Heroes of the Crystal Star (Valcoria Book 1)

by Jason James King

  Yuiv continually glanced back at the besieged town outlined in a nimbus of dawn, his panic lessening with every mile they put between themselves and Lisidra. Finally away from the din of thousands of enemy soldiers, Yuiv caught the sound of Sitrell’s labored breathing. The Amigus commander was swaying dangerously in the saddle. Worried, Yuiv eased the leather satchel away from Sitrell’s left side and was horrified to find the bag soaked in blood.

  He worked to keep his voice steady as he asked, “How long’s does’d it take to git ta Hirath?”

  After a moment Sitrell croaked, “If we keep to this road and ride hard, stopping only to rest my horse, we can reach Hirath by sunrise tomorrow.”

  “Good.” Yuiv was somewhat relieved they were only about a day’s ride away from help, but Sitrell was bleeding badly. Would he be able to last that long? In a deliberate effort to keep Sitrell alert as well as distract himself, Yuiv prattled on, “When we’as get there, you’as can seesa doctor, and I’as can go to Kyros. I’as heared they gots lotsa money. I’as don’t get on good with rich folk, but maybe’d theys have a nicer poorhouse. You’as gonna get a medal or sumtin? Ya probley got lots already, huh.”

  Suddenly Sitrell slowed the horse to a halt, removed his helmet and winced as he turned to face Yuiv, revealing a face that was frighteningly pale.

  Yuiv anxiously shot a glance back at Lisidra. “Whatchu doin? They’s catch us!

  “You are going to accompany me to Salatia Taeo to witness for me and answer for what you’ve done!”

  Yuiv was as hurt as he was surprised. “I’as helped you! That makes up for my’s helpin Leadren!”

  “Thousands of Amigus soldiers and citizens died because of what you did!” snapped Sitrell. “Did you really think you were just going to be able to walk away from that?”

  “I’as didn’t know’d!”

  “Ignorance is no excuse!” Sitrell turned away.

  Angry tears welled up in his eyes. “Whats gonna happen ta me?”

  Sitrell shook his head. “I can’t say for certain. But your help will count for something, and we have laws against putting young people to death, even for treason.”

  “I’as ain’t gonna go back to prison!” Yuiv shouted.

  “I’m a commander in the royal army and you will do what I tell you to do!” growled Sitrell.

  “I’as won’t go ta the capita with ya!” Yuiv expected a retaliatory explosion from Sitrell, but to his surprise, the Amigus commander said nothing. Fear replaced his anger and he gingerly touched the back of the Sitrell’s shoulder. “Sitrell?”

  Yuiv heard a dull clang, and looked down to find that Sitrell had dropped his helmet on the ground. Then, before he could register what was happening, Sitrell slumped to his right and fell from the saddle.

  “Sitrell!” Yuiv leapt off the horse, knelt over Sitrell, and rolled him onto his back. After studying the bullet sized hole in his stolen armor, Yuiv went to work unfastening and removing the charcoal-colored breastplate. He pulled it from Sitrell’s chest, revealing a blood soaked shirt underneath.

  You could heal him, the words suddenly brushed Yuiv’s mind, startling him to his feet. He looked around, but the dirt road was empty in both directions. Where had that come from? It wasn’t his voice, it wasn’t even a man’s voice. After a moment, he concluded that fatigue and nerves were causing him to imagine things, and he went to work tearing a piece of cloth from the hem of his tunic and creating a makeshift bandage for Sitrell’s hemorrhaging wound. Next, he removed the Imperial Guard armlets and gauntlets before straining to lift Sitrell back into the saddle and leaning the unconscious man forward against the horse’s neck. He tied the leather satchel containing the Niazeride weapon and its counter measure to the saddle’s pommel before climbing up behind Sitrell and taking hold of the horse’s reins.

  For a long moment, Yuiv stared west across the grassy plains and the wide dirt road that wound into the horizon. A temptation to leave Sitrell and flee presented itself to his mind, but he pushed it away. He would not leave a man to die, not one who had refused to leave him to die, even if that man wanted to arrest and imprison him. He would get Sitrell to Hirath and a hospital. Only then, after he knew that Sitrell was safe, would he be free to go.

  Imitating what he’d seen others do, Yuiv snapped the black stallion’s reins and the beast lunged into a gallop. You could heal him, the oddly familiar woman’s voice again whispered to Yuiv’s mind.

  “Not real!” Yuiv told himself aloud. “I’as tired!”

  You could heal him, again it repeated, this time fainter.

  “No!” Yuiv shouted as he shook his head. Then the voice was gone, and with it Yuiv’s certainty that he had only imagined it.

  The crown gave Yaokken the power to move things with only a thought!

  Chapter 7

  The Medasylas

  Leadren put on an ingratiating smile as he watched, over steepled fingers, a line of nobles being escorted into the room by a contingent of Aukasian soldiers. The citadel’s hall of council, where he usually held audience, had been commandeered by Lorta’s Imperial Guard as the emperor’s makeshift throne room, thereby forcing Leadren to resort to meeting in his significantly smaller dining chamber. The stream of men and women surrounded the chamber’s long, rectangular table and stood behind their chairs shooting anxious glances at the Aukasian soldiers as they waited for an invitation to sit. He counted them, eighteen. Three were missing: Lord Alborne of house Macade, Lady Cyra of house JaHale, and Lord Kester of house Nalran. They were likely dead, and if not they soon would be. Leadren would make sure each was quietly assassinated for failing to answer his summons.

  “Sit,” he commanded.

  Leadren swept his gaze over the group, chuckling to himself as he noted their rumpled clothes and ungroomed hair. He’d intentionally disallowed the members of the town council time to clean up and become presentable to the end of making them more pliable and, of course, to humiliate them. Oh, how he loved to do that.

  As Leadren drank in their broken looks, he had to work to suppress his rising giddiness. He would soon be crowned their king, and then there would be no more council sessions, no more hearing their advice, and no more having to capitulate to their combined authority. He would be the authority that ruled Lisidra, the only authority under the emperor.

  Leadren put on his best mask of sympathy. “My friends,” he spread his arms wide as if he were about to embrace them all at once. “You cannot imagine how grateful I am to see your faces and know that you are safe.” Leadren methodically paused a moment to scan the assembly with a feigned expression of familial concern, even stopping on a face here and there and flashing what he considered a reassuring smile. “The night has indeed been long, but the dawn has come, and with it a new day for our people.”

  The members of the town council cast tacit glances at one another in between their wary eyeing of the Aukasian soldiers. “Last night the emperor of the Aukasian Empire arrived with his army and took possession of Lisidra. As it is with a mother’s travail, there was some blood and suffering, but as that mother’s labor ends with the joyful birth of a child, so has this night ended with the commencement of a new life for all of us.” Leadren observed Lord Olken, a prematurely greying man in his late forties , express his disgust with small shakes of his head and frowning glances at his fellows. Leadren suppressed a wave of rising rage, working hard not to let his calm tone falter as he continued his carefully rehearsed speech. “We have much to be grateful for, my friends, as there was little bloodshed, and all of Lisidra’s people are now safe.”

  “Thousands died!” Olken slammed a fist down on the table’s polished finish. “Thousands, among which were women and children! How can you call that little bloodshed?”

  One of the Aukasian soldiers made to move toward the man but desisted at a hand signal from Leadren. “I understand that you are all very tired and worn,” Leadren worked to adopt his most patient and soothing tone. “And I know that this has been a try
ing time, but we need to look for the shining sun behind the storm clouds which are even now dissipating.”

  Having caught the movement of the Aukasian soldier, Olken fell silent, limiting his expressions of injustice to a challenging stare.

  Leadren continued, “After a long night of laborious negotiation, I have reached an agreement with the Aukasian government. They have consented to spare Lisidra and her people and leave its current leadership…”

  Me.

  “…in place if we agree to submit peacefully to Emperor Lorta and become citizens of his empire.”

  Those last words ignited an explosion of gasps and whispered conversation. Leadren paused just long enough to savor the assembly’s reaction before raising a hand to call for silence.

  “My friends…”

  My subjects.

  “…I understand that this decision will require a period of adjustment. However, I believe, from the deepest part of my soul, that this is the only way to prevent further bloodshed, retain our freedoms, and ensure a lasting peace. As the leadership of Lisidra…”

  Until I’m crowned king.

  “…we have the responsibility to use our influence to convince our people of this fact and prevent anyone from disturbing this fragile peace. To that end, I ask that each of you promptly issue proclamations announcing your house’s support for this new―”

  “You would have us surrender to the enemy and lie down defeated?” Olken growled, as if he weren’t surrounded by ten Aukasian soldiers. Five members of the council echoed his sentiments with thoughtful nods and muttered assents.

  Anger burned inside Leadren, but he masterfully kept it from touching his voice. “I see no defeat in ending hostilities and preserving lives, Lord Olken. Surely, you must agree that what we are doing will―”

  “We?” Olken snapped. “We have done nothing! You acted without the knowledge or consent of the town council in proposing terms of surrender and in drafting a treaty with an enemy of the state! The first is an egregious impropriety and the second is illegal, tantamount to treason under Amigus law! You do not have the authority to hand Lisidra to the enemy!”

  Three more members of the council manifested their agreement with Olken by nodding and repeating “Illegal!” and “No authority!”

  Leadren arched an eyebrow. “You would prefer our people suffer slavery and imprisonment under an Aukasian regent?”

  Olken stood, directing his next remarks to the council. “I think I know what’s going on here. This man,” he pointed accusingly at Leadren, “is a collaborator. He’s sold us to the enemy to save his own skin! Perhaps he even thinks he can profit from betraying his people!”

  Leadren clenched his teeth as the council erupted into a debate, one almost as lively as usual, as though they weren’t in the presence of their enemy captors. Most agreed with Olken, but half of the council members despaired for any other solution than surrender. Leadren decided that the time to demonstrate his new position as Lorta’s vassal had come. He nodded to the Aukasian soldier standing behind Olken, who promptly drew his flintlock pistol and shot the councilman in the back. One of the women screamed as Olken sank to the ground, eyes glazing before his body even hit the red carpeted floor. An abrupt silence followed as all directed pale-faced stares at Leadren.

  “In your proclamations,” he softly continued, “kindly explain that any attempts at fleeing the city or inciting sedition will be punished by prompt execution of the offender, their spouses, and children. Should the offender have neither of those, then three citizens will be selected at random and executed with the offender.” He let the threat hang in the air a moment before donning another false smile and concluding, “I’m sure you all agree that we do not want any more unpleasantness?”

  The white-faced council members nodded, almost in unison.

  “Very good then.” Leadren stood. “I expect to receive a copy of each of your proclamations by sundown.” He folded his arms behind his back and nodded. “Good day, my friends.” With that, he turned and strode through the chamber’s double doors held open for him by a pair of Aukasian soldiers.

  Leadren sighed as he turned into the corridor. As much as he hated every man and woman on that wretched committee―in his eyes, it didn’t deserve the honorific of “council”―he’d wanted to secure their support through words instead of ball and powder. Leadren believed that a man motivated to do something by persuasion would be twice as compliant as a man forced to do the same thing under threat of violence. There was also the possibility that they would resist him. He would have to do something about that, for he couldn’t risk failure in the eyes of the Emperor, and being unable to control his own people would be a glaring failure indeed.

  Perhaps as part of his coronation celebration he would hold a public execution. The firing squad. Leadren smiled. No, the gallows! After which, he would line the gates of his citadel with the severed heads of the town council and any else who failed to show him the respect he deserved. Leadren grinned to himself as he descended two flights of stairs to the citadel’s ground floor. There he made his way through several connecting halls, all the while practicing his most regal stride and fantasizing about what else he would do to his enemies when he was finally crowned king.

  So caught up was he in his sadistic daydreaming that it took him nearly colliding with a pair of soldiers to realize that he had reached his destination, a pair of large double doors inlayed with silver designs and bearing the carved likeness of Amigus’s white eagle in flight.

  The two soldiers acting as porters saluted, and one cracked the door to look inside before turning back to address Leadren. “I will announce you, Milord.” The soldier turned away and took a step into the chamber beyond. “Prince Hacik Leadren,” the Aukasian soldier cried in his clipped accent.

  Prince. He liked that.

  “He may enter,” replied a soprano voice also touched with the choppy cadence of an Aukasian accent, though it was not quite as thick as that of the soldier’s.

  The soldier swung the right door open and motioned for Leadren to enter. As he walked into the vaulted, rectangular chamber where he once held town councils, Leadren was surprised to see that the room had already been redecorated. The blue and white flags draping the walls had been replaced with crimson banners, embroidered with the gold lion of Aukasia.

  A red carpeted dais stood at the far end of the hall bearing a portable throne that was more a work of art than a seat. It was made of wood that was lacquered black and inlaid with trailing gold-leaf designs. The lattice back was taller than a standing man and the armrests were capped by two carved lion heads, both frozen in a fiercesome roar. Seated straight-backed on the throne was a young man with dark eyes, appearing little older than eighteen years of age. He had a beardless, olive skinned face, a long braid of raven hair, and was dressed in expensive, gentlemen’s finery of the latest fashion.

  “Approach,” Emperor Lorta commanded in his soprano voice.

  With eyes cast down, Leadren strode to the foot of the dais and prostrated himself next to an already kneeling man at his right. That man appeared to be in his middle fifties and was dressed in an Aukasian uniform, though it differed from the others Leadren had seen. It had gold, tasseled shoulder pads pinning a black cape to the man’s back and several gold and silver medals pinned to his right breast. That must be General Hakell Salache.

  Leadren kept his eyes on the dais. “Forgive the interruption, Your Highness. As you commanded, I present myself to you.”

  Lorta dismissively waved a hand. “Be at ease, Prince Leadren. We shall finish with the General’s report, and then I shall hear yours.”

  As soon as Leadren nodded, General Salache’s gravelly voice resumed the recitation of battle statistics. “…forty-seven of the fourth division dead, sixty-two wounded. Twenty-three of the fifth division dead, fifty-seven wounded. Seventeen of the sixth division dead―”

  “…Why not give me the sum of it, general?” interrupted the emperor. “Else we
be here the whole of the day.”

  “As you wish, Your Highness,” Salache’s tone remained neutral. “Four hundred ninety-six dead, eight hundred twenty-two wounded, and fifteen unaccounted for.”

  “Not bad, significantly less than your projections.” Lorta reached for a silver goblet placed on a table to the right of his throne and stole a sip. “Anything else, General?”

  Salache nodded. “Two of the missing soldiers are members of the Imperial Guard.”

  Lorta’s eyes shot up from his drink. “Who?”

  “Sen and Kiska.”

  “They were not deployed into combat.” Lorta pounded his free hand on one of the armrest’s roaring lion heads. “The only explanation can be desertion! Send three others of the Imperial Guard after them, and when they find them, I want the cowards brought back and publicly hanged, drawn, and quartered!”

  “Your highness, Sen and Kiska have been with the Guard since your father’s reign. I do not believe they would desert after so many―”

  Salache’s protestation was cut short as the Aukasian soldier acting as the throne room’s porter loudly announced, “His Holiness the Arch Sage, and Imperial Advisor, the Medasylas.”

  Lorta’s entire face changed as he grinned and leapt to his feet, “Sage!”

  Leadren turned as two men strode into the chamber. The foremost was a man wearing a long, white robe loose across the front, exposing a bare chest, and tied closed by a gold belt that matched the trim on the robe’s cuffs and hem. Although his hood was drawn up, Leadren could see that he was a man in his early fifties with short, white hair and blue eyes.

  The man trailing him was much younger, appearing to be in his mid-twenties with long, black hair, dark eyes, and clad in a brown servant’s robe. Leadren caught movement out of the corner of his eye and glanced at Salache who appeared to be glowering at the robed man. It was the first display of emotion he’d seen from the general.