The Pinnacle Of Empire (Book 6) (18 page)

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The emissaries had raced back to inform Saxthor that King Nemenese had accepted the empire wasn’t behind the attacks. They brought his urgent request for imperial troops to drive back King Nindax. Saxthor delayed only long enough to see that Tottiana would recover from her ordeal and the baby had stabilized. Then, he left Engwaniria for the northern port of Tarquinia on the Tixosian Sea. There he took ship in a race to catch up to the imperial fleet. He’d sent it earlier from Malledar transporting imperial troops to relieve the siege of the Velstorbokkin capital. Belnik and Tittletot jostled on the imperial trireme’s deck beside the emperor.

After much difficulty, Xthilleon identified Saxthor’s trace. He followed the progress of the emperor’s three ship group in his basin of moon water. When out on the open sea, the sorcerer began an elaborate incantation creating a powerful atmospheric disturbance. As dark, billowing clouds formed swirling and spreading, Xthilleon concentrated the breathtaking power and drove it toward the ships.

“I told you to stay with the empress,” Saxthor said. “You two never listen to me.”

“I’d have stayed behind as Your Majesty insisted, but this big fellow was most impertinent and would not do as he was told,” Tittletot said, puffing up and turning to point at Belnik whose mouth fell open. “Of course, if he was coming, you couldn’t expect me to stay behind with the women and children. You should have him tortured, strung up on the wall, and flogged unmercifully for disobedience.” Tittletot appeared most serious but then, head nodding, grinned at Belnik whose eyebrows arched beneath glaring eyes. The intimidation failed to disturb Tittletot’s composure.

“Why you little backstabber!” Belnik said. “You know full well it was your stubborn insistence that we accompany Saxthor that persuaded me to join this expedition. Majesty, have him flogged for his deceit.”

“Me? Would you sacrifice so innocent a lamb as myself to save your own hide from justice? You’d sacrifice this defenseless little scapegoat to sooth the emperor’s just anger? You’d thrust me beneath the crushing blows of brute force to save yourself the flogging you so richly deserve.” Tittletot turned to Saxthor, who watched the amusing drama. “How have you so endured this treacherous beast for years, Majesty? Surely you must see he needs flogging for his own good.”

“So now it’s treacherous beast, is it?” Belnik grabbed a shield from the ship’s gunwales and raised it over his head as if poised to smack Tittletot over the head. Tittletot ran off down the deck with Belnik in hot pursuit, leaving Saxthor bent over laughing.

The imperial flagship and its two accompanying triremes were under full sail from the outset. The ships’ rams rose and plunged into the sea. Frothy clouds of sea spray splashed over the bowsprits as the great triremes surged through the western Tixosian Sea. Oarsmen strained to keep the warships moving forward still faster to overtake the imperial navy.

A day short of Soondaree, great charcoal clouds began forming, darkening the western sky with swirls like black smoke. Saxthor noted the flagship’s captain monitored the developing tempest. He alerted his crew and the accompanying ships to the danger.

“Your Majesty should retire to your cabin,” the captain said. Belnik and Tittletot were instantly scurrying down the deck toward the stairs leading below. “The seas will get rough and I can’t risk your being swept overboard.”

“Those clouds do look ominous, Captain. Is the storm likely to come to sea or stay over land?”

“It’s heading this way. I’d try to make for shore, but we wouldn’t make it in time. We’d be dashed on the coastal rocks here; there’s no safe harbor nearby. We’ll have to try to weather the storm on the open sea.”

Sudden cold gusts of wind began to lash at the ship.

“Furl the sail,” the captain shouted to the crew. “It’ll be torn to shreds in this wind. We’ll have to rely on the rudder and oarsmen to keep us into the wind.”

The storm grew and spread, covering the western sky, streaming straight for them. As it swallowed the coast, torrential rains began to pour down on the ships, the huge drops smashing on the deck with pounding force. Silver and white whipped through the swelling sooty clouds. Lightning shot down all around the ships. The thunder intensified with crashing hail the size of chicken eggs shattering on the deck. The crew hovered beneath any protection as the ship rose and plunged in the great waves that broke over the ships.

“This is an unnatural storm,” Saxthor mumbled to himself.

A great wave raised the ship jarring it to starboard; the oars broke free from the water. Muffled sounds of oarsmen below fumbling with the whipping oars added to the terror of the storm’s midday darkness. The great ship jerked back to port when it righted itself.

“Steer for that island!” the captain ordered the helmsman. “We must try to shelter behind it to break the wind and surge or we’ll be lost in this churning sea.”

The great flagship’s timbers creaked under the strain as she began a slow turn in the churning sea. The starboard side of the ship was all but swallowed in a wave. The ship shuttered but held together as she righted herself and began to cut again through the whitecaps heading for the island that from time to time disappeared behind massive walls of water.

Noting the scent of sea water mingled with smoke from the extinguished galley fire, Saxthor looked back at the accompanying triremes, struggling to keep up. The second ship was falling behind.

“Captain, the Princess Tah is struggling. She’s low in the water.”

“She’s taking on water for sure. Her pumps can’t keep up,” the captain replied, water pouring off his helmet as the two men looked back at the ship. “Nothing we can do to help her now.”

“Look, there behind her, is that her rudder?” Saxthor asked, pointing to the roiling sea swirling around the ship, bobbing this way and that. Suddenly, the great wooden rudder, with ropes trailing like kite streamers, rose free with the swells beside the trireme. Then a massive wave crested next to the ship and thrust the great oak-beam rudder like a spear into the side of the Princess Tah smashing a fatal hole below the waterline. All Saxthor and the captain could do was watch as water rushed into the ship. “Is there nothing we can do?”

“We couldn’t reach her in time,” the captain said.

Within minutes, the great trireme plunged into a wave, bow first, and disappeared from sight.

“She’s gone… in an instant,” Saxthor said, his voice was hushed. “Just like that, she’s lost with all hands. Could there be survivors?”

“There wasn’t time to escape. The sea would have sucked them down. In any case, if we tried to turn back for survivors now we’d go to the same fate. Turning back in this sea would rip off our rudder too. We must make for the leeward side of that island and hope we make it before this storm sends us into the deep.”

“Look, there to the west,” Saxthor said.

The captain’s eyes seemed to swell, staring. A black, swirling funnel descended from the typhoon’s epicenter. The ship’s timbers groaned and creaked. The oarsmen strained to keep the ship’s course amid swirls and waves that slammed the palatial ship from every direction. The black funnel bore down on the two ships.

“Can we make the island’s protection? Saxthor asked.

“Ramming speed!” the captain yelled.

A great wave tore the helmsman from his grasp on the rudder’s handle. It knocked him unconscious against the railing. The ship lurched wildly. Oars flailed in the air. The jostling ship almost jettisoned the captain overboard. Saxthor jumped for the rudder’s handle and wrapped himself around it, straining with every muscle. Water poured over his face nearly blinding him. He was able to bring the ship back on course before returning steering oar to the befuddled helmsman.

The ships just made it behind a great outcrop of rock at the island’s tip before the screeching funnel cloud slammed into the landmass. It ripped ancient trees from their tenuous grasp on the rocky slopes. It sucked them up then hurled them down around the ships. A great floating tree, tossed about by the tempestuous sea, shot past the escorting ship shearing off the oars along its side. Uncontrollable, the ship shuddered then sloshed about in massive eddies. The funnel’s searching tip sucked it through the dark churning sea. The funnel dragged the disabled ship backward. Saxthor watched in horror as the stern rose up. The black waterspout picked up the ship like a floating match, pulled it up into the funnel, then released it. The trireme plunged and disappeared down into the boiling sea.

“Gone!” Saxthor said.

“Gone, indeed,” the captain mumbled.

The funnel would have caught Saxthor’s ship broadside if they had continued on their course, but the ship huddled, protected behind the cliff just stripped bare. Thrust up by a gigantic wave, another mangled, free-floating tree rushed just alongside Saxthor’s vessel. A torn, jagged branch stump ripped a gash in his forearm clutching the railing. The ship was undamaged as the tree passed, carried on by the malevolent wave that hurled it up onto the beach where it lay as the storm’s tombstone.

The imperial trireme waited out the raging tempest behind the island, then searched for survivors. They found none. With reluctance, Saxthor ordered they must resume the race to Soondaree. Delayed by the storm, they only reached the Velstorbokkin port after the imperial fleet. The emperor’s ships stood at anchor outside the great port when Saxthor’s trireme sailed up to join them. The sailors rowed Saxthor to the fleet’s flagship where he met with the imperial fleet admiral and Admiral Agros who were already in conference over the dire situation.

“What are you waiting for?” Saxthor asked the fleet admiral. “Why haven’t you disembarked the army? Time is of the essence if we’re to break the siege of Nenjiya and rescue King Nemenese.”

The fleet admiral stared at Saxthor, then lowered his head. Admiral Agros stepped forward, hesitant to speak.

* * *

The week before Saxthor rendezvoused with the imperial fleet, King Nemenese met with his chatra alone, following a meeting with his ministers.

“They have my son,” King Nemenese said to his chatra. Even speaking drained the old king and he slumped on his throne. “What future is there without the crown prince? We’ve no more will to resist.”

“King Nindax dares not harm the crown prince, Majesty.”

The king’s face shot to the chatra. “Am I to risk my son’s life on that supposition? Would you have me sacrifice his life to stop a war that’s already lost?”

“Majesty, Velstorbokkin has been attacked by Senoshesvas several times over the centuries. We have always survived. Your Majesty cannot surrender now. What would your ancestors in the royal tombs say?”

“They’d say nothing. It’s not their son that you’d have me sacrifice.”

The chatra stepped closer to the throne. “Majesty, there is no certainty the prince still lives, in any case.”

Nemenese’s stomach churned at the thought. He glared at the chatra, who backed down from the dais. “We’re surrounded, man. The city walls are crumbling. Our people’s homes of are collapsing under the shower of boulders raining down on the city as we speak. We’ve not even enough troops for a sortie to burn the siege towers. There’s no safe place to take shelter anywhere in the city. The army is days away. People here are dying with each pounding missile hurled into the city. Their screams pierce my windows day and night. There is a growing crowd outside the palace gates demanding we surrender. What is it that you think can turn this tide of destruction?”

“If we can hold out, perhaps the army can reach us in time and if the imperial army comes to our aid, we can force Nindax to withdraw.”

“If, if, if… none of these things is likely to happen, chatra. Each hour we delay, more people are killed. I failed my people. I fell into Nindax’s trap, no… I rushed into it with open arms. I was a fool. Now my kingdom is paying for my failure.”

“Majesty…”

“No more protests; no more discussions. Though with reluctance, the council has already agreed that I should surrender the city at once to save what lives we can. Nindax has agreed to allow me to remain on the throne, though only as a puppet. At least Velstorbokkin will survive and continue to function.”

“It may survive in name, Majesty, but you will no longer make the state decisions. King Nindax will draw us into his ambitious wars. We’ll suffer destruction.”

“Perhaps, but for now it will restore peace… stop the destruction. It will allow us time to recover and one day to regain our independence. I must do this for my people as well as for my heirs.”

“Majesty, I beg you not to surrender.”

“Enough… summon the ministers and inform them that we’re surrendering before sundown. We’ll not endure another night of the terror. That’s all.”

* * *

Helgamyr took over the care of little Engwan within weeks of his birth as the court hovered around Tottiana in her difficult recovery. The dowager coddled the baby, satisfied his every wish and indulged his worst tantrums. No matter what Tottiana said, Helgamyr responded with, ‘my poor baby.’ While Tottiana increasingly worried about Saxthor and Velstorbokkin, Helgamyr noticed nothing but little Engwan.

“Oh, you don’t know anything about raising a baby,” Helgamyr said to Tottiana, forcefully taking the crying baby. She wrapped him even tighter in layers of blankets and hustled him off to her own suite.