Embrace of the Medusi (The Overlords Trilogy Book 2)

by Toby Andersen

  ‘The whole city, sir, all its people. They’ve vanished.’

  Anthrom could feel his chest hammering, he was out of breath, but he was standing still. No, he couldn’t breathe. He tried to loosen his shirt, released the top button on his doublet.

  He could hear Malik’s calm words. ‘The city is abandoned, Goddess. The battle was a feint meant to buy time. They are gone. There is no one here to thrall.’

  Shut up, he thought.

  Anthrom felt a special kind of dread building within him, listening to the Cephean reporting back to the Medousa. He still couldn’t get any air into his lungs.

  Somehow, he had failed. He had just won a great battle, sending the enemy running for the hills, but it had been a ruse from the very beginning. He thought of the parlay, talking to Aurelia. I was wasting all that time, while she was what, evacuating the whole city? It seemed impossible. Where had they all gone? Underground? He would search the sewers, dredge the lake. Had they gone upriver, evacuated in a convoy of barges and steamships into the dangerous west? He would follow the river, run them down.

  He had failed, and he knew exactly what failure meant.

  He was a dead man.

  Malik turned to him. ‘The Goddess wishes you to return to Theris for judgement.’

  Anthrom’s lungs finally released, allowing him to draw a deep breath. ‘Shut up,’ he shouted, striking out with a fist as he did, catching Malik in the jaw, knocking his mask askew. It revealed the young man’s jawline and trembling gorge. He fell to the floor, more stunned than hurt. Anthrom crouched and picked up a large piece of masonry stone fallen from a roof, slammed it into the side of Malik’s head as he attempted to rise. Then again, and again, feeling the boy’s skull crack. He hit and hit, until the Cephean collapsed and Anthrom fell on him with screaming abandon. Soon the strikes felt wet and the noise changed. Blood splattered, and the other Cephean drew back.

  With each hit, Anthrom imagined he was striking Noctiluca over and over, caving in that ugly jawless visage, that cadaverous face that had led him to this place. Duped him into accepting a Medusi and its power. Given him power only to take it away.

  It had all been a setup, raising him up only to tear him down spectacularly.

  He imagined it was Aurelia’s face. She had ruined everything. Her duplicitous plans had ripped victory from him. Her smiling face while she talked during their parlay, all of it a lie.

  Everything was a lie.

  Everyone was a liar.

  They had all been in on it somehow. This wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t be blamed for this. And he could not face achieving all of this, only to have it taken from him again.

  The other Cephean nearby watched with interest, but they did nothing to intervene. They whispered all around him, spoke in hushed tones, telling Noctiluca everything he had just done.

  His motions finally slowed. He dropped the bespattered red stone to the ground, stood gently swaying. He had killed a Cephean; if he expected punishment before, it would be double now. He just couldn’t listen to Malik reporting his failure anymore.

  He heard Aurelia’s voice. Anthrom, the moment you are not useful you will be tossed aside. The moment this city falls, you will know you have failed. I can see in your eye you know what she does to failures.

  He looked around at the gathered Cepheans, felt their gaze on him.

  ‘Search the rest of the city,’ he shouted. ‘Search the palace, the sewers, the river and the paddy fields. Search everywhere. Bring me Aurelia’s head.’

  The Cephean didn’t move. Eventually, one stepped forward. ‘It is over Anthrom. Return to the Goddess.’

  He hung his head.

  He would not let her kill him, he would not go out like that, his brain imploded for failing his mistress. He thought of Crescen, allowed to go quietly to the temple after his banishment. Maybe she would allow him that small comfort? He could live out his days as a scholar, write his own Bestiary.

  The other option was to make good on his arrogant claim to Aurelia and hide from Noctiluca. He was far from the capital now. With a little effort he could leave the army behind, lose himself in the hills.

  Did he return to almost certain death? Or run?

  Part Six

  Chapter Forty Two

  Aurelia

  When she reached the river and the final repurposed merchant barge that was meant to take her across to safety, Aurelia found Lucinda coaxing passengers onboard and demanded to know if everyone was accounted for. Argentor had a wonderfully well organised census system that she had arranged to make full use of; every adult and child was scrawled on the lists as long as they had reached their first name day.

  Lucinda shook her head, helping an elderly lady into the barge. ‘There’s still a couple hundred missing, Empress.’

  ‘Who?’ Aurelia demanded, still atop her Luacha. She looked across the river; the magnificent bridges, just like those of Theris, had been brought crashing down into the water. A wanton act of destruction that had been harshly contested by the nobles, until she pointed out how much it would slow down their thralled pursuers.

  ‘A few defiant old men,’ said Lucinda, ‘who won’t leave their homes. A family of professed believers, waiting for the Goddess to arrive and take them, and a couple of idiotic merchants still trying to bring their riches out.’

  ‘They had two days,’ Aurelia said, aghast. Cartloads of gold and precious stones had been leaving the city constantly for the two days since the announcement had been made, along with hundreds more of supplies, food and warm shelter.

  ‘One or two nobles...’ Lucinda’s list petered out weakly. She wasn’t saying something, Aurelia could detect it in her tone.

  ‘Who?’ she demanded again, impatiently.

  ‘Nepheli,’ said Lucinda with a sigh. ‘She went to search the palace for stragglers, but she hasn’t returned.’

  Dammit! Aurelia scoured the edge of the valley that she could see between the buildings rigged to blow. The leading edge of the Medusi was flowing over the ridge into the topmost paddy fields. They didn’t have long.

  She saw the waiting barge was full to bursting with the final evacuees. Lucinda and the other noble women of Argentor’s court had been tasked with the evacuation and had worked tirelessly while Aurelia and her army stalled Noctiluca’s Medusi hordes for as long as possible.

  ‘Go,’ she said. ‘Take these people across and get out of the city. I will go back for Nepheli.’

  Lucinda whipped round, shocked. ‘No Empress, that’s suicide. We have to get you across now.’

  Though there were no more barges – they had been destroyed along with the bridges to make it look like they’d sailed west – there were a hundred tiny rickety abandoned fishing boats rocking on the gentle river current. ‘I will find another way across later. Now go,’ said Aurelia finally. She yanked the reins around and galloped for the palace.

  The city was almost completely abandoned and Aurelia didn’t see a single one of Lucinda’s stragglers as she rushed through the streets, carefully avoiding those that had been rigged with traps and explosives. Chrysaora had led a team across the city, assembling the trip wires and gunpowder barrels that would make the enemy’s advance through the city slow and painful, and hopefully bloody.

  She rode her Luacha straight into the palace complex, heard his soft but clomping feet on the polished marble floor. The absurdity of riding a wild animal into the palace struck her as she raced past ornate pillars and stairways, but there was no time to give stock to propriety, and no one to stop her. She was forced to dismount and leave the strider at the bottom of the broad staircase that led to the residential chambers; she was sure he’d still be there when she returned.

  The upper levels were quiet, deserted. Outside Aurelia could hear the frenzied screaming of the Medusi as they entered the city, but inside it was muted to almost silence. ‘Nepheli!’ she called. ‘Anyone still here? Hello!’ Her voice echoed down empty halls. She didn’t have time for this. The e
nemy were closing in and her window of escape was growing smaller by the minute.

  As she neared her own suite, she heard something. Or thought she did. Not a voice, just a scratch maybe? A rat? The door to the suite was ajar, and creaked open at a weak push. She looked inside. The shadows moved. There was someone there, someone was in her rooms. She crept into the living quarters. ‘Show yourself!’

  ‘I knew you’d come,’ said a voice behind her. She whirled. Faibryn Argentor closed the door with a final sounding click. ‘I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist.’ He was still wearing the same clothes as he had been when she saw him last in the chamber under the ruined temple; a faded doublet and breeches, though now rumpled and soiled, his hair unkempt but tamed with a little water and sweat. He had a week’s stubble on his sallow cheeks. He’d been on the run.

  ‘What is this, Faibryn?’ she said, backing away from him.

  He picked up two glasses off the dresser. ‘I just wanted to celebrate your win with you. That was some deft planning on your part. Evacuating the city.’ He offered her a glass, with a menacing grin.

  ‘Where’s Nepheli?’ Aurelia asked, remembering why she came here.

  Faibryn frowned for a moment. ‘I don’t know where Nepheli is. Presumably far from here. Now.’ He still held out the glass.

  ‘I don’t want to drink with you.’

  ‘Just a toast between equals. You played the game well. You beat me. You kept me out of your plans for days. And now the city is actually saved. I’m genuinely impressed. I didn’t think it was possible.’ He thrust the glass at her again. His words were confused, admitting and obscuring at once.

  Aurelia took the glass, just to stop him pouring it on her.

  Faibryn smiled. ‘There. Now, the toast,’ he said, with a flourish. ‘To a battle well fought, your first? No, second. Well, to your first victory!’ I wouldn’t call it a victory, thought Aurelia. Just another in a long series of losses and delaying tactics. Faibryn raised his own glass and took a steadying gulp, frowning when he saw Aurelia hadn’t moved.

  ‘Why are you still here?’ she said. ‘Why aren’t you with your Goddess? You could have left at any time.’

  ‘I wanted a last moment with you,’ he said. It was the first thing out of his mouth that didn’t sound contrived. ‘I’m in no danger here.’ He was right there; the invaders knew about him and his betrayal and would be expecting to find him.

  ‘You’re hiding here,’ she said. ‘Hoping to avoid the Medusi. You need thralls to find you first. Or my brother.’

  He shook his head, ignoring her deduction. ‘I am a great believer in honour between enemies. You fought well, I would like to share a drink with you. It was never personal, Aurelia.’

  She was tempted, a gulp of red would steady her nerves. And she still needed to find Nepheli and get out of here.

  Don’t drink, she heard Cassandra’s frantic voice in her mind. This is it. This is the moment I keep seeing in my dreams. Aurelia remembered; Cassandra had described it enough times. A figure standing over her, unidentified because Cassandra had never met Nepheli or Faibryn. But with Nepheli proven an ally, and Faibryn working with the Order, here it was. Think of how he killed his father. That glass…

  …is a glass of poison, Aurelia realised. She threw it aside, dashing it on the stone wall.

  Faibryn yelped as the glass fragments burst near his feet.

  ‘Not personal!’ Aurelia shouted at him. ‘You try to poison me, like you did your father. I know everything Faibryn. And so does everyone else. We all know of your treason.’

  Faibryn licked his lip, looking about. He was breathing strangely, trying to collect himself, panicking. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Let’s forget about the drink.’ Aurelia got the distinct impression she was watching someone losing control, and she wondered if she could guess why. Noctiluca had expected a city of thralls, and Aurelia had denied her that. Faibryn had failed his Goddess, and now he was afraid of the consequences, just like Anthrom had been. Faibryn thought poisoning Aurelia, delivering her to Noctiluca, just might be enough to save him.

  He was desperate.

  Which was why when he made his next move, it made sense. Faibryn drew a tiny two-inch knife from a miniature sheath at his hip.

  ‘This blade is coated in the venom of the Iruki,’ he said, watching her intently. He was breathing hard, working himself up. ‘I know you know what that is.’

  She did. The Iruki was possibly the tiniest of all Medusi species, no larger than a child’s fingernail. But their venom was powerful out of all proportion to their diminutive size. She remembered her Captain of the Imperial Guard, Thaddeus Vestrigo and his terrible tale; Iruki venom had coated the arrowhead that pierced her father’s shoulder during the first battle of the Siege of Theris. He was dead within the next three hours, but not before the venom had forced his bowels to release and his stomach to vomit up everything inside him, his body desperately trying to rid itself of the poison; not before it had paralyzed him and sent shockwaves of pain through every nerve in his body to the point he wanted to rip off his own skin. That final stage never ended, forcing Thaddeus to do the unthinkable and murder his own Emperor, her father, just to free him from his pain.

  If Faibryn wasn’t bluffing, and the blade really was dipped in Iruki venom, it would end her. One touch, one tiny nick and she would suffer the same fate her father did.

  ‘What are you doing, Faibryn?’ she shrieked. ‘I thought we were honouring each other, respectful foes?’

  ‘You threw your glass down.’

  ‘A glass of poison!’ Aurelia backed up, towards her bedroom. She had to put something between them. ‘You never meant a word of it.’

  He smiled. ‘You’re right. More right than you know. I never meant any of it.’

  Keep him talking, she thought, staring at the tiny blade. ‘Nothing? What about us?’ Despite everything he’d done, somehow it still hurt. She was angry at herself for not seeing through him from the very beginning.

  ‘Aurelia, I have been working for the Order for years. The Goddess had a plan in place for Argentor just the same as Theris. Only the advance of the war made Theris the first target. Nothing I have done in the last three years could be considered honest.’

  ‘What was your role here?’

  ‘Gain your trust, once you arrived. Feed information to your brother to make sure he was able to thrall the city. But you ruined that.’ Faibryn lunged for her. Aurelia scrambled away, putting the bed between them. It wouldn’t last. It was attached to the wall on one side, and was easy to get around. If he went for her, she would either have to go over the bed and back into the suite, or out onto the terrace.

  Except that was a dead end.

  There was a great explosion somewhere out in the streets, the bang and rumble shaking their footing. The Medusi had struck out into the city streets, floating unwittingly into the hidden traps laid throughout. By the time it was over the city would be a smoking ruin, unfit for habitation. Unfit as a staging post for further advancement of Noctiluca’s forces.

  ‘That one of yours?’ asked Faibryn.

  Aurelia nodded.

  ‘You have ruined me.’

  ‘You ruined yourself,’ she spat, ‘joining with the Order. Did you kill your father on her orders, or just for your own gain?’

  ‘That was a spur of the moment decision. The original plan was just to marry you, and curb your ambition that way. You couldn’t get your army if I never agreed to it. But when he came back so badly injured, it was just a case of making sure he never got well. It was a boon. It was my idea to poison him slowly, nothing to do with the Medousa. With him dead I would rule the city. It was just easier with him out of the picture. I was to deliver Argentor to her, a treasure trove of new thralls, a feast for her Medusi that would swell her army to epic proportions.

  ‘Instead, you have left me with an empty carcass. The lives she desires have already fled this corpse. You have taken the army I was supposed to give to her.’ A
urelia couldn’t tell him just how satisfying it was to hear that the reason Noctiluca had invaded was the same reason Aurelia had fled to Argentor. The army they sought was the same army, made up of the same people, only Aurelia wanted them alive and whole. Noctiluca wanted them broken and enslaved.

  Faibryn was his most expansive self again. He seemed to have burst through the barrier that had been making him behave strangely to begin with. Now that everything was out in front of them, he was free, possibly for the first time in all those long years. He didn’t seem in much rush to finish her, perhaps just grateful for someone to talk to who knew what it was like to be him. She was reminded of his turn as Marcus, the handsome manservant, trying to be free of the responsibility of royal life, when he had in fact been trying to shirk his obligation to an ancient Sorceress.

  Just as when she’d been Liath, she’d been free of her oath to find an army and fight back. There was some truth there no matter what he said.

  She refused to believe it had all been a lie.

  ‘You had my trust,’ she said, as another series of explosions crashed through the city outside. ‘I was falling for you. You led me on, you dashed my hopes, played with a young girl's emotions.’

  Faibryn smirked. ‘So fragile all of a sudden. The Empress who ordered wholesale destruction during the siege of her own city, the Empress who has destroyed me in turn.’

  Aurelia ignored him. ‘You tossed aside a father for the Medousa, you threw away an inheritance, a betrothal, allies. I could have been your ally, Faibryn. We could have fought her together.’

  ‘There is no fighting her,’ he said, quietly. ‘There is only obedience.’ He glanced down – was he steeling himself for what he had to do? He was desperate, like Anthrom, not to face Noctiluca a failure. And Aurelia’s evacuation of the city, her successful play for political power had come out destroying both of them.

  Another explosion sounded just outside the bedroom, mere streets away. Aurelia glanced towards the door, took in the smoke starting to cover the city’s buildings, the blue glow of Medusi in between, but Faibryn used the moment to attack. He lurched over the bed, slashing at her chest and belly. Aurelia dodged back only in the nick of time, dancing on the balls of her feet to stop herself toppling backwards. She turned to the terrace arch and tried to dive through it, but Faibryn grabbed her arm, spun her about. He snarled, his face no longer that of the man she had loved if just for a moment; now it was inhuman, feral, full of desperate rage, and wolf-like anger.