Tarnished Empire (Dark Shores)

by Danielle L. Jensen

  “Fuck off, Agrippa.”

  “And there it is.” He grinned and gave a jaunty salute. “All is well and right in the world. Shall we get on with things, then?”

  Marcus gave a stiff nod. “I’ll go out. The men—”

  “I’m going to stop you right there.” Flopping down on a stool and holding his hands over a brazier, Agrippa said, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but the only reason Hostus didn’t kill you last night was that you convinced him the Thirty-Seventh would come looking for blood if you didn’t emerge on your own two feet?”

  Eyes blurred with pain, Marcus nodded.

  “Hostus is an idiot for believing that, but regardless, judging from the fact that the Twenty-Ninth are actually up at dawn, he’s spent the night shitting himself with worry that you might die and that his piss-poor legion might actually have to fight us. And rather than easing his pea-sized mind, thus allowing him the opportunity to dedicate himself to regaining command of tonight’s battle, I suggest we lean into his fears you are on your deathbed, and thus he on his.”

  “As much as I’d love to crawl back into bed, I can’t.” Marcus pressed a finger to his temple, wincing. “If the men don’t see me out today, they’ll wonder what is wrong. Rumors will start, and I can’t—”

  “It won’t be rumors,” Agrippa interrupted, ignoring Felix’s glare. “Because we’re going to tell them the truth.”

  Marcus stared at him, then shook his head. “Agrippa, I didn’t suffer your stitches over Racker’s to keep this quiet only to go blathering the truth the next morning. It would be folly.”

  Keep to the role I give you and never reach higher. The words echoed through his head, and Agrippa felt himself retreating into the role of the subordinate. Reaching for a quip or joke to defuse the moment, to make them forget he’d said anything at all.

  Except there was too much at stake. Too many lives of those he cared about on the line for him to stay silent. “We’ve always done things differently, you and I,” he said. “You keep every detail close while I put all my cards on the table, and given you ended up on top, maybe yours is the better way. Except I can’t help but think that your inability to trust your men is a weakness, Marcus.”

  Blue-grey eyes fixed on him, sharpening. “All it would take is a handful of them stepping out of line for this to turn into a war between legions. I can’t risk it.”

  For a moment, Agrippa pitied him. The loneliness not just of command, but of never being able to let down your guard. Never being able to trust those around you because the stakes were too high. Except was that how it had to be?

  “You shaped this legion,” he said. “Gave us a reputation before we’d even left Lescendor and reached higher with every campaign. With every victory. The Thirty-Seventh would follow you into fire, so what does it say that you won’t trust them with the truth? That you won’t trust them to hold their ground and play this exactly right, because that was the order you gave them.”

  Marcus’s face was unreadable, but Agrippa could sense the wheels turning in his head. The weighing and measuring of risk and reward, but also something more visceral. More emotional, as though he wanted to take the leap but was terrified of the fall.

  Silence.

  Then he nodded. “All right, we do it your way.” Lifting his hand, he leveled a finger at Agrippa. “But don’t get used to it.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.” Rising to his feet, Agrippa said, “You crawl back into bed. Amarin, put on your apron so you can mother hen him through the day. And Felix, you stay here because no one would believe you’d leave his side if he was actually in danger of dying.”

  “And you?”

  “I’ll take care of everything outside this tent. Make sure the men know what is what.” Make sure they all knew what Hostus had done, but also that Marcus had ordered them to hold their lines. “You’ll take command right before the battle, stealing away whatever hopes Hostus has for taking credit. And tonight, the Thirty-Seventh will write its name in blood.”

  30

  Silvara

  A shiver ran over her body, cold biting at her face and ears, the only parts of her not covered by the fur of Agrippa’s cloak. Pulling her knees up to her chest, she squirmed backward in search of his warmth.

  And found nothing.

  Sitting upright, she stared at the empty space beside her. Maybe he’s just gone to find a tree, was the first thought that filled her head as cold air brushed her naked back. His cloak is here. He’ll be back.

  Except his armor was missing. As were his weapons. And the brightness of the light in her tent told her it was well past dawn. Yet still, she pressed a hand to where he’d slept, her stomach plummeting to find it cold.

  Gone.

  Without a goodbye, which would have been blow enough after what had passed between them last night, but knowing what the day would bring made it a thousand times worse. What if I never see him again?

  A hot tear rolled down her cheek, and she scrubbed it aside furiously because there was more at stake than her broken heart. Unless Hostus had killed Marcus, the legions were going to attack Hydrilla, which meant the rebels needed to be warned.

  Pulling on her clothes and worn cloak, she stepped out into the blowing snow and wind, heading toward Carina’s tent. Ducking inside, she found the rebel leader breaking her fast with Hecktor. “Unless our plan comes to fruition, they will attack tonight,” she said without preamble. “We need to send a message to the fortress to prepare, because this time, they’ll fight until they win, no matter the losses.”

  Carina pressed her face to her hands. “I had hoped…”

  A flash of guilt ran through Silvara, because she wasn’t the only one with family inside the fortress. Wasn’t the only one with someone to lose. Wasn’t the only one who’d prayed to the spirits every night that the cold would drive the legions back to their fortresses on the coast for the winter, allowing Hydrilla to regroup and strengthen.

  “Did he give you any details on how they intend to attack?” Hecktor asked, his grim face telling her that even with details, it wouldn’t be enough.

  “No,” she said. “He said only that he’d go where he was commanded to go and that it would be loud. That I should stay in my tent until it was over. I…I don’t think he believes he’ll survive.” Her words caught on the last, and she clenched her teeth to hold back a sob. Because tonight, she might well lose everyone she cared about.

  Everyone she loved.

  “They must be planning a frontal assault,” Hecktor replied, staring at the steam rising from his cup. “They’ve made no attempt to remove the barricade in the tunnel, so over the walls and through them is the only route in.” He shook his head. “The lumber they’ve cut must be for siege towers. More catapults. Spirits have mercy on those we love.”

  “They will lose thousands against Hydrilla’s defenses if they go that route, which seems out of character for the Thirty-Seventh’s legatus.” Carina lifted her head from her hands. “Are you sure, girl?”

  “All I know is what Agrippa told me.” But that wasn’t the whole of it. She’d seen the fear, felt his hands shake, had held him as he’d cried out for Yaro in his sleep last night. “There was no deception in him—the battle is planned for tonight.”

  An anguished cry wrenched from Hecktor’s lips and both she and Carina jumped as he threw his cup across the tent.

  “We should have surrendered.” His hands were balled into fists, knuckles white and face streaked with tears. “We were fools to believe we could win. The Empire is too powerful. We were such fools. Such fools.” He repeated the words over and over, pulling at his hair.

  Had it been a mistake? Silvara looked inward into her heart, searching for answers. Hydrilla had long been the center of Bardeen’s rebel movement, the last bastion against the Empire’s oppression. For it to surrender wouldn’t just be the surrender of a few thousand people, but the surrender of the rebel movement.

  “We weren’t fools.” The words came o
ut of her in a rush. “Surrender would’ve meant the end of the fight to liberate Bardeen from the Empire. Would have been as good as all of us getting down on our knees and swearing loyalty to the Senate. Even those of us not forced into indenture would be forced into lives far different than what we wished. Our forests destroyed, our children taken as tithes to the legions, and our backs broken to pay the taxes that flow to patrician pockets. Is that what you wish to surrender to?”

  Both looked at her, and for the first time, they seemed to see who she wished to be. Not a laundress, but a fighter. Not a loyalist, but a rebel. “Hydrilla might fall tonight, but it will fall fighting. And its defiance until death will set Bardeen on fire.”

  31

  Marcus

  Felix braced him as Amarin pulled his armor on, pain hitting him from every angle. “Are you sure you can do this?”

  “His surety is irrelevant,” Racker snapped. “He should be on his back resting, not gallivanting off into battle. You do it, Felix.”

  “Racker,” Marcus said between his teeth, “when have you ever known me to gallivant?”

  “My point stands,” the Thirty-Seventh’s surgeon snapped. He had barely left Marcus’s side since Agrippa sent for him that morning. “You lost a great deal of blood, have four fractured ribs, a broken wrist, and more of you is bruised than not. You shouldn’t be on your feet.”

  “And yet I am.” He allowed Amarin to drape his cloak over his shoulders, the thick fur beneath the crimson wool welcome, for he still couldn’t get warm no matter how many hot drinks and blankets were foisted on him. “And your skills will be required elsewhere tonight. Dismissed.”

  Racker glared at him, then departed, leaving him alone with Felix and Amarin. “I can do it, if you want,” Felix said. “It isn’t as though I don’t know the plan.”

  There was a certain temptation to the suggestion, given remaining on his feet was taking just about all the energy he had, but Marcus shook his head. “I have to do this. We’re ready?”

  “Never been more ready in our lives,” Agrippa announced, stepping inside. “Hostus has spent the whole day drinking and pacing and shouting at Carmo. The Thirty-Seventh has spent the whole day looking on the cusp of picking a fight, although they all kept their fists in check. And I have been my most serious of selves, not cracking a single joke, which is what truly has the Twenty-Ninth pissing themselves. Oh, and Rastag says your tunnel is also finished, so we can get underway with the siege on your signal.”

  “Then let us do so.” Squaring his shoulders, Marcus stepped out of his tent and into the cold. To find what had to be close to five hundred of the Thirty-Seventh standing around his tent, weapons in hand, their eyes outward. On guard, and so utterly silent that he hadn’t once suspected they were there.

  At the sight of him, they all saluted, the sound of fists striking armored chests echoing through camp.

  “This your doing?” he asked Agrippa, but the primus shook his head.

  “Those off duty took it upon themselves, sir. They seemed to feel it was necessary.”

  Marcus’s chest tightened with a twist of emotion he didn’t quite understand, but he nodded in acknowledgement, then strode toward Grypus’s pavilion, the proconsul appearing at the entrance wearing heavy robes.

  “I warned you Hostus would take it poorly,” Grypus said, looking Marcus up and down. “But it’s childish to say I told you so.”

  “Do I have you to thank?” Marcus asked, still troubled with how Hostus had come to know the information given that only he, Grypus, and a handful of the Thirty-Seventh had known the extent of his plans.

  The proconsul shook his head. “Look to your own in this, Marcus. I didn’t rise to my position with a loose tongue.”

  Marcus inclined his head, acknowledging that in this, the man was not lying. “We are ready to get underway with taking Hydrilla, Proconsul. Do we have your authority to proceed?”

  “Certainly,” Grypus answered. “I would like to watch. At what hour do you intend to begin?”

  “In twenty minutes, I should think.”

  “Twenty minutes! Mercy, boy, you don’t waste time.” Grypus disappeared into his pavilion, shouting for his armor to be brought to him.

  Looking to Felix, Marcus nodded, and watched as his second approached the gathered centurions and told them what Marcus wanted, the young men all nodding in confirmation. And within minutes, organized ranks were swiftly filing out of the camp, moving into position with the efficiency earned from a thousand hours of drills, not one of them hesitating.

  Then Marcus felt the skin between his shoulder blades prickle. Turning, he found Hostus a dozen paces away, face filled with fury as he realized that he’d been played. “Will the Twenty-Ninth be joining us in the field now or do you require a little more time to find your balls?”

  The vein in Hostus’s forehead pulsed, but he saluted. “We’ll be there, sir. At your backs.”

  “Excellent. We’ll see you shortly.”

  Turning on his heel, Marcus ignored the wave of dizziness that struck him and headed toward the gates, escort marching around him.

  “Oh, that was perfection,” Agrippa crowed as they left the camp, circling around to the high barricades that concealed the entrance to the tunnel. “I wish there was a way to go back in time and watch it happen again. You should really sass your enemies more often, sir. You’ve a true knack for it.”

  But Marcus was in no mood. “Someone leaked the information of our plans to him. I want to know who.”

  “I’ll put it on my list of things to do after I lead twenty men into a fortress filled with three thousand Bardenese warriors intent on killing us and no avenue for retreat, sir. But I can already tell you, it wasn’t one of my men. They’re loyal, as they are about to prove.”

  Guilt immediately flooded through Marcus’s veins, because it was Agrippa and his men upon which this entire plan hinged. Not all of them would survive. None of them might survive, and yet they all stood waiting at the mouth of the tunnel.

  “It should be me going in.”

  Pulling off his helmet, Agrippa wiped melting snow from his cheeks. Then he tossed the helmet at Marcus’s face.

  Instinct had him jerking his hands up to catch it, but the sharp motion sent pain lancing up his side, nearly making him vomit.

  “So that’s reason number one you’re not coming,” Agrippa said, taking the helmet back and jamming it down on his head. “Two, even when you’re in top form, you’re a mediocre fighter. Three, when was the last time you even fought in a line? Do you even remember how to use a shield? Four, you’re not very good at following instructions, especially mine. Five—”

  “You made your point, Agrippa.”

  “Five,” he continued, “you’re the only one who can keep Hostus and Grypus from trying to take the reins and botching this mad plan of yours. So you’ll just need to trust me to do this part without you there to nitpick.”

  The only one. And even with all of Grypus’s promises, Marcus still feared his ability to keep the two men in check. “I never doubt your abilities.”

  “Perfect.” Agrippa picked up his shield. “Shall we get underway, then?”

  “Once we see the rebels react, we’ll be there. I’ll leave you to come up with a motivational speech—I know you love giving them.” And he could hardly breathe, much less shout.

  “They are one of my many talents.”

  They stood in silence, and then Marcus stepped forward, clasping Agrippa’s arm. “Try to get to the other side of this, all right? But if you must die, know that it was an honor to fight with you.”

  “Sentiment from the ever austere legatus of the Thirty-Seventh.” Agrippa dropped his shield to rub his eyes. “I’m tearing up, sir.”

  “You are the most rutting obnoxious bastard in the legion.”

  “And there it is.” Laughing, Agrippa smacked the back of Marcus’s helmet, then turned to Felix, who had approached. “Hostus will try something. Be ready.”

&
nbsp; “Always am.”

  Retrieving his shield from the slush, Agrippa saluted, then turned on his heel and strode into the tunnel.

  “He’ll get it done,” Marcus muttered. “Always does.” Then, louder, to the ranks of men who waited, “You have your instructions. Do not disappoint.”

  Hands slammed against armored chests in salute, nearly drowning out the chorus of “Yes, sir!”

  “Let’s go.” He managed to get a dozen paces before he had to duck behind a barricade to puke, the pain nearly bringing him to his knees.

  Sucking in rapid breaths, he silently whispered, Please let this work. Please don’t let their deaths be for nothing.

  He felt Felix move next to him, felt the waterskin pushed against his hand. He lifted it to his lips, and then his friend murmured, “It’s not water.”

  Marcus took a careful sip, tasting whiskey, then gulped down another for good measure. “Thanks.”

  “I’ve got your back.”

  “You always do.” Biting down on the pain that came with each step, he and Felix started toward the pavilion where he’d command the first real battle of his life. Their escort marched in neat lines around them, banners flapping wetly on the cold wind. The ranks of the Thirty-Seventh parted to allow them to pass, waves of thundering salutes from the thousands of young men loud in his ears. Then they began to chant, weapons striking shields or armored chests in rhythm as they roared the legion’s name.

  Thirty-Seventh.

  Marcus’s feet sank into the frigid slush as he climbed the rise, Felix jamming the legion’s standard into the earth once they reached the top. Then Marcus turned and lifted one hand.

  Silence fell across the ranks, every one of his men still, their eyes fixed on the walls of Hydrilla and the thousands of Bardenese standing atop them. A sharp crack filled the air as Hydrilla deployed one of their catapults, the rock landing a dozen feet in front of his lines. Not one of his men flinched.