Phoenix Rising (2 page)

As commander-in-chief of the legions, Martius took his permanent seat at the table – almost directly facing the throne. He deliberately avoided acknowledging any other members of the court. The primus general of the Empire did not curry favour with anyone.
 

Turbis, rosy faced and puffing slightly following the long walk from the palace balcony, stood behind his right shoulder until a kindly senator – Martius recalled his name was Gravo – beckoned the old general over and relinquished his seat to him. Turbis sat with a long sigh, and then mopped sweat from his brow with a cloth-of-gold handkerchief.
 

Martius noted that dozens of the Emperor’s own Golden Legion lined the walls, fully armed and standing to attention. More than he had ever seen in attendance before.

The leader of the court stepped into the room through a door directly behind the throne. He was dressed, as tradition dictated, in black from head to foot. Still mourning the death of the great Xandar, founder of the Empire, on behalf of its people. Frighteningly frail, the Leader appeared to stand only by grasping hold of his ceremonial silver-tipped staff. The staff itself was so thick that his hands could barely wrap around it.
 

The Leader stood in silence. Gradually, people noticed him, and the room became hushed.

The Leader’s arms shook as he lifted the staff and smashed its tip into the stone floor three times. “All stand for the Emperor, Mucinas Ravenas!” he proclaimed, his voice a dry husk.

The seated dignitaries stood and the long wait began. This emperor liked to keep his subjects waiting. Martius thought it was probably a power game, but why the most powerful man in the known world needed to play power games was beyond him.
 

He is not his father’s son
, he thought, not for the first time. He had started to question the wisdom of hereditary leaders at about the same time he had developed his concept for elections in the Legions. It was an obvious leap to think that a leader chosen by the people might be better at running the Empire than a man who held the position purely through an accident of birth. The problem with his burgeoning theory was that the old emperor, who had also gained his position by an accident of birth, had somehow reached a level of enlightenment through which he became an excellent leader.
 

Martius kept his theories to himself; to discuss them was high treason. Yet despite this silence, somehow rumours had grown that he wished for a republic. Even Turbis cajoled him in private about his ‘lunatic’ ideas. He considered it ironic that the harder he denied the rumours and swore allegiance to the throne the stronger they became.
 

Dangerous rumours, they will be the death of you.

Emperor Mucinas Ravenas appeared through a door behind the throne. He had taken to wearing high shoes, no doubt to hide his diminutive stature. He sat on the plain stone throne, and a slave placed a stool under his feet as he made himself comfortable.
 

After a brief pause, Ravenas nodded, smiling in the general direction of the waiting throng. “Please, be seated.” He made a sweeping gesture with his hand, and nodded again, the very image of innocence.

“My General Martius,” the Emperor said, examining his fingernails. “I trust you carried out my orders to the letter?”

“Yes, sire.” Martius replied.

“They are decimated then?” The Emperor looked up to meet Martius’s eyes, lips tight, small eyes gleaming in his cherubic face. “Purified of their shame?”

“It is done, sire.”

“The Twelfth have been disbanded?”

“Yes, sire.” Martius’s skin prickled and began to itch.

“Their standard has been broken and burned?” The Emperor tilted his head coquettishly.
 

“Yes, sire.” Martius chewed the inside of his cheek. He felt a sharp sting as he drew blood, his mouth registering the metallic tang of it.

“Hah. Good, good. That’ll teach the cowards, won’t it? That’ll teach them to abandon their posts!” Ravenas stroked a finger over the arm of the throne.
 

Martius fought to remain calm.
He seeks a reaction; give him none
. Silence filled the chamber.

“My dear Martius.” The Emperor’s voice trembled slightly, a red tide riding up his neck as his face flushed. “I said, That… will… teach... the… cowards… Won’t it?”

Martius met the Emperor’s gaze. “Yes, sire.”
Play the long game. Just play the long game.

“Yes.” The Emperor produced a thin-lipped smile. “We don’t need that kind of soldier in the army. We need proper soldiers. This is what happens when you let common men take command. I would think so, yes. This is what happens when you allow a man to rise above his station.” Ravenas leaned forward in his throne. “Not a commoner yourself are you, Martius?”

Martius shrugged and spread his hands wide. “Sire, I am ashamed to have to remind you that I am of your blood on your father’s side. I believe we are distant cousins. I could have the priests consult the genealogy but, as you probably know, house Felix has a long and illustrious history. Like you, sire, we trace our ancestry back to the great Xandar himself.”
Be cautious; your pride always gets you into trouble
. He lowered his gaze slightly, taking in the golden brocaded shirt the Emperor wore. It probably cost more than a legionary earned in a year.
 

“Yes, yes of course.” The Emperor shifted back in his seat and crossed his legs. “Forgive me…
cousin
. Let us talk of other business. The mighty Third will be rebuilt?”
 

“Yes, sire.” Martius forced a smile though it pained him. “The phoenix will rise.”
Except maybe the boy. Conlan must be disciplined.
The boy really had left him no choice
.
 

“Good, good.” The Emperor nodded approval. “They did well. They saved the day. I hear they are almost as good as my Golds.”

“Almost as good as your six thousand, yes, sire.” The Golden legion had grown to double strength over the last ten years, perhaps, in Martius’s opinion, weakening them, diluting their mythos whilst mirroring the growing insecurity of their emperor. Three thousand had marched with Xandar when he first set out from Goya – three thousand golden men whose legend echoed triumphantly through the centuries.

The Emperor looked around the room. “My boys are the best, Martius.” He gestured at a stocky man in his fifties, who stood unobtrusively towards the back of the throne room. The man wore a golden cuirass on his chest: Xandar, depicted riding to victory in gleaming relief on the front. He held a legion father’s helmet under one arm. “Isn’t that right, Janus?”

Janus shifted his weight, his brows drawing together fractionally. “That’s correct, sire,” he said in a low voice.

“That’s right, yes, yes of course. My boys are the best. If we’d been there we would have won easily. Hah, maybe we should have come along? That’s it! I should have led the defence myself with my golden boys; I should have come to command the battle myself. Martius, why didn’t you ask me to come? You should have sent for me.” The Emperor’s right shoulder jerked up. His head twitched to the right.

“Sire,” Martius spread his hands wide again, “I feared that we would not have anyone left to defend the Empire. Forgive me, but I thought you would be best placed to protect the people… as always.” He risked alienating the other generals in the room with his comment, but he hoped he could count on their loyalty; he had, after all, sponsored many of them into their positions himself.

“My Emperor,” Turbis coughed gently, twisting his cloth-of-gold handkerchief in his hands. “Who better than you to defend the Empire, eh?”

Thank you old friend
, thought Martius.
You have not changed so much after all.

The Emperor paused for a moment, his gaze turning quickly from one general to the next. “Yes, yes, of course,” he said, “with the great General Turbis gone as well, who would have defended my Empire?” He smiled mischievously and glanced at Martius. “And if you had not been there, my good General Turbis, we might have lost the battle!”

He grows worse each day
. Martius smiled broadly.
The man is sick with power.
He had always been a quiet boy, so painfully shy that he could barely speak
. How does power do this to men? Why are some twisted so badly?

“As you say, sire,” said Turbis. He glanced apologetically at Martius.

“Yes, yes, that’s right.” The Emperor stood quickly and began to pace back and forth on the dais. “My thoughts are troubled though. Where is it, do you think, that these people came from? Why did they attack me? My Empire? What do you say, General Turbis?”

Turbis looked from the Emperor to Martius and back again. “Sire, I feel General Martius may have more intelligence on the matter than I –”

“Hah!” the Emperor barked. “You are getting old, good General; perhaps you are correct.” He produced an unctuous smile. “Perhaps Martius does have more… intelligence. Would you agree Martius?”

“I would agree that I probably have more knowledge of the possible cause of the migration, yes, sire. Although it is mostly conjecture,” Martius replied.

“Well then,
cousin
, perhaps you could enlighten us?”

Martius formed his hands into a steeple with his elbows on the table; his eyes followed the Emperor as he continued to pace his little steps before the throne. “We know that they come from the south, beyond the borders of the Empire –”

“Yes, yes, Martius.” The Emperor waved a hand impatiently. “I believe we could all have fathomed that.”

“They appear to share some kinship with the fisher folk of the Basking islands, such that they have some common language.”
 

“And where in the Empire are the Basking islands?”

Martius raised an eyebrow. “They are not in the Empire, sire.”

“Then where in blazes are they?”
 

Martius allowed himself a small shrug. “They are in the south, sire…” A chorus of sniggers arose from the room. “Well beyond Selesia. It is likely that the barbarians, who call themselves ‘Wicklanders’, were travelling for months before they reached our borders.”

The Emperor stopped pacing and surveyed the room, perhaps seeking the source of the derisive noises. “So why did they attack us?” His voice quivered slightly.
 

“I do not believe that they set out with the intention of attacking anyone, sire. As far as I can tell from the prisoners that have been questioned, they were fleeing north.”

The Emperor plonked himself sharply back onto his throne. “Fleeing from what?”

“That is difficult to determine.” Martius sensed he had the full attention of the room now; many craned over others to get a view of proceedings. “It would appear that they fled from what they describe ‘the ‘enemy’.

Ravenas leaned forward; his hands grasped the arms of the throne. “And who is this enemy?”

“We are not sure at this time, sire. I think it possible that the nomads of the southern steppes have united beneath one banner as they did many generations ago.” Six hundred years ago the nomads had ravaged the continent, almost reaching Adarna itself before their leader died mysteriously and they melted back into the vast tundra from which they emerged. “They have to be the prime suspects.”

Many men around the room nodded, whispering to each other, suspecting perhaps, as Martius did, that a new khan had arisen in the south.

The Emperor seemed to gain focus. “We need to know, I think.”

“I agree. I think we also need to know what happened to the remainder of the Wicklander people. We killed many men, but it is my belief that the majority of their people have fled back south. There have been reports from Selesia. They probably still pose a formidable threat to the Empire.”

The Emperor leaned forward. His eyes gleamed accusation. “But I thought you said they were beaten!”

“Perhaps they are, sire.” Martius spread his hands wide again. “We have no way of knowing how many remain. I would suggest that we send an expedition in force to investigate and neutralise the threat.”

Turbis coughed loudly. “I have to agree, sire. We need to know where they are, eh? Need to remove the threat. They could be rampaging through Selesia as we speak. We could muster twenty legions in little over a month.”

“I would also recommend that we send men south to fortify the cities and reinforce the garrisons,” Martius added. “It would be prudent, not just because of the Wicklanders themselves, to prepare in case their ‘enemy’, nomad or not, seeks to move north against us.”

The Emperor looked at his feet for a long moment. “Good, good.” He looked up and his eyes narrowed. “I thank you gentlemen for your advice. I have much to consider.” With that, he leapt from his seat and made to walk behind the throne.
 

The council leader, caught by surprise at the Emperor’s move to exit, slammed his staff into the floor twice, almost overbalancing as he did so.
 

“But, sire.” Martius stood, entreating return.
We need to plan now, we should move now.
 

But the Emperor did not look back, his tiny strides carrying him quickly from the chamber.

THE HOLE WAS NOT pleasant. It wasn’t dirty. It didn’t smell. Light percolated down from the small window high above in the stone ceiling. Conlan thought it a very civilised hell.
 

The Martian reforms of the military – named after the man who introduced them – had resulted in the removal of the majority of capital punishments in the armed forces. The legions had still required a form of discipline though, to deal with those in need of it, without damaging them physically. They were, after all, precious commodities.
 

Where once it had taken six months to train a legionnaire, it now took three years. Every man was expected to study the new science of ballistics, along with carpentry, metalwork, leatherwork, fortification theory, formation theory and psychology to name but a few, the idea being that in the field, if the need arose, any man could step up and lead. The army, post reform, was rightly hailed as the most sophisticated and feared in the world.