Blood of the Emperor (20 page)

Shebin gazed down the Vira Rhonas, her eyes filling with tears. As far as she could see down the broad avenue that curved slightly to the right from the view of the Emperor’s Audience Platform marched a steady stream of warriors. The first of these was a Cohort of the Vash from the Eastern Armies that had come to represent their might all the way from Tjarlas in the north. Then came a Cohort—another eight hundred warriors—from the Order of Krish and yet another from the Order of Nekara. There were elven war-mages as well as warriors, and Impress Warriors from nearly every race. Each approached in turn, filling in the street and, halting their march, turning to face the Imperial Audience where she stood. This continued for nearly twenty minutes until the streets were filled with warriors as far as she could see.

And there were many, many more combatants, she knew, that she could not yet see, waiting their turn in the streets beyond to march past where she stood. The last report given to the Emperor had been one hundred and seventeen thousand warriors, war-mage Tribunes, Proxis, archers, Centurians, Legates, and Praetus prepared to march northward to destroy Drakis.

Her Drakis.

“Shebin?”

She realized that her name was being called. She looked up.

The Emperor standing on the round, elevated platform was looking at her, reaching his hand toward her.

Uncertain, she took it.

The Emperor drew her up onto the platform with him. In that moment the enormous figure of the Emperor was joined in the sky overhead by the gaunt features and tapered head of Shebin Sha-Timuran.

“Citizens of Rhonas!” the Emperor’s voice boomed from the sky. “I accept this Union of the Imperial Might—but not in my name!”

A strange hush fell over the city.

“I accept it in the name of she whose wrongs have inspired our indignation and stirred our souls to act!” the Emperor said with strength and conviction. “I accept this—The Army of Imperial Vengeance—in the name of Shebin Sha-Rhonas, daughter of the Empire!”

The Emperor stood a step back off the dais. In that moment, only the cadaverous features of Shebin towered into the sky above the Imperial City.

The crowd erupted into deafening cheers and applause.

“Give them your blessing,” the Emperor urged from behind her.

“My fellow citizens,” Shebin shouted. Her voice blasted from the sky with deafening sound. It startled her as she struggled to speak. “I give my blessing…my blessing to the Army of Imperial Vengeance…
my
Vengeance!”

The approval roared upward from the streets below. She smiled from the platform. She smiled from the sky.

The enormous figure of Shebin vanished as the Emperor took her hand and led her to the railing of the platform. The drums had begun beating again and the army—the Army of Imperial Vengeance—was once more making their way through the city. They would parade past the foundations of the Cloud Palace and continue down the Vira Rhonas to the Meducean Gate, down the road past the sprawling buildings outside the city wall until they came to the fold platforms now prepared to take them on their first of many folds northward toward Tjarlas and the Northmarch Folds beyond.

The Emperor stood next to her, waving with her to the crowds below. His words no longer thundered over the city but were for her ears alone.

“Enjoy the day, Shebin,” the Emperor said. “Remember it well. If the army crushes this rebellion then it will be remembered as our victory but should it fail…”

Shebin’s smile dimmed slightly. “Then it will fail in my name alone, my Emperor.”

“Yes, my dear daughter,” the Emperor nodded, still waving.

“Then I will insure that it will not fail,” Shebin replied, brightening her smile.

Ghenetar Praetus Betjarian marched at the head of the Cohort from Tjarlas in his ceremonial armor. The roaring of the crowds on either side of the road was giving him a headache and he longed to be rid of the worthless show costume he was wearing and get back to the business of war.

He was especially anxious to get back to Tjarlas with his Cohorts ahead of the Army of Imperial Vengeance. He wanted to be there to see the look on the other Ghenetar Praetus’ faces when they arrived and discovered that two of his Legions had departed up the Northmarch Folds five days before this nonsense parade had even begun. They were most likely beginning their search for this Drakis rabble even now.

It had seemed a strange order coming from his commander, Ghenetar Omris Sjei-Shurian, but the old warrior had never led him astray.

It was unusual, however, that he had insisted a Quorum of Iblisi accompany the Legions. Still, Sjei-Shurian had assured him that the Inquisitor in charge of the Quorum—some female by the name of K’yeran Tsi-M’harul—would not interfere with his command.

And his Legions would arrive on the Shadow Coast days before anyone would have thought possible.

Risks

D
RAKIS LAY EXHAUSTED ON HIS COT. He felt the aching in his muscles and bones, the longing in his body for sweet rest and, in truth, he wished to embrace it, for even in troubled sleep he could not be free.

He was in this twilight of his mind when
she
came to him.

Her memory stalked him at all times during the day. In the urgency of his position he could bury this pain in activity or divert his emptiness with work. But it was in this time between consciousness and oblivion that she pounced from the shadows of his mind. She came bearing sweet talons of guilt and regret that tore at his doubt and despair. Her smile flashed with unbearable loss. A harsh word he had uttered that had hurt her became magnified a thousandfold in his soul, screaming his blame. There, before the darkness took him, her loss became a gaping wound in his soul from which his life seemed forever to bleed and for which no healing ever seemed possible.

Drakis shuddered, his breath coming quickly as he lay on the cot. He tried with conscious effort to relax the rising tension in his painful muscles, attempting to busy his mind with other thoughts…other memories…anyone but the woman that he had loved in a dream and lost so terribly in cruel reality.

Mala.

He shook again, turning his head so as to avoid the name that boiled up into his conscious mind.

She walked up one of the gently rolling hills surrounding their home. The stalks of grain through which she strolled were supple in the evening breeze, colored orange-gold by the setting sun. Her face was turned away from him, her attention on the avatria of House Timuran. Her head was bald as he had so long remembered it, the Sinque mark of her Devotions clearly visible on her exposed scalp. There was barely a trace of the auburn hair which…which…

His breathing came harder, his mouth suddenly dry. He tightened his eyelids, trying in vain to block the memories from his recollection.

She stopped at the crest of this hill. Pink clouds floated in a deepening sky. Her skin seemed almost radiantly aglow. She started to turn, as though she just noticed him behind her. He could not see her face and suddenly wondered if she would turn to face him and there would be nothing there at all…

Before she turned around, she started singing to him, her voice distant and hollow.

“Mala of Drakis now walks the fields

Warmed by the harvesting sun.

Dead roads we’re walking!

Destiny talking…”

Drakis sat upright with a sharp cry. His forehead was beaded in perspiration despite the chill in the large pavilion that passed for his tent. He rubbed his eyes and swung his legs over the side of his cot.

Drakis heard the flap on the far side of the tent rustle open.

He held up his hand. “It’s all right, Belag. Just a bad dream.”

The figure staggered a few steps toward him.

Drakis tensed, reaching for his sword. The shadow in his tent was not nearly large enough to be the manticore.

“Drakis!” the voice said in a tense whisper.

“Ethis?” Drakis asked, his blade drawn, the grip cold in his hand. “What are you doing here? We weren’t expecting you until…”

“Quiet!” the chimerian gasped, gripping the human by the arm. “Where’s Braun?”

“His tent is with the rest of his acolytes about a mile from here,” Drakis answered. “He’s sleeping, with any luck.”

“What Urulani said about opening folds,” Ethis continued his questions, barely waiting for the answers before asking the next. “Can Braun and his acolytes actually make it work?”

“Yes. They had some disasters at first but…”

“Could they create enough folds to move the encampment?”

“Yes. In fact, we’ve already moved the rest of the army up using their folds,” Drakis said.

“Then the army is already here?”

“Yes and the encampment should be ready to move by the time Urulani and Jugar return from their…”

“And that elf…Soen,” Ethis continued. “Where is he?”

“With the other acolytes,” Drakis said. “Why?”

Ethis’ normally blank face shifted into a grimace. “Well, it can’t be helped. Send word for Braun to meet you near Dragon’s Roost. We need to talk…but not here!”

“One battle?” Drakis asked, an uncertain edge to his voice. “That’s what she is asking of us—just one victory?”

“That is all my Queen asks,” Ethis affirmed, “and all she needs.”

Marush lay coiled about Drakis, Ethis, and Braun, his great bulk touching all the walls of a magnificent rotunda that had sprung up around them. Arched columns defined three tiers nearly thirty feet tall. The ceiling was an incredible dome of crystal panels fitted into an iron lattice. Beyond, a gentle, warm rain fell from a leaden sky. In the center of the room lay the uppermost curve of a partially exposed sphere protruding through a circular opening in the fitted stone of the floor. Its surface was etched with a map of Aeria extending southward beyond the Aergus Sea to the coasts of Oerania and as far north as the Siren Coast and Drakosia beyond. The rotunda looked as though it were kept in perfect condition despite the fact that there appeared to be no other creatures in existence beyond the dragon and his guests.

Even so, Drakis knew that the pilgrim encampment was situated not more than a dozen yards from where they stood and, were he not touching the dragon, their conversation might easily have been overheard. The gentle plains that moments before had surrounded them
and the tents, lean-tos, and wagons where the pilgrims slept under a starry night sky were still there. Ethis, standing near him, had suggested this as the only place where they might speak freely—their discussion hidden from ears of the pilgrim followers even should any wake and spot them standing beside the dragon.

As for Braun, the third member of their party, the experience was completely new and distracting in the extreme. “Do you think this place is created naturally by the dragons from the Aether magic or do they act as Aether Wells themselves, channeling and refining Aer from the world into this higher form?”

“Braun!” Ethis urged in exasperated tones. “Focus your attention! We have little time and important matters to discuss!”

“Of course, but do you think this place actually exists?” Braun grinned, showing his gapped teeth in wonder. “Was it here before we came, and has it been magically reconstructed? Or is this tower from another place or time and has it been duplicated here? Or perhaps is it that we have gone to wherever or whenever it exists?”