Blood of the Emperor Read online

  The general arguing died down enough for a few voices to be distinguished from the noise.

  Jugar’s remained indignant. “But, this is an absolute outrage to suggest that…”

  Doroganda’s rush of words continued. “The very idea is an affront to the glorious rule of…”

  Hegral shouted. “He has no right to…”

  Belag leaped up from his throne with a great roar. He turned and picked up the massive chair, pressing it over his head. Then, with all his considerable strength, he slammed it downward, driving it against the stone floor. The chair broke with a resounding crash, shocking the assembly into quiet. Belag snatched up a now broken armrest and wheeled to face the council, holding it like a club.

  “I will personally push this down the throat of the next council member that speaks without my permission,” Belag seethed. “Everyone will be heard…but each in their own time.”

  Belag’s words hung in the sudden silence within the long, rectangular hall. The only sound in that moment was the fluttering of the torches and his own ragged breath.

  “Continue, Braun,” Belag pointed at the human wizard with the broken arm of the chair.

  Braun cleared his throat before continuing. “And, therefore, we require direction in the form of a written missive from the War Council explaining that the use of occupied lands and the establishment of permanent settlements is contrary to the council’s intention to move the camp in order to more effectively pursue the downfall of the elven Empire. We require this correspondence at once.”

  “Require? Demand is more like it!” Jugar snapped.

  Belag shook the chair’s arm menacingly in the dwarf’s direction.

  “Merely commenting,” the dwarf grumbled.

  Braun continued his recitation, “Seventh: In addition to these issues come the problems of support for the members of the encampment itself. News of our success has spread from Manticus Bay all along the Shadow Coast and across both Vestasia and Nordesia. This has brought a burgeoning increase in the number of pilgrims seeking the returned Man of Prophecy and the hope for a better life that his return offers them in accordance with his legend. At the time of our victory in Willow Vale, the encampment numbered nearly seventy-three thousand including the Army of the Prophet, their families, and those pilgrims unable to participate in the army directly. Our best count as of the date of my writing puts the number of pilgrims in Willow Vale to have swollen to nearly twice that number with almost a thousand more arriving daily. Those who arrive all ask the question, ‘Where is Drakis? When might we see him? When might we hear his voice…’ ”

  When, indeed, thought Belag as he rubbed his forehead with his free hand. When will any of us see or hear from him?

  “Because of his absence, many of the encampment are even beginning to question his existence and the majority are threatening either abandonment or, in some cases, the overthrow of the council. Many of these issues can be traced directly to problems of supply and the difficulty of obtaining food and proper shelter for nearly one hundred and fifty thousand pilgrim souls. With burgeoning numbers of pilgrims arriving at the main encampment each day, the People of the Prophet require additional resources in order to sustain the Cause and to maintain the faithful in their support of the army and its goals. Therefore we require that the army turn over to the Council of the Prophet in Willow Vale all material goods, especially food, seized during operations by the Army of the Prophet. Furthermore…”

  “Furthermore?” Gradek sneered. “That’s not enough? What more does he want?

  “Furthermore,” Braun read on, “we require an increase in material assistance from the Pajak of Krishu and the allied tribes of Nordesia, especially in the form of edible goods…”

  “More?” screeched Doroganda. “The Pajak of Krishu is beginning to wonder if his alliance with the Army of the Prophet is worth the risks he is taking on behalf of his tribe!”

  “The Pajak has nothing to complain about!” Gradek snarled. “You goblins take the first spoils of our conquests and you’ve been more than compensated for what you’ve delivered to the encampment so far!”

  “The Pajak does not make war for profit,” Doroganda asserted.

  “No, he only complains when his profit isn’t big enough when he chooses to go to war,” Gradek countered.

  “It’s your war that we are supporting,” Doroganda replied with an edge of disdain in her voice. “Your great prophecy-war against the Elven Tyranny…and how have you waged this so-called war? By boldly marching in the opposite direction from the Empire you claim you want to destroy! In the meantime, you expect us to feed this increasingly burdensome rabble of your encampment while you boldly continue to conquer outposts that are even farther from your enemy’s armies than before.”

  “We have won every battle,” Hegral boasted. “Conquered every stronghold.”

  “Well, hurrah for the Army of the Prophet,” Doroganda mocked. “Hail its victorious retreat at the Pajak’s expense.”

  Ethis shook his head. “With little help from you or your Pajak. The manticores charge against the enemy walls while the goblin troops hold back.”

  “And where is the great Queen of the chimerians and her ever-changeable nation?” Doroganda said, raising her chin in defiance. “At least our warriors stand on the field of battle. What honor is there in Ephindria when they lie silent and quivering behind their borders lending neither strength nor aid?”

  “Our nation…”

  “Is your family, we’ve all heard it before,” Doroganda finished in disgust. “You all hide behind that easy answer. Well, my family is with me here among honest warriors pitting our blood against elven swords. Where is the blood of Ephindria on the battlefield? Where are their caravans of aid? What do they offer beyond empty words?”

  “And for once I would like to hear the answer to the goblin’s question!” Gradek asserted, turning toward Ethis.

  “There is more still,” Braun interjected, pointing at the long scroll parchment that draped over his hand.

  “Of course there is,” Gradek growled.

  Braun nodded and continued. “Eight: The pressures of maintaining order over the rapidly increasing population of the gathering believers has caused the rise of a number of factions within the encampment—several of which demand immediate attention…”

  “Everything is immediate in the eyes of an elf!” Gradek snarled.

  Soen’s eyes shifted but he remained otherwise still.

  Braun pressed on. “The self-proclaimed ‘Brothers of Drakis’ are a human faction which has been growing steadily in strength over the last month and recently has become openly defiant of the Council of the Prophet, claiming that Drakis is being deliberately kept away from the camp. There have been several incidents between the ‘Brothers of Drakis’ and the Grahn Aur Guard—a faction of manticores who believe in their right to stand in the Grahn Aur’s place to rule over the pilgrims in his stead. The Pajak has also decreed Willow Vale to now be within the boundaries of his domain as his just spoils for his assistance in the battle against the elven Legions. His warriors on wyvernback patrol through the camp side by side with the council’s constabulary with tensions running high on both sides. The constabulary force is inadequate to oppose the goblin warriors and a number of incidents have been reported of goblins intimidating pilgrims—largely Hak’kaarin gnomes and humans as well as a number of chimerians—into surrendering their goods under threat of reprisal. These thefts…”

  “That is a lie!” Doroganda shouted, her small brick-red fist thrust defiantly at Braun with her thumb and first finger extended. “The warriors of the Pajak are no thieves!”

  Belag saw Soen smile. The manticore also knew from his negotiations with the Pajak that the gesture was a supreme insult among the goblins although apparently among those present only Doroganda, Soen, and himself were aware of it.

  “Which part?” asked Neblik, trying desperately to keep the narrative straight in his head.

 
“Which part what?” demanded the goblin.

  “Which part was the lie,” Neblik asked. “The part about the ‘inadequate force’ or the part about ‘goblin theft by intimidation’?”

  “Both of them, you idiot!” Doroganda snarled.

  Ethis shook his head impatiently. “Braun! Can we get on with this?”

  “He lists a great number of other grievances,” Braun said, unrolling the scroll further as his eyes scanned down the page.

  “Pass over them!” Ethis threw all four of his hands up at once in frustration. “What does the councillor want us to DO?”

  Braun continued scanning down the page, pulling more parchment from the roll twice before stopping. “Ah! Therefore, we require that the War Council return the Army of the Prophet, led by the prophesied Drakis, at once to Willow Vale with the intention…”

  “Shades of Hchai!” Hegral swore. “Who is this elf to order our armies at his will? Let him move the encampment to us here! Then we can gather our strength, build our clans, and prepare properly to take on the Empire!”

  “You meet and you talk and then you talk about meeting!” Doroganda spat. “The Pajak will not stand for it! We stand with warriors not with cats who sleep when the sun is shining and only hiss when danger is upon them!”

  “You will swallow those words, goblin-whelp,” Gradek growled, “or I’ll tear them out of your throat myself!”

  “And what will that profit you, cat-man?” Doroganda sneered. “I know you and your kind! You would count yourself happy to be rid of the Pajak of Krishu and his goblin warriors. The warriors of the Pajak will walk with their spoils, take their mighty wyverns with them and you would not care—until your belly was hollow and your mewling whelps were without suck. If our warriors walk from your army, big cat-man, we walk with our grain and our meat and our stores. We walk with your lives. How long will the pilgrims remain? How long before this great army of yours starts eating itself?”

  “It is late,” Belag said. “We will convene again tomorrow at dusk to consider our response.”

  A silence descended on the hall.

  Belag stepped forward, turning around as he spoke to the now silent council.

  “We have forgotten,” he said, his deep voice resonating through the hall. “We have forgotten our destiny. We have forgotten that we are the Children of the Prophecy.”

  Doroganda leaned back in her chair with a sigh. “As I understand this fairy-tale prophecy, you’re supposed to be led by some great human who will bring down the elf oppressors and avenge the fall of his people. He shows up on the big, nasty dragon and everyone is impressed but where is he now? No one seems to have seen him since he arrived and the Pajak of Krishu is becoming concerned that he does not exist at all.”

  Belag eyed the goblin then turned to look at where his throne lay smashed and in pieces.

  Where are you, Drakis? Belag thought. Where are you?

  CHAPTER 4

  Upside Down

  URULANI STRODE THROUGH THE SOUTHEAST Goblin Gate of Port Glorious as the morning sun rose behind her with salmon hues. Her appearance was acknowledged by the manticorian and chimerian warriors working to clear the gate marketplace of the dead and debris with bows and silent salutes. Urulani was grateful for this change. When they had first returned with the dragons to find the Army of the Prophet and the pilgrim refugees on the shores of Willow Vale any sight of Drakis or any of those who had returned with him was enough to elicit wild cheers and thunderous acclamations. She had managed with considerable difficulty and the assistance of the Council of the Prophet to dissuade the warriors in the army from the practice of dropping everything to honor any of the “Drakis Chosen” as they had come to be called in favor of the quieter and subtler salute.

  Yet they still looked at her with those same eyes. She could see the adoration and the hope behind them. It was a look the raider captain could not tolerate for any long period of time.

  Now this dark-skinned captain of the Sondau Clan had been reduced to an all-too-glorified messenger. Ethis had come to her after the council disbanded the previous evening, begging her to present a message to Drakis on his behalf. He had rebuffed her suggestion that he run his own errands, claiming that Drakis would not see him but that he might see Urulani. She had tried that night to approach Drakis in his tent, believing it the best time to find him there but the manticorian guards had established a perimeter around his lodgings and had orders to let no one pass. She had attempted again at first light this morning and had been admitted—only to find not Drakis but a messenger with an urgent request from the Aether Master Braun that Drakis be brought to him at once. Urulani had dismissed the messenger, promising to fulfill the charge of the grateful man. She had been engaged in an increasingly frustrating search for Drakis ever since, discovering a number of warriors who claimed to have seen him but somehow their directions never seemed to get her any closer to finding him. The last had brought her through the southeastern gate of the town wall and into the carnage that lay before her.

  It occurred to her to try another tactic. If Braun was looking for Drakis then perhaps all she really needed to do was to find Braun.

  The destruction here near the former docks was bad enough but she knew that the plaza beyond the wreckage was much worse. There, the manticores had been working throughout much of the day to clear the slaughtered elven warriors from the charred square. That had been the place of greatest carnage, the dragon’s breath descending like a deadly avalanche of flame on the tightly packed ranks of elven Octia. These warriors had been destroyed utterly before they had a chance to be deployed. The forward elements of the Army of the Prophet had breached three of the five city gates quickly which had allowed them opportunity to get the fires in the center of the town under control before the entire village—and its precious food stores—had been utterly destroyed.

  The town and its buildings were unimportant. The food stores were everything in this raid.

  However, Urulani found it difficult to think of food’s importance at this moment. She had been a Captain of the Forgotten and as such had been a seasoned participant of many raids along the shores of Thetis Bay. Death had always been a part of her world but the stench from the still smoldering corpses in the plaza was almost overwhelming, even for her.

  She spotted a human male hovering at the edge of the charred ruins, reluctant to help with the dreadful work at hand. His face seemed unusually pale even in the evening light.

  Urulani approached him. “Pardon my question…”

  The man turned, his scowl shifting at once into surprise. He fell to the ground in front of her, his arms stretched out before him as his face pressed toward the ground. “My Great Lady of the Dragon! Speak that I may serve you!”

  “Oh, get up,” Urulani urged, gripping the man by his arms and dragging him to his feet.

  “Yes, My Great Lady of the Dragon,” the man sputtered.

  “What is your name?” she asked.

  “Bartolem, my Lady,” the man blurted out.

  “I’m looking for Braun.” Urulani dispensed with pleasantries. She knew diplomacy was not entirely her strong suit and when confronted with anything that made her feel awkward, she often reverted to being the commanding captain.

  The man stared blankly at her.

  “The Aether Master,” Urulani insisted.

  “The human wizard?” Bartolem asked.

  “Yes! He asked to see me.” That part was not entirely true. Braun had asked for Drakis but he was nowhere to be found so she had come in his stead. “Where is he?”

  Bartolem gestured to his left. “This way, my Lady. I saw him on the fold platform by the eastern gate.”

  “The fold platform?” Urulani said with surprise as she eyed the narrow street to the north the man had indicated. “I thought Port Glorious had no folds.”

  “It doesn’t,” Bartolem confirmed, gesturing again to the narrow street. “Here, let me show you.”

  Urulani followed Bartolem as h
e made his way up the narrow, winding street, lined with watchful troops. Each saluted as she passed, their expressions conveying their pride and their support for her.

  It’s embarrassing, she thought grimly.

  She followed the man between the buildings and across a small courtyard with a broken, dry fountain in its center. There were several exiting alleyways and Urulani hesitated for a moment but Bartolem urged her quietly to follow him into an alley on the opposite side. Within less than a dozen steps the narrow, winding canyon between the buildings on either hand opened onto the corner of what had been the main market square. The stalls were gone, replaced by a number of tents occupied by the field commanders of the army. There was a constant bustling through this area of manticores, humans, gnomes, and goblins relaying commands and results from the various units now operating throughout the occupied town. On her right hand rose what remained of the Emperor’s Gate, its shattered doors laid askew. Gnome workmen were already busy rebuilding and shoring up the gates despite Belag’s admonition not to bother with it. The army would not be here long enough to complete the job, let alone make use of the completed gates.

  On the northern side rose a rectangular temple, which ran the length of the marketplace from east to west. Rows of statues stood along the outer temple wall.

  “Elven gods?” Urulani asked.

  “Yes, dedicated originally to Kiris,” Bartolem mused aloud.

  Urulani raised her eyebrows at the human.

  “My former master in Blackbay was most devout and insisted everyone in his household learn and worship the Rhonas pantheon,” Bartolem explained in haste. “See that row of statues lining the side of the building. Each of the statues depicted another aspect of the eye of the sun traversing the sky and the trickster moon dancing in chase. Kiris is the goddess of light and dark—she who sees the seen and the unseen.”

  “Let’s hope she isn’t watching now,” Urulani muttered. “So where is Braun?”