Fate of an Empire (Talurian Empire Trilogy Book 1) (5 page)

Rurik ordered
his soldiers to form into groups of two and three and help strengthen the
patrol of the city watchmen. He took Klaric and a young private named Galro to
check out what happened to this murdered guard, Fenton.

"Why'd
you take me?" Klaric asked.  "I thought you were mad at me?”

"You're
here because, if something happens, I know I can count on you.  But don't even
think
of trying to talk about what happened.  I'm not ready for that."

“You act like
you’re angry with me! Do you think what happened was my fault? He was like a
brother to me, and you blaming his death on me is utterly unfair!”

Rurik swung
around to face Klaric. “Don’t talk about him being a brother to you! If I had
been there with him,
I
would have kept him alive!” He pushed his finger
into his own chest, “I! His
brother
, would’ve saved Aamin!”

“Sir, sorry,”
Galro interrupted, pointing down the street.

During their
confrontation, Rurik and Klaric had completely blocked out their surrounds,
forgetting the situation at hand. The gate to the city had been lifted and the
guardhouse looked empty.

“This isn’t
good,” Rurik shook his head, setting aside personal matters for the moment.

“Where are the
night watchmen?” asked Galro.

“I don’t
know,” Rurik glanced down each alley they passed. “Keep a sharp eye.”

The three
reached the gate and Rurik moved to the small guardhouse off to the side.

He stepped
slowly, pulling a dagger from his belt. He carefully peered in. Nothing seemed
amiss, save for the lack of candlelight in the room. Then he saw.

A single body
lay dead off to the side of the room. It was the guard, laying sprawled in a
pool of his own blood.

“We need to
get back to headquarters and sound an alarm. This may just be a thief turned
murderer fleeing from the city,
or
something much worse.” Rurik stared
at the dead man.

The three
started off at a run, but a scream from an adjacent street stopped them in
their tracks. They waited for a moment, trying to discern the direction of the
alert.

The shrill cry
cut through the night air again.

They sprinted
around a corner and entered into a long, narrow alleyway between two main
roads. A woman with three young children came running out the back door of a
building, chased by seven men, head-to-toe in black.

The assailants
cornered the woman and her children and, while moving closer, pulled blades
from their belts. The first man to reach them grabbed the young mother by the
throat and lifted her off the ground.

The children
cried and shrunk back.

“Hey!” Rurik
shouted, shifting their attention.

The one
holding the mother dropped her and sized up Rurik. She took her opening and punched
the man square in the jaw. The strike carried so much anger behind it that he
dropped to the ground.

He stumbled to
his feet, only to watch the mother and her children run down another alley and
disappear into the night. The man looked at the faces of his stunned comrades,
whose black leather face-guards failed to hide their smiles and stifled laughter.
It all happened so fast, none thought to react to the mild incident.

The humiliated
intruder shrieked out a loud battle cry in an unknown language. This caused the
others to refocus and charge their new targets. The seven men took off at a run
toward Rurik, Klaric, and Galro, swords held high over their heads.

Rurik slipped
a shield off his back.

Klaric stood, waiting
with shortsword in hand.

Galro held his
spear out in front of him.

When almost
upon them, Klaric flipped a dagger out of his belt and threw it across the
closing gap. The blade rocketed into the chest of one of the intruders,
spurting blood marked his fall. Galro followed up a moment later with a lunged
throw of his spear, pinning another attacker to the ground.

The remaining
five fell in and the men squared off.

Rurik caught
the attention of two, dodging and parrying one while blocking his side from the
other with his constantly moving shield. His opponent overextended and Rurik
lashed out at his stomach, spilling blood and entrails onto the street. He
slammed the other back with his buckler and jumped forward, striking him down
with his sword.

Klaric threw
an elbow into the side of his assailant, pivoted around to his backside, and
rammed the blade through his shoulder blades.

Rurik saw
Galro fighting off the last two, but he was slowly losing ground, butting up
against a wall. With each strike, his defense became sloppier.

My brother…
A flash of Aamin echoed through Rurik’s mind

Rurik shook
away the image and launched forward. In one fluid motion, he sliced one’s neck
and down the back of the other, finishing them with a roar.

 “Quick, we
must alert the city!” Klaric shouted, touching the shoulder of his trembling
friend. Blood dripping from Rurik’s blade.

Rurik nodded
slowly. “Yes, yes. The General will want the citizens to withdraw into the Keep.”
As he mumbled the words, alarm beacons along the wall flared to life.

“I guess
someone else ran into some of these bastards too,” grunted Galro as he yanked
his spear from his victim.

Moments later,
giant explosions rocked the residential district. Hungry flames grew and spread
across the city. People ran from their houses, screaming as they mobbed the
streets of Hillsford. The few who kept their wits about them quickly grabbed precious
personal belongings and headed to the center of the city.

*
* *

The explosions
woke the intoxicated General.

Saris came
stumbling out of his door half-dressed to find a soldier running toward him.

“Sir!” He saluted,
“The city is under attack and the alarm beacons have been lit. Everyone is
retreating to the safety of the Keep’s walls.”

Saris looked
at the man’s insignia, “Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir,
Sergeant Linket.”

“You were with
the company of soldiers who escorted me to the city, correct?”

“Yes sir, I
was. Our company’s Lieutenant and Captain were ordered back to the front line
yesterday. I’m in command of the remaining soldiers. It seems the city
was
in need of support. Good thing we stayed behind.”

Saris looked
down at the little man for a moment.

“Very well,
what is the city’s condition?” Saris reached through the doorway of his room,
grabbing his sword and uniform shirt and they started moving down the hallway.

“The enemy has
entered the city through the eastern gate and in burning houses in the
residential area. There are fights throughout the market square and our
soldiers are getting pushed back closer and closer to the Keep with every
moment that passes.”

“Do we have a
command position?”

“We have one
set up along the northern wall.”

“Alright, I
will be there shortly. Go find Thandril. Any order he gives you, consider it
from my lips.” Saris waved the soldier away.

Saris hurried
through the courtyard, brushing past people moving their livestock and
belongings into the Keep. Saris had one stop to make before heading to the
northern gate—his son.

He reached the
western wing of the main citadel and found Kuran frantically moving about
attending wounded civilians and soldiers, prepping them to move. He scanned the
room for Archaos and spotted the crib near the fireplace. He quickly went to it
and scooped his son into his arms.

A nurse moved
in his direction, struggling to weave through the mess of people. He recognized
her from the birth.

Saris put his
arm out to block her. “Woman! Where are all of you going?”

“We are moving
to a makeshift infirmary into the basement of the Keep’s dining hall. It will
be safer there and we can work in a more efficient and sterile manner; away
from all of the evacuated families. The courtyard is getting too crowded and
too disorganized.”

He handed her
the baby, “Take him with you then and don’t let anything happen to him. He is
your top priority.”

She nodded, choking
down an argument in response to the direct order.

“What is your
name?” He managed a rare smile.

“Amira, Sir.”

“Well, Amira,”
he said, looking down at his sleeping son in her arms, “I apologize for the way
I acted during the delivery. I was beside myself with worry, and now here we
are again. I do not like trusting another with my child’s safety, but if I am
not free to command my troops we might all die here. So, I expect you to watch
him as if he was your own. Now go.” He motioned for her to leave.

As she
vanished into the sea of people, he pushed through in the other direction,
making his way to the command post.

He stopped,
but for a moment, noticing he didn’t have his usual group of soldiers crowding
around him, “Where are my private guards?” he asked himself.

Saris reached
the northern wall to find Thandril and Sergeant Linket waiting for him.

Thandril stepped
forward to greet the general. “Master, it is good to see you. Things don’t look
good. Whoever is attacking the city has other plans than a traditional open
siege.”

Saris, still a
little tipsy from his earlier drinking, leaned against the edge of the wall to
steady himself. “Explain.”

“They are
targeting small groups of soldiers and minor locations around the city, quick
and hard, then retreating back into the alleys. They must have a detailed map
of the city, building plans and even mapping of the sewer system. They are
quickly decimating our troops in the city. We don’t have enough men to follow
after the attackers without leaving vital areas unguarded. And, sir, they have
at least one man, maybe more, with some strange kind of magical ability. I
chased him out of the barracks earlier. Master, he killed your personal
guards.”

Saris immediately
sobered up at hearing that, “What?” He sighed quietly under his breath, “Damn
it! What the hell is going on? We saw nothing to indicate enemy troop movement
in this region. And, magic? We haven’t seen anyone with special abilities,
other than you, since the fall of the druid clans.”

“Indeed,
Master. He was able to duplicate himself and had inhuman golden eyes. Sir, I
was not prepared for the fight, and the showing of magic caught me off guard,”
Thandril apologized.

Saris waved it
off, “No, no, it isn’t your fault; I know you did what you could. If it were
any other man claiming he saw strange feats of magic, I would laugh in his
face. It doesn’t matter now; we need to regain control of the situation.” He
paced along the stone walkway, “Duplicate?” whispering to himself again,
“damn.”

He turned back
around and faced Linket, “How many people have retreated inside the walls?”

“About half of
the city, the rest is lined up outside the gate, slowly moving in.”

“How about
your troops?”

“The majority
of them are inside already.”

“Then close
the gate.”

“But sir!
There are more citizens out—”

Saris cut the
Sergeant off, “It doesn’t matter. We need to seal the gate. That is an order!”

“I will not do
it! The people out there will be killed!”

Saris nodded,
“Very well, I will have someone else do it,” Saris put his hand on the
sergeant’s shoulder and, with a quick motion, forced a concealed blade up into
the man’s stomach.

The General
tossed the body over the wall, down into the crowd of retreating citizens. “We
don’t have time for an ethical deliberation.”

He yelled at a
nearby soldier to come over and gave the order to close the gate.

Saris started
walking along the wall. Thandril fell in beside him.

“We only have
a little over fifty men left sir, and the only ranked soldier is a Corporal
named Rurik Kaster. He is combat proven, though; this is his second war. He was
also in the first wave of attacks on the Kilgarian fortress. He is able. Would
you like me to find him, and send him to you? You
will
need a field
officer.”

“Alright, go
find him.”

As the druid
moved away, Saris shouted out to him, “How many enemy troops do you think are
in the city?”

Thandril
didn’t stop walking away. “Can’t be many, or we would have seen them coming.”

*
* *

A thick fog
rolled in around the city, the smell of burnt buildings mixed with the damp,
morning air. The abandoned crowd of people camped around the walls of the
sealed Keep all night; there had been no attacks. The people considered
themselves safe if they kept out of the burning residential district that
encircled them.

A soldier,
covered in blood and dirt, ran up to stand before Saris, and saluted, “Sir, we
have counted the remaining troops and there is a total of eighty-four. A small
mixed unit of thirty-two soldiers from different squadrons joined together out
in the city. They made their way to the gate early this morning—that added a
little cushion to our numbers. Their admittance was cause for a small riot
outside, but it was dealt with swiftly. No one has seen any sign of the enemy
since 3 o’clock, and that was just a small group of four men. They were chased
off back into the residential district.”

“Thank you.”
Saris stood, looking at the man. “Are you Corporal Kaster?”

“Yes, Sir. It
is an honor to serve directly under you, even if only for a few days.”

Before Saris
could say anything in return, a loud uproar spread throughout the citizens
outside the gate, and soldiers along the wall started pointing at something.

“Let’s see
what’s going on,” Saris said, a curious look furrowed his brow.

The two men
ran from the command post, over to where the commotion was. Staring into the
thick fog that had enveloped the mass of Hillsford’s housing, they were taken
aback by a wall of soldiers marching into view.

Rurik leaned
closer to Saris. “Sir, they bear Merkadian shortswords. They must be from the
north. But how could such a large group of soldiers get inside our borders
without being noticed?”

Saris stood
watching, without responding to the Corporal.

The soldiers
gradually parted, letting through three men. Two wore black leather outfits,
like the rest of the men, obviously for stealth and agility, not defense. The
tall man in the center, a greatsword on his shoulder, wore full armor and a
sturdy looking helmet. The two in black both looked upon them with intensely
yellow eyes, like the man Thandril had seen.

There was
silence and the tall man in armor moved closer, leaving his leather-clad
companions behind. He lifted his arms into the air and started shouting
something, but neither Saris nor Rurik could make out what he was saying. He
seemed to be repeating himself, three sentences over and over.

Saris looked
around, “Does anyone recognize the language?”

While the
scene was unfolding, Thandril had moved to stand next to the General, “He
speaks Kitam.”

Saris waved
his hands about as if to coax it out of him. “What the hell is Kitam? What are
they saying?” He asked, impatiently.

“The Kitamites
are a small tribe of hillmen. They live on the eastern side of the Merkadian
Mountains. They say, ‘We are the Blades of Kitam. The Talurian Empire will
fall. We came for your leader’s head’,” replied Thandril, “Do you wish me to
say something in response?”

Saris just
looked at his companion, “You never cease to amaze me! How do you know all
that?”

Thandril just
shrugged, “I have studied many things. Do you want me to say something back to
him?”

“No. Go see if
someone else here can speak this Kitamite language, and then I need you to try
and get north to our army. You can make it out of here in bird form,” Saris
scanned the ever growing line of soldiers making their way out of the smoky
haze, “I don’t know how long we have.”