Ruler, Rival, Exile

by Morgan Rice

  Akila was staring at the man with barely disguised mistrust.

  “I do not like this,” he said to Thanos. “This man has killed many of my men.”

  “And you have cost me many of mine,” Haven said, in a sharp tone. He looked over to Thanos. “You both have. You meant for me to die, didn’t you?”

  “I meant for you to fail,” Thanos said. “Because you were sent to slaughter people. The way the people of Delos have been slaughtered. The Empire is gone, Haven.”

  That part seemed to stop General Haven in his response. Thanos saw him swallow.

  “You’re right,” the older man said. “The Empire is gone, and that means that we cannot take orders from you. We have become men without a home, without a king.”

  That didn’t sound promising. Thanos had hoped that General Haven’s sense of loyalty would let him order the former troops into fighting for them. Now it seemed that he’d overestimated how easily the soldiers could be commanded.

  “I’m not asking you to take orders from me,” Thanos said.

  “Then what?” Haven shot back. “You want me to take them from the man who has been hunting my men since we got here?”

  Thanos had known that this moment would be hard. He’d betrayed more than the Empire when he’d sent Haven here. He’d betrayed a man who’d wanted nothing more than to prove his worth, and all the men who’d gone with him. That those men had been sent to kill the islanders didn’t make it better.

  “I’m asking you to stand with us,” Thanos said. “An enemy is coming who will kill us all if we do not fight them. As soldiers, you know what that means. You have a duty—”

  “You had a duty!” General Haven snapped back. “You could have been the prince we all wanted, but you gave it all away, and for what?”

  “For what was right,” Thanos replied. “For a land where people aren’t slaughtered for trying to stand up to the people who steal from them. For a chance for things to be better, Haven. You must have believed in something once. Was it really what the Empire turned into?”

  General Haven stood there, his hands balled into fists. Thanos wasn’t sure if the man would try to hit him then, or make a move for the sword he carried. Instead, he bowed his head.

  “The Empire is gone, but we will fight the ones who destroyed it. When Felldust comes, we will be ready. We will fight alongside the warriors of Haylon. We will beat the invaders back, and when the time comes, we will help to take back our homes.”

  He said it as woodenly as any soldier receiving orders he didn’t like.

  “I want to make it clear,” he continued. “I am not doing this for you. You are not my king, and you never will be now.”

  It was everything that Thanos could have hoped for, and at the same time it still felt as though he had lost something. Still, Akila and Iakos seemed pleased.

  “I did not think they would agree to work with us,” Akila said, limping along beside Thanos as they left the small square. “I thought they would leave, or insist on fighting us to the last man.”

  “Men will fight for their home,” Thanos said.

  Akila smiled slightly. “But you hoped that they would fight for you as their king? It doesn’t work like that, Thanos.”

  Thanos knew that. He didn’t have any ambition to be a king. It was just that it felt like the last strands of home being severed.

  “The main thing is that they’ll fight alongside us,” Iakos said. He led the way into one of the houses near the square, up onto its roof, where it was possible to see out over the city. Thanos helped Akila up the stairs, but for the most part the rebel leader gritted his teeth and forced his way on.

  From the roof, it was possible to see some of the ships coming into the harbor. People were starting to arrive, from a dozen different sources. Some of those coming were refugees, but there were plenty more who were there because they knew that this was the best place to fight the battle against Felldust.

  “We’ll need to talk to people as they land,” Iakos said, “and work out who they are, what they can do. We need to watch out for Felldust’s ships trying to slip in with the others too.”

  “Let them,” Akila said. “If they come in, we can kill them and take their ships to add to the fleet. We need all we can get.”

  He was probably joking, but he had a point. The island’s small fleet was starting to swell with the ships that were arriving, but it was still nowhere near the size of the one that had invaded Delos.

  “We have contingents from the north,” Iakos said, “from the other islands, from Delos. There are even people coming in from some of the more remote lands around Felldust, because they have grievances against the First Stone and see this as a chance to fight him.”

  “Now we just need to work out what to do with them all,” Thanos said.

  He saw Akila nod to Iakos, and his deputy brought out a series of rolled up maps. He laid them out on the roof, and Thanos saw that they were maps of Haylon. Some were street maps of the city, some showed the topography of the surrounding hills, and some seemed to show tunnels running beneath the surface of the island.

  “This island is a fortress,” Thanos said.

  He saw Akila nod. “Literally. The harbor walls are practically impenetrable once closed. The Empire only got through because we couldn’t close them. The city is well protected and better supplied. Even if someone takes the city, the tunnels and the mountains give us somewhere to fall back to in order to continue the fight. Haylon was designed for a war bigger than any of us. It has never fallen, except through betrayal.”

  It was an impressive record, and Thanos felt a little safer hearing it, even though he’d seen the size of the fleet that was coming for them.

  “So, we need to close the gates,” Thanos said. “And we’ll need some people willing to defend them, along with routes to keep them supplied.”

  Akila nodded, pointing with his stolen sword at the map. “I was thinking of putting men here and here. General Haven’s soldiers can probably help with it. The Empire is good at formation fighting.”

  Thanos wasn’t sure if the general would agree to it, but it was certainly where the troops could be used most effectively. As for the rest of it, there was still so much to do.

  “We should evacuate the city,” Thanos said. “If there’s room for people in the hills, let any who can’t fight wait there. Felldust can fight us for an empty shell.”

  “An empty shell full of traps,” Akila corrected him. “We’ll make them afraid to set foot here.”

  It looked as though he was going to go into more detail, but footsteps sounded on the stairs. Thanos spun, his hand going to the hilt of his sword, while even Akila half drew the blade he was leaning on.

  Thanos breathed a sigh of relief as a messenger came running up onto the flat roof.

  “What is it, Sul?” Iakos said.

  “A bird,” the messenger replied. “From the Farers’ Islands. They say that they’ve sighted the enemy fleet, and they need help evacuating.”

  Thanos heard Akila make a sound of disappointment.

  “They should have evacuated days ago,” he said. “Didn’t they believe our messages?”

  “People don’t want to abandon their homes,” Thanos said. “They want to believe that the worst will pass them by. We have to help them, though, if we can.”

  To his surprise, both Akila and Iakos were already shaking their heads.

  “It’s a lost cause,” Iakos said. “There’s no time, and we don’t have enough ships.”

  “They live on an island,” Thanos said. “They’ll have at least some boats, and—”

  “And we can’t spare the men,” Akila said.

  Thanos hadn’t expected that. He’d thought that the rebel leader would be all in favor of saving everyone he could.

  “I’m sorry, Thanos,” Akila said. “But with how close the enemy fleet is, there’s no way to go there and back in time, and this is the place where we can win.”

  Thanos co
uld understand that. Even so, he couldn’t abandon the people there.

  “I’ll go,” he said. “I’ll take a small boat and help them.”

  Even with that, Akila didn’t look happy.

  “I can’t stop you if you want to,” he said. He shook his head. “But Thanos, the enemy fleet is too close. We’ll have to seal the harbor gates soon, and we’ve already made the beaches all but impassable. You wouldn’t be able to get back!”

  Thanos knew the risks. Even so, he couldn’t just leave people to die.

  He had to try.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Ulren stood in the council room of the Five Stones, and a faint ache of dissatisfaction gnawed at him. He’d thought that he would be perfectly content as soon as he became the First Stone. The truth, it turned out, was different.

  “Did you ever feel like this, Irrien?” he asked the empty air, but quickly composed himself. A First Stone didn’t show weakness or doubt. He stood waiting for the others to arrive instead, standing impassively until Vexa and Kas came in their dark robes of office.

  Ulren watched to see which chairs they would take. As he’d guessed, as they had since he’d taken the First Stone’s seat, they took the third and fourth chairs. It still felt like a slap in the face. They didn’t dare move up, because they felt that Irrien might return, and they didn’t want to seem as though they were part of the plot against him.

  Worse, they were strong enough that Ulren could hardly force them to take their new places. He could, however, take other steps.

  “Vexa, Kas, I am glad you are here,” Ulren said. He gestured to the two empty seats. “As you know, we have needed two further members of the council. May I introduce Callaith of the nobles and Harmon of the slavers?”

  Two figures stepped forward in the cloaks of the Five Stones. Callaith was young for one of the Five Stones, a noblewoman the great houses had supposedly come together to elect, of all things. She looked like nothing much, but with their power behind her, she might be dangerous. She took Kas’s and Vexa’s hands, then lowered herself primly into the fifth seat.

  “Welcome,” Vexa said. “A new fifth stone is always a welcome chance to spread the load. I was interested to hear about your… experiences in the villas of the dust.”

  Ulren didn’t know what the older woman meant. It was probably a reference to something her spies had unearthed. A way of putting the new Fifth Stone in her place.

  “Oh, ignore Vexa,” Kas said. “She likes to prove how clever she is. If she relied on wealth like a normal person, there would be no such need. I have more wealth than you and your backers, and so there is no conflict, simple.”

  He smiled as he said it, but it was as much a put-down as Vexa’s move had been.

  Ulren decided to intervene. “In any case, Callaith is whom the nobles have put forward, and they have the power to do it. A Fifth Stone has been wanted ever since Borion’s… foolishness.”

  “I do not intend to repeat it,” Callaith assured him.

  It was Harmon’s turn next. He was a large, barrel-chested man, who looked around the room as if he owned it. He was one of the strongest warriors not to have left for the invasion, or that was what he claimed. Ulren could believe it, and already, he was considering ways to ensure that the big man didn’t get ideas of becoming First Stone. It was said that he captured half the slaves he sold himself.

  It seemed that Ulren needn’t have worried, though. Harmon lowered himself into the Second Stone’s chair, and as soon as he did it, both Vexa and Kas rose with the speed of snakes. Ulren had never seen the two do anything but argue with one another, but now they acted as one.

  Ulren saw Harmon spin to catch Kas’s wrist, but that just meant that Vexa took him from behind, her curved dagger slicing across his throat. Blood sprayed, the dark stone of the five-sided table absorbing it as the warrior fell.

  Ulren stood there, feeling the anger rise in him. “What is this?”

  Kas shrugged. “He tried to set himself over us. The seat may be empty, but if he claims to be Second Stone, he is claiming to be stronger. He was not.”

  “So you want to leave that seat empty?” Ulren demanded.

  Vexa spread her hands, her knife disappearing like some juggler’s trick into her sleeve. “There is precedent, when a seat is disputed.”

  Ulren pinned her in place with his stare. “There is no dispute. I am First Stone. Irrien is gone. It is settled.”

  “Hmm…” Vexa said. Kas stroked his forked beard. Neither of them would dare to go against Ulren individually, but together they were strong enough to survive all that he could do. Neither would contradict him openly, but neither had taken the Second Stone’s seat.

  For now, Ulren did the only thing he could do, and sat. He looked around the table. Kas and Vexa looked annoyingly pleased with themselves, while Callaith was staring at the body as though only just realizing what the nobles who had put her forward had gotten her into.

  “Very well,” Ulren said. “There are too many matters to attend to for us to argue about this all day. There are ships returning here from the invasion, laden with goods for us to tax, but not nearly as many as we expected.”

  “In some ways, that is a good thing,” Kas said. “It means that prices have not fallen with the sudden glut.”

  “It means that Irrien has no plans to come back,” Vexa said, steepling her fingers. “I’m sure your spies all tell you the same things that mine have told me. If not that, I’m sure you got it from the slaves you bought from the first boats.”

  Ulren had done exactly that, and it irritated him that Vexa had guessed how he would go about learning what there was to know. He’d thought he’d been careful about it, not even leaving the bodies where they might be found, once he was done.

  “Why don’t you tell us what you know, then?” he asked Vexa. There was no point in pretending that anyone had as many spies as she did.

  Vexa nodded, pulling the cowl of her robe higher to hide her features.

  “The invasion has gone well so far,” she said. “They have taken the city, but are making no moves to return. Instead, it appears that they are planning to expand control to the lands beyond Delos. You received Irrien’s message that he would not be coming back?”

  Ulren had, although he’d been careful to kill the messenger before others could hear. He’d been hoping to buy himself time in which to think. He should have known that some news couldn’t be held in check.

  “I got his message,” Ulren said. “I’m more interested in what you think he will do next.”

  Vexa was still for several seconds. “I doubt he will return here, except perhaps once he has conquered the whole of the Empire. That could be some time. They say that Irrien is recovering from a wound, although he does his best to hide it. He has sacrificed the Empire’s ruler and her child, although there are stories about that sacrifice that—”

  “There are always stories,” Ulren snapped back. He didn’t believe half of them. A demon had come in to accept the sacrifice. The sorcerer Daskalos himself had come to steal the babe. The woman had survived all that Irrien could do, wounded him and fled, unable to die. It was foolishness, all of it.

  “What do you intend to do?” Kas asked.

  “And what will it cost?” Ulren said, guessing the second half of the question. He looked around the table and he knew what the others were thinking. That Irrien had outmaneuvered him. That the former First Stone had been one step ahead even as Ulren made his move, dancing back from Felldust like a swordsman dodging a thrust, only to take a better prize across the sea.

  The thought of it was enough to keep Ulren angry. He couldn’t allow this to stand. Instead he rose to his feet, looking around the table evenly, daring the others to say anything then.

  “I will deal with this,” he said. He pointed to Harmon’s body, slumped over the table. “And when I have, you will either take your true seats, or you will end up like him.”

  ***

  Ulren took a
palanquin back to his city compound. Even so, by the time he got there, he had to brush dust from his cloak. He stripped it off and threw it at a slave, then stormed deeper into the house. He could imagine the slaves scattering at the sound of his approach, because they’d learned to avoid his moods since he’d become First Stone.

  He was First Stone in name only, and he knew it. He would be until Irrien lay cold in his grave. It was time to do something about that.

  Ulren snapped his fingers at another of his slaves. “Are the men I sent for here?”

  “They await your pleasure, master,” the man said.

  Ulren nodded. That was as it should be.

  “I’m going to the bath house to wash this dust off. When I am done, I will speak with them in the trophy room. See that they have anything they wish.”

  He made his way to the bath house as much to allow his anger to dissipate as anything. There were people it was better even for him not to offend. He had the resources to have them killed, but that made no difference at close range.

  So he lay in the warm water of the baths for a long time, letting the tension fade from his muscles slowly. If he’d had more time, he might have snapped his fingers at one of the slave girls waiting there, but it was better to get on with this. He dressed in soft silks, checked that his weapons were in place, and started to stalk the corridors.

  No servants disturbed him. That was practically a first since he had taken over the highest post of the city. Before now, they had been there to ask about everything from troop movements to the movement of vegetables between merchants. They had come with information regarding the redistribution of Irrien’s assets or the endless small problems that came with trying to keep a city running.

  Now, though, they kept out of his way, and Ulren couldn’t work out if it was because of his mood or the people who had come to see him, and who even now waited in the trophy room.