“Have you finally awakened, Lady Feri? I am not used to waiting for my lesser,” he, they said.
Feri replied, somehow knowing that Nadav would hear her even though he was nowhere to be seen, “Yes, My Sovereign. I do apologize, for I did not realize you had arrived.”
“Horseshit,” the Nadavs replied harshly, “you were too busy rubbing your womanhood.”
“I am so sorry, Sovereign,” Feri replied, bowing her head even though she did not know if Nadav would see the gesture. “To what do I owe the honor of your visit?”
The Nadavs laughed uproariously, a frightening act that again shook the entire city including its walls, yet there was no humor to be found in the sound. The people below began to panic, dropping whatever they carried or hauled to run for some kind of shelter. For the first time in her life, she suddenly feared for not only her own safety but those over which she ruled.
“You know why I am here,” Nadav’s voice echoed. “I am here to take my vengeance upon you, just as I have upon all my other nobles. You forsook me in Aquis, ran at the one time I needed you. You do not deserve to call yourself Loszian. You do not deserve what you have, and now I am going to take it all.”
“My Sovereign, please allow me to speak,” Feri began, but even as she spoke, she saw the magick arise from beyond Veron’s walls. She knew what it was; she had seen it twice before. It started as a small black mass, but it grew and grew as it approached the city’s walls. As it grew and spread, the black diluted into a dark purple and then a thinner purple almost like a haze. She closed her eyes and began to weep softly as the haze settled all across her city as well as the lands nearby, and it sank to disappear into the ground.
Feri turned and walked back through the archway to Kalie. The Loszian noble placed a hand softly on each of her servant’s cheeks and leaned in to kiss her tenderly. She then reached down and pulled the woman’s loose fitting silk tunic over her head and knelt to pull off her trousers.
“Come,” said Feri as the ground began to rumble. “Lay with me. I would feel your touch again before I die.”
* * *
Veron fell. They all fell, but Veron did not add to Nadav’s armies as much as Losz’ other cities had. It was a fairly new city in comparison, only a thousand years or so, and he was not even sure as to why it existed. The dead rose from underneath it as they had before, but caused minimal damage to the city itself. He did not set them to tearing apart the people of Veron as he had to Byrverus, Martherus and even Ghal. It was no longer necessary. Actually once Nadav’s rage had cooled a bit, he realized that he still needed the commoners and slaves of the empire. They were the people who kept it all running, not the nobles.
When it was over, Nadav rode into Veron on his gilded chariot, and everyone knelt and sobbed before him. He had never before realized that his people loved him so much, and now he had both sides of the coin. They loved him, and they feared him. No doors were closed to him, included the door to Lady Feri’s tower. It was widely ajar to admit his entry, and slaves and servants knelt to either side of his path.
“Where is she?’ Nadav asked softly.
“In her chambers, Sovereign.”
“Atop the tower no doubt,” Nadav sighed as he began the trek upward.
It was nothing as immense or grand as his own tower in Ghal, yet he cursed the propensity of his kind to place themselves at the highest point. Symbolism was impressive, but in the end it was still only symbolism. It meant nothing. As he reached the top most floor of Feri’s tower, he found two slaves, Westerners both, who immediately bowed and opened the double doors into the rooms beyond. Feri’s chambers looked not unlike his own, not unlike those of so many nobles that Nadav had visited in the last few months. He found Feri rising naked from her bed, a woman of mixed blood huddling in fear under the silk sheets behind her.
“I would have expected you more prepared to receive me,” Nadav said, not unhappily as he approached her bedside.
“I apologize, Sovereign. I allowed myself one final indulgence.”
“Then you know what I am here to do,” Nadav stated in a somewhat matter of fact tone.
“I do, Sovereign,” Feri replied with closed eyes and a slight bow of her head. She sunk to her knees before him and said, “My Emperor, show me mercy, and I shall be anything to you that you require.”
“The time for such oaths has past,” Nadav sneered. “I would not even use you to suck upon my cock.”
“Then My Sovereign, show Kalie and my other servants mercy,” Feri implored, looking into Nadav’s cold eyes. “They are loyal and shall serve you well. Is there any final task you would ask of me?”
“Just one – die,” answered Nadav, producing a wickedly curved dagger from inside the sleeve of his silk robes.
In one smooth motion he gripped the back of her smooth head with his free hand and plunged the dagger’s curved blade into her eye. She did not scream as it punctured her eyeball, and a clear, gelatinous fluid mixed with blood came forth. Nor did she scream as the blade’s point rammed its way through her eye socket. Nadav angled the jab upward, and the curved blade went into Feri’s brain, the point finally breaking through the top of her skull from the inside. Her arms shot out straight and jerked spasmodically ever so slightly until he pulled the dagger free, blood spattering his robes.
The thrill of the moment passing, Nadav became aware of the soft weeping of the woman Kalie. He looked to her to see her sitting upright in Feri’s bed, the silk sheets pulled tightly up to just under her chin. Her eyes were wide with fright, but she said nothing. She smelled of sex, sweat and urine.
“You will continue to serve?” Nadav asked. She looked at him but did not answer, a fact that aggravated him to no end. “Enough, bitch. Clothe yourself so you do not offend my sensibilities. Continue to serve this tower as you always have until I select a new lord to rule Veron.”
He said no more to the girl Feri had called Kalie, and he turned and returned the way he had come. As he moved through the late Feri’s tower, Nadav thought of all the other nobles that he had ended much the same way. Actually, Feri’s death had been fast and quick, and she accepted it nobly and without fear. Many others had begged and pleaded, offering Nadav anything and everything, catering to some of his more wicked appetites. Some of these he had even indulged, but in the end, all those who betrayed him paid with their lives. Those who seemed truly penitent, like Feri, died neatly and quickly.
There was yet much to do, but it wouldn’t be long now. He held most of the empire in his iron grasp, and the rest would be within it before summer’s end. He added to his host with every city, every stronghold he visited, bringing death to its lord as he did so. His nobles could no longer run from him; he’d offered immediate lordship and the change to any who captured a fleeing noble. They could do nothing but wait for him, captives to their own servants. The rest would fall to him soon, and then he would take back the Shining West allowing no mistakes, no failures in judgment this time. He would conquer it slowly and steadily and destroy every single city as he did so. He would complete his conquest by sending his millions of dead servants into the north to slaughter every last Northman, man woman and child.
Two had fled Losz already – the traitorous Menak and that cunt Veltrina. They would beg, oh they would beg before him as they died. He just might stretch their deaths out over the course of a year, and Veltrina had been pregnant with his seed. He wished he could have prevented the child from being born, but the bitch was out of his reach with her mewling spawn. He decided that he would liquefy the babe’s flesh from its bones and force Veltrina to drink the slop. That would be fitting. She had wanted a piece of Nadav inside her so badly, she would get it again.
Menak he would strap to a table and use an enormous blade to slice off ever the smallest layer once per day, starting with the man’s feet (foot!). Nadav would use his power to make sure Menak’s mind stayed alive as long as it took for the blade to reach the head. He would rip out all of Menak’s teeth,
break his jaw and then pleasure himself repeatedly on the man’s gaping mouth. Then, he would shove Menak’s head into a jar and put it on a shelf right next to the traitor’s jarred hand.
Those two would pay far more dearly than any of the others.
21.
“We run out of time, Majesty,” Menak said, his Loszian accent causing him to sound somewhat like a hissing snake. The Loszian was seated at the middle of the council table, directly across from Red.
Immediately upon his return to Byrverus, Cor pulled King Rederick aside to explain everything that had transpired and the promises he had made. Rederick stayed quiet and grim, especially when it came to the Seven Lords, but at length he agreed with Cor’s decisions. The next day, the king called the council together, inviting both the Seven Lords and the Loszian Menak. Cor brought Thyss along for good measure, leaving their son at the Crescent.
“Nadav slaughters his own people,” Menak continued. “While we sit here, he spreads his dead across Losz. He slays every Loszian that he feels betrayed him, regardless of whether they resist or not. He destroys his own cities the way he destroyed this one, and his animated servants are now without number.”
“How do you know all this?” asked Mora. The concern was plain on her face, but Cor couldn’t decipher the cause behind it.
Menak turned his attention from Rederick to Mora and replied, “I have conversed with my peers that still live.”
“Through your gods’ dark magic, I’m sure,” grumbled the priest Walthur, seated immediately to Mora’s right.
“Through my magic, yes,” Menak replied impassively, “but are my powers any more dark than yours are light?”
Walthur’s face grew furious, and he very nearly shouted a response were it not for King Rederick’s interruption, “This is neither the time nor the place for philosophical discussions of what is good and what is evil. The fact is Lord Menak is here to help the Shining West stop this madman.”
“Yes, Majesty,” Menak said with a slight bow of his head, “I left the entwining politics of the nobles for my small holdfast near the Spine for a reason. I only wanted to be left alone. I never dreamed of the things that have come to pass. Nadav exterminates his own people and uses his power to create more Loszians, these completely bound to him. If we do not act soon, he will be unstoppable.”
“Let the Loszians die at the hands of their own emperor,” Walthur sneered, and even Thyss seemed struck by the good priest. “Let Nadav spend as much time as he will, while we fortify our position.”
“And then what?” asked Red. “Let him invade? Fight over our own lands yet again?”
“We’ll stop him at the Spine, at Fort Haldon,” answered Walthur.
“We tried that once and failed,” Red retorted.
“With an inferior force,” said Walthur with a pointed look at Cor. “We will be even more fortified this time, and we’ll have a hundred thousand Tigoleans, tens of thousands of Westerners and Garod.”
“Against what? Limitless numbers of walking dead?”
“Neither of you were there,” Cor said, cutting off Walthur’s response, nodding slightly toward Red. “No offense meant, but neither of you have seen what I have seen, what King Rederick has seen. The dead cannot be stopped for long. We break the enchantments that bind their bodies with swords and arrows, and they fall lifelessly. But what then? Nadav’s magic brings them back to their feet. They are truly limitless.”
“I can end them,” Thyss said haughtily, derisively.
“Yes, but how many?” Cor asked, drawing a hard look. “I love you, but even your immense powers have limits. How many can you burn to a crisp? A thousand? Ten thousand? It’s not enough.”
“What do you suggest then, Lord Dahken Cor?” Walthur asked, and no one mistook the contempt in the priest’s voice.
“The only way to end this is to kill Nadav.”
“It’s true,” confirmed Menak, softly.
“And how would you do such a thing? Did you not fail before? He escaped you already if I recall,” pushed Walthur.
“It’s true, he escaped me. He will not again, but I’ll never be able to reach him if we wait for him to come to us,” said Cor.
“If I may interrupt,” Karak interjected, stunning the entire table into attentive silence, for none of the Seven had spoken one word, “I agree with Lord Red and Lord Dahken Cor on their strategic assessment. Our warriors prevail on the open field of battle, where horses, javelins and arrows reign. We are not made for defense and holding walls. It would be better to allow your enemy to cross into your lands unmolested to fight in the hills than put our warriors on a wall.”
“A fine army you have brought us, Lord Dahken,” grumbled Walthur. “You have not answered my question. How do you kill Nadav?”
Cor stared at the middle of the table, brooding quietly over the question, and he distinctly felt all eyes on him. “Nadav can’t harm me,” he said finally. “I can handle him, but I need to be able to reach him. That won’t happen if we make a stand at Fort Haldon.”
“We invade then,” concluded King Rederick, “and hope the remaining Loszians will join our banner.”
“This is ludicrous,” decried Walthur. “Even if we are successful, what’s to stop Nadav from staying far away? He needs only send this unstoppable host of his to crush us.”
“If we invade Losz, it will draw him out,” Cor said, convinced.
“You cannot know that.”
“My Lords, Majesty,” Menak said as humbly sounding as he could muster, “I know Sovereign Nadav. I know his ego, his overconfidence. He must be there to see his servants crush his foes as a testament to his power. If you go on the offensive, I can guarantee Nadav will meet you in battle personally.”
“Invasion it is then,” King Rederick decided. “We will muster and march for Fort Haldon in a week’s time.”
“We? Majesty?” Lord Joth asked. “I’m not sure that it is proper for you to be so close –“
“The future of the Shining West will be decided in Losz,” cut in Rederick firmly. “I will not wait here in Byrverus to find out whether we live or die. No, I will be part of the battle this time. Lord Menak, I shall require your assistance throughout the course of these events. The Council shall attend as well and prepare to do battle.”
Cor sat back in his chair and watched the other Council members as the king’s words sank into their minds. Some, like Red and Mora, were prepared for whatever may come, while others such as Walthur merely fumed despairingly. Menak bowed his head at mention of his name. Cor looked to his right, to Keth, and the young Dahken only returned the gaze. Keth would die in any endeavor Cor asked, if need be, and Cor hoped that it would not come to that. Rederick’s words brought Cor’s attention back to his king.
“Lord Dahken Cor, the burden is on you to devise a scheme by which you will end Sovereign Nadav. Fail, and I fear we all die. If there are no other matters, I am sure we all have much to prepare,” Rederick concluding, standing from the table.
Others around the table began to follow suit, when they were stopped by Karak’s voice, “There is another matter, Majesty.”
Rederick nearly groaned as he again seated himself and asked, “Yes, Lord Karak?”
“The Seven Lords have come to this table prepared to do battle on your behalf. We have gone to great expense thus far, but we move no further. There are negotiations to be had and bargains to strike. Lord Dahken Cor has made grand promises, outshining even those of King Parol and his successor. Before we commit ourselves further, we must know precisely our form of compensation.”
Rederick looked around the table and commanded, “Leave me with the Seven.”
* * *
“My friend, you have put me in a difficult position,” Rederick said, rubbing his face with both hands. “The terms of Aquis’ agreement with the Seven Lords are… expensive to say the least.”
“I had no other choice, Majesty,” Cor replied.
“Drop the titles for Garod’s s
ake,” Rederick said, dropping his hands into his lap. “Sit down, have some wine with me, and let’s just talk without any Majesty this or Lord Dahken that.”
Cor smiled and lowered himself into the dark stained oak chair. A matching oak desk divided them, and on it amidst piles of parchment and scrolls regarding affairs of state were two gilded goblets and a large pitcher. The king poured a red liquid into each of the goblets and pushed one Cor’s way before leaning back in his own chair. Cor matched the pose and looked around, distinctly aware that the last time he’d been in this exact place, he had strangled Queen Erella to her death. The thought made him suddenly uncomfortable, and he squirmed about in the oak chair. Rederick likely thought it was just due to the discomfort of the chair itself.
The royal suite was as gorgeous and well appointed as usual. Apparently, the Loszians who briefly occupied the palace hadn’t felt a need to loot, destroy or change the decorations, or perhaps they simply hadn’t had the time to concern themselves with it. Cor knew that Rederick would have been perfectly happy to continue living in a plain cell within the temple, but he acceded when it was made clear that no one thought it appropriate. Besides, the bed was large enough to accommodate both the massive king and his new wife.
Cor sipped at the wine, a little too sweet for his taste, as he watched Rederick down the first goblet-full rather quickly. As he poured himself another, the king said, “The Tigoleans drove a hard bargain.”
“I’m not surprised. Bargaining is their life.”
“And they had all the pieces I’m afraid. What was I to do?” Rederick asked rhetorically. “Should I have just let them leave? I would’ve had to pay them off handsomely for turning their backs on Marya. If I am to sell the future of my kingdom, I do it with the hopes of doubling its size.”
The Cor Chronicles: Volume 04 - Gods and Steel Page 16