From Across the Clouded Range (58 page)

Holding his guts, he forced his eyes
from the bodies to the wondrous room that their deaths had spoiled.
The huge wall of perfectly clear glass that faced out over the
crystal-blue waters of the Endless Sea was spattered with blood.
The intricate mosaic of mystical tiles that covered the floor was
littered with broken bodies. The magnificent blue-green marble
columns carved into the forms of fanciful creatures stood somber
and joyless. Huge ancient tapestries and paintings that had hung
unfading in the room since the days of the first emperors were
torn, smashed, or stained beyond repair.

But most horrible of all was the scene
at the center of the room. Jaret’s eyes were mercilessly drawn to
the large dais that held the Emperor’s throne. On each step of that
dais, man’s ascension to understanding was depicted by tiles in
patterns that moved from chaos through each step until they finally
aligned into a steady pattern on the last step. And above that sat
the man whose presence elevated man from chaos to order. His throne
was a huge raised chair made from a single block of an unknown
black ivory. It had been polished until it shined even in sparse
light and then highlighted with mother of pearl, gems, and precious
metals. The throne started with four animals – a deer, a dolphin, a
falcon, and a man – that formed the legs. From the legs, the chair
flowed into a flawlessly ordered weaving of branches that
symbolized the interconnectedness of nature above which only the
Order reigned. Two lines of oak trees grew from the seat with their
collective canopies forming the arms of the chair. The back was a
solid wave rising over the head of the Emperor. On top of the wave
was the rising sun, the perfect symbol of order, depicted as a
gold-encrusted open circle through which the actual sun shone each
morning as it rose above the ocean in the background.

Jaret considered the throne to be the
most glorious thing ever made by human hands. The first time he had
seen it, he had been so stunned that he had barely been able to
speak. It had nearly cost him his head as the Emperor had become
impatient with his seemingly mute commander. Today, he could barely
bring his eyes to the chair without reflexively diverting them. For
there, surrounded by the bodies of his guards was the Emperor,
Kristor az’ Pmalatir. He knelt before his throne. His head was
bowed. Terror and disbelief defined his features. And above him
stood Jaret’s best friend, his most loyal commander, the man he
trusted above all others. Commander Traeger Hanar held his sword
above the Emperor. Arrayed around him, surrounding the dais, backs
to Jaret were at least fifty legionnaires – the only other living
men in the room.

“
. . . For crimes against
the Empire and all its peoples, we condemn thee.” Jaret finally
recovered enough to realize that Traeger was yelling. “For excesses
and wastes that could have gone to save our home, we condemn thee.
For willful disregard of the wellbeing of the Empire you were born
to rule, we condemn thee. And for betraying the Holy Order you were
anointed to serve and allowing us to fall to the storms of chaos,
we condemn thee and damn thee to the Maelstrom. May it tear apart
your soul the way you have torn apart this nation we love." The
sword crashed down. Jaret prayed that it was a trick of the eyes,
but beyond praying, he was powerless. He was frozen just inside the
door too far away to do anything but watch as the steel whistled
through the air to end the life of the last true Emperor of the San
Chier Empire.

Jaret closed his eyes, dropped to his
knees, and screamed with all the power he could muster the only
word that would come to mind, "No!"

The sound echoed through the hall.
When his lungs gave out, his eyes opened, and he saw the Emperor
sprawled across the top of the dais. His blood ran down the five
steps that led from order to where his head lay with terrible
surprised look in the realm of chaos. Legionnaires spun. Their
swords rattled as they brought them up. Every eye focused on
Jaret.

And they began to cheer.

They rushed over him, lifted his limp
body, and under Traeger’s direction, carried him to the throne. As
they carried him, nearly tossing him in the air in their fervor,
Traeger announced, "Commander Rammeriz, you alone have given us
hope in these troubled times,” he used his command voice, projected
it over the cheers of his men. His words were reverent to the point
of fanaticism. “You alone have maintained order through the storms
that have ravaged us. But even you could not heal our broken land
as long as it was ruled by chaos and corruption. Thus it is that,
we, your most loyal servants, have bloodied our hands, have
committed these terrible crimes. Not for you, Jaret Rammeriz. For
our families, our countrymen, and for the Holy Order. The Emperor
is dead. All hail the new Emperor, Jaret az’ Rammeriz."

There was a tremendous roar from the
men who held Jaret aloft. They threw him in the air and chanted,
"All hail Emperor Rammeriz! All hail Emperor Rammeriz! All hail
Emperor Rammeriz!" They carried him to the top of the dais and set
him down next to Traeger, who quickly descended the steps and
bowed. As one, fifty legionnaires fell to a knee, heads bowed. It
was the first time anyone had ever knelt to Jaret Rammeriz, the
vine boy who had grown far beyond his station.

Jaret was in shock. He was unable to
speak, unable to move. He had known in the back of his mind that
this would be the result of the day’s events, but he had never
wanted it to be true. Now, he could only look dumbfounded with
tears streaming down his cheeks and his knees shaking so hard that
he could barely stand above the crumpled body at his feet. He
diverted his eyes and concentrated on not being sick. He had seen
more death in his life than any man should, and he thought that he
was hardened to it, but at that moment, he felt like he had as a
boy after his first blood-soaked battle. He thought he was going to
lose his stomach on the tiled floor just as he had done on the
green grass of the field that day so long ago.

His men did not seem to notice. They
chanted his name and bowed before him like some pagan god. Kneeling
before him, their faces were illuminated by the last rays of the
sun as it reflected off the waves of the Endless Sea. To Jaret that
light seemed not to illuminate the faces as much as it highlighted
the shadows, and as he looked down on the men before him, he
thought that they more closely resembled a swarm of unholy demons
come to destroy the world than a legion of revolutionaries who had
acted to save an empire.

A crash at the back of the room jarred
Jaret from his revulsion and self-admonishment. He looked up and
saw the doors of the throne room swung wide and filled to bursting
with armored men, the imperial guards. At the front of what must be
every remaining guard stood a figure encased in the most
excessively ornate armor Jaret had ever seen. It was gold plated
with a great eagle embossed on the chest, talons carved into the
greaves, and feathers etched across the plates and over the massive
shoulder guards. Done as a great eagle’s head, the helm completed
the theme with onyx eyes and an ivory beak. The man in that
laughable armor, shifted his worthless golden sword to his off-hand
and pushed the face guard up to reveal a round face with pinched
nose, beady eyes, weak chin, and thick red lips. Jaret formed the
rest of Commander Nabim’s flabby body, delicate hands, and long
dark hair from memory.

Behind the dull-witted stooge were
nearly a hundred imperial guards. They wore their usual armor with
a bronze sunburst emblazoned on the breastplate and another sun
rising over the front of their faceless helms. They carried
rectangular shields with yet another bronze sun in one hand and
long spears with broad blades in the other. At their sides swung
short-bladed swords.

Thus armed, the imperial guards looked
like a formidable force, especially given the lightly armored men
they were preparing to face, but Jaret knew better. From what he
had seen, the imperial guards were exceedingly lax in their
training – being primarily the lazy bastards of the imperial
family’s many concubines – and were only useful for standing at
doors and mercilessly executing anyone who offended their masters.
He had never seen the guards face armed opponents that fought back
and did not expect them or their dim-witted leader to stand long
against the most-skilled, best-trained soldiers the Empire had to
offer.

At least Jaret hoped that would be the
case. He hoped that the guards would surrender as soon as they
realized that their superior numbers could not buy them victory. He
had little doubt which side would win this fight, he simply wanted
to limit the amount of additional blood that would be shed – the
Order was already trembling at the carnage this room had
seen.

Jaret looked through the men in the
doorway, found their eyes, and searched for fear and doubt. He did
not find any. He had spent years reading the eyes of men in battle
to determine where the next blow would land. Over that time, he had
learned to read a man’s thought just as he might a sword thrust.
Commander Rastabi had always said, "Seeing where a man's eyes point
will tell you where the next blow will land, but seeing what his
eyes say will tell you where all his blows will land." It was a
refrain that Jaret had never forgotten, but today he almost wished
that he could not read the eyes of his enemies. The eyes of the
imperial guards were filled with a fervent, lust-filled hatred the
likes of which he could not ever remember seeing, and every bit of
it was directed at him. The sight sent a shiver up his spine. There
had been many men who had hated him, but none had ever looked at
him the way these men did. Their eyes shot fury as if he had just
murdered their children before their eyes.

Jaret’s confidence dissipated. These
men were raised from childhood to fill their positions. The
importance of the man they protected was drilled into them daily.
To these men, the Emperor was the very heart of the order that
bound the world together and allowed the sun to rise each morning.
In their minds, Jaret had not killed their children, he had killed
their god. They would fight to the death and beyond to enact their
revenge, would fight with the passion of those who had no hope, had
no reason left to live.

"I knew that you would be
behind this, Warlord Rammeriz.” Commander Nabim broke the palpable
silence. Both sides eyed each other warily, but no one moved except
Nabim, who took a step forward. “You have always had your eye on
what could never be yours, but this time your ambition has gone too
far. To think that you, a commoner, a
peasant
, could displace the man that
the Holy Order itself has anointed is not only vanity, it is
blasphemy.”

Nabim pounded his sword on the tiles
at his feet and the guards behind him grumbled their collective
agreement. The legionnaires fanned out around the door, preparing
themselves to fight. “We, the protectors of this most holy empire
and the order it was meant to rule, will not stand for this
travesty. We will cast out you and your unholy minions and restore
a member of the royal line to the throne.” Commander Nabim puffed
himself up, denoting that he was that member. “You, Jaret Rammeriz,
will regret the day that your ambition outgrew your
place."

The small man raised his hand to
signal the men massed behind him. After a short, dead-silent pause
that allowed the tension to grow, he brought his hand down and
shouted, "For the glory of the Empire!"

Traeger echoed him. “For Emperor
Rammeriz,” he screamed as he led his men into battle.

The imperial guards charged toward the
ranks of legionnaires. Weighted down by their armor, they made it
look like a wave splitting around a rock in slow motion as they
flowed around Nabim. The charge was further slowed as the leading
members of the wave fell with arrows neatly tucked into the gaps
between their helmets and breastplates, but the legionnaires with
bows, a handful by Jaret’s count, only managed one volley before
the silver tide gained it stride and hit the wall of red and black
defined by the legionnaires.

The guards lowered their broad-bladed
spears as they closed on the legionnaires. The sight of those long
spears driving toward his lightly armored men made Jaret cringe
despite himself. Under normal circumstances, the legionnaires would
not have lasted past that charge, but his men knew how to adapt to
their opponents, and they executed that training perfectly. They
waited until the last conceivable moment, the moment when the
guards’ eyes grew wide for certainty that their spears would strike
home. Only when they saw that change did they dodge back and then
roll forward beneath the spears. The maneuvers brought them into
their opponents and ended with their dirks stabbing through gaps at
the bottoms of the guards’ breastplates.

The first wave of guards fell, almost
universally, to the same attack. The legionnaires swung their
swords up as they retrieved their dirks and drove them toward the
next guard in line. Many of those men fell just as quickly as they
struggled to drop their now worthless spears and draw their
swords.

By coming in close to their opponents,
the legionnaires had made the reach of the guards’ spears worthless
and eliminated one of their key advantages. That left the guards on
their heels as the legionnaires pressed their advantage with quick
swords and dirks that expertly exposed then exploited the gaps in
the guards’ armor.