Pauper's Empire: An Epic Fantasy Saga (Empire of Resonance Book 2)

by L. W. Jacobs

  Meaning your darkhaired prisoners, Tai thought.

  “We could—send help,” Galya put in, assuming a bland expression. “If you don’t have the manpower for it.”

  A bunch of Councilate soldiers in Galya uniforms? No thanks. “We have enough manpower, thanks. But the basis of this discussion has to be recognition of Ayugen’s independence and peace between our nations. Any aggression breaks the treaty completely.”

  “As I understand it, you’re not in much position to bargain, Tai,” Semeca said.

  Threats, then. Well, they had some ground to stand on there too. “We pushed you out once,” he said, striking resonance just strong enough that they would all feel it. “We could do it again.”

  Faces around the table looked startled, then fearful. Semeca raised an eyebrow, as if she knew he was bluffing.

  “Be that as it may,” Delnin cut in, “we have a new weapon in this war. One you’ve just barely tasted.”

  “The Broken,” Tai said, keeping the concern from his face. “Not much of a weapon, as it turns out. They have this bad habit of killing themselves before they reach us. We’ve kept our response diplomatic thus far. But don’t forget I had the option of drowning your armies in the river, instead of wafting them back to you. I showed mercy. I may not do that again.”

  Real fear showed on most faces, save Semeca’s.

  And Delnin’s—the man was still angry. Maybe that was how he dealt with fear. “We’ve sent only messengers so far,” he said, “and I know you struggled with those. Wait till we send squads. Platoons. You’ll have trouble drowning them in the river.”

  “Send anything more than you have,” Tai said coldly, “and face the destruction of every man woman and child in this city.”

  Semeca snorted, even as others were paling. “It’s a bluff. He’d have done it by now, if he could.”

  He kept a hard face. “Unlike you, I don’t see value in the needless destruction of life.”

  Still, he could see her influence swaying them back. Damn the woman. What could he give her, short of full surrender, to placate her?

  “Let me put it this way,” he said, trying a new tack. “You attack us again, and we destroy every last bit of yura in the caves.”

  The councilors looked shocked, a few gasping. That was better.

  “You wouldn’t,” House Galya said.

  “You can’t,” Alsthen cut in.

  “We can,” Tai said. “Turns out yura is very sensitive to humidity—that’s one of the reasons it grows in our caves and not elsewhere. Not enough and it won’t grow. Too much and it dies. You attack, we flood the caves.”

  “And cut your own armies off too?” The Coldferth man snorted. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “We don’t need yura anymore,” Tai said. “But I wonder how many more Broken you could make with what you have left?”

  “Enough,” Semeca said. “Enough to ensure none of you survive.”

  Right. Because that was her goal. Time to see if money, at least, would unite the councillors against her.

  He looked to the other councilors. “And where would you be then? How secure your Houses, and how profitable the investments you’ve all made in yura, when the caves are flooded? We are here to parley, not make threats. I am sure we can find an arrangement that will suit all of us.”

  Coldferth and Galya seemed to chew on this. “What terms do you offer then?” Alsthen asked.

  “We have no need to parley with him,” Semeca snapped. “We have the upper hand here.”

  “But the yura,” Galya said. “He’ll destroy it!”

  Semeca scowled. “Then we drain the caves and begin again.”

  Tai shook his head. “It takes years to grow. Decades.”

  “You don’t know that,” Semeca said, looking less comfortable as the other House representatives warmed to Galya’s side. Money—that was what moved the councilors, excepting Semeca. And money was something he could work with.

  “It didn’t grow back quickly,” Coldferth said. “All our attempts at second harvests failed.”

  “Anyway,” Alsthen cut in, showing a little more tact, “you wouldn’t want to destroy the yura. Your army may be fine now, but you will need new recruits in future years. New yuraloads.”

  Delnin nodded. “This is the new norm. We all need it.”

  “My army doesn’t need it,” Tai repeated. “Not now, not ever.”

  The woman from Deyenal frowned. “You’ve found a way to yuraload—without yura?”

  Semeca eyes sharpened at this, giving Tai a small shake of her head.

  Fine. If this was the information she wanted hidden, maybe better to have it out. They had nothing to lose here. “We have. I—”

  A loud groan sounded behind him, drowning out his words. Eyes on the far side of the table widened in fright, and Tai spun, island shaking under him.

  The bridge behind him twisted and groaned, thick iron railings bending impossibly, metal screeching and groaning against its foundations.

  “What are you doing?” Semeca called. “Stop this!”

  “I’m not—”

  The metal groaned again, like a living thing, and its heavy moorings on the island began to crack, iron rivets snapping and pulling out of the stone. People screamed and shouted behind him, but Tai stood and watched, transfixed, as the entire hundredpace span of iron lifted from the ground, writhing like a massive iron snake.

  It was impossible. Not even his uai, at the height of his power, could have lifted this bridge.

  Impossible and happening.

  The bridge ripped from its moorings on the far side too, floating entirely in air, and then Tai felt it, a hum of resonance strong as a blizzard gale through leatherleafs. He had never felt resonance this strong—not his, not Ella’s, not the entire fort fighting Broken. It shook his whole body, ripping at him like he was caught in that wind, scouring his skin.

  “Are you mad?” Semeca was crying, others screaming behind them. “Stop this!”

  “I’m not—"

  His words were drowned in the councilors’ screams as the bridge turned sideways and hurtled toward them.

  28

  Tai struck resonance, hard, and pushed back on the bridge, swinging toward them like a giant scythe. It slowed some but not nearly enough—they would be wiped from the island, or crushed beneath its weight.

  “No!” he yelled, moving all his effort to one end as the bridge bore down.

  It worked, the bridge’s momentum turning it to come at them narrow-end first. People shouted and jumped out of the way, and one of the councilors toppled over the railing screaming. The bridge hit like a runaway train of wagons, smashing chairs and tables in every direction, grinding up carpet and dirt and stone as it streaked across.

  “What are you doing?” the Deyenal woman demanded, horrified. “Stop this!”

  “I’m not doing it,” Tai shouted. “I’m trying to stop it!”

  “Like hell,” Delnin shouted, drawing his formal shortsword and leaping at Tai.

  There was no time to be polite. Tai punched him sideways with air, over the bridge still scraping across the island. He landed on the far side, where Semeca stood out from the crowd, looking distracted rather than panicked or afraid.

  Friction slowed the bridge across the island, iron screeching awfully on stone, until the weight of the far end tipped the remaining length up and it slid into the river.

  “They’ll kill us!” the Galya councilor shouted. “Run!”

  He put action to words, pounding across the remaining bridge toward the fort. Others soon followed suit, ignoring Delnin’s cries to attack the rebels. Only Semeca stayed, eyes distant.

  “Tai!” Dayglen called, obviously trying to remain calm. “Orders?”

  Tai thought fast. They were under attack, but it wasn’t clear by who. Who could even lift a bridge like that? A Broken? But none were in sight.

  Either way, the parley was over, and in the worst way possible. The councilors had been w
arming towards peace, but they would remember this as him attacking them.

  Which was what Semeca had been yelling when the bridge first came. And would be the outcome she wanted from the parley anyway: war. Destruction. The death of Ayugen.

  And why was she still standing as everyone fled, lost in concentration? Unless she was responsible.

  “Semeca,” he gritted, walking through the bridge’s gouge toward her. “Whatever you’re doing—”

  “Stop?” She met his eyes and grinned. “I don’t think so.”

  The bridge to the fort groaned, and screams erupted from the councilors still on it. “Why are you doing this?”

  The far end ripped free, spilling lighthaired nobles off their feet, one toppling over the railing toward the waters below.

  “I told you,” Semeca said, face still a mask of concentration. “You know things that need to be kept secret. And you were about to start talking.”

  A roar sounded behind him, and Tai spun to see Dayglen leaping at the woman, sword raised to strike her down.

  She swiped her hand at him, and Dayglen spun into the open air as though struck by a giant fist.

  There were too many things to do at once—but there was likely no saving this parley. He could at least save Dayglen.

  Tai leapt after him, mind spinning. Semeca could use the higher resonance of a wafter? Was that how she was moving the bridges? But they were impossibly large for anyone except a powerful wafter newly overcome, and he doubted she was that.

  Tai plunged down the rocky face of the island, pushing himself to fall faster with uai, down the hundred paces toward Dayglen’s spinning body. Tai caught him ten paces from the roiling waters, sword slicing in beside them. “Can you swim?” Tai called.

  “Aye, but I can fight her! Bring me up!”

  “Not today, brother. Retreat to the town if you can, look for Ella and Feynrick, help them escape.”

  Then he dropped the man and spun back up, spine starting to ache from the amount of uai he was using.

  He didn’t make it halfway up when he saw the bridge collapse on the far side, men and women gripping the rails for dear life as others fell screaming.

  Meckstains. He needed to stop this, which meant killing Semeca, but it would be no use if he didn’t prove to the councilors he wasn’t behind this.

  Which meant saving a bunch of lighthaired fops.

  Tai shot around the pillar of island, catching the Deyenal woman around the waist, dropping from the impact, then swooped to grab a large elderly man—Jeltenets, he thought. A third fell past them screaming into the water, but he had only so many arms, and more looked ready to fall above.

  Tai shot up, as high as the fortress walls, where he dropped them on a parapet to the shock of a white-coated guard gawking at the scene below.

  Then back down, picking off the weakest-looking two still clinging to the vertical bridge, dropping them on the parapet, while the bridge’s moorings to the island groaned and sent down cascades of shattered stone.

  He caught a glance of Semeca on his way up—the woman’s face was still a rictus of concentration, her eyes far off.

  Back down, three more, Delnin determinedly ignoring him, trying to climb the rails back to the island. Fine, let him. These three at least he managed to talk some sense into on the flight up to the parapet, that he wasn’t behind the attacks, that he wouldn’t be saving them if he’d attacked in the first place.

  It might have sunk in, through their wide-eyed panic.

  The bridge dropped just as he was coming for Delnin and the other young councilor, slicing like a dagger down into the river. It struck bottom with a heavy boom, knocking both men off and into the water. Gritting his teeth Tai shot after them, praying at least that Delnin didn’t try to stab him if he made it in time.

  Instead as he approached the waters something slammed into him, like a giant boot to the back, thrusting him down into the water, grinding him into the silty bottom.

  Tai pushed up against it, waters roiling in an unnatural tube around a column of thickened air, holding him down. Semeca. She was trying to drown him—how could she be this strong?

  The circle of light above him blotted out, then something huge and heavy smashed into the river above him, water flooding back in. The bridge.

  “No!” Tai cried out, stupidly, bubbles pouring from his mouth. He shoved upward, but his resonance was no use without air to shape. His face bumped into iron, bridge neatly trapping him underwater.

  His chest seized. He would die down here, and his friends had no answer for the Broken yet, no way to defend themselves. Semeca would raze Ayugen and everyone he loved.

  He shoved the panic down, as he’d done so many times on the streets. No. There was a way out—he was trapped front back and top here, but the bridge had an end. If he could swim that far, he could get out.

  Tai started kicking, desperate, current rolling him every direction in the chaos of the confluence. He dropped his resonance, bends hitting but making little difference in the roiling water. Tai grabbed the bridge’s rails instead, pulling himself along them as fast as he could, lungs hitching, stomach threatening to heave, bends twisting every perception he had save touch.

  He clung to that, clung to the solidity of the iron rails in the turbulent waters. His lungs yearned for air, but he could do this. He would make it to the end, get to air, take his revenge.

  Tai’s foot scraped silt, then his other, even though he’d been grabbing high on the rails. Silt—the bridge was sinking into the silt, its own weight carrying it deeper into the muddy bottom.

  Trapping him between iron and mud, ten paces under.

  Fear clutched harder. Gritting his teeth Tai pulled faster along the rails, iron bottom pressing down from above. His feet dragged in the muddy bottom, then his knees, water full of grit and stone as the roiling waters sucked into the troughs the bridge was making.

  The bridge was too long. He would die down here, trapped beneath Councilate steel, defeated before he could make Ayugen free. Before he could take Ella up on that offer of a weekly meeting.

  Funny what you thought of when you were dying.

  Then his clutching hand grasped water where a bar should be, and Tai clawed himself from the end of the bridge as it pressed down on his legs. The current took him but he pushed up, kicking hard, chest heaving, lungs burning.

  Tai broke the surface and sucked in air. He was hundreds of paces downriver, world still twisting from the bends, exhausted, but he didn’t care. He was alive, and he’d done what he could to prevent Semeca’s attack from turning the Gendrys council against Ayugen.

  He turned and faced the fort upstream, treading water, giving himself a few more moments to recover and chew on sodden mavenstym blossoms from his belt. He would need all the uai he could get, if he was going to face Semeca. The woman could rip bridges free with her resonance.

  The fort looked strange, with no bridges connecting it to the mainland, but that wasn’t what caught his attention. A column of smoke rose from the army camp. And streaking towards him from that smoke was a flaming, screaming trio of Broken.

  29

  Ella and Feynrick were almost out of the camp when hell broke loose. The Broken they’d seen was quickly followed by two more, screaming and shooting out of the canvas pavilion—now belching smoke—to head for the fort. Men around them were shouting and stirring, camp buzzing like a kicked anthill, and she and Feynrick started to run, unnoticed in the chaos.

  Then the roof of the central pavilion ignited in a whoosh and Broken started pouring out.

  Not the graceful, fearsome Broken of the attack on Ayugen. Not even the screaming-but-coordinated flight of the first three Broken from the tent. These were burning, dying, yuramad Broken, woken from dreamleaf slumber to fire and pain.

  Men and tents flew in all directions as Broken brawlers ran from the pavilion attacking at random. Wafters traced smoke through the sky in chaotic swirls only to smash back to earth, winds a chaotic tempest a
round them, bodies mangled but insane fervor driving them on.

  She and Feynrick cleared the gates but the Broken were faster, some of the brawlers running in arrow-straight lines away from the pavilion, tents cookpots and human bodies no impediment, flaming clothes sparking new blazes as they ran. A few of these streaked past them, pelting across the meadow of cleared stumps toward Gendrys town.

  Feynrick gripped her hand as they cleared the gates, pulling her toward the river. “Head for the water,” he panted, resonance buzzing but still short of breath. “Broken’ll drown.”

  They were still five hundredpace or more from the Ein—plenty of room for a Broken to kill them if one chose—but she couldn’t think of anything better, so she nodded and ran on.

  Shouts and screams followed them from the camp, other soldiers running for their lives. Ella looked back to see the pavilion collapse in a roar of flame, another wave of Broken burning smoke trails into the sky and slamming down into the camp.

  “Look,” Fenyrick gasped, sweat beading in his beard, pointing at the fortress.

  One of the bridges was gone, and other one—impossibly—was lifting from its moorings while people still raced across it. Her stomach clenched—Tai. The parley. Was he destroying their bridges? Had the parley gone that badly?

  Well maybe a useless fortress and an imploding army would keep the Councilate from attacking for a while. It was the best they could hope for. In the meantime, she and Feynrick needed to stay alive—which meant keeping ahead of the panicked Councilate soldiers and blood-mad Broken pouring from the camp in all directions.

  They pelted down the sloping meadow toward the docks, Broken still swirling in the sky, one ahead diving into the water without coming up. They seemed to have so little control over themselves they likely breathed water immediately on sinking into it. Which was stupid—did these Broken have no leaders, as the ones in Ayugen did? Or was their process back in the pavilion incomplete, no commander assigned? How did they do it?