The Broken (The Lost Words: Volume 2)

by Igor Ljubuncic

  “Protect the empress!” Gerald screamed. He lunged, tackling her. Her dress caught against his sword hilt and tore. She tripped and fell on the wet cobbles, covered in mashed straw and dirt. Her palms came away black with grime.

  Gerald and another soldier loomed above her in a protective circle, swords drawn and large shields extended. The commander of the City Guard was only inches away, his chest rising and falling in quick bursts. His whiskered, muscled neck almost touched her face. He had a musky, manly smell, part sweat, part something else. She inhaled.

  Amalia felt no fear, hiding underneath him. She felt safe.

  Deputy Edwin ordered his troops to charge. They pushed into the mass of citizens, scattering them. Women gasped; men cursed. Children started to cry. A moan of dismay exploded outward from the crowd. The soldier rushed forward, closing on the attacker.

  They found him. The man did not protest.

  Amalia looked at her filthy, torn dress. She looked like a beggar. And then she noticed the half piece of a rotten apple on the ground near her feet. Someone had just attacked her with a piece of fruit. There was a stain on her shoulder.

  Edwin grabbed the man’s shirt by the collar and punched him hard in the face. The gauntlet connected with a loud noise. Blood sprayed in thick strands. The man collapsed. Edwin, his face red with murderous rage, raised the lobstered fist for another blow.

  Amalia saw it happening. She sobered. Suddenly, her shelter felt suffocating. On all fours, she wriggled out, staining her clothes ever more, staggering up.

  “No, no, no! Stop!” she shouted.

  The deputy pulled back as if whipped. Soldiers rushed toward her, back-to-back, forming a ring, swords drawn and facing the crowd, eyes bobbing, seeking any danger.

  “Stand down!” she barked. But they did not obey her. They waited for their captain to speak.

  Gerald spent a whole minute assessing the situation. There was no danger. He saw the rotten apple. He deflated. “Stand down.”

  “This man is a spy!” Edwin suggested hotly. A ragged cry rippled across the crowd. He waited for the order to finish the man. On the ground, her attacker lay half dazed, his face ruined and torn by the metal. He seemed unaware of what had just happened.

  “Do not kill that man,” Amalia warned.

  “Your Highness, he attacked you. It’s an offense punishable by death!”

  Amalia brushed her hair back. Then she realized her palms were smeared with mud. She wiped them unceremoniously on her dress. All of this because of an apple. It was incredible. The little stain would easily wash off. But the rest of the damage was irreparable. Her own defenders had caused more fuss than the provocateur.

  “It is so, but he will be tried justly for his crimes. We do not kill people because we feel like doing it. Arrest him, and throw him in a cell. He shall have a public trial. And I shall preside it.” Amalia felt the hundreds of eyes watching her carefully, judging her. This is leadership, she thought. This is the true meaning of ruling a land.

  Edwin hesitated stubbornly. Only when Gerald moved to disarm him did he relent.

  “Are you hurt?” the commander asked her. There was genuine worry in his eyes. But he seemed content with her reaction.

  She snorted. “My dress is ruined.”

  Gerald exhaled deeply. “I apologize, Your Highness.”

  But the fuss would not end just yet. The crowd was dispersing quickly, trying to get away from the bloody scene, but there was a wind of tension howling through the streets. It took her several moments to realize it had nothing to do with her. Something big was happening.

  Pushing down the Gray’s Cut from the wall’s end of the street was a delegation of soldiers. They looked a mixed bunch of troops from several legions, plus a handful of city guards and another of Gerald’s deputies, Oliver. His face was a rigid mask of fear.

  Her escort bustled the attacker to his feet and led him away. One of the soldiers thumped him on the back of the skull when he thought no one noticed. But she did. It was madness. Why would anyone throw a rotten apple at her? Why? Was she deluding herself about the love and devotion of her people?

  Agatha stood nearby, poised like a doe, panicking, unsure what to do. She was not prepared to handle a mud crisis. She seemed on the verge of tears, only the aftereffect of shock from the attack keeping her face dry. Amalia paid no attention. She watched Oliver approach.

  “What’s happening?” Gerald was the first to speak as the city bells began to toll. A shrill, long note erupted above the city. Someone had just blown a horn.

  “Your Highness, we must take you to safety, now!” Oliver spoke, panting. All around her, city guards armed with crossbows were running, taking defensive positions. From the walls just ahead of her, a horn blasted again, a sad moan of despair. “The war has started, Your Highness. We’ve been invaded.”

  So it starts, she thought. Then she looked at Oliver’s party. Some of the soldiers wore bandages. They had bloodstains on their tunics. They seemed haggard. They seemed like men who had seen death.

  “Who are these men?” she asked.

  “Sixth Legion, Your Highness. They’ve been routed.” Silence exploded over the assembled troops. Oliver swallowed. He wiped sweat from his temples. “The situation is bad, Your Highness. In fact, it’s a disaster. The Parusites have launched a multipronged attack. They have thousands of mercenaries in their service. They have siege engines and monsters.”

  Amalia said nothing. She just listened. The Parusites?

  “The Sixth has been on the retreat for four straight days. Day and night, Your Highness. The Parusites press on their offensive round the clock. We’ve lost all communication with the Second and Third. We believe the Fourth is besieged in Caytor. All of the unit commanders have been assassinated. It looks like Pum’be work.”

  “Your Highness, we must take you to safety.” Gerald pulled on her arm, leading her away.

  The bells would not stop ringing. Individual sounds became one long, mournful peal. A veil of hot panic was settling on the city, a wet press of susurrating fear that resonated with the hard lump in her throat.

  “Where’s the enemy now?” she asked, refusing to leave. Then, she started walking, heading back toward the palace. Her whole body quivered.

  “The remnants of the Sixth evacuated Keron only yesterday.”

  “Keron? That’s only twenty-five miles away!”

  Could it be possible? How could the enemy attack outpace her messengers? It sounded crazy. But then, she had never heard of an enemy force pursuing their attack through the night. That was extremely risky. Only desperate armies would do that. Desperate or mad, she thought.

  “I want to see,” she hissed.

  Oliver swallowed. “Your Highness, there’s nothing to see.”

  Gerald persisted. “Your Highness, we must get you back into the palace, now.”

  Amalia gritted her teeth. “I want to see. Take me to the walls!” she ordered.

  The commander looked angry. His face contorted. He inhaled sharply, but said nothing. “Protect the empress,” he ordered gruffly.

  The party moved in a quick pace toward the city walls. The news was spreading fast. People had stopped working. They stood idly in front of their shops, talking in quick, hushed voices, speculating.

  She could see soldiers running, couriers, messengers, mounted guards. It felt like chaos. The streets were getting empty. People had gone home, checking on their families, hoarding stores, getting ready for war, hiding.

  Within minutes, they reached the nearest section of the city walls and climbed onto the walkway. As one, sentries stood, looking across the southeast fields, watching, unbelieving.

  A solid wall of people was flooding toward the city. Folk from nearby villages were fleeing their homes, carrying small children and their meager belongings on their backs. Trade caravans had abandoned their wagons and were heading back on foot. Those who had horses rode in a hurried trot. Hundreds of abandoned oxen and mules brayed, panicking j
ust like the humans around them.

  Farther out, engineers were trying to demolish the bridges over the Telore, hacking with axes, burning, and sapping. Mixed among the commoners and bridge burners, thousands of soldiers in ragged, disarrayed groups were heading for Roalas, converging onto its big, solid safety. Men walked with the slow, staggering pace of the exhausted and wounded. They had lost all order and dignity. Routed units swarmed and milled, headless, terrified. They just wanted to flee the fighting.

  In the filthy, thick suburbs ringing the capital, the riffraff was stirring, an army of refugees and scavengers and the poor, slowly learning the bitter truth of their fate. Hemmed between the hard stone of the curtain walls and the oncoming tide of the Parusite foot and horse, they would be the first to die. A single wail of panic that unified all throats down there was rising, growing in intensity.

  Amalia’s eyes flickered up. No farther than a stone’s throw away, the war loomed, burning, boiling, hissing. It was a blotch of gray-and-black smoke, engulfing the nearby town of Keron and the dozen hamlets that surrounded it. Amalia needed no military experts to understand the horizon was a thick, impregnable chain of Parusite forces, advancing.

  It seemed impossible.

  There had been no early warning of an impeding attack. Rumors, just rumors. Nothing to indicate a major invasion. Not a single bird, not a single rider. The defenders would have no time to get ready. Whatever they had was going to have to do.

  A cold question punched him in the pit of his stomach.

  Who leads these men now? Gerald thought.

  Roalas did not have its own standing garrison save for the city guard; the legions should have stopped the enemy at the realm’s borders. Emperor Adam had wisely decided not to keep a force stationed in the capital, and the tradition had kept these eighteen years. It would have caused nothing but friction, with mostly Eracian soldiers in sight of the Caytorean local population. But now, Roalas would have to rely on its inexperienced force of watchmen for protection.

  One of the legion commanders would have been the best choice. They knew about tactics; they knew about battle; they had trained under the emperor and learned his tricks. They could rally thousands and manage large engagements. But around him, soldiers from the Sixth were staring. His deputies, the frightened sentries, they were all staring at him. Who will take command?

  He took a deep breath.

  “Oliver, see that the gates are open,” Gerald spoke in a deep, authoritative voice. He pointed.

  There was a riot building up at the South Gate. The guards were barring entry to the thousands of fresh refugees and strangers, Athesian, Caytorean, Eracian, come from everywhere and caught in the jaws of killing. They held their spears extended and would not let the river of people enter. The traffic jam was growing, turning critical.

  “Quickly, Oliver. Separate men and women. All able-bodied men are to report to the local garrison. All soldiers are to be reassigned to new units. I want a party of volunteers sent to inspect the bridges and evacuate any last people from the vicinity.”

  Amalia stared. She did not know what to do. Gerald led the way now. She was lost. Someone had thrown a rotten apple at her.

  “Edwin, make sure the Fuckers are fully deployed.” They had only half the planned number. And none had been distributed to any of the neighboring cities.

  “Sergeant Darius, summon Lord Mayor Benedict. I want a full report on the city’s readiness for a siege. I want to know how many people we have. I want to know how much food we have. Rationing starts tomorrow. Soldiers and women with small children get priority. Complete martial law comes into effect from this moment on. Spread the word. Any dissidence, food theft, or price whoring will be punishable by death.”

  The soldier nodded and ran off.

  Gerald stood, breathing hard. The city was not ready for war. Not yet. But there was nothing he could do now. From this moment on, it was damage control and self-defense. Until he knew the exact situation, he could not counteract. The southerly deployed legions seemed to have been hit hard. The commanding echelon seemed to have been decimated. But he had no confirmed accounts. Nothing yet.

  They would have to dispatch scouts to examine the battlefront. They would have to send a message to other cities and garrisons and see how they fared. For all he knew, all of Athesia could be under siege. They would have to dispatch envoys to Eracia and Caytor and see if they were involved in this war.

  Nearby, Amalia wanted to weep. She felt the world crumbling around her. She felt lost and confused. When Father had been alive, they never would have dared try this. She wished she had the bloodstaff with her, the real one. She could go out and destroy them. But not this, this pathetic glass replica in her arm. It was a joke.

  Then, for the second time that day, something arced toward her.

  She felt a rush of wind. From the corner of her eye, she saw a black thing, ball-like, zip past her. She felt warmth touch the side of her head. Then the warmth turned into intense, pinpoint pain, sharp and hot and burning.

  Instinctively, she reached up and touched the side of her head. It came away red, with a piece of her ear and a smear of dark blood.

  Amalia screamed.

  The black thing became a Pum’be assassin, short, stocky, and agile, dressed in mottled gray. He rolled easily away from Amalia and came up to his feet amidst a knot of Athesian soldiers. His arms flashed. A pair of curved knives sliced into leather tunics, drawing blood and gasps of terror.

  Amalia kept on screaming. Blood gushed, matting her hair, her dress, her face, everything.

  The dwarf killed yet another guard and hurtled toward her. Gerald threw his ceremonial shield at him. The assassin blocked, but the weight of the shield pushed him sideways. No one spoke. There was no time for words. Amalia’s shriek cracked across the walkway. The bells clanged, cackling like madmen. Horns blared sadly, eternally. Dozens of guards were running now, their faces pale and locked with purpose.

  Gerald was at her side, oblivious of the blood squirting in his face, hugging her, dragging her away. Another soldier was there in a moment, using his shield to block the little assassin. Then another and another. Soon, a solid wall of Athesians was encircling their empress. They inched backward.

  The Pum’be hissed, displeased. He feinted to the left, then jumped low, trying to skitter under the shields and stab at the feet. He moved viciously fast, but his curved blades only grazed the boots of the defenders. One of them brought his shield down hard. The assassin grunted.

  Gerald detached from the lot, another soldier at his side. They advanced toward the assassin.

  The Pum’be somersaulted back to his feet, lashing all around him. However, he was trapped. The Athesians had spears now. Farther behind, a squad of crossbowmen was loading its weapons. The dwarf flicked a quick look behind him. Beyond the crenellation, there was a thirty-foot drop. But he seemed to consider it.

  “You won’t get away,” Gerald growled. He lunged. And missed.

  The dwarf scraped onto the crenellation, trying to wriggle away. The Athesians pressed against him. One of the spears stabbed him through his thick little thigh, pinning him down. Then another struck him in the foot. The Pum’be only grunted. He never let go of his curved knives.

  Gerald approached carefully. The dwarf bled profusely from the leg wound, but he did not seem any slower or less vigorous than before. The commander of the City Guard considered stabbing him, but it was a risky business. Why bother, he thought acidly. He waved the crossbowmen over. They trotted over and, from close range, fired half a dozen bolts into the assassin. After a few moments, he stopped fidgeting.

  “Careful now,” Gerald hissed, panting. One of the men severed the head and lifted it high. A ragged cheer broke among the guards. Gerald spent a moment longer making sure there was no more danger, then rushed to Amalia.

  She was leaning against the wall, weeping, mumbling. A squad medic was binding her head with clean gauze. Her eyes were locked with shock and disbelief. G
erald touched her hand. She was cold. He leaned close and hugged her protectively. He could hear her quick, repetitive whisper.

  “Why did he throw a rotten apple at me?”

  CHAPTER 22

  Unofficially, Elia was his mother, Calemore thought, watching her. Technically, he had no mother. No woman or goddess had whelped him out of her womb. He had been created like a clay figurine, molded by the gods into perfection. Well, by only one god. Damian.

  But she had been the motherly figure for him in the first centuries of his existence. She had taught him the basics of interaction and emotion, as much as existed before Damian went mad. Well, that was not true. Damian had always been mad. Otherwise, he would not have made him.

  Calemore recalled images from a life long gone, from a land long gone. Hills, places, towns, people, names, all forgotten. Long before swaths of white-hot magic had seared through fields and mountains, bringing them down, long before entire nations of humans had vanished only to have others come in their place, a little less perfect, a little more vicious and cruel.

  Elia was teaching poetry to a bunch of children. They were all seated in the shade of a maple tree in front of their school, a two-story corner building with green shutters oiled against lake humidity. The kids were mouthing notes as she scribbled with chalk on a framed piece of black canvas resting against the tree bark. It was such an idyllic scene.

  Calemore imagined himself walking into that crowd, bashing their little heads, killing them in a hundred different ways. He imagined himself raping Elia. He snorted. Would that be considered incest, he wondered. He chuckled.

  He didn’t like violence. But he had stayed from this part of the world for so long, he longed for the scientific delicacy of destruction. His reign in the north had become a dull habit. Immortality had its perks, but it also came with the terrible price of routine. After several centuries, everything became a routine.

  The White Witch finished the apple he was eating and tossed the core behind him. It hit the ground and joined half a dozen others. Calemore liked apples.