Rebel Prince (The Coalition Rebellion Novels Book 3)

by Justine Davis

  There was a stir in the room, a shuffling. But there was no denial. How could there be? Rina thought.

  “I care not that you would not listen,” Kateri said, as if she had read their thoughts. “But I care that you will not fight.”

  “We are not prepared,” someone called out.

  “I could remind you who is at fault for that, but there is no time for blame now.”

  “We cannot withstand this!” The high-pitched, querulous cry came from one of the men on the council floor.

  Rina recognized the voice immediately. Beside her, Tark’s head snapped around as he searched for the speaker. When he spotted the man, he muttered, “I thought so.”

  And then he moved. He strode onto the council floor as if he owned it. As, indeed, he once had.

  “I recall you saying the same thing once before, Bratus. You were wrong then, too.”

  A gasp went around the chamber.

  “Tark.”

  “It’s Tark.”

  “Tark is with us.”

  His name was repeated from all quarters, in tones of awe now, as if this man were somehow different from the man they had scorned for so long.

  “You were the first to cut and run then. I see you have grown no braver since.”

  A wave of barely suppressed snickering went around the room. How on earth had he managed to get himself chosen mayor? she wondered.

  Tark turned then, looked at the officials gathered. Shrugged dismissively, then lifted his gaze to the galleries above.

  “Is this what you wish, people of Arellia?” he called out. “To surrender without even a token resistance?”

  The “No!” that echoed around that room was nothing less than a roar.

  “You,” Tark said, his head still lifted, “I will fight for.” He lowered his gaze back to the politicians gathered. “You, can go to Hades.”

  The cheers that erupted threatened to take off the roof as surely as Coalition cannon fire. Tark strode off the floor, coming back to her. Rina felt her eyes sting with moisture as pride in this man filled her anew.

  “People of Arellia!” Kateri shouted. “You must decide. Cravenly surrender, or push this”—she glanced at the fuming council with disgust—“deadwood aside and do what should be done. But before you decide, there is something you should know. We do not fight alone.”

  She looked toward them. Toward Lyon, Rina realized. For an instant she wanted to take his arm, reassure him as if he were the boy she’d known. But Lyon wasn’t a child who needed her encouragement. Even since he had left Trios, only a matter of days, he was changed. He and Shaina both. They were no longer the unproven heirs who had left Triotia such a short time ago.

  And he rose to the challenge now. He walked toward Kateri as if he wore the royal cape, his bearing making the humble clothing and lack of royal insignia—save the ring now back on his finger—irrelevant.

  “I give you Prince Lyon of Trios!” Kateri exclaimed.

  The murmur that went around then was quieter, more assessing. They had known Lyon was coming, so there was no surprise, but he had their attention nevertheless.

  Lyon didn’t waste any time. Nor did he waste his breath on the now-chastened men before him. As had Tark, he addressed the people in the galleries, the citizens. “Trios will honor the Pact,” he said. “Help is already on the way. My father is readying even more. We will stand with Arellia, as we have before. But you must stand.”

  To Rina’s surprise, Shaina moved suddenly. She strode out onto the council floor much as Lyon had, confident, determined, as if her success in the square had inspired her. A gasp of recognition went around the gallery. They clearly had recognized the daughter who looked so much like the father.

  “And in case you have forgotten, people of Galatin, how Trios answers a call for help,” Shaina called out to them, “that help will be led by my father!”

  Shouts went around the room.

  “Dax!”

  “We have the daughter of Dax with us!”

  “I am with you,” she said, “as is my father and my king. We will fight with you. But we will not fight for you.”

  It was not, perhaps, the most politic thing to say, Rina thought. But politics seemed suddenly out of place here in this chamber usually full of it.

  Someone called out from the upper gallery.

  “We have Tark, the Prince of Trios, and the daughter of the flashbow warrior! We cannot lose!”

  And the noise as the crowd rose to their feet, shouting, cheering, was deafening. Kateri had been right, it seemed, when she had said they had their best weapon now. The three of them, Tark, Lyon, and Shaina, had turned the tide. She had no doubts now.

  Arellia would fight.

  Chapter 43

  “GO,” TARK ORDERED.

  Shaina watched as the young man, barely more than a boy, nodded and ran out. Seconds later they heard the sound of the air speeder as it shot down the street. He was the last of the messengers sent to get word to the citizens that had already fled the city that the climate had changed, that Galatin at least was going to make it a fight. They could only hope that some would take heart and return to join them.

  Lyon stood on one side of the table. She took advantage of the moment to study him—and remembered the brief conversation they’d had on the way down the mountain.

  Did you really hear my thoughts?

  Yes. And you mine?

  Yes.

  This could get . . . interesting.

  It was all they’d had time for, but she knew they would explore it more later. That it had begun after the meadow did not surprise her. She was beginning to think that nothing that happened in this bewitched place would surprise her. She wondered if it would continue once they got home.

  If they got home.

  She looked around the tactical room once more. It was full, but it was a small room. There weren’t enough here to take on the Coalition. Were they on Trios, there would be no doubt. If the king put out a call such as this, everyone, able-bodied or no, would respond. And she realized that even she, who had been raised to love her home above all others, did not fully appreciate the wonder that was her world.

  There were others she recognized from her studies of that time, and from the tales told by Rina and her father. Mainly Ardek, an older man who had been the medic during the first Battle of Galatin. She remembered Rina saying he had been efficient and steady, had kept the thrice-wounded Tark on his feet, and she was glad to see him standing among those who would fight.

  Shaina fought the urge to pace nervously. The light was fading rapidly, and she knew it would begin at any moment. Kateri stood to one side, watching, saying little. Shaina wondered if she felt a bit lost, now that her goal of stirring the population to resistance had finally been achieved.

  “I wonder if they really expected a complete surrender so quickly.” Shaina mused aloud.

  “They have gotten it before,” Rina said.

  “Often enough that it is usually their first tactic,” Tark said.

  “They will come back ruthlessly,” Kateri warned, stirred to speech at last. “What happened this afternoon was merely a testing.”

  Tark nodded. “But they will not come in planning total destruction. They need some things intact, as a base.”

  To go after Trios. He didn’t say the words, but he didn’t have to. She knew it, Lyon knew it, as did Rina.

  And she knew as soon as darkness fell it would begin, and they’d had little time to plan. But Tark knew not just this building but the town and the surrounding area for miles, and he knew it well. And he had, it was clear, been thinking of this since he had become convinced the return of the Coalition was certain, because his commands were quick and decisive.

  “I’ve set sentries here, here, and
here,” Tark said, making marks on the map spread before them in the basement of the council chambers. It had served him as a command center in the last battle for Galatin, although it had clearly been ignored since then. “They will watch for any activity, ship landings, or other movement.”

  Lyon was studying the map. Then he looked at the projection hovering above the table, Arellia and her three moons, with the positions of the Coalition vessels marked behind the outer one.

  “Were it me,” he said thoughtfully, “I would come in from dark side to dark side.”

  Tark shifted his gaze to Lyon. “As would I. Your father taught you well.”

  “As did hers,” Lyon said, giving Shaina a wink. She felt her cheeks heat, she who was not easily discomfited.

  “And if it were you,” she said hastily to Tark, “where would you choose to put down those troops?”

  “It would depend on the size of my force. And the method of insertion.”

  “I don’t think the Coalition has ever gone in for subtlety,” Lyon said.

  Tark gave him another approving glance. “No, they have not.”

  “A mother ship and transports, then?” Lyon asked.

  “Assuming the mere sight of them arriving in such force will hasten the surrender?” Shaina added.

  Tark leaned back slightly, looking at them, then at Rina. “You were right. They are everything you said they were.”

  Shaina glanced at Lyon, saw in his face the same sort of pride she was feeling. That this man, of all men, thought them worthy to be at his side now was praise unmatched.

  “I would put them down there,” Tark said, pointing to a large and apparently empty plain on the other side of the mountain they had so recently descended. “There is a pass into the city here”—he pointed to the northeast—“wide enough for a large force.”

  Shaina studied the hologram intently, then looked at Rina.

  “The spot where we met you,” she said.

  Understanding the clipped query, Rina leaned forward slightly. Her navigation skills were not limited to space, Shaina knew, and in a split second she pointed to a spot on the image of the mountain, about halfway up.

  Both Lyon and Tark waited silently for her to go on. She felt an odd sort of pressure—self-doubt—something she was not used to. There were many things she was not used to happening to her of late. But here she was, and she had little choice but to plunge ahead.

  “Is there any place to cut them off?”

  Tark frowned. “Only if you could get there before them.” He pointed to a spot halfway around the flank of the mountain, where the pass narrowed. “But they would be well past that point by the time we could get around the mountain from here.”

  “What if we didn’t go around?”

  She heard Lyon’s breath catch. “Of course,” he said.

  “We aren’t even sure it goes through,” Shaina cautioned.

  “Might.”

  “Mordred.” The man was likely still alive, she thought, unless he had sizzled himself trying to get through the screen.

  “Yes.”

  “Still worth it.”

  “Who?” was his only answer.

  “Me.”

  “Needed here.”

  “You as well.”

  They had reached an impasse. And only then was she aware that Tark was staring at them.

  “Welcome to their world,” Rina said dryly.

  Tark gave a shake of his head. But for a moment, he grinned. It changed his entire countenance, gave it a rakish sort of dash, and Shaina guessed they had had another glimpse of the man Rina had first met.

  “Are you saying,” he said then, “that you found a way?”

  “A tunnel. Inside the cave,” Shaina said. Then she added ruefully, “We should have checked. It went deeper than we explored.”

  Lyon grimaced. Rina’s gaze sharpened. “Is that how Mordred came upon you unaware?”

  “We were foolish,” Lyon admitted. “And we did not know it was him, then.”

  “And you did not know this was coming,” Tark said, to Shaina’s surprise. “I will go and—”

  “No.” Kateri cut him off. Tark shifted his gaze to her. “Whatever the Coalition plans for outside the city, they will send their prime force here. They know they must take Galatin to take Arellia.”

  “Contention valid,” Tark agreed.

  “The battle here will be fierce. You must stay.”

  “You would have me hide?”

  “Far from it. You must lead. Visibly. With the supreme confidence of the Captain Tarkson who held this city once before.”

  Tark grimaced. Shaina wondered fleetingly if she would one day look back at her younger self the same way, with a ruefulness about that blissfully ignorant youthful confidence she had come here with. She had learned much these past few days, most of all how much she had yet to learn.

  “They will stand with you now, Tark,” the older woman said. “They needed the three of you to begin, but it is you they need here now. They may not wish to remember, but it is your name they know, you who are one of them, you who saved Galatin before.”

  Rina smiled at the woman’s words, then drew the conversation back to tactics. “Will it not take too much time to get there, when we don’t know if this tunnel indeed cuts through the mountain to the other side?”

  “I heard talk Bratus has an air rover,” Crim said with a snort. “Keeping it hidden for his own escape.”

  “That would get there quickly enough,” Shaina said. “I’ll take it.”

  “I will,” Lyon countered.

  “But—”

  “You may be a better fighter, but I’m a better pilot. And I need no laser pistol.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but his steady gaze held her back. It was, she knew, nothing less than the truth.

  “All right,” she said. “You fly. But I’m going.”

  Once more Tark gave them a look of approval. Her father had always said half of victory was going with your strengths, the other half knowing your weaknesses. She supposed he had taught that to Tark as well.

  “Take the north road. I will give you what cover I can and draw their fire to the south, near the gates.”

  “That will be all we need,” Shaina said. “We can check the plain as well, for any sign it’s been scouted or prepared.”

  Tark nodded. “We will prepare a force to move upon your report,” he said. “I have a feeling there is more transport available. I doubt Bratus is the only one among those cravens hiding a means of escape.”

  “And then we fight,” Kateri said with satisfaction.

  “We do,” Tark said.

  Chapter 44

  “THEY’VE TAKEN my mansion,” Bratus said, his voice at a high pitch that told Rina the man was terrified. Not that there wasn’t reason, but he could at least try to hide it a little better. He was the mayor, after all. “The clock tower scout says they are setting up a command post there.”

  “Good,” Tark said bluntly.

  “Yes,” Rina said. Tark wasn’t given to explaining, but she saw those gathered exchanging glances and thought it might be wise in this instance. “I doubt they planned on needing one. They realize now this will not be an easy sweep, ended quickly. They thought to march over us. Now they now better.” She glanced at the man beside her. “And I suspect, by now, they know they face Tark.”

  Tark looked startled. But the stir shifted to one of renewed confidence.

  “He beat them before,” Crim said gruffly. “He will do so again.”

  “But there are too many, they will kill us all—”

  Tark cut off the mayor—and the man who had left him to die—with a sharp gesture. “If I don’t kill you first,” he warned. Bratus made a sound
that reminded Rina of nothing less than a muckrat, and scrambled into the outer room much like that same creature.

  The others grinned; the mayor was no favorite with any left in the room, although she doubted they realized Tark had even more reason to hate him.

  Rina wondered if Tark even realized what his mere presence did here. They might have turned away from him, avoided him as a painful reminder of a time they wished to forget, but now that it was here again, they turned to the man who had saved them before as if he were their savior.

  You don’t deserve him.

  The thought was uncharitable, perhaps even vengeful, but she didn’t care at the moment.

  “The cellar,” a young-sounding voice came from across the table, near where Ardek, their former medic, stood.

  Tark’s head came up as the older men around the table, some from the council, those who had stood for resistance, hushed the speaker. Those who had advised immediate surrender were, at Tark’s orders, locked in the closet, where, he had said, they could continue to hide from reality.

  “Let him speak,” Tark said.

  The boy came forward, head up, refusing to be cowed. He was only a boy, but he reminded her of Tark nevertheless. He had the same fierceness, the same determination, the same air of a crackling intelligence and fire. She wondered if Tark saw it too, was reminded of the youth he’d been the first time he’d been asked to hold this place.

  “Rayden, is it?” Tark asked.

  The young man nodded.

  “What cellar? I thought there were none in Galatin.”

  “Because it gets wet, I know. But there is one.”

  Tark set down the holo controller he’d been holding. “Go on.”

  “My friends and I found it, one night, when we were behind the brewer—”

  He stopped suddenly, glancing at the elders warily, looking for a moment nothing more than a mischievous child.