Dark Empress (6 page)

Faraj would be weary but pleasant. He always finished late, as there was ever much to do in the port district. He…

She blinked as she heard the door open. Faraj was early?

“Nadia? Children?”

Their uncle’s voice held an ominous tone that made Asima sit up. She had been around the family often enough to know that ‘children’ meant the three of them, and that Faraj presumed she was there. Had he meant the brothers, he would have said ‘boys’. Ghassan and Samir began to move; clearly they also had recognised something in the man’s tone. The three children hurried down the stairs, Asima keeping to the rear, to find Faraj, having hung his sword and bag by the door, seated with crossed legs by the low table. Bowls and plates had been laid out in preparation, but the food was far from ready by this time. The boys’ mother had appeared from the kitchen and padded quietly over to sit at the table, gesturing the children to join them.

“What is it, Faraj?”

Their mother raised the question. It would have been impolite for one of the children to do so. Their uncle’s brow was low and troubled, and his eyes were dark. He reached for the date wine in the centre of the table and poured himself a long draught, from which he took a pull before speaking.

“I am not sure where to begin…”

“Faraj?”

“Many rumours are flying around M’Dahz, and you will hear all of them within the next day, but I have the grains of truth at the centre of the rumours. I have confirmed this from several solid sources and the news is not good.”

There was a silence around the table as everyone waited impatiently.

“And you will like my decision even less than my news.”

Samir and Ghassan shuffled in their seat. Something leaden had settled in the pit of their stomachs. They waited what seemed an eternity for their uncle to take another swig and then continue.

“The Empire we serve and that shelters us has broken. Word arrived today at the port directly from the capital: the Emperor is dead. General Caerdin has revolted and burned the palace to the ground, General Avitus has named him traitor and declared martial law in the capitol; the army is in chaos.”

The family and their visitor stared in astonishment at Faraj as they listened to his tidings.

“Of course” he went on “this was all days ago; probably more than a week. It takes that long to sail from Velutio to M’Dahz. And for those of us on the Empire’s periphery things become bleaker still.”

He took another swig.

“The Imperial navy has been recalled to the capitol. Without them, ships are prey to both pirates and Pelasian raiders, and so, on the dawn tide when the last Imperial warship in M’Dahz sails north, all the Imperial merchants sail with her. They will not risk staying this close to the border without protection. The garrison of M’Dahz had been recalled to Calphoris by the Southern Marshal. The town is now defenceless and there is no protection for merchants by land or by sea. You know what that means…”

All of them nodded sombrely. With no protection and so close to both Pelasian lands and pirate waters, merchants would stop using M’Dahz as their marketplace. The desert caravans would dry up and the port would languish emptily. All trade would stop and the town would die. Samir shrugged uncomfortably.

“There are two possibilities then? A good and a bad?”

Faraj nodded.

“In the best future, the crisis in the capital will be resolved. A new Emperor will be crowned, the navy will be redeployed and everything will return to normal. That is possible, but it relies on many things beyond our reach and our control.”

He took a deep breath.

“Alternatively, Pelasia will take advantage of the situation and annexe as much land as possible. M’Dahz will then be the first to go, but at least it will survive as a Pelasian town, rather than vanishing under the sands.”

Again silence reigned and his audience dropped their eyes to the floor. Ghassan looked up worriedly at his uncle, his lip quivering slightly as he spoke.

“And what is your decision, uncle?”

Faraj shook his head sadly.

“The wealthy will flee M’Dahz, probably to Calphoris. Many of the poor will go too, but where they have homes and jobs here, they will become beggars there. We cannot flee, or we will lose the little we have. And so we must fight to preserve what we can. As soon as the sun rises, I go to the port to join the militia.”

Their mother shook her head.

“The militia are like thugs! They are barely paid and poorly trained and mannered. They are little more than a dog running alongside the Imperial garrison!”

Faraj shook his own head in return and slapped the flat of his palm on the table.

“No more. From the morning, the militia are the only army and navy M’Dahz has! All of those bodyguards, ex-limitani and pensioned soldiers in the town are joining tomorrow. We have to change the militia. We have to make it a force capable of holding off both Pelasia and the pirates until the Empire can heal its wounds and breathe life back into the port and markets of the town. There is nothing else. It is decided. Tomorrow I leave with the militia. We will be active by both land and sea and likely always busy, but I shall return as often as the Gods grant me the opportunity to see my family.”

The boys were both crying now and, despite her familial distance and the likelihood that her father could easily shift his business interests to Calphoris, Asima found that she was weeping openly for what would happen to Faraj and the brothers.

Their uncle straightened.

“I must do this. Though I will be torn from this household, I must go in order to protect it, so that there is still a house to return to when everything recovers.”

Brushing back the tears, Ghassan was the first to straighten and nod, bravely.

“We are too young to join you, uncle. I realise that. But you have trained us well and we will continue to learn and practice in your absence. And if the trouble persists until we are a little older and the militia will accept us, then we will come to stand by you.”

Faraj glanced at their mother’s horrified face and her open mouth and quickly cut her off before she could speak.

“This will be over long before then, so make no unnecessary promises. I am pleased that you are both strong, quick, and bright, and can take care of yourselves and your mother, and even young Asima here if she requires it. Survive and stay out of danger so that we can be together again when the next Emperor sends his forces to save us.”

Samir nodded.

“We will, uncle.”

Silence fell over the room once again and was finally broken when their mother addressed the children in a small and cracked voice.

“Will you go to your room and leave me with Faraj for a time? I will call you when I have prepared the dinner.”

Nodding unhappily, Asima and the two boys untangled themselves and plodded slowly up the stairs to their room. Once inside, they could hear the inevitable explosion of tears and wailing from below before the door shut. Samir turned and looked at the others.

“You know what this means?”

Asima nodded.

“My father will move out in a matter of days and we will head to Calphoris. If we ever see each other again, it will be when this is all over and my father returns, if he even does that. I fear that we only ever stayed in M’Dahz because the place reminds him of my mother.”

She dropped to her knees on one of the blankets.

“I can’t leave M’Dahz. I don’t want to live anywhere else. I don’t want to move, and I don’t want to leave you.”

She wasn’t entirely sure at whom that last was aimed, but the brothers both nodded sagely. Samir was the first to break the silence that followed, as he sat next to her and took her hand.

“Whatever happens is uncertain. Only the Gods know what lays ahead, not us. But the three of us are bound by bonds stronger than any empire, and I tell you now that we will be together for many years to come.”

Suddenly Ghassan was sat at the far side, holding her other hand.

“Samir is right. We have braved injury and even death many times together, and we are here now, stronger than ever. If you go to Calphoris, then we will just have to come and find you when the time is right.”

Asima snuffled gently. She had begun to cry and was trying desperately to hold back the tears. And despite everything that had just happened, a world shattered into chaos, a future cast to the winds and a loved one to be ripped away from them, something deep inside her, that she was not sure she liked, felt a solid satisfaction that both boys were clinging to her as though their life depended on her.

In which the field is levelled

The past two days had been chaos in M’Dahz. The military garrison had pulled out with no ceremony, merely collecting everything of value from their barracks in the palace compound, hauling it onto their backs, and setting off along the dusty road east to Calphoris. That was the day after the news broke like a wildfire across the town. That same day, the Imperial navy abandoned anything that did not belong on board their ships, hauled anchor and sailed north, accompanied by every merchant who had managed to liquidise his assets in time.

The town was already beginning to collapse. The militia had been called to the palace, where the local governor was on the verge of panic. The man had been sent by the Imperial government many years ago and, though subordinate to the Provincial governor at Calphoris, had sole control and responsibility for M’Dahz, its port, military, all local settlements, trading stations and border patrol units. When he had arrived as an eager young politician, it had been a dream appointment for a pasty northern youth. Now, as a middle-aged and slightly portly gentleman, the position had suddenly become a disaster with vast responsibility for the lives of many innocents and no power or hope.

The governor had given the militia their orders with a note of sadness. He had spent hours during the night trying to allocate the meagre resources he was left with to control the trade routes, the town and the Pelasian border and had been left with an inescapable truth: he barely had enough men to control M’Dahz itself. The militia were to abandon the border, the desert roads and any outlying settlements. Split into two groups, one unit would begin to restore the city defences, tearing down houses to clear the walls of obstructions and building makeshift barricades where the lines of defence had long gone. The other unit would commandeer the six vessels that belonged to absent foreign merchants and that remained in port and form a navy to protect those few who still had mercantile interests here. M’Dahz lived on trade and, if they could secure safe sea routes to the port, they could perhaps entice some of the other traders to return. Then, and only then, could they turn to protecting and building the desert trade links once more.

It was an ambitious plan, and almost certainly doomed to failure.

Faraj had been assigned to the navy and had embarked on a ship named the Pride of Serfium, heading out to his new career with a sad wave at the children standing at the port with their mother, jostled by the crowds of desperate folk seeking a safe way out of M’Dahz.

Already the markets were empty and many doors and windows hung open, the buildings abandoned as the inhabitants fled the perilous border region for the relative safety of the provincial capital of Calphoris. In just two days the life had left M’Dahz.

Asima hammered on the door of her father’s study. There had been a great deal of crashing and thumping half an hour ago and then the house had slid into an ominous silence.

“Father?”

It had taken some time for Asima to pluck up the courage to knock. Her father was a serious man, disapproving of his child when she spoke out of place, but now she was worried.

“Father, are you alright?”

Her heart beating fast, the young girl leaned close to the door and placed her ear by the lock. The key was in the door at the other side. She could perhaps push the key out, but there was no gap at the bottom of the door, so that would hardly achieve anything.

She could hear no noise from within; just the background sounds of the town coming in through the room’s only window, sounds of despair and desperation. But gradually, as she listened, she could pick out other sounds; faint sounds from within.

“Father?”

Snuffles and wheezes. Her father was crying; crying and scribbling desperately on paper at his table.

“Father, please let me in. I’m frightened.”

There was a long pause; true silence now. And finally the sound of a chair scraping back. Quiet, slow footsteps and then the turning of the key. Asima stood back expectantly, but the footsteps retreated once more and there was a further scraping of chair legs on the flagged floor. The girl stood for a moment at the top of the stairs, uncertain of what to do, and then finally took a deep breath, chewed on the inside of her cheek and reached out for the door, turning the handle slowly and swinging the door open as quietly as she could.

The scene within was a chaos that echoed the state of the town outside the window. Had they not been on the third floor in a locked room, Asima would have assumed that a brawl had broken out in her father’s study. He sat at the table opposite, with his back to her, shaking slightly and occupying the only surviving chair; the other two were among the splintered and fragmented furniture scattered across the floor amid the general mess. Her father had clearly spent some time destroying his study.

“Father?”

Gingerly, she approached, stepping carefully between the debris. A bulky man, her father sat hunched over something on the table. He made no effort to acknowledge her presence and once more Asima’s heart skipped a beat. Slowly, but with a determined gait, she stepped to one side and, reaching the end of the table, stood quietly.

The man looked up sharply and Asima’s heart threatened to break. Her father had never been a man given to open displays of emotion, and even less so since her mother had died, but the last time she had seen grief like this assail the quiet man was on that day when her mother had been bound in linen, placed in a casket and buried, feet-downwards in the Pelasian manner in the cemetery of M’Dahz.