by Rachel Lee
“You support Nona and not me?”
“I support no one until I get an answer.”
When none was forthcoming, his shoulders sagged sadly. “Ah, Lozzi, what is wrong with you?”
All of a sudden, Lozzi turned and pointed at Sara. “She is making me do it! She is the problem!”
Chapter Twenty-Four
As the hours drew on, men waiting on the hillside began to grow restless. The army below, ranged before the city, looked as if it had no intention of moving. Perhaps its orders were simply to prevent anyone from entering the town.
“It is possible,” Tuzza said when Archer suggested that. “It would be a wise move. Other legions are likely even now headed this way from their outposts to face the threat we represent. If I were in command, I would guard the city like a hen guards her eggs until reinforcements arrive.”
“So our greatest fear,” Tess said, “is that the emperor won’t listen to Alezzi, Tom and Sara, and the other legions will arrive and strike at us.”
“Of course.” Tuzza looked at her as if he were surprised that she should state the obvious.
“How long?” Tess asked.
“A day at most. Perhaps two. It depends on when the calls went out to them, but I suspect it must have been right before the uprising for at least several of them. Or perhaps right after. They may have believed the Red Panthers alone could have quelled the uprising.”
“Could they have?” Archer asked.
“Most likely. Every legion is trained to defend the city single-handedly, and with that kind of organization, ’tis possible the slaves might not have succeeded.”
“’Tis very difficult,” Archer remarked, “to defeat an enemy who won’t hold still and can hide in every nook and cranny.”
“True, but Anari are easily identified.”
Archer nodded grimly. “My feeling is that we should tell our armies to break out and feed themselves, making fires if they wish to.”
Ratha raised a brow, his blue-black face glistening beautifully in the afternoon light. “Is that wise?”
“It will certainly glean for us some information about the intentions of the legion below.”
“Ah.” Ratha slowly smiled. “I am slow.”
Archer shook his head. “No, my brother, you have simply not had the experience I have had. Count yourself blessed not to know these devious ways.”
“I think the times require me to learn, my lord.”
Tuzza nodded sadly. “I have devoted my life to the defense of my people and my empire. I am glad to say that I was never called upon to engage in conquest, though others have been, including my cousin Alezzi.” He turned a little to look out over the valley toward the city. “The lessons are bitter, Ratha. Every one of them. And while some acts may be genuinely justifiable, that does not mean they won’t return to you in the dark and solitude of night.”
“That is one lesson I have already learned,” Ratha said.
“I as well,” Jenah added. Cilla and Tess remained silent, though both looked down as if sharing the feelings.
“’Twas this awareness,” Annuvil said quietly, “that led me and others to believe we could create a peaceful race. That I have lived to see the Anari need to take up swords…” He trailed off and shook his head. “Bitter indeed. Bitter beyond the bitterest of my life.”
Tess immediately reached out and gripped his arm. “You tried to mend a problem. War is seldom just or justified. Indeed, whatever the cause, it is ugly and brutal. And were we not facing the terrible threat I have seen in the encroachment of an early severe winter and the deaths of thousands, were I not able to imagine worse deeds and outcomes, I would declare we must not shed blood.
“This time, my lord Annuvil, he gives us no other choice. And perhaps, he didn’t give you a choice in the past, either.”
Archer closed his eyes, then looked at her. “Thank you for your faith in me. I wish I shared it.”
The others fell silent, pondering sadly that which lay ahead, each locked in his own thoughts and memories. But then Ratha stirred. “We must tell the armies to break out. How do you want the fires built, my lord? As they would for camp? Or another way?”
“Keep the fires to the front of the lines. If we are attacked we can regroup behind them more easily than if they are everywhere.”
Ratha nodded. He, Jenah and Tuzza climbed away from the ledge toward the waiting armies. The Ilduin flanked Archer, and he turned to look on the valley below. They turned with him.
“Could you?” he asked them. “Intervene if they begin an attack?”
“We will certainly try,” Cilla answered.
“Aye,” said Tess. “I would not like to see bloodshed between armies that need to ally. ’Twould be a terrible waste.”
Archer nodded. “I agree. Without purpose. Do you have any sense of what is happening with your sister Sara?”
“They are in the palace,” Tess answered. “Before the emperor. But her mind is busy, and I cannot discern any one thing.”
“I feel the same,” Cilla agreed. “She is not trying to reach us.”
“I hope that is good,” said Archer. His hand fell to the hilt of his sword and he sighed. “By the gods, I am sick unto death of war.”
Sara and Tom stood amid a ring of spear points. The instant Lozzi had accused Sara, the soldiers had sprung into action. Only Alezzi, an overmark and of royal blood, escaped the threat.
“Alezzi,” the emperor said sharply. “How could you have brought this danger to me? How could you have betrayed me so?”
“If I have betrayed you, I will gladly sacrifice my head,” Alezzi said. “But I have not. And Lozzi lies.”
“Lie?” the girl shrieked. “I never lie.”
“You lie all the time,” Sara said calmly, ignoring the painful tightness with which Tom held her hand. “You began lying some six months past, when the hive took you in.”
“Lies!”
Sara smiled faintly. “You are pure, then?”
“Except for what you do to me.”
“I do nothing to you and you know it.”
Alezzi spoke. “Maluzza, my cousin, we played together as children. We stood side by side through many trials. I have always served you well and with pride. I tell you, I am serving you now, this very instant. Does my young cousin Lozzi ever scream at anyone?”
A frown knit the emperor’s brow and he looked at his daughter.
“She’s making me do it,” the girl said, pointing at Sara.
“And,” said Alezzi, “we are to believe that Nona, who has never laid a finger on you in anger, whatever your misdeed, has now hit you.”
“It is so!”
“I think not,” said Alezzi.
“Of course not,” said Sara. Gently she freed her fingers from Tom’s clutch. Then, almost quicker than the eye, she brought forth her small dagger. An instant later, she had cut her palm and blood began to drip steadily to the floor. “I am Ilduin,” she said calmly. “My blood judges. Those of you who know the old stories know that my blood will judge those who are evil or possessed by evil. It can judge no other.”
Turning, she let her blood fall on Tom. Nothing happened. “Alezzi?”
He hesitated a moment, then held out his own hand. Blood fell harmlessly upon it.
“Who else in this room will stand for judgment?” Sara asked, holding up her hand. “How many of you have only the emperor’s best interests at heart?”
No one moved, and Sara’s lips curled. Then she looked at Lozzi. “My child, you are so young no evil could have taken root in your heart or mind. So my blood will not harm you. Step forward and prove the truth of what you say. For you see, I cannot choose who my blood judges. It is beyond my control. So this blood cannot possibly harm you, can it?”
“No,” the girl said, wide-eyed, backing up a step. “No!”
Sara moved toward her and not even the guards dared step near her or her blood. “But it cannot harm you. And what better way to prove the truth
of your accusation?”
“No!” Lozzi backed up even more, cowering. “Keep it away from me!”
The emperor reached out a hand, catching Sara’s arm and holding her. “Do not hurt my child. You are Ilduin, and I cannot prevent you. Not all my armies could prevent you. But do not hurt my child!”
Sara looked at him. “I told you she came with lies. I warned you of her approach. There is a hive in your palace, and it has taken your child. There is within these walls an Ilduin who works for the Enemy. She betrays you every day, every hour, and she has taken your child into the hive. Her minions are working to weaken you and weaken your empire, for in the days to come, when Ardred marches on you, he wishes to find little opposition. You will waste your legions fighting the wrong enemy. You will curse your people by listening to lies and by trusting the wrong advisers.”
Sara shrugged. “If you do not believe me, lock us all away. But before I leave this room, my blood will fall on your daughter.”
“You threaten me and mine!”
Sara’s eyes sparked. “There is more in the balance than you, your child and your empire. You have heard the words of the prophet. Erkiah has vouched for him. Would you ignore the warning because a child lies to you?”
Slowly the emperor released her arm and turned to his daughter. “Lozzi, why did Nona strike you?”
The girl, staring at the blood that still dripped from Sara’s palm, seemed suddenly lost and confused. “I…she….” Her voice trailed off and she dragged her gaze from the blood to her father. On her face there appeared a monumental struggle, and all who could see could not doubt that some battle raged madly within her.
“She…she did not strike me!”
With that, the girl collapsed into an insensate heap on the floor.
The emperor knelt beside her and cradled her gently. “My child, my child…”
“She is strong,” Sara said gently. “On the cusp of finding her Ilduin powers. She will be fine. And you should be proud, for she battled and won freedom, however brief, from the hive.”
The emperor looked up at Sara. “You can heal. Help her.”
“Healing is not what she needs. And I alone am not strong enough to battle another Ilduin for her mind and heart. I will need my sisters.”
“Then send for them!”
“You must let them pass safely.”
“They shall.”
“And you must let Lord Annuvil come with them.”
“He is here?” The emperor looked both amazed and stunned.
“He leads us,” Alezzi said. “He will lead us in the fight against Chaos. He and the White Lady.”
The emperor nodded and looked down at the daughter he cradled in his arms. “She is so pale. I will send a messenger.”
“That is not necessary,” Sara said. “I will tell them. You will ensure that they meet no obstacles of any kind on their way.”
The emperor nodded, rocking Lozzi as if his heart were breaking.
“I never thought I would see such a day,” Cilla murmured to Tess. Astride their mounts, she, Tess and Archer were passing among the orderly ranks of the Bozandari legion. The soldiers watched them with the greatest suspicion, but the order had been given to pass them through unhindered, and these soldiers obeyed their orders.
Tess nodded. “It feels…strange.”
Cilla looked at her. “Strange in what way?”
“It is as if…” She shook her head. “I think I have done this before. It stirs a memory I cannot quite reach.”
She lowered her head, reaching for the slippery wisps of something from her forgotten past. Part of her feared what she might find there, for she must have forgotten it for a reason, and the one full memory she had recovered had been of holding her dying mother in a strange world.
But this somehow seemed important, and she struggled to grasp the slippery threads of thought as they rode between the orderly ranks toward the gates of the beautiful city.
But then the memory opened into something entirely different from orderly rows of soldiers into a scene more like that battle the Anari had fought against Tuzza’s legion. Every bit as bad. Worse.
Doc!
She was crawling on her belly, dragging a heavy bag. Around her explosions shook the world, making the ground heave beneath her. Dirt and other debris, some of it human flesh, rained on her as she lowered her helmeted head.
Then forward again, urgently squirming along the ground.
Doc!
She reached two men huddled together behind the shelter of a ragged hump of ground covered by the husks of dead foliage. The one who had been screaming for her held his hand tightly on the leg of another man, who writhed horribly.
Jumbled words filled her ears, but then the man lifted his hand from the wound and she saw the horrific spurt. Pressure! she heard herself yell over the surrounding roars and chattering bursts of deafening noise. Keep it on! Then she pulled the bag up to eye level and began to rip open a dark green package….
Tess blinked, returning to the here and now with a near sense of shock.
The orderly rows surrounding her were so far removed from the mayhem she had just seen that it seemed surreal.
Archer’s voice reached her. “Are you all right, my lady?”
“I just remembered something from my past.” She looked at him and found his strong face furrowed with concern. “It was ugly. It was a battle. But it was not here.”
His brow creased even more. “Not here?”
“Not in this world.”
His lips suddenly compressed into a tight line. “Will the gods never stop toying with us?”
“Will I never escape war?”
“I often wonder the same thing.” Then he utterly astonished her by leaning over in his saddle, grasping her hand and carrying it to his lips. “May we be facing our final battle,” he said, then squeezed her fingers and let go.
The flutter in Tess’s heart totally distracted her from the ugly memory that had returned to her.
The final battle. How good that would be.
But first they must survive it.
The emperor kept the audience chamber locked. Everyone had settled, waiting for whatever lay ahead of them. The guards remained on full alert, and periodically one would come to the door to give a report on the advance of Tess, Cilla and Archer.
Lozzi remained unconscious, her father hovering over her as she lay on a bed hastily contrived of pillows. Once he looked at Sara and asked, “Will she recover?”
Sara nodded. “Aye. She is strong. Stronger than the hive. But the effort to break their hold exhausted her. She needs the rest. And ’tis better she remain this way until my sisters arrive, for if she wakes, the hive will again take control.”
“I want this hive exterminated from my palace,” Maluzza said, his voice cracking. “I want every one of them destroyed like the vermin they are!”
“Patience,” Tom counseled, speaking for the first time in quite a while. “When the three come together, no hive will withstand them.”
“And there is one who can be saved apart from your daughter,” Sara said. “We must try very hard to save her.”
“Who?” Maluzza demanded.
“Your seer.”
He looked aghast. “She is part of this?”
“Not by her will. We must free her.”
“By Adis!” The emperor looked like a man from beneath whom the very earth had been yanked. “Lies. I have been surrounded by lies and betrayal, and yet I trusted.”
“Those who betray are evil,” Sara said gently. “Those who trust are good at heart, and cannot be expected to look for evil in others.”
The emperor rose from the floor beside his daughter and looked at Alezzi, Tom and Sara. “I was born to this. The moment I drew my first breath, I was fated to sit on that throne and bear its burdens. Not once in my entire life have I thought of doing otherwise. Nor would it have been permitted. My daughter, too, faces the same fate. One day she will sit on that thro
ne.”
He shook his head, as if clearing his thoughts. “I have always cared for the people of this empire as best I could. I have not always been right. Nor have I always done good. The slave revolt—I should have seen it coming before anyone died. I have failed so many, both slave and free.”
Tom spoke, surprised. “You care that slaves died?”
“Of course I do,” the emperor answered sharply. “They are in my care as much as any Bozandari!”
“Then how can you endure that they are slaves? Are they not people to you?”
“Slavery began before my time. And to remove it too quickly would result in the collapse of the empire I have sworn before the gods to protect. You try sitting in that chair, young man.”
Tom flushed. “It is an evil beyond almost any.”
Alezzi spoke. “I have never owned a slave. Nor has my cousin Maluzza. Every Anari in this palace is free. But my cousin is right, Tom. Because of what happened in the past, change must happen at a careful pace.”
“Then why,” demanded Tom, “do you still allow the slavers to raid the Anari villages? Why do you let your armies march on defenseless towns and seize the prized youth of the clan? Why do you allow this evil?”
The emperor lowered his head. “Then perhaps I had best not let Ilduin blood fall on me.”
“I think not,” said Tom irately. “You claim to protect all your people, slaves included, yet you have not even ordered your armies to stop stealing men and women from the Anari. You have not ordered that no more slaves be sold, so the raids will stop and those who depend on slaves will have to care for them as irreplaceable. You talk of seeing slow change, yet you have let the cusp of change slip through your fingers throughout your reign!”
Soldiers edged closer but the emperor held up his hand. “The young prophet is right.”
“You have cared more that your wealthy classes not be angry with you than you have cared that Anari are being stolen, sold and chained as if they were mere cattle. You have recognized a wrong, yet have done little if anything to correct it. That makes you more evil than most.”
Out of Tom’s mouth, those words emerged as a judgment spanning ages rather than the moment it took him to speak them. He reached up, removing his leather mask with one tug of the string that held it in place and revealed his strange eyes, eyes with a clear iris so that the pupil appeared to fill the whole space. As the light struck his widely opened eyes, like an animal’s at night they shot back red light.
