The Apocalypse Script

by Samuel Fort

  Chapter 44 - Betrayed

  No prisoners were taken. All of Lords Moros’s and Nizrok’s Peth were killed. When the gunfire ceased, the lights miraculously came back on. Lilian strode into the Great Hall. Dozens of bodies littered the floor, some in heaps. She saw Disparthian, bloodied but alive, striding toward her.

  “Annasa,” he said, “the battle is won.”

  Lilian nodded, having assumed as much when she saw the handsome man standing in middle of the room with two of his lieutenants. Only two? Had the battle been that close?

  “I have no words,” she said, taking his gloved hands in hers. “You have preserved the true Nisirtu.”

  “The Maqtu helped,” Disparthian said, nodding toward Sibelius, who was meeting with a group of his men in the corner of the room. “Eventually.”

  “They will be properly rewarded.” Her smile faltered. “But where is my sister?”

  Disparthian looked around the room. “I saw her just before I entered. She single-handedly stopped the advance of Colonel Rudger’s troops. Perhaps she pursued Peth trying to flee. Where is the nearest other exit?”

  Lilian nodded toward a nearby corridor. “That will take you to a patio.”

  “I will go and look for her. I have a platoon in the tree line hunting down snipers and support units. She may have joined them. Stay here with my men until I return.”

  When he had left, one of Disparthian’s men, a Lieutenant Kelliti, ordered the Maqtu to begin removing bodies from the room. Anyone still breathing was to be killed.

  Only a few minutes into the process, he yelled, “Wait!”

  “What is it?” asked Lilian.

  “There,” he said, pointing at the body of a man whose head was partially missing. Beneath him Fiela’s red hair could be seen.

  “No!” screamed Lilian, running to the bodies. Kelliti arrived with her and roughly picked up the corpse of the man and threw it to the side, revealing Fiela, white as a ghost and still. There was a small hole in her chest and a pool of blood under her. Kelliti knelt down, felt at the wound.

  “Where is her armor?” he asked, bewildered.

  “What?” replied Lilian.

  The Peth, amazed, said, “She removed her armor plates…why would she do that?”

  Lilian thought the question pointless. “A doctor!” she yelled at the guests who had emerged from their rooms and stood on the balconies looking down at the carnage. “Send down one of the doctors! My sister is wounded!”

  Turning back to the Lieutenant, she said, “There are medical supplies in the basement. Bring Disparthian’s other man and I’ll show you.” Lilian leapt to her feet and moved toward the corridor that led to the cave’s entrance. To her surprise, two Maqtu who were standing there failed to make way.

  “Move!” she screamed angrily, slamming her fists into them, but they did not.

  “Move, damn you!” she screamed again.

  “Do as she commands,” said Kelliti, clearly annoyed at the Maqtus’ reaction. Disparthian’s other guard regarded the rebels warily.

  “Sorry, sir, but you’re not in command,” said Sibelius, approaching the Peth. “Neither is your master. Never was, really.” Before Kelliti could react, the rebel shot the Nisirtu lieutenant in the throat.

  Additional shots rang out as the lieutenant fell slowly to one knee. Disparthian’s other man crumpled to the ground.

  Another Maqtu, this one named Fiscus, stepped forward and shot the Kelliti in the good leg that supported his weight. Kelliti swayed for a moment, and then, with a tremendous effort and a scream of pain, he lunged at the man who had just shot him, wrapping his arms around Fiscus’s legs. The Maqtu fell backwards with a shout as the Peth tackled him.

  There were two more gunshots. Kelliti stopped moving.

  “Hard to kill,” said the rebel who fired the last shot.

  “Get up, Fiscus,” said the other man. The Maqtu on the ground beneath Kelliti didn’t move. Someone reached down and rolled the Peth’s body off the crumpled man. Only then did they see the silver handle of the dagger Disparthian’s man had shoved between his attacker’s ribs.

  “I’ll be damned. Nicely done, Lieutenant Kelliti. You died nobly. I shall name a child after you.”

  The other man spat on the corpse of the Maqtu. “And you, Fiscus? You died like you lived. Stupidly!”

  “Who are you men to speak of nobility?” yelled Lilian, who had fallen to her knees, the bodies of Kelliti and Fiela on the ground before her. “You know nothing of it.”

  “Ha!” yelled the Sibelius. “The whore speaks of nobility! You,” he said, pointing at one of the other Maqtu, “get troops up to the balconies. We’re sitting ducks here. I want a guard on each level. If anyone steps out of their room, warn them back, and if they refuse, shoot them! You,” he said to a nearby rebel, “Gather your platoon and go find Disparthian and his remaining men. Kill them.”

  The female bowed slightly and was gone.

  Lilian tried to crawl to Fiela but was blocked by the Maqtu. Blood was everywhere on the floor and one of her hands slipped out from under her causing her to slam her head into one of the men’s knees.

  “Careful, whore. We need you intact for the evening’s festivities.”

  Lilian, seeing she would not be allowed to pass, tried to stand, but was shoved back down. “Stay on your knees. It is your proper place.”

  The other men laughed and someone kicked her from behind, sending her splaying to the floor. Covered in the blood of her enemies and allies, the woman rolled over and looked up. Mercifully, there were no gawkers in the balconies. The guests were afraid or perhaps unwilling to witness her humiliation.

  “What about the girl?” said one of the Maqtu. He was standing over Fiela. “Shouldn’t we have one of the doctors tend to her?”

  Sibelius looked at the girl and rubbed his jaws. The blood on the floor beneath Fiela spread out like wings. “No,” he said at last. “It couldn’t be helped. The lights were out and no one could see anyone. She got in the way. By the time we found her, she was dead.”

  The other two men swapped uneasy glances. “She might be saved. Lord Moros will be displeased. She was to be given to him.”

  “Lord Moros?” gasped Lilian.

  Sibelius ignored her. “Move the Edimmu to the side of the platform and throw a tablecloth over her. It will be better if she dies this day. I do not wish to find her in my bedroom one morning pointing at me with her damned knives when she is supposed to be asleep at Moros’s side.”

  Two Maqtu grabbed Fiela’s arms and complied. As they did so, a man next to Sibelius said, “This is a dangerous game.”

  “Yes, but that girl does not die!” seethed Sibelius. Grunting and leaning in toward the other man, he said conspiratorially, “She might even turn Lord Moros against us. I do not wish to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder.”

  “Moros?” said Lilian again.

  “Yes, dear?” came a voice at the other end of the Great Hall.

  Shocked, Lilian tried to rise but was again shoved down. She could hear heavy footsteps approaching.

  The unseen Moros said in a cavalier tone, “No, no, gentlemen! Do not treat a princess so! Have you forgotten yourselves? Help the poor woman to her feet!”

  As Lilian was pulled roughly upward the throng of Maqtu in front of her parted. Lord Moros, resplendent in the gold ceremonial armor of the Supreme Lord of the Peth-Allati, walked toward her smiling, his scarlet cloak wafting behind him.

  “Hello, Lilitu,” he said when a few feet away.

  Lilian stared at him disbelievingly. “You!”

  “Yes, me. Did you really think me so stupid, Lilitu? Did you honestly believe you could organize a rebellion with Disparthian behind my back? I grant you, the plan itself was clever enough - trying to draw my forces in, and those of Nizrok, so that you could eliminate us before the collapse. Was that your idea or the scribe’s?”

  Lilian, dazed, felt her knees begin to buckle, but
the Maqtu held her upright.

  “Yes, brilliant,” Moros continued. “If it had worked you would have command of both Diz’s armies and the remaining Maqtu, at a minimum. If you managed to kill Lord Nizrok and myself tonight when we came to accept your surrender, our armies would have fallen under the command of Disparthian, since he is third in the chain of command.

  “Of course, in normal times, our Houses would appoint replacements for us, but given the sorry state of the world and the likely downfall of the Seven, you assumed - rightly, I think - that our armies would both opt to remain under the command of the cavalier Lord Disparthian.

  “That would give you four armies, Lilian! Four! Mine, Nizrok’s, Disparthian’s, and the Maqtu. Belusmar has returned to Europe with his guards and so is out of play. The military leaders of the Fifth, Seventh, and Eighth kingdoms are overseas. After the Ardoon apocalypse, your unified force of four armies could easily overwhelm the other three, especially given that you would have the Great Sage to guide you.”

  The Peth lord clicked his tongue enviously. “A brilliant plan, truly, daughter of Sargon. You made one crucial mistake, however. You trusted the Maqtu. Once that might have been understandable. Years ago, when their Houses were in order. But today their Houses are fallen and they are beholden to no one.

  “You assumed that the rebels would view you, the enemy of their enemy, as an ally. That is not so. Given the option of rejoining the Seven and ruling the world - in whatever form - or joining forces with a whore and spending the rest of their lives fighting the Seven, did you really think they would choose the latter?”

  Lilian shook her head, unable to grasp the situation. “But your guards - yours and Nizrok’s! The Maqtu helped kill them!”

  The Peth lord bit his lip in mock embarrassment. “Yes, there was that. I’m not proud of what I’ve done, but it was necessary, Lilitu. My guards had to be sacrificed for the greater good.”

  “You had your own men killed?”

  “I’m afraid so. It was necessary for the ruse, you see - and it worked, didn’t it? When I committed my guards you assumed that I was truly allied with Lord Nizrok and serving the Seven. You think me monstrous for ordering my own men killed, yes? But consider that my plan would not have been possible if I were not willing to do so. Nizrok would certainly have not committed his guards had I not committed mine, and that would have meant no attack on Steepleguard. No attack on Steepleguard would mean that tomorrow I’d have but a single army to exploit the new Dark Age, the same as all the other kingdoms. Even you would have an army!”

  “You’re a psychopath,” growled Lilian. “You’re mad!”

  Moros looked shocked. “Am I really, Lilitu? As things stand, I have lost a few guards but I remain in control of my legions and will assume control of Nizrok’s, since I am his senior. Soon Disparthian will be killed and his forces, too, will become mine. As Supreme Lord of the Peth-Allati, I have already commanded the praetors of both Disparthian’s and Nizrok’s legions to join mine here tomorrow. Think, Lilitu! Fifteen praetors, each in command of a thousand-man legion. And I have the remains of the Maqtu.

  “That gives me almost twenty thousand soldiers around the world with which I can build a new empire. Twenty thousand well-equipped, well-armed, and coordinated soldiers that will face no sizeable opposition. Every other armed force in the world will be dust. What few soldiers might survive will be spread across thousands of miles, with no ability to contact one another and no central control. They will too busy fighting to survive to worry about spending the rest of their short lives trying to form even a squad of men, and even if they could, whom would they fight? And for what? They will be as ignorant as the rest of humanity as to what really happened in the days and weeks before the collapse.

  “No, in this next world, the Nisirtu armies will be the only armies, and he who controls them, controls the world. So you see, I have sacrificed only a single pawn, my personal guard, in order to capture three pawns, two knights and,” he said with bow, “a queen. I would hardly call that mad. As soon as I find your slave ‘king’ I will call checkmate.”