The Broken (The Lost Words: Volume 2) (9 page)

CHAPTER 6

E
mpress Amalia was leaning on her desk, hunched over, writing in her diary. She had never quite lost the habit, ever since she was a little girl. The bloodstaff leaned against the desk’s edge, never far from her grasp. She paused writing.

She looked at the terrible magical weapon, wondering what it really felt like using it. What did her father feel when he defeated the entire Parusite army in one night, single-handedly? Now that he was gone, would she ever be forced to use it?

There was a knock at the door.

“Enter,” she said.

Gerald, commander of the City Guard, the captain of Roalas, stepped in. He bowed slightly, as befitting his rank. “Your Highness.”

“Amalia,” she insisted. Her father had never liked honorifics. He said they were like a salve for piles. They might reduce the swelling, but not the smell.

“Your Highness Amalia,” the man blurted, obviously uncomfortable with the lack of etiquette.

She had known him for many years, serving as her father’s shadow, which probably made the situation more awkward. He had held the captain’s rank ever since his own dad had retired, leaving the commander’s post open. In his role, he had often met the princess, but never quite talked to her. And now, he was the city’s top officer, reporting to a young girl he had known before her breasts had budded. Well, they hadn’t really grown much since. She banished the useless thoughts. It had been only a few months since she had become his empress. He would get used to her style. They all would.

“Can I help you?” she asked almost casually. She closed her diary, but slowly, so it would not look like it was anything important. No one must know about her diary. She leaned sideways and stored the little book in the bottom drawer of her desk. As she did so, the shoulder strap of her dress slipped off her shoulder.

Raising her head, she saw Gerald avert his eyes quickly. She blushed.

“I…wish to report that the unit is ready, Your Highness Amalia.”

Amalia rose and picked up the bloodstaff. They left her office in the north wing overlooking the Garden of Joy. Agatha, Amalia’s personal maid, was waiting outside, sitting on a chair and knitting. She bolted upright with almost mechanical precision. Amalia waved for her to relax. She would not need her for this errand. A pair of bored guards farther down the corridor clicked their heels in salute.

Commander Gerald led the way past more guards and servants. Heads bobbed, skirts pooled as women curtsied, men showed their pates, some balding, some not. A utilitarian decor poorly concealed by an occasional rich furnishing followed them. Within minutes, they were in the opposite end of the former keep hastily turned into the Imperial Manse, the legacy of Adam’s spartan taste ingrained in every brick and floor tile.

The south wing corridor stretched above a half circle of sheds in an older, overlooked side courtyard. The ringing of hammers sang a random melody. The air smelled of soot and sweat. Here, far from the eyes of guests and the city’s dignitaries, men of craft and trade kept to the old military tradition of the place. They made window grilles and railings, door hinges, chains, and quite often as not, weapons.

In the center of the courtyard, surrounded by glowing forges, red iron, and the hiss of cooling buckets, was a catapult, unlike any used in the realms before. It was all metal, small, squat, and very heavy. It was dark and ugly and did not inspire much confidence.

Amalia wiped a lock of hair from her forehead. “That’s the unit?”

The captain nodded. “Yes, the first one. Our engineers assure us it will have seven times more throwing power than the ordinary twenty-stone siege onager. And it can be lugged by a team of only four oxen. Master Reese is willing to bet his month’s pay on it.”

The empress stared at the metal monster. She did not believe Eracia or Caytor would dare attack, but if they did, she had a few nasty surprises that would make them rethink their foolishness.

Athesia had always valued quality and cunning over sheer numbers. Her armies counted less heads than either of her neighbors. But the numbers made no difference, her father had taught her. As long as your force was an independent unit that could support itself, you could win in battle.

“What do you call that?”

It was Gerald’s turn to blush. “Well, Your Highness Amalia, the engineer who planned it has a very colorful language. He never thought you would ask about his contraptions.”

“How silly of him. Tell me.”

He coughed deliberately. “That one is called Fucker.”

She frowned. “I thought it would be something more profane.”

Gerald looked straight ahead, his face emotionless. “We will have twenty…uh…units ready by the end of the month, all to be deployed in Roalas. We hope to have a hundred units produced and sent to all our major cities before the summer’s end.”

“Have you tested it yet?” she inquired.

“We will have the first trial tomorrow, Your Highness Amalia.”

On their way back to her office, Gerald told her about war preparations going on in and around the city. All of the criminals in Roalas had been pressed into helping the effort, digging trenches and traps, barricading weaker outer structures, and building roadblocks and hardened outposts. They were promised a pardon if they worked hard and did not try to escape, another of her father’s ideas. He had valued the criminals’ willingness to survive as a significant force multiplier. Whenever there had been a need, he would empty the cells and make the morning hangings that much briefer.

The Second and Third Legion had redeployed east and west to prepare for possible invasions. The Sixth Legion had taken the southern border, manned with auxiliary cavalry and javelins. Around Roalas itself, it was quiet and tense.

Her personal adviser, Theodore, a man probably as ancient as Roalas itself, met them halfway across the castle turned palace and spewed his litany of boring administrative reports. When he started talking about the hostages, Amalia stopped walking. Gerald almost bumped into her. Awkwardly, he arced his body to prevent contact, but he could not avoid brushing his shoulder against her neck.

She pretended she didn’t notice.

“Amalia,” the old man said, at ease with her father’s casual custom, “one of the Caytorean dignitaries wishes to speak to you. He requests a formal meeting. He wishes to discuss the status of his, well, imprisonment.”

“Bored, is he?”

Theodore ignored the jibe. “His name is Councillor Stephan. He’s a prominent Caytorean dignitary.”

Amalia considered. “Let him wait. If he asks again, I will meet him.”

“Amalia, I don’t think it’s wise to ignore this man.” The adviser used his teacher’s voice. “Soon, they will all start wondering what you’re trying to achieve. Even hostages need reassurances. They will surely want to know their captor has a plan, whatever it may be.”

The problem was she did not really have one.

Kidnapping all of them had been an act of brilliance, something her father may have done. But now, she did not know what to do next. “All right, I will talk to him. I’ll meet him in an hour.”

“Amalia,” Theodore said, as if that one word carried everything he thought.

“We should bolster your security,” Gerald said after the adviser shuffled away. “The Eracians and Caytoreans may try to assassinate you.”

“That’s quite likely,” she said coldly, not feeling quite as confident as she sounded.

They walked on, rounded a corner, and climbed a short flight of steps that led to the top floor of the keep’s north section. A clerk gracefully shuffled out of their way, nodding in greeting, never breaking his stride.

“They tried to murder my father a hundred times,” Amalia continued. Her father had done his best to keep the grisly attempts hidden from his daughter. As a child, she had not really understood some of the tension and fear and danger, but they had registered, sunk deep into her consciousness, and surfaced now and then, like a lazy turtle, snapping its toothless jaw.

She remembered her seventh birthday. Dad had given her a new lady pony, a beautiful silver lowland breed, with a silky coat and a lustrous mane. She remembered jumping with excitement, shouting with glee. It was the best present ever. She remembered the heavyset groom dropping the harness and rushing forward with a long cleaver, lunging. She remembered her father sidestepping the blow easily and tripping the man. And then, the bodyguards were there, all women, hacking at the assassin. It was over in seconds, and then as if nothing had happened, her father simply asked for another stableman, and soon she was riding the lady pony, all the earlier horrors forgotten.

“I don’t need extra security,” the empress decided. “My father managed just fine.”

Gerald took a deep breath.
Your father was a ruthless bastard. You’re just a sweet girl
. He never liked arguing with the empress, for all his short tenure as her captain. Well, technically, he was the city’s champion, but he also felt personally responsible for her safety.

He felt ridiculous. Her security detail had already been tripled, without her knowledge, but it was hard, grueling work for her guards. They had to move out of her sight. If she let him increase the security officially, his work and that of his special troops would be so much easier. But she was every bit as stubborn as the late emperor.

“Please, Amalia. Please reconsider it,” he pleaded.

He was not really sure what to think about her daring international scandal. It was something her father would have done, and he could not help but wonder if she may have done it out of childish spite, just to prove she had the same nerve and acumen.

For him and the thousands of troops stationed around Roalas, it was a nightmare. The city roads were clogged with checkpoints. The roads were crammed with slow-moving caravans, each undergoing thorough checks. There was nothing left to chance. Gerald could not afford it. They had already unearthed half a dozen minor Eracian spies and possibly one assassin. He could only wonder how many others remained at large, roaming the streets of the capital, laying out the details of the upcoming war.

It would be his first, Gerald thought. His first real war. He had tasted blood and killed men in minor skirmishes with bandits and rebels and pockets of religious fanatics that still could be found in secluded villages now and then.

But he had never seen a press of ten thousand soldiers hurtling into a cauldron of death. There were only the stories, his father’s, one of Adam’s men. His father had been wounded in the Second Battle of Bakler Hills. After the war, he’d gone back to Eracia and smuggled his wife and baby son to Roalas. Gerald had never seen the country of his birth. But in his heart, he was an Athesian. Eracia was just a foreign place, far away.

Forever maimed by the arrow wound to his leg, Adam had appointed his trusted officer Beno as the commander of the City Guard. And like father, like son, Gerald had taken his place after the old man had retired. But he could not shrug the uneasy feeling of not really being worth his father’s legacy. He could not dismiss the same notion he felt for Amalia. They were children, playing on the shoulders of giants.

She was talking to him. He waited for her to repeat the question, too embarrassed to admit he had not listened to his empress.

“I said, how many men? For the security detail?”

He rubbed his forehead. “Three women at all times, Your Highness. I beg you.”

“I’ll think about it,” she ceded grudgingly. “Stay with me while I meet this Caytorean.”

They chose her private office for the meeting. It was a small study, small but useful. People focused on the business at hand rather than wallow in awe of great halls and ancient statues. Not that Roalas had any of those. The city had suffered a turbulent past in the last several decades. First, there were the old gods, for many generations. Then, the Feorans came and took their hammers to the temples and shrines, burning in the name of their one deity. Then, her father came and made the city a place without religion. Old tapestries were taken down, replaced with new motifs and new ideas. There was a whole cellar somewhere, crammed to bursting with dirt, bird droppings, and tons of rusted metal idols, icons, and books embodying the teachings of the false gods.

Gods or no, Roalas was first a trade city, then a war city, and least of all a seat of royalty. Its chambers were austere and functional. Its walls were barren and scarred. If you wanted your guests to listen, it was a perfect place, without distractions.

The only token of resplendence was a large oil painting dominating the wall behind Amalia. It was called
The Second Battle of Bakler Hills
, like a thousand other works that marked the birth of Athesia’s history. Adam had always complained the art piece was inaccurate. His men had worn Eracian uniforms back then. And they sure hadn’t looked so valiant, supposedly a bunch of fair noblemen with crossbows, surrounded by an angry horde of Caytoreans wielding lance and sword.

Theodore was already waiting patiently for her when she returned, standing rigidly in one corner, as severe as his imperial duty. A servant was laying down fruit and drinks. Agatha hovered nearby.