The Broken (The Lost Words: Volume 2) (85 page)

The priest seemed confused. “I lost you there, Your Highness.”

Sergei turned to face the fat man, the carnage forgotten for a moment. “I intend to make Parus as rich and prosperous and safe as it’s ever been. I intend to make a lasting peace with our neighbors. We must become involved in the intricacies of modern politics of our neighbors. We can no longer stand aside and watch passively as they steer the future of the realms. And we sure cannot be perceived as dangerous fanatics anymore. Religion must change.”

Evgeny swallowed. “Your mother and your sister, gods bless their souls, have already made huge, radical changes in the fabric of our society. We have female soldiers now, which was unheard of. Our troops indulge in pleasures and sin that must not be. This situa—”

Sergei raised a hand. “When a man realizes that the thing he holds most precious, most valuable in his life may just vanish unexpectedly, he asks himself what he may have done for the gods to punish him so. But then, he realizes that every mother weeping the death of her starved child couldn’t care any less what the gods want. Fathers keep silent, but their hearts are broken, too.

“I have marched to this war to fight godless people, and yet, all I feel is sorrow and resentment. There’s no joy in this war. Even revenge feels dull and unimportant now. My father did the same thing, and he paid with his life. Now, my own son may die. That’s not godly justice. That’s just malice.”

“Your Highness, I do not understand.”

Sergei cupped some old snow, let it melt in his palm. “This road of godly wars is leading nowhere. We must adapt. We must change. I intend to rebuild the Safe Territories, as a tribute to our gods. It will be done. But this new duchy”—he waved toward Roalas—“it will not be like home. It will not be like Dusaban or Sigurd.”

Evgeny was red in his face, from anger or perhaps the cold, it was hard to tell. “Your Highness, you must strengthen the faith!”

The king nodded. “This is exactly what I plan to do. And the answer lies elsewhere. Not here. I will strengthen the faith, I promise that. But I will also make sure our sons do not die in vain. Once our troops settle at the borders of Eracia and Caytor, I intend to prove to them that our realm is benevolent and tolerant, and that the future stability and prosperity lies in our presence between them. Just like Adam did.”

“You cannot follow the steps of that godless man!”

Sergei wiped his palms on his trousers. “You were right, Your Holiness. Don’t deny it. I clearly remember our conversation after that surprise attack. You were absolutely right. The gods may have loved Adam. He was defending the faith, in his own cruel way. And I intend to do the same. We will make the Safe Territories as prosperous as they ever were. And we will offer peace to our neighbors. Do not mistake my good intentions for weakness. The High Council of Trade and Monarch Leopold will still have to figure out an honorable way to free their hostages. They will have to negotiate very favorable trade agreements. They will find me as strict and just as Emperor Adam was.”

The priest was silent. Genrik stood, poised to write.

“I will make sure that faith is not handed the short end of the stick in this bargain. Your role in making sure the nation is pleased and satisfied with our terms will be crucial. Together, we will make sure the new ruler to hold this scrap of land does not vanish after two decades. Have you noticed? The Feorans tried to change things and failed. Adam tried to change things, and now his daughter is fighting a war for survival. I will not make the same mistakes. The realms need balance. I will get rid of the Oth Danesh and repay the council for all the damages. I will make sure that pretender James becomes irrelevant and vanishes from the political map. And all this, thanks to you, Your Holiness. Your little riddle about whom the gods favored solved it for me.”

Sergei resumed watching the fighting. He knew his son could be dead by now. But if he allowed his thoughts to linger on that possibility, he would be lost. Letters from back home had slowed down due to the weather, but everyone was fine, even the little baby. His family prospered, except Vlad. There was evil in this war. Maybe it was his need for revenge. Maybe it was the bitter, tragic necessity of a military conquest. He wasn’t sure. The only way he could endure this was to let hope become his focus, a hope that his sons and grandsons would never have to lead their nation to war.

It was a fickle thought for a man watching his best troops die at the footsteps of a meaningless city weeks of ride from their homes. He may not have realized that when he’d set out on this journey, but he understood everything now.

Amalia did not belong here. The realms had always been divided between Parus, Eracia, and Caytor, the three great nations. He would restore life to what it should be. Only this time, he would offer a warm, welcoming hand to his neighbors. Too long had Parus wallowed in its own self-righteousness and isolation. His mother had nourished the first buds of the revolution.

And now, it was his turn.

It was all clear to him now. Reading the history on Pyotr the Conqueror, one would think the man lived to drink the blood of his enemies. But what he did was fight for peace. He made his brutal sacrifices so that Parusite children would have bread for dinner and women would never fear invaders on horseback riding into their villages. He had led his armies with the knowledge that his hardship would earn a better life for his people.

Sergei did not want to admit it, but he knew Vlad was his own sacrifice. It was a terrible truth to swallow.

The battle went on. The day slipped toward dusk. The gates still stood closed. Burning corpses of olifaunts littered the ground. Around them, hundreds of human bodies lay half covered in slush, committed to obscurity. Almost like pebbles tossed against a rocky shore, soldiers were launching fresh assaults against Roalas. The curtain walls were scarred with rock hits and smears of oil, but they held for now.

The evening settled in, and the attack still continued. A fresh wave of troops was coming in. His siege engines were singing their deaths without pausing, hurling large, flaming bales and big rocks into the city. The Inferno had changed. There were new lanes carved into it, allowing his forces to press on with their attack. The Red Caps had also joined the battle now, diluting the defense even further. But going against city walls in the freezing cold was a deadly task.

Reports streamed in on an hourly basis, telling him of gains and losses. Some troops had managed to clamber onto the battlements, but they had been easily overpowered. His sappers had partially collapsed a section of the west wall, but they had been reduced to a third of their strength. The Borei seemed to have suffered most, but true to his promises and to gold, Captain Speinbate was doing what he knew best.

He could no longer see, only hear, the destruction. He ate his dinner standing, freezing, imagining what was happening. And then, almost at midnight, the attackers sounded a retreat. The mercenaries had managed to dislodge one of the gates by throwing large grapnel-like hooks and then having the olifaunts pull on the chains. But when he was left with just a handful of his precious animals, Speinbate retreated. And with him, the wave of human attackers curled back, chased by cheers from the victorious defenders.

Archduke Bogomir slowly half climbed, half tottered to the top of the tower, looking exhausted. “The attack has failed,” he told the king, almost stupidly. His face was flushed, covered in soot and blood. The man had been busy leading, and redeeming himself in his king’s eyes.

No, it has not
, Sergei wanted to say, but he did not trust the man anymore. He had hoped for a victory today, but he had never really expected the attack to succeed, not so easily. He just could not bring his power to bear in this manner. But he had learned about the city defenses and seen what Commander Gerald would do. And he had bought himself precious time until he could try something else.

Just weeks ago, this kind of failure would have made him fret sleeplessly. But his doubts were gone now.

He slept soundly that night, oblivious to the screams and whimpers of the wounded.

CHAPTER 54

G
erald walked into Amalia’s office, tired to the death. The empress and her mother were there, waiting.

“Commander,” Lady Lisa said.

“Your Highness, my lady,” Gerald rasped. His throat was raw from shouting.

Amalia stood and approached Gerald. She wanted to hug him, but stopped herself. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he groaned, plopping unceremoniously into a chair. He left crumbs of muddy snow on the carpet behind him. “The attack is now over. The Parusites have been defeated.”
For now
.

Forgetting herself, Amalia poured wine into a cup and handed it to him.

“No, I can’t drink that. I need something hot and sweet.”

Agatha, an often invisible background to the imperial setting, rushed to prepare nourishment for the commander. Jerrica was there, too, but her need to defend the empress against Parusite invaders was not going to be put to test today, it seemed.

After a while, Gerald relaxed, started breathing slowly, evenly. He felt warmth suffuse him, and with it, the desperate need to close his eyes and sink into a sleepless rest. But it would be dawn soon, and another day of survival.

“It was a close call,” he said when he finally recollected his thoughts and let the bloody images of the last day fade into a repressed nightmare. “We barely managed to halt the attack.” He sipped honeyed tea, let it caress his throat and chest. “The enemy king is smart. He spread his forces all around us rather than concentrating them into a single point. You’d think he was making his front weaker, but what he did was disperse our own defenses. It took our men some time to figure out how to aim the Fuckers, forgive me. They also moved the artillery within range while we were busy fighting those beasts.”

Amalia had sat out the attack in the cozy shelter of her office, imagining the horrors unraveling outside. She had relented when Gerald had asked her to stay inside, especially when he told her the city walls might be breached. She had never considered leaving Roalas, fleeing, abandoning her citizens, but now that the notion of that happening was real, cowardice had lost its bitter taste. She had vowed she would survive so that her nation had hope in its own future.

Luckily, that vow had died today. And now, fear and a morose feeling of futility were being replaced with the usual anger and resentment. Amalia hated being hopeless. She hated being a woman who must cuddle in her chamber while her soldiers fought and died in the wind and cold. She hated the fact that the man she might actually love could be among the first to die.

Gerald had sure not hesitated to rush to the battlements. There were many able-bodied officers in the city, all capable of herding their troops and companies. But like her father had taught her, if you led, you led. The burden offered no favors, respected no one.

Besides, Gerald was no longer just the Commander of the City Watch. He led all of Athesia’s armies, what little was left of them. He was her general.

“Then, King Sergei sent his demolition crews to try to bring down the west wall,” the commander went on. “He very nearly succeeded. Part of the inner rampart collapsed. Luckily there was ice to keep the whole thing standing. Come the spring and rains, the wall might buckle. We will have to shore it up.”

He put the empty cup on the floor near him. “We lost maybe a hundred men, no more. But we fired every arrow we had, and we could hardly stop them. They lost thousands, but they kept coming, more and more, from every direction. If the Parusites launch another attack like that, we might be forced to take the fight to the streets.”

“The city will not fall,” Amalia said stubbornly. “Everyone out. You too, Jerrica.”

Reluctantly, her small audience left. Lady Lisa lingered last. “Good work, Commander,” she said.

The door clicked shut.

They were alone.

Gerald looked at Amalia with sleepy eyes. “We are isolated. Our stores are running out. We cannot hold much longer. You need peace, Amalia. You must relent.” It flooded out if him, unchecked.

“You must stop them,” she said, almost trying to convince herself that was possible.

Gerald tried to grimace. “They have twice as many engines as we do. True, our units fire much longer shots, but it makes no difference. We can use the catapults to keep them at bay and pulverize pinpoint targets, but we cannot stop a living carpet of attackers. We’re lucky that rubble slowed them down. If the path to the gates was fully unobstructed, they might have pulled them down in no time. They almost did, anyway.”

“I will not surrender to the Parusite king,” Amalia growled.

Gerald stared at the oil painting on the wall, trying to focus his thoughts. “We cannot defeat the Parusites. But we can stall them long enough until you broker the alliances with the Eracians and Caytoreans. Once that happens, King Sergei will be forced to lift the siege and negotiate. You must do it, Amalia. You must.”

Letters. Damn letters. Informants risked their lives to deliver secrets in and out of the city. Both Luke and he worked like madmen, scribbling promises and threats that would turn the tide of this war. He knew of Amalia’s proposal to Monarch Leopold. But like so many others, he had not bothered responding yet. Or maybe he had, but his rider had fallen off the horse and broken his neck. Or he was waylaid by bandits or the Parusites. Or maybe he had gotten sick in the rain or ice and died of fever. Well, he was glad for that. He didn’t want to know what the monarch may have written.