She looked across at Aleck, and the other Emissars, her hatred stronger than ever. However, they did not look sure of themselves. Her eyes skimmed the face of each Emissar and then drifted back over the crowd before them. Something was wrong.
Aleck turned and walked over to one of the guards, who nodded and then went back inside the castle, taking four of his men with him. All Tallia could do was stand and watch, as Aleck began to talk again. There were two guards on either side of her, heavily armed with powerful lasers, the type only dispensed in times of war. They too looked uneasy, weapons raised as a movement to her right caught her eye.
People were moving. She scanned the crowd, looking for a seven-foot silver man who might have rallied the people to his aid. But there was no one standing head and shoulders above the rest of the people. Instead, when she looked closer, she could see it was Helker. Her attention caught, she looked closer and realized it was all of her personal guard; they were planning a rescue attempt.
Aleck stepped forward, his voice booming. “Think carefully before you act. There is no reason for bloodshed today. My guards outnumber you three to one.”
Helker was weaving through the crowd, coming to stand directly in front of Aleck, who signaled to his guards. Ten of them moved forward to surround Helker. “If you do not wish bloodshed, you will walk away from this place now. Go to the nunit, and there live out your days in peace and quiet. Take a sworn oath of silence, and an end to violence, and as long as you hold that oath, you will be unmolested.” Aleck opened his mouth to speak, but Helker cut him off. “Or, you can die here today. Those are the terms.”
Aleck laughed. But no one else laughed with him. One of the Emissars began to back away from the others, eying the door leading back into the palace. But before he could enter a group of thirty men, peasants with swords and ancient lasers, came streaking out of it and surrounding the Emissars and the guards holding Tallia.
At that precise moment, the guards surrounding Helker had swords pointed at their throats with shouts to drop their weapons. They did so, without one look at Aleck for permission.
“Hold.” Aleck's voice was lost amongst the baying mob, which was what the crowd had transformed into. Seeing his defeat, he turned to run, but the Emissars were surrounded.
In one last attempt to save himself, he lunged at Tallia. There was no way he was going to hurt her, not now, she refused to be used by him to make anyone surrender. The wisdom and training passed on by her father’s old captain came back to her, and she reached for the still-sheathed laser of the guard to her right, and withdrew it.
Aleck laughed as he lunged at her. “You do not have the guts, woman.”
She did. And she did not hesitate to fire the gun and put an end to the Emissary once and for all.
He collapsed onto the ground. “There is my sacrifice to your gods,” she told him as he lay dying in front of her, his flesh burned and his eyes closing for the last time. A cheer rose all around the courtyard, her name chanted.
“Queen Tallia,” Helker called above the noise, and the chanting increased until it deafened her. She smiled, a free smile, but one tinged with sadness. No Rian to share it with, no Johar to share her bed. Unless she was lucky and had already conceived a child, she would have to look for a new husband, so she could have an heir. But Johar was right: after being with him, she would never want another man in her bed.
The rest of the Emissars gave themselves up, so too did the guards, seeing themselves outnumbered and outgunned.
“What do you want us to do with them?” Helker asked.
“Bring them inside,” she said.
Tallia walked to the temple the Emissars used as their home and church. There she walked to the along the aisle, where no woman had ever set foot, and stood facing the Emissars, who were surrounded by guards.
“Here in your sacred place you will kneel and give your allegiance to not just me, but every monarch who follows. As the head of your order, you will ensure every one of your followers knows this. You will be taken out into the world and made to swear in front of all your kin and kindred.”
“Now. Who wants to go first?”
Chapter Twenty-Four – Johar
“I still cannot believe you brought me home,” Johar said to Krigan.
“I figured if you need to save your princess, then the best place to find people willing to fight for you is Limera.”
“How do you know they will fight for me? And how do you know we are not already too late?” he asked acidly.
“I don’t. But I do know you could not have taken on those madmen alone. You said yourself it would take an army to overthrow them. They had weapons; we did not. They had soldiers; we did not.”
“I could have made an army.”
“From the peasants?” Krigan laughed. “Come on. You know how hard it is to get normal people to fight for anything other than a roof over their heads and food in their bellies. All of which they would still have, even if these Emissars took over.”
“Is that what you think, Rian?” Johar asked. She was standing looking out of the window as the came out of the clouds and headed in to land near his father’s stronghold. A meeting he was not looking forward to.
“I think the people would have fought with you. But what do I know, they are no more my people than they are yours.”
“There, the answer of a politician if ever I heard one,” Krigan said, smiling at Rian, whom he had become friends with over the three days it had taken them to journey to his home planet. Mostly because she had helped keep Johar under control when he would have forced Krigan to turn the ship around and go back to Carinia.
They had mostly used a sedative, which she had got him to drink the first time, then she had injected him while Krigan restrained him with a laser. Johar was trying not to hold it against either of them.
But he swore if anything had happened to Tallia, he would not be so forgiving.
“Your planet is beautiful,” Rian said in wonder. “So many trees. Why did you ever leave?”
“Because he didn’t want to be a king,” Krigan teased.
“You are a king here?” she asked.
“He was worried his eldest brother was going to step aside and allow Johar to take the throne when his father died.”
“Only because my father wanted it. The throne is Tahar’s, not mine.”
“Does My Princess know?” Rian asked, shock on her face as she looked at Johar, as if for the first time.
“No. She didn’t know when we met, and I never found the right time to tell her.”
“Found the right time! You married her!” Rian was mad, the first time he had seen her show any strong emotion.
“Yes, I did. And I was going to tell her.”
“Maybe if you had told her, then the Emissars would not have been so against the marriage.”
“Or they would have been more against it. Can you imagine how they would see it? Another species exerting power on their planet. They would have acted sooner and never let me marry her.” Johar shook his head. “And then, I had no desire to come back here. No desire at all.”
“But now we are here you are going to ask for help?” Rian asked.
“I suppose I must.”
“Damn it! You must have it bad,” Krigan said chuckling, “Coming home to ask your father for help.”
“Don’t forget it was you who insisted,” Johar said crossly. He felt as if he had been led into a trap, and now he had to navigate his way out of it and save the princess. His princess. He was sure his father would see the funny side of the situation.
They docked at the space port. “We have no documents,” Johar pointed out.
“I already called ahead and told them what my cargo was.”
If he had known that, he would not have been so surprised when the doors opened and his father and an armed escort were there waiting for him.
“It is good to see you, Johar,” his father said, but Johar was unsure the sentiment was real.<
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“It is good to see you too, Father.” Johar stepped forward, his hand held out to his father. There was the briefest of hesitations before they shook hands and bent their foreheads to touch.
“We should talk,” his father said, turning abruptly and walking away.
Johar glanced at Krigan. “Will you look after Rian for me?”
“My pleasure,” Krigan answered, and Rian smiled at him in a way Johar had not seen her smile before. Was there a budding relationship growing between them? If so, would Rian return to Carinia? Tallia was so attached to her slave, it would be hard news to take.
His long strides soon had him caught up with his father. They crossed the open courtyard and went inside a building that was built tall, as if it was trying to touch the clouds in the sky, its outer walls constructed of smooth white stone. For generations this had been his family’s stronghold. It was said that no man could scale those walls, and the stronghold had withstood many sieges. Until flight had been discovered, and weapons that would bring the stronghold crumbling down. Yet still it reminded the symbolic home of the ruling clan. “How are you, Father?”
“How do you think when your second son runs away from home?” he asked, glancing at Johar. “You’ve grown.”
“I don’t think so,” Johar said. He had been fully a man when he had left, and always kept himself toned and muscles; he always kept himself occupied with long workouts between cargo drops, so he was sure his father was not referring to his waistline either.
“You have. You left here a boy. Not in age or height, but in spirit. You had no sense of responsibility.”
“I have learned many things,” Johar agreed. His father entered his private apartments, Johar followed, and the guards waited outside, pulling the doors closed to give their leader some privacy.
“What I am really interested in, is what brought you back here, to the home you had forsaken.”
“I have never forsaken our home.”
“And yet when you would have been better served as the next clan chief, you would run away into space?”
“I thought it for the best.”
“For the best?” His father approached him, jabbing his finger at the tattoos on Johar’s body. “You know what these are. You know why you were given them and not my first-born son.” They are the same as were given me.” His father pulled his shirt open to reveal the same tattoos over his own body. “They chose you as the leader when I die.”
“And since when do monks choose who is to succeed as our leader? Until my grandfather gave them sanctuary, we had our own customs, our own laws on who should rule. The first son. If chosen by his father. If chosen by you. And instead you have been caught up in what they say.”
“If it wasn’t for them, my brother would have been clan leader. He would have been king and taken us off to war all over the galaxy.”
“How do you know that?” Johar asked. “How do you know your father would not have chosen you anyway? Surely he was the best judge of who should have been the rightful heir. The man who raised you, trained you. Or maybe by the very fact that my uncle knew he would never be king, he chose to warmonger instead.”
His father turned to him, his eyes blazing and the glow of his tattoos faint but visible. “Do not twist this.”
Johar let his breath go, and tried to calm himself. He had not come here to fight with his father. “How is Tahar?”
His father walked over to the window and looked out over the great plains below him. The stronghold was built on a raised hill, with an ocean of grassland before them as far as the eye could see. No army could ever have marched on the stronghold without being seen a day away.
“Being a father is hard. You make decisions that you think are for the best. You have your heart broken so many times you wonder if it will ever go back together again.” He sighed wearily. “I am glad you have returned, Johar. But things are not how you left them. If you came home to take up the command, you are too late.”
“My brother has proved himself?”
His father nodded. “Yes.” He turned back to Johar. “Perhaps you were right. Tahar only needed to be free of your shadow to become the man I had hoped he would be.”
There was a knock at the door, and the two men turned to watch the door being flung open and Tahar walked in, his strides as large as his body. Johar braced himself for the bear hug his brother bestowed on him. “I am so pleased to see you, Johar.”
“Tahar. I have missed you.” They shook hands, their heads bowed forward to touch. “Brother. You look well.”
“You too. I see there is a glow about you.” Tahar slapped Johar’s arm. “Krigan tells me why.”
“And is a father to know?” the clan chief asked.
“I am married, Father,” Johar admitted.
“And you did not bring your wife to visit me?”
“No.” Johar turned to his father. “I came to ask for aid. She is being held prisoner.”
“So this is why you have returned! Not from a sense of duty, but for help.”
“As a brother and a son, Johar should feel able to,” Tahar said.
Johar observed Tahar. His father was right, his older brother had grown beyond all recognition, he was a man, in his own right, ruler of his own destiny. Fit to be a king, where Johar never would be. Keeping the clans united took more than strength; it took cunning and patience.
“Come, Father. The clans grow fat in their strongholds; they grow idle. Send them out into space, allow us to assist my brother.”
His father stood staring at the two men, his two sons, so different, yet of his blood, so very much the same. “Yes.” He nodded. “Let us hunt. I would like to see the woman who had tamed my son.”
He walked up to Johar. “I would like to thank her for being the device that has brought you back to us. Tell me, is she beautiful?”
“As the twilight, and equally as mysterious.”
“And is she rich?” his father asked hopefully.
“Yes. Well, at least her planet is.”
“So we will go and raid it, after we have rescued her?” He looked excited: to plunder was the way of the Limera.
“I cannot allow you to do that, Father.” He took a deep breath, trying to calm the light that was emanating from his tattoos. “You will know soon enough; I expect Krigan is already spreading the word … I married a princess.”
His father erupted into laughter. “You fell in love with the one thing you tried to run from?”
“Yes.”
He wiped tears from his eyes. “Oh the irony, my son. Let us go and free her.”
“Thank you, Father. Thank you, Tahar.” Johar felt relief sweep over him. He only hoped she would still be alive when they arrived.
Chapter Twenty-Five – Tallia
“And there is still no sign of him?” Tallia asked. Helker looked up from the papers he was studying in his new control post and shook his head. “What about Rian?”
“No, Queen Tallia. There is talk that a Limerian cargo ship left the spaceport around the time the Emissars took over.”
“You think he ran? That he is safe? And Rian too?” she asked, a sadness in her voice. It was hard to believe that the two people she trusted most had left and she had no idea where they were, or if they were safe. Tallia did not blame her slave for leaving. If she had remained on Carinia, she would have been killed, if the people had not succeeded in their uprising. And this had never been Johar’s battle.
“We are still trying to find out, Queen Tallia,” Helker said, drawing her back to the present. “Word comes from the south that the laws there have been repealed. The women are no longer the chattels of the men.”
“Was there much opposition?” she asked.
“Some, but your army made sure the people know there will be no retuning to the old ways.”
“We have made it clear. A small presence has been left there to reinforce your laws.”
“Thank you, Helker.” She bowed to her most trusted guard, b
ut before she left him to his work, she said, “I have not had the chance to thank you. For everything you did for me, for all of us.”
He smiled. “It was the right thing to do, I would not have my wife or my children living under such laws as the Emissars wanted to pass. When I was a child, my grandfather used to tell me stories passed down through the generations. They told of the times before your ancestors came down from the sky. Of the smell of burning flesh that used to linger in the air for days after the tax collectors came to each village. They would bring with them the Emissars who would always find fault with a handful of men and women. And children.” He shook his head. “I remembered those stories, because my grandfather told me it was our duty to never forget.”
“I’m pleased you remember, and I swear, the laws of the Emissars are gone for good.”
“Just as the Emissars are gone for good. I would have your permission to hunt down anyone who tries to speak of them. In any town or village there should be no place where the barbaric laws can be used, even in secret.”
“I agree. But the Emissars will be brought here to stand trial; I will not have the people taking the law into their own hands. That is not our way.”
“I understand,” he said.
She put a hand on his arm, and he looked at her, his face serious. She studied him for a moment longer than was polite, trying to make sure he was as trustworthy as she hoped he was. “If we are not careful we stand the chance of becoming just like them. I will not allow it.”
“I understand,” he repeated.
“Thank you,” Tallia said, and then left the room, her thoughts drifting back to the man she loved, the man who was absent from her life, but not from her heart.
The breeze was cool as she entered the gardens. She walked around the ornate lawns with their sculptured bushes and thought how useless this part of the grounds was. She would go and ask the gardeners to make it more productive, perhaps they could plant some vegetables, the surplus of which could be sold in the market, it would all help to halt the need for a rise in taxes. It appeared the Emissars were siphoning off money to pay for hired thugs to do their work for them. The crown wasn’t exactly bankrupt, but they would have to be frugal in their spending for a year or two.
The Princess and her Alien Rogue: Alien Romance Page 10
