Blood of the Emperor (19 page)

“As though anyone could pass through there!” Minister Pakhar exclaimed.

“Then advance northward with the armies of the Vash and the Krish until our scouts discover the enemy’s encampment,” Praetus Betjarian continued in a louder voice. “Our latest reports indicate they are traveling with their families, which will make them slow to move and easy to find. Once we have the location of their main force we can consolidate the armies against them, surround them, and crush them.”

“Beyond avenging the complete failure of the Legion of the Northern Fist,” Praetus Ch’kal asked, “is there any reason why we should mobilize all the armies of the Empire to deal with an untrained mob of rebellious slaves, their women, and their children?”

Minister Keiloi spoke up. “The Prophecy states that…”

“This prophecy
again
?” Minister Kilan-soi groaned loudly. “Does anyone even know who created this so-called prophecy in the first place? Where did it come from? What chosen receptacle of the gods received it? It seems that the entire Empire is falling over their feet, wringing their hands, and fretting about this human-slave fireside story for no reason at all! Some discontented slave generations ago—surviving son of a conquered and beaten race—makes up a comforting little story about how the utter defeat and destruction of the human empire will be avenged one day. That some long-dead hero whose bones have dissolved by now where the boots of our elven warriors drove them into the mud hundreds of years before will somehow rise up and make humans great again. Well, the Drakosian Empire is no more, its people are no more, and no wishful daydream by any slaves—no matter how many—is going to change that!”

“Whatever their mad reasons for rebelling, they have to be crushed,” Praetus Meinok added. “Must we deploy so many of our forces?”

“It is the Will of the Emperor to do so!” the Vash Praetus blustered.

“The Will of the Emperor?” Praetus Ch’Kal mocked. “We stand in the presence of the Emperor! If the Emperor wants this war then he can tell us his Will!”

Shebin moved her hand from the back of the chair to rest lightly on the Emperor’s shoulder. It was a common gesture and accomplished with such subtlety that no one in the room noticed it.

In that moment, the Emperor spoke.

“Much has been spoken,” the Emperor hissed, his reedy voice silencing the courtiers at once. “Little has been said of that which concerns our Imperial view. Is not Shebin Sha-Timuran the embodiment of this threat? Did she not first suffer the depravations of this human beast Drakis who now threatens the whole of the Empire with the same? Was her debasement not the shadow of that which this army now brings against every citizen of Rhonas and against the embodiment of the Imperial Will? In defiling her, did not this Drakis defile a daughter of the Emperor, the Imperial House, myself, and the Empire I hold in trust?”

Shebin, too, looked down from where she stood next to the Imperial Throne, watching the faces of those whose gazes were fixed on the Emperor as he spoke.

“It is the Will of the Emperor,” he said with all the calm that he might have used a few hours earlier in selecting his breakfast, “that every possible force of Imperial Might be directed against this Drakis, his army, and his followers. Bring him to me in chains if you can, bring his head to me if you cannot—and let all else who follow him be destroyed to the last child until there are none remaining to utter his name.”

“Every possible force, my Emperor?” Praetus Ch’Kal asked.

“It is my Will,” the Emperor stated firmly.

Shebin smiled.

Shebin’s Blessing

T
HE EMPEROR HAD SPOKEN. The Empire responded.

It answered from the Western Provinces, gathering two additional Legions from the Estates—all that might be spared after the losses from the Dwarven Wars. Outside of the three Honor Legions of the Vash, the Nekara and the Krish who made their quarters within Rhonas Chas, these were the first of the Legions to arrive outside the confines of Tjujen’s Wall on the fifth day after the decree. They came under many banners but were largely united behind the Krish under whose general command they fell.

The Empire answered with four Legions from the Chaenandrian Frontier—the entire army known as the Might of the Imperial East. It took them two days to decamp and four more to travel the Eastmarch Folds until they reached their rallying point just outside the gates of Tjarlas the Beautiful—the northernmost of the elven cities and considered the heart of art and culture for the Empire. There they made camp in the shadows of the city’s many graceful, towering avatria, awaiting the arrival of the remaining elements of what would become the greatest elven army to march into battle in over two hundred years. Four Cohorts—a total of over three thousand warriors over half of which were Impress Warriors—continued their march beyond Tjarlas through the folds leading back to Rhonas Chas so that the Armies of Imperial Dawn might be represented in the Imperial
City to receive the Emperor’s blessing. These arrived in Rhonas Chas on the sixth day, exhausted but relieved that they were not the last to arrive.

The Empire answered from the southern coasts bordering on the Aergus Sea, gathering three Legions and mobilizing them within a single day. These Legions known as the Spear of Rhonas pushed relentlessly northward through the Southmarch Folds made clear by the Occuran, who removed all trade and other traffic from their path toward the Imperial City. They were only part of the large force commanded by the Nekara but nearly all that remained along the southern shores. The majority of their warriors and command staff were still across the Meducean Sea engaged in their battle against the Lyranian rebel elves. No folds had ever been able to cross the waters of any sea so word had been dispatched by courier on the earliest supply ship. The message would not reach the war-mages for nearly a week but it only commanded the armes in Lyrania to remain in place until further word was received. The Spear of Rhonas would represent the southern armies and answer the Emperor’s command. Even so it took five days of forced march for the Legions to reach the western outskirts of Rhonas Chas, arriving on the seventh day of the issued decree, their banners proclaiming them as united under the Order of Nekara held high.

The eighth day was declared a day of feasting and celebration on behalf of the glorious assemblage of elven might. The entire capital city was caught up in a lavish festival that ended promptly at midnight—again by Imperial Decree. The following day—the ninth since the Decree—was ordained a day of reflection by the Emperor’s Will. This had equal parts of honor and practicality, for it permitted the armies a day to restock and prepare for the culminating event: the Parade of the Emperor’s blessing.

The Imperial City had never before seen such a display of the Emperor’s Might, Will and Conviction. Everyone within the city and as many of its surrounding regions as could manage the journey came to witness the processional of the united armies of the Emperor as they marched out of the city.

But no one among the teaming throngs filling the balcony of every avatria in the city or barely contained to either side of the Vira Rhonas
running through the city below drew more satisfaction from the day than did a single young elven woman looking down from the Cloud Palace of the Emperor.

Shebin Sha-Timuran basked in the cheering roar that erupted from the city as she stepped onto the Emperor’s Audience Platform and smiled with perfectly filed, sharp teeth. The dome of the avatria’
s
foundation glowed especially for her, casting her in a light that was as gloriously brilliant as the perfect day beyond its shadow.

Shebin Sha-Timuran stepped up to the railing surrounding the oval platform, the train of her vibrant, red dress sweeping behind her as she moved. It was a stylized duplicate of her “defiance dress,” as the Ministry of Enlightenment was calling it. It was far better fitting than the torn rag she had worn before the Emperor had adopted her into his House, clean but still sporting the simulated hole of torn cloth as a badge of pride and honor. The original dress had been white but this color was more symbolic according to the Ministry of Thought and also easier seen by the crowds.

The Emperor’s Audience Platform, although situated off the central axis of the Cloud Palace, was actually the lowest point of the avatria, suspended below the curving base of the floating portion of the palace at the end of a great curving stone arm for occasions such as this.

Almost a hundred feet below her stretched the Garden of Kuchen now completely overrun by a sea of elves as was the surrounding roadway of the Vira Rhonas as far to the west as she could see. Their hands were raised toward her as they shouted their approval and adoration. It was the Emperor’s Will that they love her, she thought, raising her hands in acknowledgment.
How could they not love me?

Shebin glanced around the platform. Several elven mages stood at the edges of the platform, their lips moving in silent preparation. That the Emperor had not appeared at any such “Grand Audience,” as they were called, in nearly a hundred years demanded a special use of Occuran Aether so that as many in the city could be a part of the pageantry as possible.

The crowd below roared again and Shebin turned.

The Emperor stepped onto a raised dais on the platform, his hands held upward, palms turned toward him as though in his gesture he was embracing all of the Empire. At once the Occuran mages at the edge of the platform loosed their magic and the image of the Emperor appeared to tower over the city, his features rising two thousand feet as he beamed down at them from his enormous face. As the Emperor moved, his colossal image mirrored his every gesture.

The Emperor opened his mouth and his words were repeated through the image that towered behind him into the sky in a voice that was heard throughout the city.

“Citizens of Rhonas!” The Emperor spoke quietly but his words rebounded through the city like thunder. “I am your Emperor!”

The deafening sound from below nearly overwhelmed the words of the Emperor.

“Citizens of every Estate! You are a part of our greatness!” the Emperor called. “Show me the fist and steel of the Imperial Will!”

Again the roar arose from the throngs filling the streets below as a sea of adoration. Trumpets sounded from somewhere above them in the Cloud Palace which were answered in turn by trumpeters standing atop the various subatria foundations above which the avatria of the buildings lining the Vira Rhonas floated. Soon Shebin could make out the martial drums approaching from the great plaza to the northwest that lay before the crush of buildings known as the Ministries. The citizens packing the Vira Rhonas began pushing to either side as the Herald Drummers of the Honor Legion of the Order of Vash led the parade. Their drums were enormous, nearly ten feet across at the top and almost fifteen feet tall. Each was fashioned out of polished copper with hides stretched across the top. They were mounted on a series of ornate carriages, each pulled by three ogres—prizes taken in Mestophia—while their drummers, in ceremonial tunics of the Vash livery, pounded on them with long-handled mallets.

Behind them marched the Honor Legion of the Order of Vash, to whom came the honor of securing the city for the procession. The front lines immediately behind the drum carriages marched to either side to line the Vira Rhonas with their raised halberds. Shebin could imagine this line of warriors extending behind the Vira Rhonas, down
the Vira Coleseum and through the Circus to Gladiator’s Gate and beyond.

The drum carriages separated where the Vira Rhonas moved around the oval of the Garden of Kuchen, taking up positions on either side. Only those of the Third Estate or higher were permitted in the garden for this occasion and then by direct invitation of the Palace. Even so, there had been a number who had to be turned away or ignored in their requests—there was simply no place left to stand. The Honor Legion of the Order of Vash fell into place behind the drums on either side of the road, their remaining numbers the most honored of their Legion for their duty had brought them within sight of the Emperor for his blessing upon the army that was about to fight in his name.