Aldrik cursed loudly, slamming the door behind them. “He knows we’re here.”
Vhalla was about to ask how, but the words stopped short. She remembered the Inquisitors in Paca and her foolishly proclaiming about where they were going. She’d wanted to spark inspiration in the people, she’d wanted to sway the men from Victor. But what if they hadn’t been swayed? The heat of betrayal flushed her cheeks.
“What’s going on?” Jax met them in the hall.
“Victor’s attacking,” Aldrik spoke without stopping.
“Vhal?” Fritz yawned, rubbing his eyes. He’d barely been roused by all the noise. The man might be able to sleep through the end of the world.
“We’re under attack,” Vhalla pulled her friend along.
The main entryway was already buzzing when the four of them entered. The senator was trying to pull threads of organization through the chaos, but it was proving a futile attempt. Aldrik cleared his throat.
“I need the fastest horse,” he announced, projecting the demand throughout the room. “And whatever armor is closest to my size.”
The room stilled.
“Any who are skilled in combat are to come with me. We will join with the Western forces outside the city to thwart this attempt from the false king.” Aldrik glanced at her and guilt clouded his eyes. Vhalla knew why instantly, and she wanted to hate him for it. “My lady will remain here. Her will is to be considered an extension of my own.”
He was leaving her behind. “Aldrik,” Vhalla whispered hastily. “I can carry a sword; I can fight.”
His eyes flicked to the rest of the room, the people watching their discourse. “You’re more valuable to me here. Keep things in order. Help me lead from within.”
“I’ll stay with the Lady Yarl,” Jax announced from her side.
“No, you will go with the Lord Solaris,” Vhalla demanded. “Fritz, you will go as well. Both of your skills will be of use on the field.”
Another screech interrupted any of Jax’s potential objections. The smell of smoke wafted in through the open doors of the government building, cries and shouts riding the wind along with it. The three men exchanged a look as Vhalla stood resolute.
“Go, the field needs leaders.”
They listened to her, and Vhalla swallowed her frantically beating heart as she watched the three leave with a handful of others. The room remained still as the world beyond devolved into chaos before their eyes. Vhalla clenched her fists.
Maybe there was more to Aldrik’s leaving her than Vhalla understood. Panic was a wildfire that was quickly growing out of control in the people around her. Vhalla realized that Aldrik’s words of her value may have been more than appeasement. They needed leadership here and now.
“Senator, how many civilians are currently within Hastan?”
“A couple hundred,” the woman replied.
“What stone buildings are there? Any basement cellars or storehouses for the city?”
A few others listed varying responses. Three or four seemed promising.
“We will move civilians into these locations,” Vhalla decreed. “As we do so, seek out any who have experience with healing or clerical skills. We will set up a triage here, central to all points. I need at least four runners to function as messengers.”
Men and women volunteered instantly. The room was quickly divided into those who would remain and those who would help move civilians. She trusted those who lived in Hastan to know their city and to be motivated to protect their kin without her help.
“Triage will be here,” she explained quickly to those who had remained. Her clerics ranged from old women who had seen every type of injury, to experienced veterans, to mothers, and a handful of those with formal training. She left the elderly in charge of the initial assessments.
“Those with the worst wounds send back into the hall, the least to the right. Take whatever you require and use whatever rooms you need.”
“These rooms are to be used for nobility, the Emperor’s guests,” someone spoke up.
“Pardon?” Vhalla stilled her instruction.
“We cannot take from the Emperor . . .” another added uncertainly.
“I am your future Empress,” she pointed out. “They’re just blankets and sheets and beds. The Emperor and I want to see them used as bandages, tourniquets, or comfort for the ailing.”
They were finally spurred to life. The most experienced clerics and veterans had the easiest time coming to terms with the fact that all bets were off when it came to warfare. Led by their example, everyone hastily began the process of setting up their clerical stations.
It couldn’t have come a moment too soon. Wounded were carried in with returning messengers. It only took an hour for the floor of the main entry to the Eastern government hall to be slick with blood.
“Report,” she demanded of the next messenger she saw.
“My lady,” the young woman began, “seven winged beasts brought nearly one hundred soldiers to our city.” Her voice wavered slightly with fear, but she persevered. “They landed to the north and quickly tore through the Western militia.”
“Is the army trying to flank them to recover the ground?”
“They’re trying,” she affirmed.
“Go out and make sure all the civilians on the northern side of the city have been moved to safe houses elsewhere, should any remain,” Vhalla ordered. “Then head south. Implore those who are in command there to split their forces and push through the city to defend and help those to the north.”
“Understood,” the messenger agreed and raced back out into the night.
Vhalla massaged her shoulder, looking out into the darkness past the main entry of the government building. She wondered at the extent of the carnage. She wondered if her friends were all right.
A soldier stumbled in, hunched over.
“If you can walk, head to the right,” Vhalla instructed absent-mindedly.
“Good to see you, too.” Jax raised his head with a tired grin, his presence pulling Vhalla from her thoughts.
“Jax!” Vhalla sprinted over to the man. “Are you all right?”
“I’ve had better. I’ve had worse.” He slumped against her.
Vhalla caught sight of his back. It was in tatters. A deep gash ran from shoulder to waist, two others framing it on either side.
“I need a cleric!” Vhalla called, helping Jax into a chair in a nearby room.
Her order was heeded; a man quickly rushed in, assessing the state of Jax’s back. Vhalla quickly helped by cutting Jax’s shirt off his shoulders.
“Lady Yarl, I had no idea you held such affections.” Jax waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Cutting off another man’s clothes isn’t becoming of the future Empress.”
Vhalla rolled her eyes. “Oh, hush.” She gave a small glance to the cleric that she hoped conveyed the silent request that any of Jax’s jests were not to be repeated elsewhere. The man seemed too focused on assessing the wounded Westerner to give much heed to what they were saying.
“How did this happen? What’s it like out there?” Vhalla wasn’t sure if she wanted the answers to her questions.
“A mess.” Jax grimaced as the man packed some salve into the wounds. “We may have had some of Mhashan’s might, but the soldiers were far from ready for an attack.
“We’ve taken down three beasts so far, but the bastards are nearly impervious to magic. The crystals give them some resistance and heal them at the same time. Takes three powerful sorcerers to bring them down.”
“Sorcerers are one thing we should have,” Vhalla hopefully thought aloud.
“We do, but not many at the level we need, and it has been slow communicating that the other soldiers need to protect our sorcerers exclusively.”
She knew what Jax was saying. Aldrik was one of those sorcerers, one of those skilled enough to take on the beasts. Vhalla didn’t know if she wanted to ask her next questi
ons or not.
“Aldrik? Fritz? Elecia?”
He didn’t torture her. “All fine.”
“Were they injured as well?” Vhalla asked as the cleric worked on the last of his stitches.
“Not as of when I left.” Jax grinned. “I was the only one foolish enough to be willing to throw his life away to save a lovely lady in distress.”
“Well, I’m glad you were unsuccessful in throwing it away.” Vhalla patted his shoulder, standing. “Go to your room and rest when the cleric is finished.”
Jax looked utterly exhausted. Vhalla rubbed her own eyes tiredly. However worn she was, it was nothing to what the soldiers were facing at the front.
As the battle outside slowly began to quiet, the noise within the government building grew. The cries and groans of men and women, engaged in a different sort of fight for their lives, filled her ears and punctuated Vhalla’s every order. These people were in her care, and she would do everything she could to protect and save them.
Fritz was the next to return. Vhalla caught sight of him instantly as she had keep one eye on the door. She crossed over to him quickly, weaving through the men and women arranged on the floor of what was once her orderly medical station.
“Fritz,” she breathed in relief.
“Vhal.” He tiredly returned her embrace.
“Thank the Mother you’re all right.”
“You too, Vhal.” Her friend released her. “I was nervous something broke through.”
She shook her head. “The army held the line.” She’d been asking messengers all night for reports on the state of the city. They hadn’t even lost one building. “What’s the status?”
“The abominations are all dead. Aldrik is passing judgment on the remaining sorcerers now.”
Vhalla glanced at the room. If the battle was winding down, there wasn’t likely to be another influx of people to attend to. The clerics had developed their own systems based on her original suggestions as the night had waned, and Vhalla felt confident leaving them to it.
“Do you have a horse?” she asked her friend.
Fritz nodded.
“Stay here, get cleaned up.”
He stopped her. “Where are you going?”
“I should be there.” Vhalla shifted her arm to take his hand rather than gripping his wrist. “I need to be with him for this.”
“Vhalla, do you understand—”
“Of course I do.” She squeezed his fingers. “That’s why I must be there.”
Her Southern friend smiled tiredly. “Go on then, Miss Empress.”
Fritz let her go, and she was off. Vhalla appreciated that he hadn’t insisted upon going with her for her protection. She borrowed a sword from a soldier who would no longer need it, strapping it to her back. Even if the fight was over, she knew better than to charge unarmed into a battlefield. She had too much training now to even think otherwise.
With just the one weapon and a leather jerkin, she struck a course northward. Given all the reports she’d been receiving, it seemed like the most logical location for her Emperor. A red sunrise streaked across the sky, mirroring the crimson land before her.
The casualties had been heavy, heavier than she expected given the number of soldiers who had been in the Western force surrounding the city. But the hulking corpses of giant winged beasts offered a chilling explanation. Teeth longer than her body jutted out from their massive jowls. They had almost canine-like heads but with thick leathery skin pulled taut against oddly shaped muscles. Some had two arms, some had four, one even had six. They had the wings of a wyvern and scorpion-like tails. It was a creature that the Gods had never intended to exist, and the now-dormant crystals embedded in their bodies glinted like dull obsidian in the sunlight, slowly cracking into dust.
A handful of men and women were surrounded, forced to their knees. Soldiers waited around them, sorcerers and Commons alike, ready to execute the traitors who had ridden in to kill them all on the backs of monsters. The lean figure of a man was mounted before the lot—an Emperor casting judgment on those who fought against his throne.
“. . . forsake the false king.” Vhalla could hear Aldrik’s words as she approached. “Those who give information will be rewarded with their lives.”
No one spoke.
“You protect a coward,” Vhalla called out, announcing her presence. Aldrik turned in surprise as she rode up next to him. “You stand with a man whose power comes not through his own merit—as he would have you believe—but through theft.”
“What would you know?” one of the kneeling sorcerers demanded, curiosity drawing the words from him.
“I know all too well,” Vhalla replied quietly, “because I was the one whose powers he stole.”
Now she had their attention.
“Victor could not open the caverns on his own; he wasn’t strong enough to manage the crystals. I know because he needed me to help him do it. When he had what he wanted, he stole my magic to make him immune from the taint.”
“Lies!” one sneered. “The taint only affects those of weak will, Commons, and lesser sorcerers.”
Desperation carved the way for stupidity in the hearts of men.
“You can’t possibly believe that. Is that what Victor has told you? That you are the strong ones and immune?” She shook her head with a bitter sorrowful laugh. “He has written you off as expendable with his lies.”
“Are you really the Windwalker?” a timid voice asked from among them.
“I was.” Vhalla spoke only to the man who had asked. “I was the Windwalker until he stole my powers. Now I am a Commons. It was my magic that unleashed this monster upon the world—”
“Vhalla . . .” Aldrik had a cautionary note.
“—but because of that, no one will fight harder than me to do what is necessary to right that wrong.” The words hurt. They hurt like the wind still hurt on her cheeks, plain and un-magical. But it was finally the right kind of hurt. The hurt of a confession that needed to be said. “This is but a night. The sun will rise again, and I stand with the dawn.”
She looked to the Emperor. His eyes were a chameleon over the past few weeks, constantly changing to match the woman she was becoming.
“Who will stand with the sun?” He tore his eyes away from her to make his final demand.
The man who had asked his timid question stood slowly. “A false king sits on a false throne.”
“You disgrace sorcerers,” another loyalist spat. “You’ll follow a liar and a Commons.”
“Strength channels its own magic,” the man said in reply, looking directly at Vhalla.
“Who else will stand with us?” Vhalla demanded.
Two more stood.
“Why take pity on them?” a Western soldier finally spoke. “They fight against your Empire. Put them to death.”
“Because a wise woman taught me that no soul is beyond saving,” Aldrik replied easily.
Vhalla’s chest tightened, instantly thinking of Larel.
“Those who stand with us, live; those who do not, die. Make your choice. Dawn comes and it will wait for no man.” Aldrik turned back to Victor’s sorcerers.
Two more stood, five in total. That was all who were spared. Vhalla bore a silent witness to the other sorcerers who died for Victor’s ideal. Men and women who had become so tainted with his lies that they valued his dogma more than their lives.
Vhalla counted every man and woman put to death. Twenty-three in total. She shifted in her saddle and felt the sword pulling heavy on her shoulder. The next time she saw Victor she would stab him herself, Vhalla resolved, twenty-three times.
CHAPTER 10
Vhalla rode back to the government building in silence. She visually checked Aldrik over several times. He had countless bruises and a gash by his shoulder, and she was prepared to scold him for not seeking treatment sooner, but he was okay, overall. A sickly feeling had bubbled in her stomach, but it was quelle
d at the sight.
How many more times would she have to watch the people she loved ride off to war?
She stayed a quiet shadow at Aldrik’s side until a cleric demanded his attention, and then she slipped away. Vhalla drifted through the halls, suddenly exhausted. She’d put everything she could think to the test, to be the Empress the people needed, and she wasn’t sure if she had even come close.
Her feet moved with the intention of seeking out Fritz, but she paused just before a different friend’s door, the sliver of light stretching across the floor from Jax’s current accommodations.
“. . . worried about me?” She could barely hear Jax’s quiet words.
“I had other things to focus on.” Elecia, Vhalla realized. She took a step toward the open door, relieved to hear the woman was well enough to have the usual sarcastic bite to her voice.
“Aww, you were,” Jax teased.
“Are you all right or not?” Elecia sighed heavily.
“I am.” There was a long pause. “ ‘Cia, truly, I’m fine.”
“You better not be playing hero again,” the woman murmured.
“If I hadn’t, you wouldn’t be here now.”
Vhalla stilled. Jax had said he sustained his wound while saving a damsel in distress. Elecia wasn’t much of a damsel.
“Thank you.” Elecia’s gratitude was forced and awkward, but it was as sincere as anything else Vhalla had ever heard the woman say. Elecia was often times abrasive, certainly sarcastic, but she was usually sincere in what she said—good and bad.
“Think nothing of it, Lady Ci’Dan.”
“That’s not going to be possible. You know this changes things—”
“I said, think nothing of it.” A nerve was struck.
“Fine, Jax, I won’t.” Elecia’s footsteps neared their door, and Vhalla knocked softly on Fritz’s, not wanting to be caught eavesdropping.
“You know, you’re one of the few,” Jax’s words stopped both women, “who doesn’t still call me lord.”