Hallow barked over her shoulder, “Quiet, Flay! We need proof that the king is a traitor. We want the queen to provide that proof. Honore must assume the throne in a completely proper fashion.”
Flay cast a quick, savage glare at the pale female, then slipped back into the hallway.
Honore smiled at Caterina with failed charm. “Mother, please. Do as we say. It’s for the best. Father isn’t suitable for this crisis. When I’m king, I’ll take care of you.”
Caterina felt sick. Surely she hadn’t borne this pathetic creature. “I can’t believe you’re Lothaire’s son. Look at you. You’re weak. And a liar. I could understand if you simply wanted power. But you’re doing this because you’re afraid of them. Those outsiders. I can’t even hate you, Honore. I just never want to see you again.”
Hallow said, “We can arrange that, Majesty.”
The Witchfinder exhaled in annoyance. “Oh please, Hallow, just do whatever it is you’re doing. I’m behind on my work. I’ve hardly slept preparing Paris in case Empress Adele comes to call.”
“She will,” Flay murmured from the shadows.
Goronwy ignored the vitriol in her tone. “Perhaps. I’ve spent my valuable time insuring that the empress can’t burn you all to cinders like she did my former employers in Britain. I should be at Notre Dame positioning my crystals, not here listening to children bicker over who does what. So will the lot of you just sort it out?”
Hallow waved her hand toward the queen. “Flay, take her.”
Honore blocked Flay. “Don’t lay hands on her!”
The old war chief reacted on instinct and seized the Dauphin’s arm with her claws. Snarling, she brought Honore to his knees. He shouted in frightened alarm and Hallow gasped.
Caterina ran for a window and leapt out. She caught the wind, propelling herself around the corner. She clutched the wall tightly, crawled down, and swung inside one of the countless open windows. She knew there was a wide gap in the floor in this chamber. She dropped through it into another room, then quickly pressed into a crack in the plaster. She slid between the interior walls before falling to her knees and wriggling into a long unused back corridor. There were very few holes in the Tuileries she didn’t know because she had chased her children through all of them.
Inside the nursery, Lothaire sat with the toddler and the two whispering twins when Caterina shoved her way through a gap in the ceiling. They all looked in amazement as the queen rose, shedding chunks of plaster and splintered wood. She ran for Lothaire, trailing a cloud of dust.
“Run!” She grasped her husband’s arm and pulled him to his feet. “You must run.”
Lothaire clutched the baby with one arm and tried to steady his wife with the other. “What’s wrong? Are the Equatorians in the city?”
“No.” Caterina wrestled the small child away from him and put him down on the floor with a gentle shove toward the twins. “Please, Lothaire, just run. They’re coming for you.”
“Who’s coming? Caterina, please calm yourself.”
“Honore has turned against you. He and Lady Hallow want you dead.”
“What?” Lothaire instinctively comforted his wife. “Are you sure? Tell me what happened?”
Caterina continued to pull him toward a window. “Flay is in Paris. I saw her. She is with Hallow and the Witchfinder.”
“Flay! You must be mistaken. You’re delirious. Calm down.”
“They’re all in league. All of Cesare’s old cohorts. They want Paris. If you can stay alive, they’ll never be able to do it. Please run!”
“What about you? What about the children? I can’t just run away.”
Caterina cupped her husband’s cheek in her palm. “They want me because they think I will betray you. They won’t hurt the children if they have any prayer of me cooperating. I can buy time. So go. Across the river. Quai du Voltaire. Left from Pont Royal. The next block down. There is a blue door. Find Kasteel. He can hide you and get you out of Paris.”
“Out of Paris?” Lothaire drew himself up. “I won’t abandon my family.”
“Your Majesty.” Honore stood at the door with mercenary fighters behind him. “Stand where you are.”
Lothaire stepped in front of his wife. “Is it true, Honore? Have you given the clan to those outsiders? To Hallow? And Flay?”
“They’re my retainers. I’ll be king.”
“No.” Lothaire raised his claws. “This can’t happen.”
Honore smirked. “Do you want to fight me? You’re old and fat.”
“Don’t,” came Flay’s warning voice from outside the window. “Hallow wants a public execution, not a murder in the shadows.” She lit on the sill and grinned at the royal couple, who stood just under her terrible figure.
“Run!” Caterina shouted to Lothaire as she pulled a surprised Flay to the floor, wrapping her in a tight grip. The mercenaries rushed forward, while Caterina caught a glimpse of Lothaire plunging out the window.
The queen now snarled and lashed out, battering Flay against the floor. She was fueled by the image of Lothaire dying at the former war chief’s claws. Caterina tightened her arms around Flay’s chest, wishing she could crush the monster to death. Flay threw her head back, cracking against Caterina’s forehead.
Many hands seized Caterina. She fought back, straining to hold Flay, trying to bite her in the throat. Fingers ripped through the queen’s hair and tore at her face. She screamed as her grip was pulled away from Flay. The war chief cursed and smashed her fist against Caterina’s jaw. She kicked the queen in the stomach and pushed herself free. Caterina continued to fight against the many claws that strained to hold her.
“Damn you.” Flay staggered upright. She pointed at several of her mercenaries. “Why are you standing there? Go after the king, you imbeciles!”
When some of the hands released Caterina, she nearly broke free. Strong arms clenched around her throat. Feet crashed into her knees, knocking her to the floor, and she was pressed under ruthless arms and legs. The twins had stopped whispering and the baby wailed.
Honore pulled the mercenaries off his mother, cursing and shoving them away. Then he nearly lost his hold on the queen as she surged toward Flay, snapping again with her teeth. Honore wrestled his mother under control. She glared up into his face and slapped him. Then she suddenly felt spent and collapsed with a sorrowful exhaustion under her son’s stunned expression.
Flay smiled at the charming family tragedy while she pushed loose strands of hair from her face. “Bring your mother along, Dauphin.” The war chief spit blood on the floor of the nursery and left the room.
CHAPTER 37
The Raksaka was a sloop of war that had been chosen for speed. Adele had commandeered it at Delhi, leaving her beloved Edinburgh behind. General Anhalt was dispatched back to Alexandria with all haste to support Prince Simon in case there was a disaster in the war brought on by Goronwy. Captain Hariri took his most fit men for the sloop, pressed others from the imperial air service, and they set out for Europe.
There was no reasonable belief they could catch Goronwy’s airship, so they flew for France in as direct a line as possible. Crowding on all the sail the sloop would take, Hariri mercilessly drove the sleek airship. They saw vampires frequently, but rarely in force and they were able to avoid contact in all cases. It took nearly a week before they cruised through the vicinity of Grenoble, where they saw more Equatorian airships. The sloop turned toward the advance positions of the imperial forces at Nevers.
Air traffic over Nevers was lighter than expected, and the presence on the ground more scattered. Sirdar Rotherford had already broken winter camp. The countryside was churned up in a wide swath leading away toward Paris. The Raksaka sped north too.
Adele leaned on the quarterdeck rail. The heavy furs of Tibet were gone. She wore her typical traveling clothes with a thick cloak. It was cold at a thousand feet, but spring was coming quickly in France and the brutal weather of the Himalayas was a distant memory. With a spyglass to h
er eye, Adele scanned the ground. There were men all around her on the deck and in the tops with glasses pressed to their faces as well, keeping watch for vampires. Greyfriar joined her to find her muttering as usual.
“This isn’t right,” she said. “Look down there. Mile after mile and no signs of any battles. Just muddy tracks. A few wagons tossed aside, but that’s the only damage I’ve seen. It’s as if the army is moving as fast as they can walk. The vampires aren’t fighting.” She looked at Greyfriar. “Is that reasonable?”
“No. They should be swarming your people with every step. That should be a trail of dead below us, human and vampire. I don’t understand it either.”
“We haven’t seen a single vampire since we reached France. Where are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“Something is wrong. It has to be Goronwy. It has to be the Tear of Death.”
“Majesty!” shouted Captain Hariri as he came from the binnacle. “Word from the tops. Smoke ahead. I’ll take us up to get a better look.”
The sloop rose through thin, wispy clouds. Adele and Greyfriar made their way forward and positioned themselves along the prow for a clear view past the jibs. As the horizon fell away, Adele saw many rising columns of smoke. It wasn’t from a battle. They were coming up on the Equatorian camp.
With increased altitude, she could clearly make out the army spread across the ground ahead. They were in a series of orderly camps, well laid out and defended, occupying several miles of territory encircling the southern end of Paris. Trenches and earthworks surrounded it, with pikes and razor wire for protection. There were small cities of tents with cooking fires. In the center was what appeared to be a battalion of Galahad walkers, the workhorses of the Equatorian army; large mobile suits of armor powered by chugging chemical engines, carrying ferocious firepower. Several small airships were docked at makeshift landing towers south of the base. And along the forward line, white puffs rose from heavy artillery busy lobbing shells toward the southern suburbs of Paris.
Adele asked Greyfriar, “Can you tell how far we are from the city?”
He scanned the area around the airship, trying to use his unerring sense of direction. “Twenty-five miles perhaps.” He tightened his grip on a cable and climbed quickly onto the gunwale, peering forward. “Adele. Look at this.”
She took his hand and climbed next to him into the shrouds. With an elbow wrapped through the ratlines, she leaned out over the side and put the glass to her eye. She gasped. “Is that Paris?”
“Yes,” Greyfriar replied.
North of the Equatorian camp, the green landscape lay as yet untrampled by imperial boots. Scattered houses and small villages appeared as overgrown lumps in the virginity of the spring countryside. However, on the horizon swirled a mass of blackness. It looked like a huge dome of a cathedral, but it moved. It was alive. Paris was covered by a swarm of vampires so thick in the sky that the city itself couldn’t be seen through the creatures.
“That’s far more vampires than the clan of Paris could muster,” he mused. “I think that’s where they’ve all gone. It looks as if every vampire from across France has come to Paris. I think Flay is using them as a screen to protect the Witchfinder from your army. No matter how powerful that human is, he’s still just a human. A bomb or a cannonball could kill him and ruin everything.”
Adele continued to stare at the roiling mass above the city. “Tell Captain Hariri to bring us down at the camp.”
The Raksaka sank quickly, firing a signal gun and running up flags to alert the ground crews to stand by. The docking was mercifully fast and efficient. When the ship was tied down and the gangplank set, Adele and Greyfriar followed the Harmattan down into a waiting crowd of soldiers and airmen. Far more amazed faces and fingers pointed at the Greyfriar than at their empress. Adele smiled, amused that so many didn’t recognize her in common clothes since they had only seen her dressed for official portraits.
A line of vehicles blowing chemical steam came roaring across the airfield. Each truck carried soldiers with long pikes on their running boards. The lead vehicle fluttered the scarab flag of the sirdar. They screeched to a halt, throwing clods of dirt. Field Marshal Rotherford emerged from the back. With a phalanx of officers and pikemen quickly gathering around him, he strode toward the airship. His head bobbed, trying to see Adele through the crowd, exchanging words with his adjutants, who hustled along with him. Finally, he burst into the clearing around the empress and stopped dead in his tracks.
“Your Majesty?” Rotherford bowed deeply. When he straightened, his face was full of alarm. “When they said a ship was approaching flying your standard, I didn’t believe it. We were not informed from Alexandria. This is a very dangerous position, Majesty. It is most unwise for you to be here.”
“Sirdar,” Adele presented her hand to him as she started toward the idling trucks. “Let’s go to your headquarters. We must talk.”
General Rotherford looked up from a plate of sugared oranges. “Surely I misheard you, ma’am.”
Adele drained her wine from a crystal goblet. The general had managed to put on a magnificent spread on very short notice and very far from home. In the midst of a war camp, under the shadow of the enemy, he had produced marvelous roast lamb, as well as fresh fruit and vegetables and a very excellent wine from the Rhone Valley. Adele ate heartily despite being on edge. She hadn’t had such food in months, and she tried to tell herself she was only following Greyfriar’s old ranger dictum of always eating and drinking when the opportunity presented itself because you never knew when you might be caught away from sustenance. A young adjutant refilled her glass as soon as she set it down.
“Thank you,” she said to the boy, who nearly fainted from the words of the empress. He staggered out quickly. “Sirdar, I said you must withdraw. Immediately. Leave the heavy equipment. Speed and distance are all that matter. I don’t know that you can move far enough to be away from danger, I don’t know if there’s anywhere far enough away, but I can find an area nearby, I hope, that will provide you with some protection.” Adele shoved a stuffed grape leaf in her mouth. “I should be able to find a place free of rifts, or at least as free as possible. The farther from a rift, the less Goronwy’s power should be. Of course there may be no place safe from him.” She drank more wine. “Hopefully it won’t come to that.”
Greyfriar slouched silently in a camp chair in the corner. The general’s private tent was large, with several separate rooms and a wooden floor. It was much more luxurious than General Anhalt had managed in the frozen camp beneath Grenoble last year.
Rotherford leaned on his elbows, glancing from Adele to several of his generals who were dining with them. He took a pensive breath. “Majesty, I am on the verge of taking Paris. Our meteorologists say that the weather the next few days is optimal to launch the assault. I have begun the artillery barrage, as you can no doubt hear. The enemy is running scared. The animals have pulled back into the city so I’ll be able to slaughter every vampire in France in one fell swoop.” The general laughed.
“Sirdar, you are facing an adversary for which you have no defense. There is a power in Paris that can strike you down before you can come within arm’s reach. You must withdraw or you could lose every man in your army,” Adele raised an eyebrow, “in one fell swoop.”
Rotherford rubbed his chin irritably and drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. He considered his response while watching Adele eat lamb rolled in bread, like something purchased from a street vendor in Cairo, rather than using the expensive silver cutlery he had had carried across France.
He leaned forward, laying his hands on the table. “Ma’am, you will forgive me if I tell you that I refuse.”
Adele stopped chewing in surprise. “I will not forgive you, sir. Nor will the mothers of all the hundreds of thousands of men who will die because you refused to listen to me.”
Rotherford stood abruptly, causing Greyfriar to swing his feet off the camp table and half rise from
his chair. The general froze, watching the swordsman, before straightening slowly. The sound of his hands twisting his baton of rank was audible.
“I take my orders from the general staff in Alexandria.”
Adele finished her wine. “I could relieve you of your post.”
Rotherford’s eyes flicked to Greyfriar. “None of my officers would obey such an order that runs contrary to the good of the empire.”
The empress set down her goblet quietly and dabbed her mouth with the general’s fine linen napkin. She fought to keep her voice calm. “You are insubordinate, Sirdar. In fact, you are advocating mutiny and treason.”
Rotherford shouted, “And you are talking witchcraft! I am a soldier! I live in a world of reason. I will not be hostage to your lunatic fancies. I will win this war for you, ma’am, but if you insist on inserting yourself into the affairs of rational men with your voodoo, I can’t answer for the length of your reign.”
Adele folded her napkin with slow deliberateness. Rotherford couldn’t decide whether he needed to watch her or Greyfriar, whose mirrored eyes were locked on him with a terrible intensity, despite the fact that the swordsman was once more draped casually in his chair.
She stared at the other officers, who were pale. “Do you gentlemen concur?”
The other generals sat still. They exchanged furtive glances. One stood, General Mirambo, whom Adele knew to be honest and brave, and said, “Yes, ma’am.” Then the other two rose and nodded agreement.
Rotherford rapped the baton against his thigh with satisfaction. “There you are.”
“I admire your loyalty, but not your wisdom.” Adele pushed back her chair with a ferocious gaze that raked across the nervous officers. Her limbs felt numb despite her anger. She was stunned by her own control. “I don’t have the physical power to force you to accept my . . . recommendations. So I’ll say thank you for dinner, Sirdar. I pray you are right.”
The officers all bowed as Adele swept from the tent with Greyfriar stalking behind her. Outside, the young adjutant leapt to his feet, swinging open the doors to the sirdar’s vehicle. Greyfriar took Adele’s arm as she climbed in.
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