by Stephen Hunt
‘Your cousin Carter and some good friends of ours have turned up at the Rodalian border,’ said Jacob.
He’s alive. Willow moaned, but it wasn’t from the happiness she should be feeling at the glorious news. It was as if something had lit a burning fire below her.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Jacob.
Aurora came running over. ‘You may know your way around a battlefield, but damned if you aren’t a fool for surprising a woman with such quick tidings. Her waters have broken. Send for our sot of a surgeon.’
Willow barely saw the courier sprinting past as she swayed, wracked by the spasms of her first contractions. She fell to the deck, clutched by Barnaby’s daughter, an intensity of pain that was entirely new to her as her belly began to be squeezed and squeezed.
SIXTEEN
A LADY’S HOME
Yargul’s buckler leapt out piston-fast towards Cassandra’s face, a crude attempt to render her unconscious. She was almost offended as she swayed to the side, that her brutal opponent considered her so dimwitted he could repeat his last move from Alexamir’s combat and hope to catch her unawares. So, I’m just an incapable foreign wench? I can use your arrogance, Krul of Kruls. She swung her short sword in a half arc, hoping to take off the nomad’s dagger arm, but he was just fast enough to sidestep, causing her blade to gouge a shallow cut only.
‘It takes an hour for a clansman’s body to purge a killing fury and ready a new rage,’ growled Cassandra. ‘You should have waited before accepting my challenge.’
Cheers sounded from the mob of onlookers. Paetro and Duncan yelling their support for Cassandra, but she didn’t allow the prisoners’ calls to distract her. It won’t be first blood that counts, but the last.
Yargul whirled his blade through the air, tracing windmill patterns as he regarded his bleeding arm with displeasure. ‘My only challenge is curbing the urge to carve you into slices. I must forgo the satisfaction, or I won’t be able to enjoy you properly later. I trust you will muster suitable spirit to pleasure me after I have made you a gift of Alexamir’s skull as a drinking cup.’
‘If all there was to fighting was battering each other with sharp steel until one of us drops, you would truly be Master of all Pellas,’ said Cassandra.
Cassandra had a strategy, of sorts. A nomad’s berserker rage was quickly followed by cramps, overtaxed muscles seizing up like engine pistons taxed faster than its design tolerances. You’ll tire soon, Kani Yargul.
Yargul pivoted and the sword swung out. Cassandra ducked the strike, nearly slipping in the mud. Too close. If they had been fighting in the nearby woodland, Kani Yargul could have brought down a tree with that cut. Yargul stamped forward, sending splashes of mud up as his sabre thrust sought her belly. Cassandra danced to the side, trying to bring the challenge back to dryer soil, where her manoeuvres wouldn’t flounder in the mire.
‘Is this the way a Vandian gives battle?’ bellowed Yargul. ‘Fights by not fighting?’
When torrential water moves boulders it is because of their momentum. Cassandra laughed to irritate her opponent and rub salt in his wounds. More jeers came from the nomad mob . . . the Great Krul’s humiliation at failing to finish this young woman’s challenge.
‘Stay still, girl!’ Yargul lashed out again, but the nomad had telegraphed the blow and Cassandra was no longer where his sabre was swinging.
‘You’re an old man, Kani Yargul,’ said Cassandra, flicking her short sword forward. ‘You should be back in your tent, having a loud snore after a hard day’s labours.’ By my ancestors, tire, you old dog.
Yargul yelled in fury at the insult and darted at her, rocking his sabre side to side. Cassandra retreated to the left, forcing him to slow and circle. She needed to ensure Yargul didn’t force her back against the railhead’s buildings, yard equipment and towering mounds of crates. I must keep mobile. If he pens me in, brute strength will win.
‘Is that why you want me for your harem, mighty Krul of Kruls? Do your wives tire of rubbing your tired old man’s muscles?’
Yargul swore and lashed out with his blade, missing Cassandra’s neck by an inch.
‘But that is no way to take me alive! I heard rumours you enjoy taking enemy corpses to your bed. They complain less about your stench than your wives.’
Roars of amusement hooted across from the warriors. They enjoyed a touch of wit and boasting mixed into their fights.
‘Is that a wasp’s buzzing I hear, girl? You flee like an insect before my blade.’
The brute’s trampling had turned the yard into mud. I need to risk my life if I am to win it. Cassandra thought she had seen her chance. Yargul’s sabre cracked forward. Rather than dodge the blow, Cassandra met the blade with her sword. She didn’t need to fake letting the jarring impact bash the pommel out of her hand, falling, embedding the sabre tip in the mud. They were close enough to kiss, but Cassandra grabbed Yargul’s sword arm and pulled it forward, stealing the man’s momentum and using it to swing behind him. Yargul tried to pivot with his dagger hand. Too late. Cassandra was already behind him, disarmed but at his rear. She swung back through his open legs, using the mud as a slide, freeing her soil-sheaved sword from the ground.
‘Here’s my spirit. Take it!’ Cassandra twisted the blade over her head and plunged it into Kani Yargul’s chest. The ruler continued his swing around, the man’s dagger finding only air, gazing in astonishment at the blade slammed into his heart. There was a strange whistling as Yargul fell to his knees. Cassandra tried to scramble to her feet, mistaking the sound for his warriors’ keening, but then the first explosion erupted, collapsing the closest warehouse, flaming splinters slicing her face as a blast-wave smashed her head down into the mud. While Cassandra floundered in the mire she saw the steel belly of a Vandian ship sliding through the sky. Not a full-size warship. A fast cruiser. Five hundred and sixty feet of streamlined steel, short curved wings like an aerial shark, a ridge of ball-turrets along her bilge, rotating as cannon barrels thudded back into their mounts. Cassandra instantly recognized the Dark Moon’s distinctive lines, the notorious flagship of the secret police – considered an ill-omen wherever she appeared inside the Imperium: death, disappearances and torture trailing tight in her wake.
Hatches slid open along her hull, rappel lines tumbling towards the ground. Armoured figures kicked out, hoodsmen, the bulky weight of electric rifle backpacks sending them hurtling down their lines. Blood Beetles the troops’ nickname. Crimson-enamelled armour, stiff red uniforms and the brass face masks of dead emperors, masks to make it clear in whose name they slew. The shock troops had arrived too late to alter the course of the battle, but that wasn’t why they were here. Apolleon. He must have sent for his vessel. To save what was left saving. Which meant the celestial caste survivors. Which means me! Cassandra struggled to her feet. Coloured smoke grenades thrown by the commandos had rendered the ground into a dream-like landscape stolen from a nightmare. Vivid greens, yellows and reds. Hissing smoke canisters muffled the screams and gunfire. Warriors rushed towards the Blood Beetles, met by the machine roar of modern Vandian weapons as the nomads were hurled off their feet. The only reason I’m not dead is that Apolleon’s people are holding their fire until the expedition’s leaders are rescued. No sign of Duncan or Paetro in the melee, no sign of anyone she recognized on either side. With luck, they’ve escaped. I have to think about myself . . . about us.
Cassandra almost tripped over Nurai’s dead body in the murk. She seemed more at peace in death than she ever had in life. You were a good enemy, lady. To her side lay Yargul’s corpse. Cassandra yanked her sword out of Kani Yargul’s chest and didn’t even bother cleaning the blood off the blade before she sheathed it. That’s what you get for underestimating a Vandian noblewoman, mighty Krul of Kruls. By the rights of Nijumeti tradition, Cassandra Skar should now be the horde’s ruler. Somehow, I think they’ll have difficulties accepting me. Alexamir, perhaps, but never a foreign-born woman. She kept low, located Alexamir and dragged his body back across the g
round, away from the railhead, too heavy to sling over her shoulder. All the while calling to Alexamir, trying to rouse him from his pummelling as Cassandra stumbled across the fields. It’s not so far to the planes. If she could locate a nomad fighter with a decent amount of fuel left in the tank, manhandle Alexamir into the spotter’s cockpit. If, if. Wake up, Alexamir. Wake up and let’s escape from here together now. Come on. Shells from the Dark Moon whistled overhead, arrowing towards the sound of incoming propellers. There was a throaty growl from nomad planes still in the air, diving, wing-gun projectiles striking steel hull. Let there be bombs under your wings. Have at least a few bombs left. Cassandra dropped to the crumpled wheat as a host of horse-borne nomads stampeded past her, lances set low and sabres spinning wildly around their heads, charging in the direction of the burning railhead. The horsemen didn’t even notice Cassandra dragging Alexamir away from the melee. Their battle cries faded behind her.
Cassandra came to the first grounded nomad aircraft. Her heart thudded hammer-hard, sweat pouring down her face from the exertion of hauling Alexamir this far. He moaned slightly as she rested him down on the stubble of flattened crops.
‘Can you hear me? Wake up, Alexamir. Kani Yargul’s dead. I slew him. We slew him. You tired him out and I finished the damn job. Your family’s honour is restored.’ What will happen to the horde now? But the young Vandian woman knew the answer to that. The clans’ leaders will fight each other for supremacy, for the right to rule the horde. And the losers will sourly strike off on their own with a horizon full of rich, poorly defended pickings to raid and pillage. Nurai had seen truly, peering into the future. This was the end of the horde. At least, as a single coordinated force. For Weyland and the rest of the league, she suspected, the troubles were only just beginning. ‘We have to leave, Alexamir. If Yargul’s captains find us, they’ll put both of us to the sword for what we did back there.’
Alexamir moaned in response but remained unconscious. Cassandra mounted the nearest plane. Its fuel gauge read empty. The next fighter plane had lost its undercarriage, wheels snapped away in a hard landing. The third aircraft appeared more promising. Cassandra clambered up its fuselage and examined the cockpit’s control panel. A tenth of a tank left. Better. This will have to do. She jumped off, found Alexamir and dragged his limp body towards the nomad aircraft. Like towing a sack of bricks. But these bricks began to stir and move. Cassandra had spotted a canteen strapped to the pilot’s seat and climbed to retrieve it, to see if water sprinkled over Alexamir’s face might hasten his awakening.
Cassandra had taken two steps up using the plane’s handholds when someone seized her ankles from behind and sent her sprawling down into the shredded crops.
‘Time for a long overdue family reunion, my lady,’ said Apolleon.
Cassandra leapt to her feet and lashed out at the secret police’s master with her bloody sword, drawing and striking in one smooth movement, but he avoided the blow – so fast he almost vanished and reappeared at her side. Gripping Cassandra’s wrist, twisting her flesh hard enough that her blade tumbled from paralyzed fingers. Apolleon caught the short sword with his free hand. Alexamir moaned. He weakly tried to struggle upright, but Apolleon sent a boot driving into the young nomad’s gut. Alexamir cracked back towards the soil.
‘Leave me here,’ begged Cassandra, struggling to reach Alexamir’s body on the ground. ‘You abandoned me before. Do it again!’
Apolleon shook his head. ‘Things change. You appear to be in rude health once more, which is more than can be said for Prince Gyal. Your mother’s plan to claim the throne through marriage to the prince is lying in the ditch next to his severed head. An empress needs an heir – or the promise of one if she is to rule.’
Cassandra stopped thrashing in the adviser’s unnaturally strong grip. ‘I will not go with you.’
Apolleon saw where her attention was focused and drew a pistol from his holster, pointing it towards the ground. Pointing it towards Alexamir. No! ‘For him? For this blue-skinned barbarian, you would throw away a chance at the diamond throne? I can remove him from the equation easily enough.’
‘Don’t !’
Duncan. Cassandra’s retainer trotted across the ground looking as if he had been dragged backwards across the battlefield, but just seeing her loyal friend again lifted her heart.
‘This barbarian is a distraction we can ill afford,’ said Apolleon.
‘You’ve lived so long you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a mortal,’ said Duncan. He knelt down by Alexamir, checking his pulse. ‘You no longer remember what actually matters to people.’
‘Duncan,’ beseeched Cassandra. ‘If you care anything for me, let me stay here by his side.’
‘I can’t do that,’ said Duncan. ‘And even if I did, when your mother hears you’re healed, she will return for you with another fleet at her back. You know there’s no cost she will not expend to have you with the house. I gave her a promise to return you.’
‘That promise was broken when she abandoned me to the steppes.’
‘I was coming back for you again either way.’
‘Then I would have asked you to leave, too.’
Duncan lifted Alexamir’s comatose body up, struggling under the weight. ‘Help me here.’ That to Apolleon.
‘You think the Princess Helrena will welcome this base-born blue lump to Vandia?’
Duncan ignored him and glanced at Cassandra. ‘You want to be together, this is the only way.’
‘You are a fool,’ said Apolleon.
‘There’s an old saying in Weyland: Happy wife, happy life. You want an heir to the house? I reckon this is the price. Convince Helrena when we get back to the empire.’
Apolleon sighed wearily but dragged Cassandra across, still holding her wrist tight while he bent down and took Alexamir’s weight as easily as lifting a canteen of water. ‘Am I the Master of the Hoodsmen, or some simple matchmaker attached to the Imperial Harem?’
‘I know what you are – and this is just what we have to do to get where we’re going.’
There was more happening here than Cassandra understood . . . that much was certain. But she would be with Alexamir and that was all that really mattered to her. Now that Apolleon had realized he could lead the house’s heir by the carrot better than by the stick, he let her hand go. Cassandra squeezed Duncan’s shoulder as they left the aircraft’s shadow. ‘Thank you.’
‘No thanks needed.’
‘Yes,’ said Apolleon, his mind obviously still grinding his schemes and plots as he bore Alexamir’s weight forward. ‘I think we can make this work. Nobody in the Imperium knew of Gyal and Helrena’s marriage plans. We can hang the expedition’s failure on Gyal; blame the house’s enemies for their decision to appoint Gyal as commander and exclude the princess from the chain of command. The punishment fleet had only victories under its belt when Helrena left for the empire. Gyal ignored her counsel to return with the fleet’s mission achieved. Without her steadying ballast, Baron Machus and Prince Gyal, in their blind arrogance and hubris, allowed a bunch of blue-skinned savages to overrun the expeditionary force with nothing more than horses and sabres during a surprise attack. This defeat will break our enemies and clear a path to the throne.’
Nothing changes, even when everything does. A thought occurred to Cassandra. ‘Is Paetro safe?’
‘He took a spear in the leg, but it will take more than a few wild nomads to kill him,’ said Duncan. ‘He’s in the sickbay, cursing the medics for not letting him search for you.’
Cassandra was glad that Paetro was one soul she wouldn’t have on her conscience. ‘So are you not staying behind in Weyland?’
‘No,’ said Duncan. ‘I’m going home with you.’
Up in the sky, the large steel mass of the Dark Moon grew larger as the vessel homed in on Apolleon. Cassandra tried not to let her doubts overwhelm her. Perhaps it’s better this way. If we had stayed, Kani Yargul’s followers would have tried to gut Alexamir and me both. ‘W
hat will home be?’
‘Whatever we make it.’
Cassandra nodded. As long as I’m with Alexamir, I can live with whatever we make it.
AFTERMATH
King Marcus lounged in the royal train’s drawing room coach, the top floor of his three-storey car walled with walnut wooden panelling, carved crests and intricate heraldry that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a cathedral. His desk was covered with plans and blueprints for Arcadia’s forthcoming redevelopment. Marcus rose from the leather-lined couch built into the wall and moved behind his desk, reminding himself of his rewards for enduring all of this. It was astounding what could be done to the capital with modern building materials, with architectural plans provided by the Imperium. At last, a capital worthy of Weyland’s status. Long boulevards flanked by buildings as large as mountains, cathedrals of light and science leading to a central forum that could contain a million citizens. The capital’s canals would be redesigned with a main channel leading to his grand new airfield and skyguard stadium – a canal wide enough to accommodate his massive new ironclads, a fleet of warships to dominate the Lancean Ocean. King Marcus imagined the pride which would swell his doltish subjects’ hearts as they saw the steel citadels floating past on their way to new victories. As much warmth as the king could feel, with this cursed cold making his nose dribble. A fever no doubt given to him by one of the many sweaty sons of the soil whose presence had been foisted on him at the last station. If he wasn’t careful, Weyland’s monarch would end up early inside the giant gold sarcophagus he had marked for his final resting place.
Despite the warmth and relative luxury of the royal train, the king loathed this manner of travelling. Slow. Traditional. Boringly conventional. Intended to be seen by as many of his subjects as possible in every town and village. If the people knew what was best for them, then they would insist on travelling by fast, efficient skyguard merchant air-wing planes and relegate the Guild of Rails to shipping bushels of corn and cages of cattle. It was no wonder Marcus’ tedious brother had made so many royal progresses around the kingdom by train, subject to the whims of the long guilds. A fine, royal steer for display at the endless prefecture shows. And now, I’m the prize bull on show so the ill-educated masses may gawk at a king’s grandness. But there was only so much monarch to go around. So I must be rationed. My time. So valuable. So wasted.