Wolves of Empire [EPIC DARK FANTASY] [Book One Complete]

Part Three

Sacrifice and Madness

Twenty-Five

Sephara

Empyria, the Imperium

5th of Tantus

Much to Sephara's indignation, her father coerced her into attending the latest Prodessium alongside him. It commenced at less than quarter capacity, given the war, and because many exalt-lords and -ladies had returned to their Reigns to raise the taxes the campaign demanded. Emptiness made the Prodessium Hall seem more expansive, as if the attendees were a cluster of nomads in the shadow of a mountain trying to proclaim their significance but failing miserably.

Denjin's benches were, noticeably, the emptiest. Though the assassinations succeeding Novissa's hadn't produced the same public uproar, the aftermath even now made itself known in vacant seats and missing voices. Noster Seius and Gaius Cassian's deaths knocked away the foundations of her uncle's armies, but the other victim Sephara had read of in the Praevin archives, Tullus Gavius, affected Valerian more. Always an eager sycophant of Valerian's, Gavius's murder had cowed entire swathes of Denjini aristocrats who now feared that same dagger would find their chests in punishment for their loyalty to their Corajus. Though most of the cowards who usually populated the ranks behind Valerian and Sephara had returned to their estates in Denjin under the guise of raising war taxes and other tedious acts of housekeeping, Sephara knew as well as her father that the exalt-lords and -ladies fled in fear. They abandoned the Boratorrens because they were terrified of retribution in the form of an assassin.

Sephara couldn't blame them.

Her brother hadn't joined them. Though she knew she should look upon his absence as a mark in her favour, she couldn't help but think him the lucky one to avoid the gathering. Since his disastrous duel at Traian's and Dexion's intervention in his attempt to hurt her again, Kaeso had kept his distance, and she was more than happy to follow his example. He hadn't yet gone to their father, and she suspected he wouldn't; as naïve and selfish as he could be, even he understood someone as powerful as the Captain-General of the Praevin couldn't be undermined by whatever petty stories he concocted.

She sat rigid beside her father at the forefront of Denjin's wedge of the seating, her regis cullo draped over her shoulders. It had been crafted for her identity as Silvia Barum and showed a pair of crossed swords for 'guard' beneath the stonehound crest of the Boratorren family.

Do I look like his bodyguard, I wonder?

To a casual observer, she was just a common servant, her appearance of little note, her face largely forgettable and lacking all the Boratorren hallmarks. Maybe that was why her uncle had chosen her for this task: because she was unremarkable, and not because he valued her skills.

Not that it had done him any good, in the end; she'd gotten no further forward in her investigations and, according to Lexia, Endarion had already almost been assassinated. The information gleaned from the Library had offered no solid answers and instead presented her with yet more questions.

She'd considered returning to Dexion but hadn't wanted to appear too keen. Besides, she was still unsure about the precise nature of their relationship. After she'd come back to his bed following her conversation in the archives with Lexia, he hadn't woken until just after dawn, when he'd left to start his day. He'd told her she was welcome to stay as long as she wanted, though she'd departed the compound soon after, worried someone would figure out she'd stolen the Caesidi dagger. At the thought of Dexion, she found herself scanning the crowds for him and shook her head at her childishness. She might like him, sure, but that didn't mean she needed to play the part of infatuated youth.

She drew herself from her thoughts and glanced towards the replica Invictum Throne, sitting empty today because the Caetoran apparently couldn't be bothered to haul his emaciated carcass from his palace crowning the Empyrian Tower. In his stead, resplendent in a royal purple greatcoat, waited the Warmaster, Khian Tyrannus. He stood beside the throne, holding himself with the easy and unearned confidence of a pampered aristocrat.

When it became obvious the Prodessium's numbers wouldn't be swelling with any latecomers, Khian struck his hands together, producing a thunderclap. He stepped away from the throne and out towards the hall's open centre. As he drew nearer, Sephara noticed he wore armour beneath his greatcoat, gleaming the unmistakable harsh purple of the Reign of Adhistabor. It was a lorica, the kind of armour worn by arch-generals and cavalry officers in the field, during battle. It had no place in the Prodessium, donned by a man who'd never seen conflict.

His baritone, deep and bellowing, assaulted her ears. "Exalt-Lords and -Ladies, blood of the highest calibre, names of the finest vintage, we are gathered here today to discuss the progression of our proud Imperium's engagement with the enemy forces of Kalduran."

After a brief speech, Khian forwarded the notion of raising the war tax to twenty percent, universal across all seven Imperial Reigns. There was some muttering among the noble ranks, but the increase was eventually agreed upon.

"What of Tharghest?" a noble from the province of Adhistabor called. "Can they not fund our campaign?"

A voice from within the Denjin rank behind Sephara thrust out a counterargument. "Tharghest isn't yet stable. Their economy is virtually non-existent, and they have no government left. Until we can properly implement a solid political structure, Tharghest has nothing to give."

Sephara knew little of Tharghest, beyond the fact her uncle had been responsible for the finality of its conquest, and that it had been left in a lawless state of disrepair by his campaign. Most of its primarily Dontili population had fled west to the Borrian Princedoms, where they were welcomed. Clearly, the Imperium wanted to call Tharghest its own, but didn't want to assimilate it, or even offer it a semblance of security after its upheaval. Good enough, the Caetoran no doubt believed, for the country to be painted in his colours on the maps. Nothing else mattered.

It was, as her uncle's work, part of the Boratorren legacy. Not their finest achievement, admittedly.

Khian scratched at his clean-shaven chin. "Very well," he said, conceding the point. "Many of you are by now aware that Paramount-General Boratorren was almost assassinated by a Kalduran-hired killer at Dujaro during the negotiations, and that an official declaration of war resulted."

At this Sephara cast a sideways glance at her father, but his features were schooled to neutrality.

The Warmaster continued. "The Paramount-General has apparently taken revenge into his own hands. I have confirmed reports that the city of Dykumas, a settlement with a population of seventy-five thousand innocent citizens, was put to the sword and razed to the ground, with no recorded survivors. The Iron Wolf led this attack and was said to have entered the city in person with his war dogs."

Khian halted, letting his words sink in. Sephara glanced around, hyperaware of the silence enfolding those present.

"The Paramount-General had no orders to attack Dykumas, and until this point the campaign had been focused on the defeat of the Kaldurani army. Now an entire city of innocent non-combatants has been slaughtered by our commander and there is little way of knowing whether he plans to repeat his actions."

Gasps of horror peppered the silence. When Sephara skimmed the crowds, she saw disgust darkening many faces. No one seemed to doubt Khian's words, even when it was obvious to her that he either lied or exaggerated.

"What of the arch-generals? Did they not intervene?" This, from Calvus Valens, Corajus of New Quendinther and another of her father's political allies.

Khian shook his head, feigning sadness. "Apparently, he threatened any who sought to intervene, Arch-General Tyrannus included."

She noticed her father's brow crinkle in concern when Calvus Valens said nothing else, sinking back into his seat with a resigned sigh. Valens had never been their most stoic ally, Sephara knew, but he held an important role in their plans for insurrection. He was the political counterpart in Quendinther to Arch-General Kavan Aza and had held the position back when Estrid Elerius commanded Quendinther's army, more than a decade ago now. He'd been privy to an uncomfortable amount of their plans.

It dawned on Sephara that this public attack had arisen because her uncle had stubbornly refused to die at Dujaro. If, as she believed, the Caetoran and his Warmaster were somehow involved in the assassinations, Endarion's removal would serve them well. If you can't kill the man, paint him as a bloodthirsty madman and watch as his friends and allies turn against him.

"I do not doubt the Paramount-General's military prowess, but even the best of us falter," the Warmaster continued.

A figure climbed to his feet in the wedge neighbouring Denjin. Caelinus Naevon, Corajus of Asineo and older brother of Arch-General Ricardus Naevon. A friend of her father's, if Valerian could be said to form such attachments.

"It is hardly our place to question those elected to lead our armies," Naevon said. "It was, after all, the Caetoran who elevated him."

Khian snorted. "I am the Warmaster. I must question to keep the Caetoran safe. If I have reason to believe one of our commanders is going soft in the head, I will do everything I can to ensure he doesn't drag the Imperium into madness with him."

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Sephara sensed the dampening of the Prodessium's collective mood. The realities of war had been made clear to those gathered, and even the closest of friends couldn't defend the slaughter of an entire city for the sake of a bruised ego. Sephara leaned back in her seat, closing her ears to the continued droning of Khian's voice, and tried to consider the ramifications of the Imperium thinking her uncle a mad murderer.

The Prodessium drew to a prolonged, stuttering close an hour later. Though Khian had moved onto other issues following his mention of Endarion's massacre of Dykumas, he hadn't offered a solution, nor asked for opinions. Rather, he'd let the matter sit and fester openly for all the Prodessium's attendants to ruminate on, for them to no doubt embellish the crime in their own minds. She was sure some of their less-stoic allies would turn away from them because of this. No one would bother verifying Khian's claims, because to do so would be to display treasonous mistrust in the ruling dynasty.

Rather than return straight home to discuss the meeting, as Sephara had suspected, her father instead opted to walk towards the Path of Triumph, a short distance away from the Prodessium. By then the afternoon died its fiery death, painting the marble walkway of the Path violent shades of orange. The statues cast uncanny shadows, and Sephara suddenly found it easy to believe Novissa's killer had gone unidentified here when they'd launched their attack all those weeks ago.

Five weeks, she corrected herself. It's been exactly five weeks since Novissa died.

They stopped beneath the domineering stone likeness of Dobran Tyrannus, the only other living person to adorn the Path besides Endarion. Valerian glanced upwards in disgust, then turned his attention to his daughter.

"He's lying," Sephara said before her father could speak. "I bet Dykumas is still standing. I bet Uncle killed no one."

"Is that what you think?" Valerian asked. "Are you defending him because he gave you a task? Do you think he showed you favouritism?"

More than you've ever shown me.

"It fits the Caetoran's agenda too well to be true," Sephara insisted. "Besides, he wouldn't have crushed an entire city."

"The Iron Wolf would have. The Iron Wolf has done in the past."

Sephara raised a doubting eyebrow at her father. "And you believe that? That is exactly why Khian spoke today."

"I do not know what to believe," Valerian said. "I only doubt because I know what my brother is capable of." Had he not already blatantly said he feared Endarion was regressing again? Her father hissed a gentle sigh. "I cannot have him watched all the way out there in the Kaldurani wilderness."

Not that you'd be able to control him even if you could spy on him, Sephara thought but didn't say. After all, Valerian's monitoring of Endarion in Empyria amounted to knowing which of his former lovers had visited him, so that he would later wield it against his brother in a bitter verbal spar.

They stood in strained silence for a second. Sephara looked at Valerian, finding him stiff and rigid, as if they attended a formal event in which they were strangers, rather than a father and daughter discussing pertinent family issues. She couldn't remember the last time he'd addressed her as a parent should, shown her any scrap of paternal affection, or even awarded her the slightest snippet of praise.

"Have you found anything ?" Valerian asked, his baritone breaking the quiet. "Regarding what my brother asked of you?"

She shook her head. "Just more questions."

No need to mention her enlightening visit to the Heaven's Paramours, nor her continued seduction of Dexion. Her father looked down upon his brother for the many conquests he pursued; there was no need to similarly tarnish herself in her father's eyes.

Valerian looked about to say something but decided against it and paced towards the opposite side of the thoroughfare, to where Endarion's statue posed.

Like orderly ranks of infantry, the other statues guarded the Path's flanks, curving down into the city and away from Dobran and Endarion. The further one ventured towards the city's outskirts, where the likenesses of the Imperium's two founders marked the Triumph Gate several miles away, the older the statues were. The longer the heroes they depicted had been dead. There didn't seem much room left on the Path for new stone behemoths before it terminated at the Library's front entrance, though Sephara supposed the Imperium had little time for heroes anymore.

Depicted here as a warrior resplendent in full-body, heavy plate armour, the Iron Wolf's statue grasped a greatsword in mid-swing behind his shoulders, a grim smile twisting his stone features. Save for the plaque at the base that named him, and his trademark dog-head pauldrons, he wasn't recognisable as her uncle. He never smiled anymore, for one. He preferred a simple arming sword over a greatsword, for another. And the plate he wore here was better suited to the heavy cavalry, a part of the army she knew he'd never served in.

Still, nice attempt.

Strange to think Novissa had died here. The way her body had sprawled made it appear Endarion's stone greatsword had cut her down.

A shimmering in the shadows at the edge of the statue's base pulled Sephara from her observation. When she fixed her eyes on the point, she almost startled when the shadows themselves flickered like a mirage. By instinct, she tore her small-sword from its sheath at her hip, glad she'd replaced the ceremonial dagger Dexion had teased her for with it.

Too late, though, because the shadows coalesced into a vaguely human silhouette and lurched outwards. The moving shadow gleamed unnaturally dark, a smooth slash against dim grey stone. The form veiled beneath seemed clad in a cloak of physical shadows, their features rendered almost invisible, their limbs uncannily distorted.

The figure lapped into the light like a wave, a dagger extended, aiming right for her father's turned back. She acted without thought, pushing herself into her father's flank and sending him crashing to the floor in a tangled heap, out of the way of the killer's blade.

As she tried to right herself, the shadowmancer surged towards where Valerian lay, dazed and vulnerable. Sephara danced forward and fended off the first blow, the snapping shadowy tendrils warping the figure. She misjudged her strike but caught the next hit with the hilt of her sword, the assassin's dagger slicing across her knuckles.

Whoever he was, he was skilled; he seemed to flow around her with the liquid quality of his shadows. She lashed out wildly, struggling in vain like a mad woman fighting off fog. She gave ground, each step backwards punctuated by a harsh cut of the assassin's blade. It got closer and closer to its mark each time, and Sephara suddenly pictured her body sprawled across the Path of Triumph, a dagger wound in her chest. Dexion Mendacium would loom over her corpse, shrug, then add her name to his list of inconsequential deaths. She'd be another entry in that incomplete file in his archives.

The vision smothered the fire of her panic, forced her to correct her footwork, to send out feints, to defend rather than retreat. They traded blows in a whirlwind, the clanging of their metal deafening, the reverberations along her arm almost painful in their frequency. Even so, the assassin was the better fighter; he disarmed her in a flash of steel and drove his blade towards her unprotected stomach. She latched her hands around his wrists and tried to push him away, their fight suddenly focused on that tiny space between them where life and death was being decided by sheer strength alone.

His elbow clipped her face as he manoeuvred with her, dazzling her. Her grip slipped, and in that failure she felt the sharpness of her own death.

The assassin leveraged her faltering, freeing one hand to plant his knuckles square in the centre of her face. Her nose seemed to detonate with the splintering racket of ruined cartilage. Her head snapped backwards, vision brilliant white, and she would've been helpless as he dragged her back inwards to skewer her on his dagger had the shadowmancer not lurched sideways, dropping the blade to recoil from a blow to the side of the head. Before the assassin could compose himself, her father planted a ferocious kick to his side. He followed it up with another to the back, then a vicious incapacitating slap to the ear. Before the assassin had time to recover, Valerian fell upon him and kneeled over him, his hands grasping at a shadow-drenched collar. All this, Sephara saw through the hazed mess of her imploded vision as hot agony billowed across her face. She cupped her bleeding nose, her feet unsteady beneath her, and fought to reclaim composure.

"Who sent you?" her father demanded, mouth bent into a snarl, his words barely discernible above the ringing in her brain. "Who wants me dead?"

Rather than reply, the assassin bucked and shifted, freeing one arm to swing a wild punch that caught Valerian in the jaw. Valerian, who was unused to fighting and hadn't thought to straddle the assassin and fully pin him in place, collapsed sideways.

As the shadowmancer grappled with Valerian, both of them now sprawled on the floor, one hand reached out searchingly for his dropped dagger. Sephara clenched her jaws to chase away the thudding pain, her vision only now ebbing back to normality. Heedless of the crimson dribbling from her nose and seeping into her mouth, she rushed over and slammed the heel of her booted foot onto the assassin's extended arm. The loud crack of bone breaking and the feeling of the arm giving way beneath her weight made her grimace.

She moved to kick him in the face with her other foot, but the assassin stumbled away from her fallen father with his broken arm clutched to his chest, a silent scream distorting his shadowed face. Before he could recover, Sephara kicked the dagger further out of reach, her exertion birthing a cracking headache and blinding her all over again.

Her father lashed out, catching the kneeling assassin in the shoulder and driving the would-be killer further away with a brutal shove of his boots. He shot to his feet faster than a man his age should and grabbed Sephara's shoulder before shepherding her forcefully away from the shadowmancer. A quick glance proved the killer had gained his knees but not yet his feet, her blow to his arm decisive.

"Father, let's secure him," she said, trying to pull away.

By then, though, the assassin had, despite the severity of his compound fracture that even now wept blood onto the Path's pristine white floor, stood. Another dagger, produced from some inner pocket, leapt into his intact hand. He advanced on them, and Sephara moved in front of her father.

Though it felt like only a matter of seconds since the altercation had begun, several bystanders noticed the fight and moved to investigate. Faced with so many witnesses, the assassin wavered. His dagger lowered, and before Sephara could think of closing the distance and seizing him, he spun away. Any notions of pursuing him shrivelled at the sight of his shadow-cloak descending upon his shoulders, conjured seemingly from nowhere, and occluding him from view. He'd barely skirted around the back of Endarion's statue before he vanished; he'd disappear into the Industrial District, and Sephara knew she'd only waste her time chasing him.

She almost spluttered in shock when her father pulled her in for a hearty embrace, his comforting hold about as foreign to her as anything could possibly be. He grasped her shoulder and drew her around to face him, his other hand searching the material of her coat for signs of the killing blow the assassin had almost delivered. Apart from her scratched knuckle and broken nose, she was unharmed.

"He didn't get me," she murmured, numbed by adrenaline, voice mangled and nasal. "Did he hurt you?"

Valerian shook his head, his severe brow drawn down into the deepest frown she'd ever seen on him.

"Father, he got away," she said as she extricated herself, noticing her blood staining her father's pristine shoulder.

"I don't care," Valerian said, and his stony face caved in with relief. "I thought he had stabbed you."

He seemed unable to step away from her for the span of several breaths, his eyes searching her for other injuries, his hand on her shoulder reassuring and fatherly. She wasn't familiar with fatherly, but surely that's what it was.

"He came for you," she murmured as she cupped a hand beneath her nose to stem the tide.

"And he nearly got you," he replied.

"I wasn't ready. I'm sorry, I failed you." She glanced up at her uncle's statue and inwardly cursed herself. She should've been wary, knowing Novissa had been killed here. But it had seemed too obvious, for the mage-assassin to return to the scene of the crime to pick off another Boratorren.

Her father took her injured hand in his own and used part of his greatcoat to wipe the blood away. "You did not fail me, Sephara. You saved me twice there," he said. "Neither of us expected that."

Then, seeing the steady pulse of red still pumping from her face, he shrugged his regis cullo off, tore it in half, then balled the material and offered it to her.

When he finally peeled his gaze from her, it was to turn away and exhale a loud breath in preparation to face the bystanders even now padding towards them. No doubt her father would spin them a fanciful tale to quell their fears.

Sephara looked to the ground and spotted the assassin's discarded dagger, flecked with her blood. With the wadded material pressed to her thumping face, she bent, feeling drunk with panic not yet receded, and examined the blade, already knowing what she'd find.

A curved Caesidi blade.