Veiled Empire (2 page)

Mevon silently berated himself for the throw. He would have liked to bring both of them in alive in order to face public execution. His mierothi masters loved such displays, especially Emperor Rekaj. Mevon didn’t loiter, though, sparing barely a glance for the falling body, and not a moment’s regret. One still remained, and one rat on the Ropes was better than none.

He kicked Justice up into his hands and trotted over to the girl. As of yet, she had made no hostile moves. Perhaps she would come quietly. He stopped a dozen paces away, soothing the storm to a low rumble.

“By order of the emperor,” said Mevon, “you are under arrest for violation of Sanction.” He stepped forward and lowered his voice in pitch and volume. “Don’t be a fool. You know you don’t have a chance of fighting free.”

He stepped again. Her hands were paused halfway through some complex spell. Pointless, but she didn’t seem to know it. A fierce defiance showed on her face, and she stood straight and firm. He admired her for it but was amused all the same.

“Perhaps I am a fool.” The sorceress glanced at her dead compatriot. A single tear rolled down her cheek. “But you, Mevon Daere, aren’t as clever as you think.”

What? How does she know—?

She gestured forward. A wave of dark energy shot out and wrapped around Mevon, not quite touching him.

He smirked, waiting for realization to dawn on her.

Instead . . .

He sank to the ground. Lassitude stole into every muscle, and he crumpled, limp and slack-jawed. The storm vanished like a puff of mist before a gale. Hot bile coated his throat as his stomach emptied. In shame, he even lost hold on his bowels.

“How?” he tried to say, but failed. All that came out was a pathetic, guttural moan.

This can’t be possible . . . can’t be. . .

“The truth,” she said. “It’s not as simple as the mierothi have led you to believe.”

Ruul’s light, he wanted to kill her! More than anything, more than any desire he had ever felt, he ached to wrap his hands around her throat and watch the light fade from her eyes.

She held him there, he knew not how long. The moment stretched. Beats became marks. The fetid aroma of his own vomit nearly choked him. He felt like gagging but lacked the strength for it. He was entirely powerless, entirely at her mercy. His hatred for her deepened.

What are you waiting for?

To his surprise, no killing blow came. He couldn’t imagine why she would hesitate. As awful as he felt, he was sure he wasn’t dying, yet no answer was forthcoming. Rather—eventually—her breaths became labored, and her arms began shaking. A moment later, they dropped to her sides.

The spell receded from Mevon, and strength returned at once. He jumped up. Crossed the distance between them in half a beat. Lashed out a fist.

A single word she had spoken echoed in his mind.

“
Truth.
”

The blow was aimed to crush her face in. He diverted it at the last moment, glancing against her temple instead. She flew several paces and sprawled on the ground, unmoving.

The battle at large ended quickly. The discipline, coordination, and raw brutality of his Elite proved the victor over numbers. Decisively. His mind barely registered the last vestiges of resistance being cut down without mercy.

He stood, looking down at the girl.

And shook.

G
ILSHAMED
STOOD
ON
the fortlet’s battlements, studying the stones held in the cradle of his hands.

A breeze whipped his golden hair across his face, carrying the mingled scents of ash, sweat, and charred flesh. Men milled below him, excited banter drifting up from the victors. Those in chains sat numbly in silence. Casters—those with the strength left to stand—bustled about, administering healing to the wounded and dousing the last of the flames blazing through the barracks. Behind him lay a rolling landscape nestled between two soaring segments of the Godsreach Mountains. Gnarled trees like ancient hands poked up, bending over to grab with short, sharp leaves any who dared pass too close.

But it was the stones in his hands that consumed his attention.

One was warm, smooth, and glowed at its center. Solid and strong.
Life.
The other was cold and brittle and dark. Were he to clench his hand into a fist, it would crumble to flakes and be carried off on the wind.
Death.

The first filled him with elation. Jasside had made it; alive, and now in Mevon’s care. Well, not in his
care
as such, but at least in his
presence
. And, for Gilshamed’s purposes, that was enough.

The second filled him with sorrow. Or, rather, it should have. The hope held in the first, however, pushed out all thoughts of despair. What time did he have to mourn the dead? Death came to all, eventually. Most men could do far worse than to make their death meaningful, to die for a cause greater than oneself.

And what greater cause could there be than that of freedom?

Gilshamed snorted.
O, great pondering. The favorite pastime of we who linger on, staggering through so many human lifetimes as if they were naught but a candle’s flame—faint illumination, all too quickly snuffed out.

He sighed, dismissing his pointless cogitations. He had work to do.

Gilshamed placed the stones back into the pockets of his white robe and gazed at the yard below. A familiar figure strode towards him.

“Hey! Golden boy!” called the man. “Care to lend a hand? Or are they too busy there beneath your robes?”

Several of the shepherds barked laughter at this, darting glances back and forth between Gilshamed and the source of the jest. Though they carried naught but a quarterstaff, these men and women—some actual shepherds in truth—had conducted themselves superbly in their first engagement with Imperial forces.

Gilshamed waved. “Ho, Yandumar. I would not worry overmuch about my hands whilst yours are as filthy as a beggar’s.”

Yandumar sauntered towards Gilshamed’s perch, the corner of his lips reaching for his ears. Tangled grey locks swung down past the man’s blocky shoulders, and mischief shone in his emerald eyes. A bushy grey beard hung down to the center of his chest. He stood head and neck taller than most men, only two fingers short of Gilshamed’s own height, and carried an arsenal of weapons about his person that jangled with each sure step.

“Filthy? Ha!” Yandumar held up his hands for inspection. “This is what us mortals call ‘hard work.’ Ever heard of it, old man?”

“Indeed I have, yet it appears our respective definitions are somewhat disparate.”

Yandumar was treading a ramp that led up to the wall where Gilshamed was standing. “You call what you do hard? All that silly hand waving? Don’t know as I’d use that word to describe it. Maybe something like—”

“ ‘Impressive’?”

“ ‘Ostentatious.’ ”

“Is that so?” Gilshamed grinned. “Do you even know what that word means?”

“Eh? Well . . . no. Not really. But I’m sure it fits you perfectly.”

Yandumar stepped up next to him, and Gilshamed laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder. His other arm swept over the pentagonal courtyard, the scene of their first victory. “I think that with results like this, we have earned the right to some measure of pride. How many met their gods today?”

Yandumar’s visage became grave. “Of our men, only four gave their lives.”

“And of the garrison?”

“One. Poor fellow looked fine, so he was passed up for healing. Later, he just dropped dead. Must’ve been some kinda head wound.” He perked up with a crooked smile. “Then we have the daeloth.”

They both swiveled their heads. Six corpses had been dragged into a line, their forms charred and smoking. Daeloth: half-breed spawn of mierothi. They looked human at first glance, but their mahogany skin and the scales on their backs set them apart. Bred for combat, they utilized both sorcery and martial aptitude to command the empire’s armies and to ensure that no one ever forgot who the true rulers of this shrouded continent were.

Yandumar growled laughter. “Your tangle with them was . . . uh . . . Oh all right, I’ll say it. It was impressive. Mighty impressive. Shepherds are already saying you smote them bastards like the hand of Elos himself!”

Gilshamed looked back, remembering the bright yellow lightning forking out from his fingertips, striking down each daeloth in its red-and-black armor, yet leaving the men around them untouched. The power they commanded was feeble, and their skill was a flaccid thing. None had so much as singed him with their counterattacks.

“Of course,” continued Yandumar, “I don’t suspect they were too difficult an opponent for ya’, eh? You got in plenty of scraps with full mierothi back in your day, after all.”

Gilshamed looked down; his eyes lost focus on the world around him. “Yes.”

A key turned in his mind, unlocking a door that now flung wide open.
Elos guard me . . .
Into this room his inner eye dove, awakening ancient memories that had long lain dormant.

The War of Rising Night, as it was known to his people, the valynkar, burst forth into a collage of vivid images. Images of fire and blood and war. Images of victory!

But soon they seemed to melt like fresh paint under rain, becoming something else entirely. Ice and fear and darkness.

Defeat.

Gilshamed quivered as the depth of his failure crashed into him. As remembrance came of allies fallen, hopes crushed . . .

. . . loves lost . . .

Gilshamed retreated from the room in his mind and slammed the door.
No more, please. I cannot bear it right now.

“You alright, Gil?”

The words snapped him back to the present. Over several beats, his eyes regained clarity of his surroundings. The pain from his deeply buried memories faded away like mist before the rising sun, and a smile sprouted on his lips.

“Fine, Yan. I am fine now. I was merely reminiscing.”

“Right. I forget how your kind gets sometimes. Makes me glad I’ll never live for thousands of years.”

Gilshamed nodded, beginning between them a long moment of silence. Over the last six years, he had grown to cherish such times. Yandumar, he suspected, shared in this feeling. With consternation writ plain on his face, Yan finally said, “You about ready to finish this day’s business?”

Dread welled up inside Gilshamed as he took up the yoke of his next task. “Get everyone outside the walls but ensure the prisoners have an unobstructed view.”

“Aye.” Yandumar trotted down the ramp, heading towards their troops to begin administering the orders.

Gilshamed remembered the stones lying nearly forgotten in his robes. “Oh, and Yan,” he called. Yandumar paused and spun back. “I am happy to report success on our other endeavors. Jasside has initiated contact with Mevon.”

Yandumar appeared thoughtful for a moment but said nothing. He merely nodded before turning away once more.

In three marks, the yard was cleared. Yandumar corralled the former inhabitants of the fortlet just outside the open gates.

Gilshamed lifted his eyes to the center of the compound. He had averted his gaze from the structure there up to this point, and had noticed most others doing the same. Something about it just seemed . . . wrong.

And it was—which was why he had come here to do what must be done.

The towering needle stabbed the sky, impossibly thin. When looked at directly, it appeared a deep grey, seemingly of harmless stone and lacking in mark or adornment. When viewed in the peripheral . . . a swirling silver mien of chaos, like a black-and-white-tile mural. Only the tiles flickered between colors so fast, they blurred in a dizzying display. The mierothi had outdone themselves in the creation of the voltensus, these towers that monitored all sorcery in the empire. Their dark god Ruul must surely be pleased, for the five constructs served as his eyes and ears. And perhaps . . . something else?

Time to find out what.

He had prepared a speech, something inspiring, telling of the valynkar people and how they had been wrongfully banished nearly two millennia ago. How the mierothi, cowering from the world behind the Shroud all this time, had reigned in tyranny long enough. How his return must surely herald their inevitable downfall. How . . .

But the words fled from his mind as his eyes took in the voltensus. There was something foreboding about the tower, inimical even. As he examined it, he was overcome with the sensation that even as he gazed at it, the tower was studying him, too.

Is it possible this thing is alive? Even . . . aware?

He shook himself. No time to waste. He spared a glance for the assembled mass, all of whom were staring back at him. Yandumar stood foremost among them. His face projected an aura of confidence, of faith. Gilshamed drew strength from it.
My friend, I am unworthy of you.

Eying the stone roof of the nearest guard tower, Gilshamed arched his back, flexing muscles that only his people possessed.

From his spine sprouted wings.

They shone with a brilliant light, illuminating the stunned faces of all gathered below. Focused now, he launched himself skyward. His ethereal wings fluttered silently and lifted him up to land on top of the guard tower.

Here, at last, he found his voice but decided to save his grand speech for another day. He simply said, “Bear witness, you privileged few. And remember this day.”

Retracting his wings, he pivoted to face the voltensus. He swept away his fear and pushed his will into its place. Will, after all, was the true essence of sorcery. The incantations, the waving of hands, the rituals—nothing more than means of focusing one’s will.

He opened himself to the spirit of Elos, and energized.

Power flooded into him, sweet yet raging, begging for release. It seemed to emanate both from inside him and from everywhere else all at once. He pitied those who never had the privilege of tasting this pure manifestation of light.

The voltensus loomed before him. Gilshamed extended both hands towards it and pushed.

The needle groaned and quivered as his sorcery slammed into it. But it did not topple. Not even close.