’s too brave for her own good. Stay at the bottom.”
When the red mountain came into view, a shiver went up my spine and I thought that maybe staying at the bottom was not the worst of ideas.
Coming to it, I stood there as the men and Slesh started up the slope. He turned to me and said, “If we’re not back by nightfall, you must leave without us. Head south. The brightest star in the sky is the Star of Hemlic. It will lead you there. When you get to the shore, head west until you hit the shore again. Go north until you find a strip of land over a small sea. Across that strip is t
he Empire. Repeat it.”
“I got it.”
“Repeat it.”
“Head south following Hemlic until I hit the shore, then west until I hit the shore, and then north until I find the strip of land over the sea.”
He nodded and the men continued up.
SLESH OF ULRIK
We climbed up the red mountain and I glanced back at Chloe, who was sitting on a stone. Kandarian was up ahead and completely lost in his thoughts, to the point where some of his men had to grab him before he went walking off the path and down the side of the mountain. The large one, Gorb, looked back to me several times. I smiled and winked at him, knowing he couldn’t do the same with the injury I’d given him.
Rounding up to the top, we stood on the platform where my queen had died. We looked out over the expanse … and there was nothing. Just an empty crevasse.
“Where are the orcs?” Kandarian said.
“I don’t know.”
Gorb said, “There aren’t any. This is a trap.” He pulled out his weapon but Kandarian placed his hand on Gorb’s and lowered it.
“Is that true, Slesh?” Kandarian said. “Is this a trap?”
“It is,” a voice hissed from somewhere, “but not one he knew of.”
Aysta seemed to appear before us. She was in a black cloak now, her hair slick and wound tightly on her head. She pulled back the cloak, revealing the tight leather that hugged her frame and the black blade that shimmered in the sun.
“You are brave coming here, Prince.”
“I don’t want to fight you,” Kandarian said. “I’m here to offer my life to you.”
Aysta said nothing.
“I have done things I can never atone for. But the Empire does not deserve your wrath. Millions of innocents abide there that have done nothing but loved and supported me when they should have hung me. I have betrayed them … and I want to pay for it.” He fell to his knees. “I give you my life in exchange for your vow that your armies will not march on the Empire.”
Empire of War - An Epic Fantasy (The Empire of War Trilogy Book 1) Page 19