“Arguably, it is the Duke who stands the best chance of that,” Kade observed.
In an instant Androse’s mood soured. He surged to his feet, shoving the maid off his cock, sending her to the floor where she gasped and whimpered. “The Duke is a coward! He hadn’t the balls to face me in battle himself! He’ll never reach Moskov! Never, do you hear! And if he tries, I’ll crush him beneath the walls! I have the home guard. The Red Mages! I have no need to go out and face him! Let my whore of a sister die. You lot should be the ones rushing to her aid! Don’t think I don’t know what your king has been up to. Trying to seduce my slut of a sister. Fucking her to breed our line out. You all want Istanov! Well you can forget it!
“Let that bitch die!” Androse howled, raising his fists into the air, foam flecking the corner of his mouth. “Let the Duke kill her! I’ll never give up the throne, do you hear me? Never! Never! It’s mine! I was the champion of the Rose when I was but a boy! I’m the one who is the rightful ruler of Istanov! And soon, soon all of you will know my true power. A power that will make the Duke of Ashes and Heimsvak kneel before me! You tell your king this. Tell him that Androse is still emperor of Istanov!
“Get out!” he snarled, jabbing a finger at the door. “Out of my hall! Out of my castle! I am emperor here! I can skin you and hang your mangy hide from my flag pole if I wanted to! Who would stop me? Nobody! Get out!”
Kade bowed once more. “Of course, your majesty,” he said smoothly. “As you wish.”
Turning, the diplomat swept back down the hall, smoothing back his oiled hair once more. Behind him, he heard the maid give a cry of pain and the wet smack of flesh on flesh. He didn’t stop smiling even once the guards shut the heavy doors behind him with a resounding boom.
Kade sighed and stroked his long chin as he walked down the ever-warm corridors. Well, that had gone about as well as he’d expected. A pity, but he wasn’t entirely sure just what his king had been hoping for. Small surprise, really. Everyone knew the two heirs of Istanov hated one another, and Androse’s failures and his sister’s successes would only deepen that divide.
Androse’s raging about his power amused the diplomat more than a little. He had seen just what the emperor’s kingdom was. Refugees crowded around the city’s walls in a ramshackle town thrown up when they were denied access to the city proper. Food was brought in under armed guards lest the starving people seize it, and even then that wasn’t enough. The nobles fretted from behind the walls and the soldiers clung to their spears, wishing to leave but knowing they had nowhere to go. And rising from this sea of misery was the palace. Istanov’s imperial family had excellent practice insulating themselves from the misery around them, and Androse was putting that skill to good use. When push came to shove, Kade had little doubt the city would collapse like a house of cards.
Though it would be a pity. The corridors of the palace were warmed with an eternal spring. Now and then he passed balconies overlooking blooming gardens where the noble sons and daughters of the empire once frolicked in peace. Empty now, but the blooming flowers and rustling trees were still a delight to behold.
“Ah well,” Kade mused, crossing his arms behind his back and smiling. It didn’t bother him. Let Istanov burn. It would make his job easier having the aggressive empire dealt with once and for all. With any luck, the self-declared duke and the pompous emperor might snuff one another out. At last Heimsvak might know some semblance of peace.
He slowed as he saw another figure making their way down the passage. Red robes writ with strange designs stirred around the slender figure. A white mask and hood stitched with golden thread hid a face in shadow but for a pair of burning eyes. Though he hid it well, even Kade felt a shudder of fear and revulsion for the Red Mage of the empire.
And yet, the diplomat couldn’t help but cut a quick bow. “Magister Wroth,” he said smoothly. “A pleasure to see you.”
Ulamon Kade.
The voice slithered through his thoughts like a serpent. A chill raced down Kade’s spine. How he hated the way the high echelons of the Red Mages spoke. Not with words, but with sibilant whispers that slid through the mind like silver blades. “Are you heading to speak to the emperor? I fear I didn’t leave him in a good mood for you.”
Wroth tilted his head. The mood of the emperor is of no concern to us.
“Of course not. Though I must say I am surprised that you returned to serve him. I would have thought that the empress was more to your kind’s style.”
The empress had nothing more to offer to us.
“And Androse does?” Kade said, feigning surprise.
The diplomat regretted his words almost at once as those glowing eyes sliced into him. Despite himself, he swallowed the lump in his throat.
Istanov serves our purposes well enough. Have no fear. The empress cannot stop the Duke of Ashes.
“But Androse can? Somehow, I doubt that, sir,” Kade said, regaining his jocular politeness.
Magic has many uses, Ulamon.
Kade shivered. Androse’s ravings again occurred to him. His shouts that Heimsvak and the Duke would know his power. His wrath. Kade’s brow knit, his lips tightened. “What do you mean by that, magister?”
Wroth stared at him, then passed him by. Kade turned, watching the Red Mage go, robes stirring around the mage as if the masked man floated rather than walked like the mere mortals that shared the palace with him. Kade’s palms were sweaty. Even in Heimsvak they spoke of the Red Mages with wariness. An order whose source couldn’t be tracked even by the great librarians in the capital. Whose powers had never fully been plumbed in all the ages of the empire. On occasion, the Red Mages had lent their power to the empire when it battled Heimsvak. The tales of those results had made many a Heimsvak king more wary to range past the secure slopes of Cleavegrad. Kade’s mentor had said often of the sorcerers, “No matter how much you think you know; odds are they know more.”
Kade remembered those words as he watched the Red Mage glide away and around a corner. What were they up to? It worried him more than a little. In his world, all men sought one thing. Power. But what to make of those sorcerers? Ones whose might allowed them to work independent of Istanov unless it pleased them otherwise?
Kade smoothed his oiled hair back once more, clucking his tongue. “What indeed…”
Dungeon
Thunder boomed over the distant plains. Rain plinked off the glass of the windows, the gloom beaten back by fluttering torches along the walls, illuminating Kirinovo’s map room. Damera winced as she shifted in her chair, the wound in her side flaring with pain. Though her other wounds and aches had been banished by the time she woke, that poisoned injury had remained. Of the angel, nothing had remained when she’d awoken, save a feeling of peace and calm.
But that had faded in the days since arriving at Kirinovo. Her injured troops had been brought to the healing temples to be further treated, the rest marshalled on the walls.
“We haven’t the troops to hold the city long,” Walter said. The general frowned from beneath his helm, his eyes hard and grim, the scars which gouged his face crinkling. He reached up and stroked his flowing mustache, moving his jaw slowly. “The simple fact is, my lady, our losses from the battle have been too severe, and the walls of Kirinovo too large. We can’t survive a prolonged siege with them, and the townspeople.”
“You can’t abandon the city!” yelped Ordriga. The pudgy baron Damera had known the last time she’d passed through the city was gone. Stress had sloughed the fat off the man until skin sagged from his jowls and his rings clinked on bony fingers. He turned pleading eyes to the empress. “Please, my lady! We cannot hope to hold back the Duke without you!”
“Rest assured,” Damera said shortly. “I have no intention of abandoning Kirinovo.”
“Empress…” Walter said slowly.
“And you don’t need to worry about a prolonged siege, general,” Damera said, turning back to the old warrior. “That is not the monster’s way. They strike d
eep and hard. They are a horde, not an army. The Duke can only keep hurling them in a mass forward. If he leaves them to fester overlong, they won’t remain. They have no supply lines. No farms. No holds. They are beasts of lairs and territories. My friends,” Damera said grimly. “The simple fact is that just as we need to hold Kirinovo, the Duke of Ashes must take it, or his army will starve.”
Walter eased back in his chair, stroking his mustache more aggressively. “Yes,” he said slowly. “I believe you might be right, my empress. But,” he said, scowling, “the numbers of the Duke are great. I doubt we have the men to hold it.”
The other generals about the table muttered to themselves. “But hold it we must,” Damera said. She glanced towards the youngest at the table. A slender man in a forest green cloak splotched with darker hues. “Ander?”
The ranger captain nodded. “I fear we are surrounded, generals. Those scouts I send out have reported monsters prowling around the forest and beyond in great numbers. Anyone not within the city walls I fear has already been killed or taken by the creatures. And any attempt by us to break out will be met with a slogging march harried at all times by the monsters, slowing us down until the gathered horde can smash into us.”
“Then, we’re trapped,” Walter said.
“We are. But so is the Duke. He must take the city, gentlemen,” Damera said.
“You have a plan?” Ordriga asked hopefully.
“I do,” Damera said grimly. She folded her hands before her and looked levelly at every man present. “We will arm every citizen of fighting age in the city and put them on the walls. We will drill them as much as we can, and we will fight the monster hordes with everything we have.”
Ordriga’s eyes bulged. “My lady!” he gasped. “You can’t be serious! Conscripting the entire city? That’s…”
“Necessary,” Damera said shortly. “Baron, if your people do not fight on the walls, they will die in the streets. No one is under any illusion of what fate awaits a city that falls to the monster hordes. We must hold Kirinovo, by any means necessary. If we can hold against the Duke’s assault, his horde will be broken. Scattered.”
“He has been before,” Walter noted. “What will stop him from gathering a third horde?”
“We can only pray he lacks the numbers of beasts to do so,” Damera said. “But even if there are, I wonder if they will be as ready to follow a man who has failed twice, and so completely. He must promise them victory, or he has nothing to offer them.”
“How can you be sure?”
“If I am not, then we are doomed regardless,” Damera said. “But we must fight here. All of this speculates on the future, but we will not see it if we are defeated here.”
Her words fell heavily among the men seated before her. They looked at her, and she saw the grim realization of what she spoke. The heavy portents of her words.
“Prepare yourselves, my lords,” Damera said. “We decide the fate of the empire here.”
As one her generals rose and departed, each to their own works to prepare the city for the inevitable siege. Damera climbed to her feet but winced as pain and heat shot through her side.
“My empress, are you alright?”
She glanced up at Ander and nodded. “I’m fine. Just a wound from the battle. It hasn’t healed properly yet.”
Ander nodded uncertainly. “As you say.”
“I do,” she said shortly, forcing herself to straighten fully and look him in the eye. “What of that matter I spoke to you of?”
“We did as you said,” Ander said, walking with her around the table and into the hall of the palace. “We captured one of the creatures lurking about the forest when my scouts were returning. But, I don’t know how much you will get from him. These monsters are notoriously hard to interrogate.”
“We will make him talk, regardless,” Damera said.
Ander merely nodded. Their steps took them down the spiralling stairs and deeper into the palace, where the stones grew cold with the deepness of the earth and torches fluttered, illuminating grim shadows where daylight never reached.
As Damera descended into the depths of the dungeon she felt the wound in her side throb. She felt acutely more aware of the heat of her wound. How it spread through her. And of a… a scent in the dungeons. A muskiness that lingered in the dank corridors. That made her head feel thick and her body even warmer.
Guards stood at attention at the end of the corridor. They stiffened, the heavy iron door between them solid and secure but for a crescent window of bars.
“Open it,” Damera ordered them.
The guards nodded and grasped the handle, dragging open the door. As it widened Damera inhaled sharply as the intensity of that scent shot through her.
Beyond the doors a monster rested. Even slouched on the ground his large frame was undeniable, his body covered in black fur, his eyes yellow in a canid head. A wulfen. A beast of raw animal mingled with man. Large paws ended in claws, chained to the wall. His ears twitched as he raised his head, squinting in the light. His lips peeled back, baring yellowed fangs in a feral grin.
A beast. A monster. A creature with the build of a man and the savage form of a wolf rolled into one, possessing none of the civilized nature of the former. Little more than an animal with a gift of tongues.
But Damera barely noticed this. Despite herself, her eyes were drawn down. The monster was naked, and his cock fully exposed. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth as she saw that half-hard shaft, the red, wedged tip growing from his fur. She could smell it. An intense, musky, wild scent that shot straight to her core.
Warmth oozed through her like liquid heat, spreading from her wound and across her body.
“My empress?” Ander murmured. “Are you alright?”
“Hm? What? Of course,” Damera said shortly.
“You look rather flushed…”
Damera touched her cheek and realized she was. She cleared her throat and stepped forward; her curvy frame outlined by the torch. “Monster. Can you speak?”
The wulfen laughed roughly. “I can talk,” the monster said. “What do you want?”
“I have questions for you. And you will answer here or on the torturer’s rack. Do you understand me?”
The wulfen tipped back his head. He sniffed the air with interest, and his toothy grin made Damera feel a little uncertain now. She shivered as those yellow eyes fixed themselves on her again, piercing her. She felt her nipples harden against the fabric of her official gown. Gods. Were they visible? She had to force her hands not to rise and check. Not to touch her generous mounds, stroke them, tease the jutting nubs of pleasure…
Her wound was aching. Yet, oddly, it was not painful as it once was. Instead it only made her feel warm. Her head a little thick, and her heart thumping.
“I will talk,” the wulfen growled. He jerked his head at the guards. “But not in front of them.”
Damera frowned, then nodded to Ander. “Leave us.”
“My empress…”
“The beast is chained, and I am armed,” Damera said shortly, staring down the monster. “There is no real danger.”
Ander hesitated, but bowed and moved back. She waited until the heavy door was shut, then stuck her torch in a waiting sconce and turned to the monster.
“Now, speak, monster. What is the Duke planning? What are his numbers?”
The wulfen said nothing, but those eyes continued to stare at her. Damera pursed her lips, feeling more and more uncomfortable under that seemingly knowing look. She shifted, her silks sliding over her warm, sensitive flesh, her nipples tingling as they were rubbed, her quim hot and growing damp. Gods, why was it so warm? It should be cold so deep underground. Yet she felt almost feverish.
The wulfen chuckled, wrenching her back to the present. The monster shifted, rolling his shoulders, flexing his muscled chest. Damera couldn’t help but stare at him. He was so wild. So savage. So… potent.
“If I talk, what do I get out of it?”
&
nbsp; “Not having your ribs torn out with red hot pincers,” Damera said at once.
The wulfen laughed. “You are brave, empress! Surprising. You look much more like breeding slut than warrior.”
She blushed. Why was she blushing? She felt light, like she was filled with air. “I can have the torturer here in ten seconds,” she said sharply.
“No need for that. I will talk. But I want something in exchange.”
“I won’t give you your freedom, beast.”
“Then something else.”
“What could you want?”
The wulfen grinned again and shifted, easing back, folding his legs under him, putting his cock on to greater prominence. Damera stared, arrested by the sight of that red shaft, bulging from between his legs. He was semi hard now, the red tip slick with pre, given the shape of a hound rather than a man. A beast’s cock, his hairy bollocks nestled beneath.
Damera found herself breathing thickly. Her eyes again found his, those yellow orbs shining with cruel craftiness. “I talk. But first, you suck my cock.”
His words thrummed through her like they struck some unholy chord deep within her soul. Her wound throbbed, spreading through her ample chest, coiling in her core. “Wh-what!” she gasped incredulously.
“Suck my cock,” the wulfen growled, giving his hips a lewd twitch. “You will kill me after I talk. So why should I? But if empress sucks cock, then I will talk.”
Damera’s face burned, yet she couldn’t look away from that crimson shaft. It wasn’t like her beloved’s. It was larger. Savage. The red flesh that of a beast, not a man. His musk hung heavy in the air. She couldn’t breathe without inhaling another lungful of his scent. Her thoughts were sluggish. Her body ached. That strange, pulsing sensation radiated from her wound and through her curvy frame.
She realized she was moving forward. She tried to stop herself but the effort seemed almost childish. Her gown rustled as she got on her knees before the creature, just out of reach of his hands. Gods. Gods what was she doing? She trembled as she reached out, her slim hands touching his cock. The heat of it shocked her. Fascinated her. Her hands slowly ran up his turgid length, feeling how hard he was. How thick his cock was. And growing. Growing larger as she stroked him, unsheathing itself from his furry groin. A wedge of pure breeding power.
The Pillaging of an Empire Page 61