The Sword Chronicles: Child of the Empire

by Collings, Michaelbrent

  Don't think. This isn't the time. Just move.

  They crept around the side of the building, looking for a window, some other –

  "Hey, who are –"

  The guard came around the corner of the building at the same time they did, so shocked at suddenly coming face-to-face with the girls that he acted not with alarm but with surprise. He was young, with hair so black it seemed a part of the night sky itself, and eyes that widened to show their deep blue irises.

  Before he could say any more, Samira moved. Not so much a conscious action as a reaction to a threat. The Dog inside her coming to the surface with teeth bared. Her katana flashed. The man choked. Stepped back.

  Fell.

  They moved his body to the shadows. Not an ideal hiding place, but not much else they could do with it. Not and keep moving.

  Nine guards still on duty. Another forty-two asleep.

  And they could find nowhere to enter the main building. The windows all had bars, and the few side entrances they found were sturdy, bolted. There were grasses and a few potted vines that Riada whispered that she could use to rip the bars away from the windows, or the doors away from their hinges. But they both knew that would create enough of a racket that it would bring the entire villa down on them.

  A moment later it became academic. A horn blew from somewhere on the wall.

  They had been seen.

  4

  Samira would always remember the next minutes. They passed strangely, with the horn that had blown to sound the alarm being taken up by another, and then another. The first horn blew in a triple blast – blat-blat-blat – that must mean an intruder had made it inside the villa. The guards who were bivouacked there would be waking, throwing on weapons and coming out in search patterns that would find anyone hiding inside the rooms or on the grounds.

  It took less time than she would have guessed. Creed's guards were well-trained. A trio of men came at her and Riada. Two ran straight for them, swords drawn, while the third held back to slip a bolt in his crossbow.

  There were no plants nearby. It was an area meant as a service passage between buildings, so all was covered in rough wood plankings – dead things that Riada had whispered she couldn't use.

  It was up to Samira.

  The guard with the crossbow shouted, "They're here!" and loosed his bolt.

  Samira slashed it in half as it flew. Then she flew herself, right into the midst of the three men. She cut down the two with the swords, then killed the last guard before he had time to drop his crossbow and draw his own blade.

  "Come on!" she shouted.

  It was going to be a direct assault; there was no helping it now. The best they could hope for was to choose a place advantageous to them.

  There was a garden to the east of the main building. They ran there. Samira killed two more men on the way.

  The garden was empty. Serene. And truly beautiful. There were roses clinging to trellises, Gods' flowers climbing up arched arbors, potted trees spreading leaves over the brick walkways that wended their way among the plants. Berry plants spread across a plot in one corner of the garden, a small planter of wheat nearby them – the two plants that signified the love of the Gods.

  Samira couldn't believe how beautiful it was, or that a person who had plotted the overthrow of a good man could be behind something so pure.

  But then, she had been a Dog, and was now free. She had been someone who killed for nothing, and now had purpose.

  We are all mixes of dark and light – there is no question of this. The only question is which side of us will reign.

  Six men came into the garden in a mass, shouting at the top of their voices that they had found intruders. One of them had a horn and he blew it in that same triple-call.

  Then they ran at Samira and Riada.

  They never even came close.

  The plants erupted like beasts from their lairs. Thorny stems encircled necks and tore them away, creeping vines ripped limbs from bodies, reed-like plants that had seemed almost ethereal turned to flails that tore skin from flesh.

  The men fell, and now their blood added new color to the garden. But it was not beautiful.

  More men rushed in. Many of them were taken down by the plants, but many fought their way through.

  These were Samira's.

  She cut someone down at every turn, with every move. She spun so fast the faces were a blur. Just the occasional look of pain or horror or surprise as men fell to her swords, her Gift.

  And still they came.

  This is more than fifty-two.

  Whether it was part of the test, or simply bad intelligence on the Chancellor's part, the garden was awash in blood and thick with the bodies of the dead, and still the men came. It was getting harder and harder to hold them back – sheer numbers weighed against her and Riada.

  Her friend shouted as an arrow caught her arm. Samira threw her wakizashi, taking the bowman in the eye, but now she had only one weapon. Another swordsman appeared at Riada's side and Samira was just about to cast her katana at him, though that meant she would disarm herself, when something flew out from Riada.

  It looked like a strange dart, moving so fast it was a colorful blur, and only after it had pierced the swordsman's heart did Samira realize what it had been: the flower Riada wore in her hair, transformed to a deadly weapon under the power of her Gift.

  But there was no time to marvel at her friend's resourcefulness. Samira spun, cut down a man. Another.

  Another.

  Another.

  Another.

  They came in endless waves, never giving her time to catch her breath or even think about what she was doing. Just a constant stream of attackers, each attack ending in death as she and Riada fought to survive.

  And something strange happened. Just for a moment, she thought her katana… changed. It began to glow along the edge. A blue fire that danced like an unruly glo-globe, rippling along the blade edge.

  Then the flame died, so fast she couldn't be sure if what she saw was real, or just an imagined image born of desperation.

  She spun again… and came face-to-face with a young man with hair so dark it seemed a part of the night sky itself. His throat bore a bloodless red slit, and his eyes – once so wide and deep blue – now were coated in a milky white film that was at once revolting and terrifying.

  What magic is this?

  The dead guard had his sword drawn, and before she knew what he was doing he lunged toward her.

  And stabbed the man beside her in the heart.

  That man who had been stabbed – the stab a mortal one – gagged. Then he pulled himself off the sword in a show of impossible strength. He turned to face her.

  And she saw that his eyes, too, had become those horrid white orbs.

  "Do you like my poppets?" whispered a voice.

  Samira whirled and saw the little girl with the red eyes. The Poppet was surrounded by….

  No. No, that's too awful. No Gift is this vile.

  All the dead whom Samira and Riada had dispatched now stood in a protective circle around The Poppet. The outermost ones struck down the remaining guards, and as they did those guards rose in turn and became undead playthings under the control of the mad girl at their center.

  Soon all were gone. Only the three girls and the undead men – silent, motionless, sightless eyes forever open but seeing nothing – stood in the bloodied garden.

  Samira turned to Riada. Her friend was bleeding heavily from her wound, but it didn't look fatal. She took the sash off one of the undead guards – even touching it sent shivers through her frame – and bound Riada's shoulder.

  "Stay here," she said.

  "Where –"

  "We're not done yet."

  "I'll help."

  "You'll do no such thing." She looked at The Poppet. "Keep her safe."

  The Poppet did not reply; gave no indication that she had even heard. Samira looked at her friend, who gave that "She's mad, you know" roll
of her eyes again. Samira almost laughed. But didn't. Not here in the midst of a small army of ghouls.

  The bowman she had killed by throwing her wakizashi through his eye was still near, her blade still jutting from his skull though he now stood and seemed unbothered by it.

  She pulled the blade free. The man's remaining eye – white under the twin powers of death and The Poppet – did not blink.

  Samira went to the front door of the main building. Opened it. A hand shot out, a lurking guard waiting to surprise anyone who got this close.

  She killed him. Thankfully, he did not stand up again.

  She went inside. The layout was still fresh in her mind. She went to Creed's quarters.

  Two more men waited for her in the hall. They didn't even make her break gait. Just two swings, and they fell.

  Gods, forgive me.

  She realized that this was the first time she had ever prayed. And she didn't even know if she was doing it right. But it seemed appropriate. She knew she was coming for an evil man, a man who had tried to harm an Emperor she cared for, an Empire that kept its people safe. A man who craved being powerful above being right.

  But these men… they had families, lives. Some of them might not even understand the reality of the man with whom they had cast their lots.

  The door to Creed's quarters was thick wood, with three bands of iron spanning its length. And locked. She looked at it, wondering if she could hack her way through, then on a whim went to the two guards.

  One of them had a key on a chain in the pocket of his vest. She tried it in the lock of the door and it slid open.

  The room inside was lavish to the point of opulence. The floor and walls were marble, the corner had a gold shrine to the Gods. A huge bed sat on the other side of the room, with satin pillows and blankets so thick they could have been mattresses themselves.

  Creed stood in the middle of the room. He wore a silk dressing gown, an expression of resignation on his pug face.

  "So the Emperor has finally decided to kill me, eh?" He squinted at her. "Or was it the Chancellor who gave the order?" He sighed. "No matter." He spread his arms. "You've killed all my men, and I know I have no chance. Just do your work and leave."

  She took a few quick steps toward him. Wondering if she could actually do this. The men outside had been trying to kill her, so killing them had not only been acceptable, it had been necessary. But this… killing an unarmed man in his bedroom?

  She held her sword high, still not sure what she was going to do.

  "No! Don't kill my daddy!"

  There was a flurry of motion at the dustskirt that surrounded the bed, and then a little boy ran out from under the bed and grabbed hold of Creed's legs. Tears ran down his face, terror contorted his features. "Don't kill him, don't kill him, please kill me but don't kill him!"

  Creed peeled his son away from him. At first slowly, then roughly. "Get away, Tam." He looked at her pleadingly. "Please," he whispered as his son kept grabbing onto him and screaming not to take him not to take him not to take his daddy please!

  Samira could not move. One thing to kill men who sought her blood. Another to kill an enemy of the Empire. Another to kill a man in front of his child.

  "I can't," she said. Her sword lowered, just a fraction.

  Creed's eyes misted. "Thank you," he whispered.

  Then, suddenly, something happened. There was a sound as of a rushing river in her mind, and she saw Nasius – the village she had seen through the power of the Eye when she first met the Emperor. The charred remains of dwellings, the burnt crops. Only this time there was no pile of bodies at the center. There was a line of villagers, still alive but all standing before the guns and arrows of those who had destroyed them: men in blue and white livery. Men with death in their eyes.

  Creed was at their fore. And one by one, he called for each villager to come forward. One by one, man, woman, and child, he shot or stabbed or burned each.

  He laughed.

  She heard the words Armor had spoken that day. "This is why the Blessed Ones exist. The Empire stretches across the five mountains, but there are enemies. Enemies who also have power, and who hide among us. They sack villages, they destroy our people."

  Then the sound of the rushing river disappeared, and she knew she had been touched by a Gift, by some Blessed One who could make her see the past. She saw the room she stood in once again, but tinged with red – with rage for the innocents who had died, the men and women who had lost lives to this monster.

  She took the last step to Creed and cut off his head.

  The child, Tam, cried out. But only once. Then another sword cut him down. Samira screamed herself. She looked at who had done it.

  One of the dead.

  The Poppet stood in the doorway, dreamy look in her eyes and amused smile playing across her lips.

  "Another poppet to play with."

  5

  Samira returned to the garden, to see to Riada's wounds. Her friend spoke once: "Is it done?" Samira gave no answer, but there must have been something in her face that told her friend that it was, and to ask no more about it.

  The Poppet still looked into the sky, probably caught in her mad musings about the man in the moon, no doubt wondering if there was a way to make him one of her undead playthings.

  As soon as Samira thought this, the dead guards lay down as one. There was the sound of a hundred men's bodies falling slack, a hundred jaws opening in the looseness of death, a hundred pairs of eyes rolling back in their heads. A small sound, even combined. But horrible. And one she knew she would hear in her nightmares forever.

  She wondered what they should do now. They had been told to kill Creed, and he was dead. But they had not been told where to go, or if they should simply stay.

  Then a low hum pulsed through the night, and Riada pointed up. Samira looked and saw a small air-car with the Emperor's crest on its rudder. The vessel landed just outside the villa.

  After a moment, the front gate to the villa tore off its hinges. Devar stood in the now-wrecked frame.

  What is his Gift?

  He saw them and hurried over, putting Riada's unwounded arm over his shoulders and helping her toward the blasted gate.

  "I was watching you through an Eye," he said. "You did well. All of you." This last he said while looking only at Samira. She felt something strange, something she had never felt before, welling up within her. She tamped it down for the moment, but knew it would not stay. Sooner or later she would have to deal with it.

  She knew nothing, really, of men and women. Sometimes Dogs coupled in the night. But it was forbidden, for a Dog who could not fight – for any reason – would die. Death and life were never bound so tightly as in the kennels.

  Not the time for any of this. Not now. Later.

  They went into the air-car's cabin, and Devar closed the door. The cabin was utilitarian, just a bare box of a room with some benches and a table built into the walls and floor, great windows on all sides. A small hall led to a few private cabins at the fore, one of which would hold the pilot-house where the ship was steered. Another similar hall led to the rear of the air-car.

  Devar settled Riada on one of the benches. Helped her lean back. "I've brought a Patch. I'll send her up." He looked at Samira. "Come with me, please."

  She followed him to the hall at the back of the cabin. Devar went to one of the private rooms and opened it. "One of them is wounded," he said quietly.

  An old lady with a black scarf and hair so white it was a cloud over her head hobbled out – the Patch, Samira guessed. "In the front?" she said.

  Devar nodded, and the old woman disappeared walked creakily toward the main cabin.

  Devar motioned for Samira to come with him into the room the old woman had just vacated. She did, and found a room that was a bit more cozy than the main cabin – but only just. The seats were padded, and the table in the middle had a sheen the table in the front cabin lacked.

  Devar sat on one of t
he benches and motioned for her to sit as well. She did, and the two of them sat in silence for a time.

  "Are you all right?" he finally said.

  "The Poppet killed a little boy."

  "I know."

  "She should be punished."

  Devar sighed. He leaned back in his seat, pressing back so hard she heard the wood creak. "She won't be." Before Samira could speak, he held up a hand. "The Poppet was acting in defense of the Empire. The boy was part of everything his father did. The father was a monster, and he had already trained his boy to be the same."

  "But, but…." Samira was surprised to feel tears sliding down her cheeks.

  What is this? Haven't I killed young boys before, and many of them not much older than this one?

  But they would have killed me. It wasn't murder, it was self-defense.

  The tears came harder. Suddenly she was sobbing, great shudders wracking her frame like she was a leaf in a storm. She couldn't speak, could barely keep from falling over.

  Devar moved. She felt his arms go around her shoulders. Just holding for a moment, then whispering, "Shh, it's well, all is well. That you do your duty shows you are strong. That you weep for the fallen shows you are good. You will need both to be one truly Blessed."

  After a while the shudders subsided, though the tears still flowed. And then the tears slowed as well, and finally stopped. Devar pushed her far enough away that he could look into her eyes. "There are not many Blessed Ones. One in a thousand people in Ansborn is born as a Gift, and of those, only one in a thousand is born to be Blessed. Still there is a greater power. The power to do what must be done, but to do so without losing your humanity. These are the truly blessed. The ones who will carry the Empire forth into eternity, and will make sure she is always just, always good."

  He hugged her. She felt it as a flame through her body.

  She was ashamed.

  She was proud.

  And with the hug, she was something else, something new. Something whole.