Insurgency (Tales of the Empire Book 4) Read online

  Her desperate eyes caught an alleyway that seemed empty and, grabbing Nisha’s wrist, she ran for the dark aperture. Nisha was quick to agree and the pair were side by side as they reached the alley entrance. The enemy hadn’t yet moved.

  Something hit Jala in the forehead and she staggered to a halt, stumbling in confusion. The darkness was pushed back by afternoon sunlight as she reeled into the open once more. Reaching up, she tested her head, but her hand came away clean. No blood. Still dazed, she had to concentrate to think clearly. Nisha emerged from the alleyway a moment later, one of Halfdan’s men holding her tightly by the wrists.

  ‘You have led us a merry dance, Jala,’ the ghost said almost amiably.

  ‘You won’t get away with it again, Halfdan,’ Jala spat. ‘There are witnesses here.’

  ‘Oh, Jala, please don’t espouse such feeble, trite sentiments. These people are nobodies. If there is the slightest hint of trouble, I will not blink at burning the whole fucking place to the ground and gutting everyone in it. Now stop endangering everyone else and come over here like a good girl.’

  Jala was still backing away, but out of the corner of her eye she could see the furthest of Halfdan’s men moving out to the waterfront, cutting her off so that she was completely surrounded. Still, no matter what happened, she would never submit to him again. In the best of worlds she would now be bobbing eastward over the sea, carrying tidings of danger and betrayal to her husband, but if that were not possible it was better to be dead than a pawn of this man’s.

  The guard from the alley shoved Nisha across the space towards Halfdan, who grasped the maid’s wrist and smiled. He sheathed his sword and drew a knife. Jala was impressed by Nisha, whose face, rather than exhibiting the utter terror one might expect, showed only defiance and disdain. The tip of the knife came up and traced the scars on the maid’s face before he reached the empty eye socket. There he sickeningly bobbed the tip of the knife inside and tapped it on the circle of the socket. Jala wanted to be sick.

  ‘Don’t make me hurt your friend again, Jala.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ Nisha shouted, and the knife suddenly slipped to her throat, pressing gently so that she had to pull back her head to prevent it cutting the flesh.

  ‘Now, now,’ Halfdan said pleasantly. ‘Let’s not have pointless heroics.’

  Jala’s hand went to the knife at her side, still sheathed. She’d never be able to fight them off. She would, in the last moment, use it to take her own life, but she hated to think of such a fruitless end. If she were to die, it would be worthwhile if she could somehow take Halfdan with her. She needed time to think, but the blow to the head had made that difficult, and she was still staggering uncertainly, no plan forming.

  Something bumped into the back of her thighs and she ripped the knife from its sheath and turned to discover that it was the stone basin at the side of the well house. Her heart pounding, she edged along the trough.

  ‘Come now. If you will just accompany me, no one needs to get hurt, Jala. Imagine how sad life will be for your friend here when her other eye goes. And maybe her tongue? I see one of her hands was mangled in your escape. How will she fare when I pulverize the other, I wonder?’

  Jala was now pressed back against the wall of the well house, increasingly aware of the impossibility of her situation.

  ‘I will not let you take me alive, Halfdan.’

  ‘Then be aware I shall take your reticence out on your friend. I can keep someone alive for months and make every day a living hell for them. Are you sure you want to condemn this poor girl to that sort of fate just so you can slip a quick knife in your own throat?’

  Jala shuddered. She was more than certain that the ghost meant every word. He was not the sort of man to boast or make idle threats. He was a cold, efficient killer. Was it her fate to spend every moment of her adult life torn between duty and desire? Duty to Kiva against desire for Quintillian. Duty to empire against desire to save Nisha from pain. Duty and desire.

  But Jala was not only an empress, she was a Princess of the Parishid dynasty of Pelasia. Duty went far beyond simple desire. It was bone deep. It ran with the blood, pounding in the veins and informing every decision of the brain and the heart. It was why she knew deep down that if she ever got back to Velutio, she would have to choose Kiva and let go of Quintillian. It was why she would have to sacrifice Nisha to prevent becoming a political pawn.

  Sidling along the wall, she suddenly felt the handle of the well-house door behind her, and gripping it, she swung it open. A moment later she was inside in the dark, pulling the door shut. The door had a latch, but it had not been used in many a year, and the actual bar was seemingly welded in the open position. Even gripping the handle tight, she would not be able to keep it shut for long.

  At the centre of the room – its only decor, in fact – stood the well itself, complete with chained bucket. The only light in the dim interior came from four small windows, one in each wall. Each window was perhaps a foot square and covered with an iron grille that made it poor as a source of both illumination and visibility. Still, unable to keep from watching, Jala moved across to the closest window and peered between the iron bars through the dirty, poorly-made glass.

  Halfdan still held Nisha, and the maid still looked defiant and angry. The ghost tapped his foot impatiently for a moment and then yanked Nisha’s arm upward, displaying her good hand.

  ‘I’m going to count to five. The sooner you open the door, the more fingers you will save your friend. Are you ready, dear princess? Here we go.’

  Jala closed her eyes – screwed them tight. She couldn’t relent, but she also couldn’t watch. A leaden pause descended.

  ‘One.’

  There was a faint clunk and a hiss. Jala, confused, expecting a scream, opened her eyes again. Halfdan was holding a knife and a finger in one hand. In the other he still held up Nisha’s now four-fingered hand. The maid had not even screamed. The empress felt her heart become even heavier. Her friend was braver and stronger than she had ever imagined.

  ‘Don’t open that door,’ snarled Nisha, earning her one slanted, quizzical eyebrow from her captor.

  ‘I shall now resume the count, Jala.’

  The empress squeezed her eyes shut again. How could she endure this?

  There was another hiss and a faint thud. Unable to stop herself, Jala opened her eyes.

  Nisha still had four fingers. The empress frowned in confusion and peered through the dirty glass at the scene, trying to work out what was happening.

  The ghost let go of the maid and turned, trying to look at his own back. Jala stared at the arrow sticking out of Halfdan somewhere around his kidney. Nisha fell away and scrambled across the ground. The other men were staring at their leader in confusion. Halfdan himself was peering at the arrow in utter perplexity. His brow still furrowed, he straightened once more and opened his mouth to speak. All that came out of it was the barbed tip of an arrow, crimson with blood. In shock, the ghost turned, and Jala stared in wonderment. The arrow had hit the vicious bastard in the back of the head, at the base of the skull and just to one side of the vertebrae, passing through the neck and out of the mouth, and was now transfixed there, lodged at the flights. Even as she stared, another two arrows hit Halfdan, one in the chest and one in the sword arm. Peppered with shafts, the man turned, unable to speak. Blood was starting to pour from him. Still his men stared, mesmerized at this unexpected turn of events. Only when two more of the men suddenly sprouted deadly shafts did the group start to move in a panic, running for the alleys from which they’d emerged. Nisha was clambering along the ground, heading for the well house and, unsure whether there was danger or not, Jala pulled open the door and helped her inside.

  Returning to the window, she could see that their now fleeing captors had themselves been caught. The alleyways for which they had been making each disgorged a man in armour bearing the livery of the imperial guard. Never had she been so happy, or more surprised, to see that
grey wolf symbol.

  The hunters might be efficient killers, but they were also panicked and desperate, and the men who now had them trapped made short work of them, cutting them down mercilessly. One managed to get free and ran for the waterfront, only to suddenly sprout three arrows from his back as he slammed face-first into the dust. In a matter of heartbeats it was over. Halfdan and his men, who had followed them so ruthlessly for so many days were, to a man, worm-food.

  In the now certain knowledge that they were safe, though still gripping her knife for security, Jala pulled open the door once more and stepped out into the light. Nisha followed her, nursing her newly-maimed hand with the missing digit.

  The empress stared around the square. Guardsmen were busy administering the mercy blow to men who were gasping and bleeding out their last. Those not so occupied bowed low. She was still staring in shock as Titus Tythianus, marshal, commander, nobleman and friend, stepped out of the alley near Halfdan’s immobile corpse, still scruffy and hairy despite his uniform, busy slinging a bow back over his shoulder as two more archers followed him.

  ‘Majesty, you have no idea how hard you make it to find you.’

  Jala wept with relief, and the marshal, grinning like an idiot, hurried over and hugged her tight, driving out some of the horror and returning a modicum of her warmth and humanity.

  ‘We have to get home, Titus.’

  ‘You’re preaching to the priest, Majesty. I’ve seen Aldegund’s army, and they’re already on the move.’

  Part Four

  The Capital

  ‘War is the crucible in which the future is forged.’

  Imperial proverb, unattributed

  Chapter XXIII

  Of Solitude and Unexpected Visits

  Kiva Caerdin, Emperor and Lord of Velutio, Father of the Nation and Chief Priest, rapped his fingers rhythmically on the arm of his throne – a subtle, understated affair. The great golden throne of the ancient emperors had been melted down by his father due to the inescapable connection it held to the corrupt and insane dynasty that had previously occupied it. The gold had been minted into commemorative coins that had been distributed to the poor in a great show of largesse. Now, Kiva sat on a simple wooden affair. Well-made and with a purple velvet cushion, but simple for all that.

  The prefects standing before him were looking up expectantly – due to the throne’s position on a dais, they were below him, even though he sat and they stood. Five of the most senior military men in the empire. Men who might one day become marshals and command the armies when the current marshals stepped down or – as more often happened – passed away in office. They looked pensive. Nervous. They had good cause.

  ‘It must be a mistake. The reports are wrong.’

  ‘With respect, Majesty, the reports are quite correct. In the Lion Courtyard one of my captains is recovering from a breakneck race to bring us this news. The wound on his shoulder is mute evidence that the war has begun.’

  Kiva’s rapping fingers picked up pace. He was, it was said, and he knew it to be true, one of the ablest administrators ever to sit on the throne in this hall, but he was no military tactician. In times of peace he could achieve treaties and deals that advanced the empire. He had instituted so many new laws and amendments to improve the life and economy of his world. And he had managed to maintain good relations with all his neighbours – even the fractious and warlike northern barbarians. But once the empire found itself in a military dispute, as it now did, he was blind. Without his advisors, he was blind.

  For a month now he had waited for word of Titus, of Jala, of Quintillian. And instead, all he had heard were worse and worse tidings. The other two marshals had met with grisly ends and, with Quintillian missing and Titus out in the provinces hunting the empress, the army was effectively leaderless. The prefects were doing an admirable job in the absence of their superiors, but it took years of training and a certain slant of mind to make a good marshal. Some of the prefects would be there one day, but as yet they were too rigidly bound by their rank to think outside the lines.

  Pelasia.

  The empire’s ally of centuries had turned on her. Now Kiva and his people were staring at the bleakest of futures: a return to the ancient days of constant war. And Pelasia was no poor enemy, either. If there was a force in the world that stood a chance of bringing the empire to its knees, it was Pelasia. Despite everything that had happened and the military build-up in the south, Kiva had never truly believed it would boil over into war. How could any sensible leader allow that to happen?

  Four days ago, the border fortress of M’Dahz, a port town close to the Pelasian border, had fallen to enemy forces. The wounded captain in the courtyard outside had sailed in a courier ship, skipping fast across the waves day and night, to bring the tidings of the first action of the war. It seemed that there had been some kind of naval altercation off the coast. A mistake or misunderstanding had led to a Pelasian ship being sunk. The response had been overwhelming. The satrap of the nearest Pelasian region had flooded the borderlands with men and taken M’Dahz.

  ‘Respectfully, Majesty, our army sits drawn up less than a day west of Calphoris, awaiting the order to march and retake M’Dahz. The fleets are gathered in three positions, one guarding the western reaches of the sea, the others awaiting the command to begin their blockade of the ports. Only the marshals or the emperor have the authority to declare war.’

  ‘I would say that King Ashar has already done that.’

  ‘Not officially, Majesty,’ one of the other prefects reminded him. ‘We have had no official notice of the opening of hostilities. The current trouble is a regional dispute caused by a misunderstanding. However, we will look weak if we relinquish M’Dahz to the enemy. We cannot let them simply sit in our fortresses. We must make the first official move in response to this unacceptable situation. If you will give your command, then we will cast the spear of war into the sand before their ambassadors and march on M’Dahz to recover the city.’

  ‘And where does that leave us, Prefect?’

  The officer frowned, apparently confused by the question, and Kiva sighed and leaned forward. ‘The empire has not been at war for centuries. Not properly. Border scuffles, barbarian incursions and the like aside. Are we really prepared to cast that spear and with it carry the world into a war that could last for decades and ruin the empire? Think about what it means beyond the battles themselves. I have no wish to be remembered as the man who destroyed the empire, when my father was the man who restored it. No, I am not comfortable opening hostilities.’

  ‘Majesty, the eastern satraps of Pelasia have been hungry for our lands for long years and they are angry, violent, and almost autonomous. The god-king keeps them under control largely by letting them rule their own little domains as they see fit, just in his name. Those satraps will see the unanswered taking of M’Dahz as a sign that we are unwilling to stand up for ourselves. If we do not retake M’Dahz, then they will swiftly annex the other coastal towns until they reach Calphoris.’

  ‘You sound very sure of yourself, Prefect?’

  The swarthy man huffed. ‘I have been based in Calphoris for years, sire. I know the satraps of the borderlands. They will move on us further, regardless of orders from their overlord. And when they get to Calphoris, we will then be left with a simple choice: deploy the army and fight, or withdraw from the southern lands entirely and cede them to Ashar.’

  Kiva’s drumming on the chair arm was becoming frantic.

  ‘Leave me to think.’

  ‘Majesty, this is most urgent.’

  ‘One more day will not mean the fall of Calphoris. Return tomorrow morning and I will have an answer for you. For now this audience is over.’

  The prefects shared a look and bowed, turning and making for the large bronze doors at the rear of the room. The two men of the imperial guard that stood to either side pulled the doors open to reveal a small group of men outside. More of the guard with a man in dusty, travel-worn clothe
s. They shuffled aside to allow the prefects to leave, and then one of the guard hurried into the room, approaching the throne and bowing. The departing officers paused to look at the dusty man, but apparently his clothes or insignia made him uninteresting to them, and they left, muttering to each other about the coming war.

  Kiva pinched the bridge of his nose. He could feel a headache of epic proportions coming on.

  The guard before him cleared his throat. ‘A courier from the Argaela Fort, Majesty. He has no letters of authorization and he is not expected, but he claims to be bearing important news for your ears only. Standing orders in times of war, Majesty, are that no one gets into your presence without appropriate authorization, and normally we’d have ejected him immediately, but he claims to have news of your brother the marshal, sire.’

  Kiva’s drumming fingers stopped dead and he sat straight suddenly.

  ‘Quintillian?’

  ‘Yes, Majesty. We’ve searched the man and he is unarmed, but you hear stories of Pelasian assassins, sire, and I am loath to admit a potential threat.’

  Kiva pursed his lips as he chewed on the bottom one, thinking hard. ‘What would King Ashar have to gain from my death?’

  ‘Majesty?’

  ‘I mean we are already in the worst position we can be militarily, without any of the senior commanders. My death would just make war sure, and despite the actions of certain border satraps I know Ashar well enough to know that if he can avoid outright war, he will. Killing me would seal it. No, I don’t believe the Pelasians will send assassins.’

  The guard looked less than convinced, though he respectfully held his tongue. After all, word was that Marshal Sciras had met an assassin’s blade, and Marshal Partho had drowned in his bath mysteriously. And an axeman had tried to kill Titus in this very palace. Maybe it was not the Pelasians, but somebody was removing the imperial high command.