Invasion (Tales of the Empire Book 5)

by S. J. A. Turney

  He was overextended from his lunge, unable to pull back or to the side out of the way of her blow, and so he turned his disadvantage into an advantage, using his momentum to drop into a crouch by her side, the queen’s sword whispering through the air a mere finger-width above his head. He cut to the side, making to hamstring her from his low position, but her leg was not there as she danced out of peril with lithe, willowy movements.

  Bellacon rose to his feet once more, he and the queen having swapped places. It took a moment for him to register the shouting, and his eyes caught a glimpse, over her shoulder, of Prince Suolceno in the room’s main doorway. He was bellowing at the tribune to stop.

  Why?

  Through the fog of black bile and dark rage, Bellacon could remember the prince demanding that he be allowed the queen’s death. An official thing, so that there could be no doubt among his people that he was the rightful and only heir.

  Fuck him. The queen was Bellacon’s.

  His sword sliced out at waist height, and the queen’s came down in a block, only to find it was not there any longer, as the tribune turned the slash into an uppercut which, once again, would have killed most opponents. The queen was quick. Her head jerked back out of the path of the blade, which scored a neat line through her lip and nose, parallel to the old wound.

  She grinned, porcelain-pale through the blood.

  ‘Dance with me,’ she hissed, and her sword was suddenly everywhere, like a spinning web of awful edges. Bellacon’s blade came up, jerking this way and that, turning, blocking, parrying, as he was forced to give ground, step by step. No wonder his friends had fallen to this woman. She was astonishing. The best warrior Bellacon had ever faced. The best sword arm he had ever seen.

  He ducked to the side and was suddenly on the offensive again, his own blade dancing and twirling, thrusting and slicing, the queen parrying almost nonchalantly, as though she were inspecting her nails at the same time.

  And then she came again. Her blade nicked his arm, caught his neck, his chin, his leg. He was bleeding in half a dozen places now, but the rage was still strong, and as her series of attacks slowed and she changed position, he lunged forth again, his own blade drawing thin red lines across her forearm and shoulder.

  Her sword was suddenly in his face again, and he gasped at the speed and suddenness of her fresh attack. The woman never tired, never let up, always moving, always attacking. She was no queen, but a monster. A killer, pure and simple. Bellacon was forced back again until he suddenly felt a timber post behind him and had to duck lest he lose his head to her sweep. The queen’s sword slammed into the post.

  Everything changed in that single heartbeat.

  Bellacon rose again, unfolding like the wrath of furies. The queen’s expression creased into a frown as she tugged at her sword, which remained stuck fast in the post. Bellacon punched her, his fist taking that delicate-looking, pale face in the jaw and throwing her backwards. Her hand was ripped from the hilt of the sword and she fell into the cold ashes of last night’s fire beneath that oculus, bathed once more in blue light, her face bloodied and snarling in hate.

  He made to lunge forward and down. It was a simple move now, to pin her to the cold fire and see her die, his own eyes a finger-width from hers as he watched the life leave them.

  The fire…

  Bellacon shivered as the gods walked the paths of his nerves. An image burst into his mind’s eye unbidden, of General Volentius, the vengeful, bitter, angry and drunken commander collapsing into the fire during their fight, burning to death.

  The tribune had never had a message from the gods. He wasn’t entirely sure how much he believed in them, despite having seen them work through Lissa for weeks now. But this had to be their handiwork.

  All his rage. All his hate. All his desire for black revenge. It all evaporated in a realisation. What was it Lissa had told him this morning?

  Vengeance always carries an unacceptable price. The gods make sure a vengeful man pays a heavy toll.

  Blind vengeance had killed Cantex as surely as the blade of the queen. He had not waited, the vengeance burning in him too bright to survive. Two of the soldiers close by went to grasp the queen and haul her upright, and suddenly both were staggering back, clutching their throats. As they had laid hands on her, she had torn a small knife from somewhere hidden and slashed both throats in a single move.

  Bellacon shivered again. There, falling, bleeding and dying into the dust, went the path of his erstwhile revenge. Had he gone to kill her as he’d planned, he would now be lying there in the place of those two men, bleeding his last. The gods were truly in him today.

  He felt cold, but sure. The fog in his mind had gone. He stepped a single pace closer and brought down his sword, not to kill her, but pinning that knife arm to the floor, the sword point sliding between the bones of the forearm. The queen hissed her pain as the knife fell away from her fingers and a soldier picked it up, backing swiftly out of her way.

  Prince Suolceno took a few paces forward, his gaze flipping back and forth between Bellacon and the queen.

  ‘She is yours, King of the Albantes,’ the tribune said loudly. ‘To do with as you wish.’

  The prince nodded his understanding and thanks as his men passed him and grasped the snarling queen, wrenching out Bellacon’s sword from her arm and handing it back to him as they hauled the struggling warrior-queen upright and dragged her from the room.

  ‘Thank you, General Bellacon. I look forward to a long era of fruitful cooperation between our peoples.’

  Bellacon smiled, oddly. His gaze was not on the prince, though, but on the figure of Lissa, standing in the doorway of the hut, accompanied by four of his personal guard. She was nodding, a strangely satisfied smile on her face too, as though everything had somehow worked out to her design.

  ‘You were right,’ he said. ‘The price of vengeance is too high.’

  ‘Not always,’ she replied mysteriously. ‘Sometimes, even the gods demand it.’

  Epilogue

  Senator Anicius Rufus stretched and yawned, reaching out for his cup of watered wine which had become unpalatably warm in the late-morning summer sun. The sounds of muffled work arose from the floor below where his slaves and servants gathered his things and packed them.

  It would be a long journey to the island of Calarus off the tip of the southern provinces, but the weather there was acceptable at any time of the year, the scenery lovely and the girls… pliant. And he had a small estate with a charming villa overlooking a secluded bay where he could live out his days in comfort.

  His sour gaze played across the rooftops of Velutio, the vantage point from the balcony of his fifth floor bedroom granting one of the best views in the city. Definitely time to go. He would miss the amenities of the great city, which had everything.

  Absolutely everything, if a man was prepared to pay any price.

  But he could be happy with the luxuries of Calarus.

  Better than the sneering looks of his fellow senators, anyway.

  Since the return of that confounded tribune from the north a month ago, everything had changed. One of the lost ambassadors had been found and a deal of mutual benefit struck with a native king. Sea raids had stopped and imperial merchants had been invited to Alba to ply their wares. There was even a plan afoot to found colonies there with the Albante King’s blessing. In return, this puppet barbarian animal with a crown of shit had been given autonomy and rule over every tribe on the island.

  One lowly tribune had achieved what Rufus had failed to do with an army ten times the size, and with full imperial support. And he’d even managed to do it despite the failings of his commanders and the impediments that Rufus had seen put in place. Served him right for putting his trust in a woman.

  Since the emperor’s ratification of the treaty and the inclusion of Alba into imperial lands, the last shreds of Rufus’ reputation had abandoned him. He had stood and attempted to lead a cheer for the tribune’s return in the senat
e but had been booed and jeered, red-faced, back to his seat.

  At least the army didn’t seem to be aware of his little deal with the Albantes, else things might have become difficult for him in the senate. There was always the possibility that the truth might yet come out, but by then Rufus would be living in opulent, self-imposed exile on Calarus, and he would escape any kind of official judgement, he was certain. It would cause too much embarrassment in the government to haul a senator over the coals, and he still had considerable influence and power, besides.

  He wondered briefly whether to hire an assassin to get rid of that cold-gazed tribune and his Alban bitch mistress. No. It would cause too many potential troubles. He was already in enough trouble. He would fade from sight and live on the vast riches of his estate instead.

  The door of his bedroom opened with a click and then closed again.

  ‘What is it now?’

  Servants and slaves. They were all so damned unreliable, always needing to be told twice and pointed in the right direction. They’d probably mislaid his best toga. There was no answer, and the senator shuffled in his seat to look back inside from the balcony.

  A narrow-waisted, pretty woman of middle years in an expensive imperial dress was wandering forward in the gloom. She looked familiar. As she emerged into the light of the glorious morning, he realised she had northern colouring. Was she…?

  ‘How did you get past my guards?’

  The woman emerged onto the balcony, her gait sure and confident. There was something about her smile that put him in mind of a wolf, and it sent a shiver through him. Still she had no answer, said nothing. Her arm extended, the hand unfolding to reveal a very small glass vial of masterful craftsmanship. She placed it gently on the table beside his wine cup.

  ‘What is this?’

  The woman gave a noncommittal shrug. ‘I have done nothing thus far, and neither has he, because he trusts me. The veil has been pierced, Senator Anicius Rufus, and revealed your fate in blood-red flames. It is not a good fate.’

  Rufus, shuddering, folded his face into a scowl. ‘I don’t care who you think you are…’

  ‘Some say,’ the woman went on, talking over the top of him, ‘that fate is not carved in stone and can be avoided. Cheated, if you will. This is a view I have only heard in the empire, and I do not believe it. But because I cannot say for certain, I offer you a painless way out. The vial.’

  ‘A way out?’ The senator was sweating now, for some reason. ‘Listen, witch, I am not afraid of you or your potions.’

  ‘Yes you are,’ she replied simply, matter-of-fact. ‘But I am here only to help. The vial will end it painlessly. I urge you to use it and avoid your fate if you can. Use it while you still have time. Use it before the door next opens, for then your fate is sealed.’

  Rufus stared at the woman as she turned and strolled back into the apartment, disappearing into the gloom, shrouded in darkness.

  He’d not heard her leave, yet somehow as the moments trickled by, he was certain she had gone. The room felt empty. While she’d been in it, it had felt eerily threatening. Downstairs someone cursed. There was the bang of something dropped. Another time, such sounds would have had him barrelling off down the stairs to take a rod to the imbecile who had damaged his property. Somehow, right now, it seemed utterly unimportant.

  His stared at the table. His hand reached out and he realised it was shaking uncontrollably. It almost closed on the vial but then slipped around the stem of his cup. He lifted it to his lips, cursing as his trembling hand clattered the rim against his teeth. He took a swig of the warm wine. It seemed oddly like nectar now that it had been standing beside that vial.

  Idiocy. As if he were about to risk imbibing whatever potion the woman had cooked up just because she said so. He would approach the healing sanctuary on Calarus in a week’s time and pay their priests to cleanse him, to remove whatever curse or taint the northern witch had put on him.

  He took another sip and almost dropped the cup in panic when there was another click from the bedroom door.

  He was sweating uncontrollably now. His nervous, blinking eyes flensed the darkness of his rooms. A figure emerged slowly. Rufus’ heart rose into his throat.

  Tribune Lucius Bellacon, conqueror of Alba. Albanus, they were now calling him, though the idiot was downplaying his success and shrugging off the honorifics. No… not tribune. General. General Bellacon. Commander of all the northern forces and governor of Alba. The bastard. The senator’s blood ran cold to see that Bellacon had his sword in his hand, the blade naked and gleaming.

  ‘Senator Anicius Rufus. I have come for a reckoning.’

  Drenched in sweat, the senator shuffled in his seat, his eyes slipping to the vial. Was the woman right? He had a moment of horrible imaginings, where he pictured that blade carving slices from his flesh; removing his fingers, popping his eyes, prising off his jaw. He shook uncontrollably.

  ‘I… I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Yes you do, Anicius Rufus. You see, I know about your deal with the queen of the Albantes. And while her head now decorates a spike at Steinvic and her successor is called “friend to the empire”, I cannot help but remember watching my men speared by bolts from your artillery, smeared across the turf by rocks from your catapults. I remember the hundreds – the thousands, even – of men we lost to natives because of the gold you sent and the information you gave them. You, a senator of the empire, cost the empire many thousands of men, including my friends. The generals were short sighted and treacherous, but the gods paid them for their idiocy. Lissa tells me that they will see to your fate too, but I am grown too impatient, now. I have watched you for a month and nothing seems to be happening. And now you pack to leave for your palace in the south. I will not let that happen. If the gods will not punish you, then I will.’

  ‘You cannot…’

  ‘Oh I can, Senator. And I will. You owe far more than a life for your crimes, but since you have only a life to give, that will have to do.’

  The gleaming sword came up and Bellacon advanced into the daylight.

  Anicius Rufus felt the panic grip him, then. There was no doubt in his mind that the new victorious general meant to kill him, and likely slowly. He once more pictured all those horrible wounds. No, he would not let that happen. The witch! The witch had given him a way out. Painless, she had said.

  His hand reached out, but it was still shaking uncontrollably and instead of closing on the vial, it knocked it aside. The small bottle rolled from the table and dropped to the balcony floor. Miraculously, it did not shatter on impact, but instead rolled across to the edge and beneath the ornate bronze grill of the railings, plummeting out into the air and down five storeys to the plaza below.

  No!

  The painless solution had gone, and from the look of Bellacon’s eyes as he put his first foot onto the balcony, what he had in mind was anything but painless. The senator lurched up from his seat, the chair legs scraping across the floor. There was nowhere to go. He took a pace backwards, the only pace available, as Bellacon stepped forward into the open.

  It was that single pace that was Rufus’ undoing. His retreating foot came down in the corner of the balcony and found, instead of marble tile, the loose end of one of the purple drapes that were used to blot out the light when he slept. He felt the drape slip under his foot, felt his stance falter and his balance shift. Only as he realised what was happening did he notice for the first time that his balcony rail only came up to the top of his thighs. He gasped as he tipped over the rail, his feet flying upwards. Bellacon stared, clearly as surprised at this turn of events as he was.

  Rufus vaulted, gasping, out into the air.

  His fingers closed on the filigree work of the bronze railings and his shoulder screamed at him in pain as it dislocated, arresting his fall. His eyes bulged as he looked down. Five storeys of open air lay below him, and then the decorative paving of Provinces Plaza, where seven different coloured stones had been used t
o depict a map of the empire on the ground. Somehow it almost made him laugh despite his panic to note that they had yet to add Alba to the design.

  His other hand came up, desperately scrabbling for the railing. What was he going to do? If he made it back on to the balcony, that savage tribune was still waiting for him. His fingers groaned and he fought to maintain his tenuous grip. The sweat was uncontrollable now, on his fingers and all over his body as well as his head. He was pouring with it. And every slippery drop made his grip that tiny bit more difficult.

  * * *

  Bellacon stood on the balcony, staring at the man hanging from the delicate railing. He could hardly believe what had just happened. And yet still, despite everything, the bastard clung on to life, tenacious and cruel. Well, no matter what Lissa said the gods might plan, they had still failed, and it would be down to Bellacon to carry out the sentence.

  He stepped across the balcony, looking at his hands. A sword could kill so easily but, with the senator hanging above such a drop with just his fingers, so could a hand. He flexed his knuckles, bunching them into a fist.

  ‘No.’

  He frowned. The word had come not from the desperate senator, but from behind. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Lissa emerging from the gloom of the senator’s chamber. He’d not seen her, nor heard her enter. How had she got there? No matter. He stepped forward and flexed his fist again.

  ‘No, Lucius.’

  He stopped, this time, looking back and forth between his fist and the senator’s desperate, scrabbling fingers.

  ‘He deserves it.’

  ‘And the gods know that,’ Lissa said softly. ‘Remember Steinvic. Remember what happens to a vengeful man in the end. Anicius Rufus may be disgraced, but he is still powerful. Thus far you have not laid a finger on him, and only his own feet have betrayed him.’