The Pinnacle Of Empire (Book 6) (17 page)

“You and your son must come with us.”

“Were I to leave my people, the last of them would abandon hope seeing me flee before them. I must remain, but I beg you to take my son and heir with you to safety that one day he may be able to reclaim the throne. Guard, bring my son here at once. He’s on the city’s southern gate directing the defenses.”

The crown prince soon came and bowed before his father.

“My son, you must go with these men and take refuge with the emperor and your niece the empress until such time as you can reclaim the throne.”

“Father, I will remain here to defend Nenjiya and you.”

“Do not argue with me; there is no time. To die here would be a pointless waste; it would serve no purpose. The people will need you to rally around again when the time is right to restore the kingdom.”

“But Father…”

Nemenese jumped up. “There is no time. You must go at once or the dynasty is lost forever and you leave our people without hope. Go!”

The crown prince’s face drooped. He bowed then took a last look at his father. “Will you not come with us, Father?”

“We must leave now,” the messenger said.

“Go!” Nemenese shouted. His imperious eyes flared beneath his heavy arched eyebrows.

The crown prince and emissaries turned and left the palace, flowing this time with the throng fleeing the doomed capital. They left the city amid the stream pouring out to the coastal cities ahead of the booming drums of oncoming invaders. As the emissaries looked back from the crest of a hill, they saw the Senoshesvasian army marching in formation, swords banging on shields, coming through the valley south of the city. The throng around the prince and emissaries buzzed at the sight and broke the orderly exodus. They fled helter-skelter along the road to the coast. King Nemenese wasn’t among them.

* * *

“That’s all the men Nemenese could muster to defend Nenjiya?” King Nindax said to his senior general at the hilltop looking down on the Velstorbokkin capital. “A few cohorts and some old men and boys with no armor and farm tools to defend his throne.” Nindax laughed.

“We must march on the city without delay,” the general said. “Though Your Majesty’s ruse worked to fool Nemenese, we must take the city before the Velstorbokkin army can return from the coast.”

“Move the army forward, General. March on and surround the city. Take no prisoners; we’ve no means to hold or feed them. We must conclude the defeat before any relief comes.”

The ground shook beneath Nenjiya as the Senoshesvasian army marched in step on the capital. The last refugees pouring out of the city broke up and scattered over the countryside, racing to the north and east. The invading army slaughtered those stragglers who had delayed too long, encumbered by their possessions.

By nightfall, the city was surrounded and under siege. The sound of chopping continued through the night. Nindax himself saw to the building of the siege machinery around the clock which would be ready to assault the walls in two days.

*

Nindax and his senior general were conferring in the king’s tent the night before the attack on the city was to begin.

“That stubborn old fool should have surrendered the city by now,” the general said.

“I never could count on his doing the expected,” Nindax said.

Someone suddenly flung back the tent flap. Nindax jumped up, knocking over the field table and maps as he snatched out his sword at the unannounced intruder. “Who dares?”

“Greetings, Majesty,” Xthilleon said casually as he entered, releasing the tent flap, but not before the king noted the guards stood at attention outside as if they didn’t see the sorcerer pass between them. “I see you’re making your final preparations for storming the city.”

“You should be announced, wizard.” The general snapped. He picked up the field table and redisplayed the maps.

“I’ve no time for such courtesies,” Xthilleon snarled. His flaring eyes chilled the king. Then his features softened; he gave a token bow.

“Indeed.”

“Your Majesty will waste precious time storming the walls. You will succeed eventually, of course, if the enemy’s relief forces don’t reach here first. But be assured, they are marching post haste as we speak.”

“Relief forces?”

“The Velstorbokkin army on the way back from Soondaree. Nemenese has had a visitation from two imperial emissaries. They’ve convinced him that the empire isn’t participating in the invasion.”

“The Velstorbokkin army won’t return in time.”

“Possibly not, but then can you afford to risk that?”

How do you know all this?”

“You won’t take the city by siege in time, Nindax. You need my help. And then there is the matter of the crown prince.”

“What matter of the crown prince?”

“You’ve let him slip through your fingers.”

“He’ll remain beside his father. Everyone knows of his absurd, undying loyalty. He’ll fight to the death to defend his father.”

Xthilleon turned darker, his skin almost purplish. His face twisted and the lines deepened in a frown. His eyes appeared to grow in his head. “Fool! You’ve let the crown prince escape.”

“How dare you call me a fool?”

“You cannot now destroy Velstorbokkin and absorb it into your kingdom. You can defeat Nemenese and subjugate his kingdom, but you cannot annihilate it, not now. The crown prince lives and will lay claim to the throne even if you kill his father. Now you must defeat Velstorbokkin and take Nemenese prisoner. If you can capture the city, you must convince him you captured his son as well. The most you can hope for is to make him swear loyalty as a supplicant to your throne before he learns you don’t have his son in your grasp.”

“How do you know all this?”

Xthilleon’s face relaxed as the sun breaking through dispersing storm clouds, but the insidious snarl remained. He rolled a small orb in his right hand fingers. Internally, the orb seemed to swirl like clouds and emitted a pale, frosty light.

“I know; that’s all you need to know.”

“You’re too presumptuous, wizard.”

“Majesty,” the general said, calling Nindax attention to the city. “The army is now moving the first siege machinery in place around the city.”

“Give instructions to their commanders to begin firing boulders at the walls immediately upon reaching their range.”

“Perhaps a few boulders shot into the city, into the homes and businesses, creating more suffering and thus panic will soften their resistance. The more the panic the more those remaining inside the walls will pressure the king to surrender,” Xthilleon noted. His smirk reflected pleasure at the thought.

“Useful idea, Xthilleon,” Nindax said. “Have every third catapult fire boulders into the city, General, but let’s not destroy too much of it as it will soon be a province of the new Senoshesvas Empire and we’ll want to extract large war reparations.”

The Senoshesvasian army reformed into formal units. They marched around the capital, banging swords and spears on their shields, chanting ‘surrender’ as one unified, terrifying clamor. Then the cries fell silent and the boulders began to rain down on the fortifications and into the city. The elegant carvings on the pylons on either side of the main city gate were quickly smashed off. The gates themselves shuttered with the blows but held. To Nindax’s annoyance, the royal Velstorbokkin standard still flew over the royal palace.

* * *

Xthilleon retired to a small isolated tower in the hills behind the invading army where he could work undisturbed. He had but one devoted assistant, a totally depraved oaf rescued from Nindax’s dungeons under sentence of death. Xthilleon had sealed an enchanted chain around the creature’s neck that would instantly strangle him at the sorcerer’s command should Xthilleon sense disobedience. There would be no more treachery for the Dark Lord.

When the two had finished setting up the sorcerer’s contraptions, Xthilleon dismissed Morphenius and began chanting his incantations over the basin of moon water. The water display passed through various visions before a scene appeared from the dowager empress’ broach. Helgamyr was squabbling with Tottiana which wasn’t unusual. The sorcerer was about to move on to monitor other visions when he heard mention of Saxthor.

“Saxthor’s sailed away and left you almost before you rose from your birthing bed,” the dowager said.

“Mother, he left to rescue your father,” Tottiana said. “You’d have condemned him if he hadn’t gone to save Grandfather, and now you condemn him for trying. You’re unreasonable.”

“Sailed, sailed from where and when?” Xthilleon mumbled.

“Tarquinia is a long ways away, even on fast horses,” Tottiana said.

“Tarquinia! The emperor is sailing from Tarquinia.” Xthilleon searched a map and found Tarquinia on the north central imperial coast. “He’ll soon reach the port if I judge the distance and his speed correctly. I’ve no time to create a monster to kill him. I can’t kill Emperor Saxthor openly and still hope to seize and control the empire, but I can remove him remotely. Lost at sea in a raging storm, perfect. First, I must deal with Nemenese, then the emperor.”

“Morphenius!” Xthilleon called out. “I’ll need the following ingredients; I don’t care where or how you get them, but get them before dawn. I’ve just enough time to catch the emperor on the open sea.”

“Yes, master,” the oaf said. Drool ran down the right corner of his puffy lips. “Does master needs another of them scrolls?”

“I’ll tell you when I need you to get something, idiot. Get the ingredients and meet me in the cellar.”

Morphenius hunched in a slight bow. Wiping the spittle from his chin and frowning, he shuffled off to get the items.

Xthilleon clutched the scroll he’d already retrieved and descended into the tower’s dank cellar to the well that sustained the inhabitants during a siege. The water was cold and still palatable. The sorcerer drew out a pot of water and took it to a work table, brushing off the dust with a fouled cloth left there by the previous occupants. The wizard heard Morphenius’s trundling feet scraping on the cellar stairs. The oaf plopped the ingredients on the work table and stood back watching and waiting for orders in silence.

“The fungus I found growing on the dead rat beside the well this morning gave me the idea” Xthilleon said.

“That the stuff you had me scrape off and grind to a dry powder?”

“The very thing,” Xthilleon said. He grinned and rubbed his long, cold fingers over the oaf’s bald head, then patted him like a pet. Picking off a louse, he frowned and wiped his hand on the oaf’s dirty tunic. “That and the roots you ground and soaked in water will make the perfect potion to reduce King Nemenese’s defiance, raise his fear, and stir his mind to amplify imagined threats.”

Morphenius chuckled with the wizard’s grin. His rotted teeth disgusted the wizard, who then turned to the pot on the table and stirred in the powder and sludge.

“Start a fire there and simmer this until I return. Careful you don’t over boil it. We want to extract the poison but not to break it down. Understand?”

“Yes, master,” Morphenius said, already collecting bits of wood and breaking a crate for more.

Xthilleon went upstairs and retrieved his wand, verified the correct scroll with the correct spells, and returned to the cellar. He approached the oaf from behind and stabbed his hand. Morphenius jumped back, startled.

The oaf clutched his forearm. “What’d I do wrong?”

Xthilleon quickly jerked his arm and held it over the pot he’d taken from the fire letting blood drip into the simmering sludge.

“I needed blood for the potion, didn’t I tell you?” Xthilleon squeezed the oaf’s hand, wringing blood from the stab wound before thrusting the creature’s arm away from the pot and himself. Morphenius remained silent and slunk back into the shadows, holding his red, swelling arm.

The wizard stirred the pot and strained the liquid through a cloth filled with dried herbs. Then, chanting three spells in succession over the foul liquid, watched the dark residue settle to the bottom, leaving a clear liquid. He poured the liquid into a small vial and climbed back up to the tower’s first floor.

“Here, take this and be careful with it,” Xthilleon said to a servant of the Velstorbokkin chatra previously selected and bribed. “Sneak back into the city and pour it into a goblet of wine for the king. Be sure he drinks it.”

“Will it kill King Nemenese? I won’t do it if it kills the king. The guards would be on me in an instant.”

“No, fool, it won’t kill the king. If I’m right, his response might not even be noticed in his present state of panic.”

“I’ll need more money to do this. If I’m to do something to the king, it will mean more risk.”

“Clever boy,” Xthilleon said taking a leather pouch from his belt and tossing three coins to the conspirator. He noted the boy was jittery, glanced at the wizard, then looked away. He hesitated. “Take them; you’ll earn what you get.”

The boy took the vial and grabbed the coins in his other hand. He bowed and rushed out the door.

“Fool, his name is second after the chatra’s on the proscription list. King Nindax will silence him before anyone knows the potion ever existed,” Xthilleon turned to see Morphenius shuffle up the stairs still clutching the arm that now ended in a filthy rag tied around his swollen hand. The oaf glanced at the wizard and headed off to some refuge. Xthilleon stood at the tower door watching the treasonous boy slink back toward the secret tunnel that would take him back into the crumbling capital. He closed the creaking door slowly on the sight and future resistance.