He looked out over the water to where the fleet advanced, his voice softening.
“You owe me for this, Thanos,” he said, just as the prince owed him for coming to Delos, and for not cutting him down on Haylon. Probably his life would have been a lot simpler if he’d done that.
Looking at the fleet ahead, Akila suspected it might have been longer, too.
“Right!” he yelled. “Get to your places, boys! We’ve a battle to win!”
CHAPTER TWO
Irrien sat at the prow of his flagship in a mixture of satisfaction and anticipation. Satisfaction because his fleet was advancing exactly as he’d ordered. Anticipation because of everything that would come next.
Around him, the fleet slid forward in near silence, as he’d ordered when they’d started to hug the coast. Silent as sharks coming after prey, silent as the moment after a man’s death. Right then, Irrien was the glint of light on the point of a spear, the rest of his fleet following like its broad head.
His chair was not the dark stone one in which he sat in Felldust. Instead, it was a lighter framed thing, made from the bones of things he’d killed, the thigh bones of a dark-stalker forming the back, the finger bones of a man set in the arms. He’d covered it in the furs of animals he’d hunted. It was another lesson he had learned: In peace, a man should speak of his civility. In war, he should speak of his cruelty.
To that end, Irrien jerked on a chain connected to his chair. The other end held one of the so-called warriors of this rebellion, who had knelt rather than die in battle.
“We will arrive soon,” he said.
“Y-yes, my lord,” the man replied.
Irrien jerked the chain again. “Be silent unless commanded.”
Irrien ignored the man as he started to beg forgiveness badly. Instead, he watched the path ahead, although he’d set the metal surface of his shield so he could watch behind for assassins.
A wise man always did both. The other stones of Felldust probably thought that Irrien was mad, leaving for this dustless land while they remained behind. They probably thought he couldn’t see their plots and machinations.
Irrien’s smile widened at the thought of their faces when they realized what was really happening. His pleasure continued as he turned to the coast, seeing the fires that were springing up there as his raiding parties landed. Ordinarily, Irrien hated the wastefulness of burned buildings, but for war, they were a useful weapon.
No, the real weapon was fear. Fire and silent menace were just ways to sharpen it. Fear was a weapon as powerful as slow poison, dangerous as a blade. Fear could make a strong man run or yield without a fight. Fear could make foes choose stupid options, charging in rash bravado, or cowering when they should strike. Fear made men slaves, holding them in place even when there were more of them.
Irrien was not so arrogant as to believe he could never feel fear, but his first battle had not brought it the way men talked about, nor his fiftieth. He had fought men on burning sands and on the cobbles of back alleys, and while there had been anger, excitement, even desperation, he had never found the fear that other men felt. It was part of what made it so easy to take what he wanted.
What he wanted now swung into view almost as if summoned by the thought, the endless strokes of the oars pulling the harbor of Delos into Irrien’s view. He’d waited for this moment, but it wasn’t the one he’d dreamed of. That would only come once this was done, and he’d taken all that was worth taking.
The city was a low and stinking thing, in spite of its fame, like all the cities of men. It didn’t have the grandeur of the endless dust, or the stark beauty of things made by Ancient Ones. As with all cities, when you crammed enough people together, it brought out their true baseness, their cruelty and their ugliness. No amount of elegant stonework could disguise that.
Still, the Empire for which it formed a lynchpin was a prize worth taking. Irrien wondered briefly if his fellow stones had realized their mistake yet in not coming. That they occupied the stone chairs at all spoke of their ambition and their power, their cunning and their ability to navigate political games.
For all that, though, they’d still thought too small. They’d thought in terms of a glorified raid, when this could be so much more. A fleet this size wasn’t here just to bring back gold and slave lines, although both would come. It was here to take, and hold, and settle. What was gold next to fertile land, free from endless dust? Why drag slaves back to a land blasted by the wars of the Ancient Ones, when you could take the land on which they stood as well? And who would be there to ensure he got the largest portion of this new land?
Why raid and leave when you could wipe away what was there and rule?
First, though, there were obstacles to overcome. A fleet stood in front of the city, if you could call it that. Irrien wondered if the scout ships they’d set loose had come back home yet. If they’d seen the things that awaited them. He might not feel the fear of battle, but he knew how to stoke it in weaker men.
He stood to get a better view, and so that those watching from the shore might see who ordered this. Only those with the sharpest eyes would make him out, but he wanted them to understand that this was his war, his fleet, and soon, his city.
His eyes made out the preparations that the defenders were starting to make. The small boats that would no doubt soon be aflame. The way the fleet was forming into groups, ready to harry them. The weapons on the docks, ready to target them as they came close.
“Your commander knows his business,” Irrien said, dragging his latest captive to his feet by his chains. “Who is he?”
“Akila is the best general alive,” the former sailor said, then caught Irrien’s eye. “Forgive me, my lord.”
Akila. Irrien had heard the name, and had heard more from Lucious. Akila, who had helped to free Haylon from the Empire, and held it against their fleet. Who, it was said, fought with all the cunning of a fox, striking and moving, hitting where foes least expected.
“I have always valued strong opponents,” Irrien said. “A sword needs iron to sharpen it.”
He took his sword from its black leather sheath as if to illustrate the point. The blade was blue-black with oil, the edge a razor’s. It was the kind of thing that might have been a headsman’s tool for another man, but he’d learned the balance of it, and built the strength to wield it well. He had other weapons: knives and strangling wires, a curved moon blade and a many-spiked sun dagger. But this was the one people knew. It had no name, but only because Irrien believed such things foolish.
He could see the fear on his new slave’s face at the sight of it.
“In the old days, priests would offer up the life of a slave before battle, hoping to quench the thirst of death before it could settle on a general. Then, it came so that they offered the slave to the gods of war, in the hope that they would show favor to their side. Kneel.”
Irrien saw the man do it reflexively, in spite of his terror. Perhaps because of it.
“Please,” he begged.
Irrien kicked him, hard enough that the slave fell to his belly, his head sticking out over the bow of the ship. “I told you to be silent. Remain there, and be grateful that I have no truck with priests and their foolishness. If there are gods of death their thirst cannot be slaked. If there are those of war, their favor goes to the man with the most troops.”
He turned back to the rest of his ship. He hefted his sword one-handed, and slaves who had been waiting for his instructions rushed to grab horns. As he nodded, the horns blared once. Irrien saw catapults and ballistae crank back, flames being set to their loads.
He stood, dark against the sunlight, his bronzed skin and dark clothes turning him into a patch of shadow before the city.
“I told you that we would come to Delos, and we have!” he called out. “I told you that we would take their city, and we will!”
He waited until the cheer that followed died down.
“I gave the scouts we sent back to them a messa
ge, and it is one I intend to fulfill!” This time, Irrien didn’t wait. “Every man, woman, and child of the Empire is now a slave. Any you meet without a master’s mark is there for you to catch and do with what you are strong enough to. Any who claims to have property is lying to you, and you may take it. Any who disobeys us is to be punished. Any who resists us is in rebellion, and will be treated without mercy!”
Mercy was another of those jokes that people liked to pretend was real, Irrien had found. Why would a man allow an enemy to live unless it gained him something? The dust taught simple lessons: If you were weak, you died. If you were strong, you took what you could from the world.
Now, Irrien intended to take everything.
The biggest part of this was how alive he felt right then. He’d fought his way up to become First Stone, only to realize there was nowhere left to go. He’d felt himself starting to stagnate in the politics of the city, playing out the petty squabbles of the other stones to amuse himself. This, though… this promised to be so much more.
“Ready yourselves!” he shouted to his men. “Obey my orders, and we will succeed. Fail, and you will be less than dust to me.”
He stepped back over to the spot where the former sailor still lay, his head extended beyond the edge of the ship. He probably thought that was the extent of it. Irrien had found that they hoped things would get no worse, instead of seeing the danger and acting.
“You could have died fighting,” he said, his great sword still lifted. “You could have died a man, rather than a pitiful sacrifice.”
The man turned, staring up at him. “You said… you said that you didn’t believe in that.”
Irrien shrugged. “Priests are fools, but people believe their foolishness. If it will inspire them to fight harder, who am I to object?”
He pinned the slave in place with one boot, making sure that all those there could see it. He wanted everyone to see the moment when his conquest began.
“I give you to death,” he called out. “You, and all who stand against us!”
He brought his sword down, stabbing into the pitiful scum’s chest, spearing the heart. Irrien didn’t wait. He lifted it again, and for once, his headsman’s blade performed its original duty. It cleaved through the enslaved sailor’s neck cleanly. Not mercy, but pride, because the First Stone would never keep a weapon with less than a perfect edge.
He lifted the blade with the edge still bloody.
“Begin!”
Horns sounded, the sky filled with fire as the catapults launched and archers shot arrows out toward their foes. Smaller ships snaked out toward their targets.
For a moment, Irrien found himself thinking of this “Akila,” the man who had to be standing there waiting for what was to come. He wondered if his would-be foe was afraid right then.
He should be.
CHAPTER THREE
Thanos knelt over the body of his brother, and for a moment or two it felt as though the world had stopped. He didn’t know what to think or feel in that moment. He didn’t know what to do next.
He’d been expecting some sense of triumph when he finally killed Lucious, or at least some sense of relief that it was finally all over. He’d been expecting to finally feel that the people he cared about were safe.
Instead, Thanos found grief welling up inside him, tears falling for a brother who had probably never deserved them. But that didn’t matter now. What mattered was that Lucious was his half-brother, and he was gone.
He was dead, with Thanos’s dagger in his heart. Thanos could feel Lucious’s blood on his hands, and there seemed like so much of it to hold in one body. Some small part of him expected there to be something different about it all, for there to be some sign there of the madness that had gripped Lucious, or the grasping evil that had seemed to fill him. Instead, Lucious was just a silent, empty shell.
Thanos wanted to do something then for his brother; to see him buried, or hand him to a priest at least. Even as he thought of it, though, he knew that he couldn’t. His brother’s own words meant that it was impossible.
Felldust was invading the Empire, and if Thanos wanted to be able to do anything to help the people he cared about, he had to go now.
He stood, collecting his sword, ready to race for the door. He took Lucious’s as well. Of all the things his brother had held close, the tools of violence had seemed like the closest. Thanos stood there with them both in his hands, surprised to find how well they matched. He was almost as surprised to find a collection of the inn’s patrons blocking his way.
“He said you were Prince Thanos,” a bushy-bearded man said, fingering the edge of a knife. “That true?”
“The stones will pay good money for a captive like you,” another said.
A third nodded. “And if they don’t, the slavers will.”
They started forward, and Thanos didn’t wait. Instead, he charged. His shoulder slammed into the nearest, knocking him back into a table. Thanos was already lashing out, cutting at the arm of the knifeman.
Thanos heard him cry out as the blade bit into his forearm, but he was already moving, kicking the third man back into a spot where four men hadn’t stopped playing dice, even for the battle he’d just had with Lucious. One of them snarled and turned then, grabbing at the thug.
In moments, the inn managed to do what it hadn’t when Lucious had been the one fighting: it erupted into a full-scale brawl. Men who had been content to stand by while Thanos and his brother traded sword blows now threw punches and drew knives. One grabbed for a chair, swinging it at Thanos’s head. Thanos sidestepped, hacking a lump from the wood as he redirected the swing into yet another of the patrons.
He could have stayed to fight, but the thought of the danger Ceres might be in pushed him into a run. He’d been so sure that he could stop the invasion if he only got to Lucious, and then there would be enough time to find the truth about his parentage, discover the proof he needed, and make his way back to Delos. Now, there was no time for any of it.
Thanos sprinted for the door. He dropped and skidded under the grabbing hands of a man who tried to stop him, scraping a shallow cut across his thigh. He ran out into the streets there…
…straight into some of the worst dust Thanos had seen since he’d come to the city. He didn’t slow. He just jammed his twin blades into his belt, pulled up his scarf against the dust, and pushed forward as best he could.
Behind him, Thanos could hear the sounds of men trying to follow, although how they hoped to see him well enough to catch up in this weather, he didn’t know. Thanos groped his way along like a blind man, passing a merchant who was packing away his cart, then a pair of soldiers who were cursing as they huddled in a doorway against the dust.
“Look at that madman!” Thanos heard one of them call in Felldust’s tongue.
“Probably hurrying to join the invasion. I hear Fourth Stone Vexa has started to send more of a fleet, while the other three are still plotting. The First Stone has stolen a march on them.”
“Always does,” the first replied.
Thanos was away into the dust by then though, seeking his route by the vague shapes of the buildings, watching out for the signs that hung above the streets, lit by oil lamps. There were stone carvings too, obviously intended so that the locals could find their way from the street of the carved bear to that of the knotted snakes by touch if they needed.
Thanos didn’t know enough about the system to be able to use it, but even so, he pressed on through the dust.
There were others doing the same, and several times, Thanos stopped, trying to make out whether the booted feet he heard were those of pursuers or not. Once, he pressed in behind the curved iron bulk of a windbreak, his swords finding his way into his hands, certain that those following from the inn had caught up.
Instead, a team of slaves raced by, faces wrapped against the dust, carrying a palanquin from within which Thanos could hear a merchant urging them on.
“Faster, you curs! Faster, or
I’ll have you impaled. We need to get to the harbor before we miss the spoils.”
Thanos watched them, tracking along behind the palanquin on the basis that those carrying it probably knew the way better than he did. He couldn’t track it too closely, because in a city like Port Leeward, everyone kept a watch for would-be robbers or killers, but even so, he managed to follow it along the length of several streets before it disappeared into the dust.
Thanos stood there for a second or two, catching his breath, and as quickly as it had come, the dust storm lifted, giving him a view out over the harbor.
What he saw there made Thanos stand and stare.
He’d thought that there were plenty of ships in the harbor before. Now, it seemed that the water was full to brimming with them, until it appeared that Thanos could have walked to the horizon on their decks.
Many of them were warships, but many more now were merchant craft or smaller vessels. With the main fleet already gone from Felldust, the harbor should have been empty, yet it seemed to Thanos that there wouldn’t be enough room for another boat there. It seemed that everyone in Felldust had come there, ready to take their piece of what was to be gained in the Empire.
Thanos started to see the scale of it then, and what it meant. This wasn’t just an army invading, but a whole country. They’d seen an opportunity to take lands they’d long been denied, and they were going to acquire them by force now.
Regardless of what it meant for those already there.
“Who are you?” a soldier asked, coming up to him. “What fleet, what captain?”
Thanos thought quickly. The truth would mean another fight, and now there wasn’t the welcoming veil of the dust in which to hide. He had no doubt that he was as coated with it as any of the natives, but if anyone should guess who he was, or even just that he was from the Empire, this would not end well.