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

Twenty-Six

Endarion

Central Kalduran

9th of Tantus

Endarion awoke that morning at dawn. As usual, he'd snatched a few interrupted hours of sleep before being dragged to the waking world amid his own cries of terror. As he lay panting, trying in vain to calm the wild pulsing of his heart, his mind dwelled on the too-real spectre haunting his nightmares.

Before, such nightmares would fade upon waking and leave him with lingering traces of fright. But, he noticed with growing apprehension, his dreams grew more vivid; they clung to him with more fervour and no doubt had him whimpering in his sleep.

The same scene always gripped him. The same torture chamber, the same freshly inflicted wounds, the same pool of blood congealing at his feet. The pain was sharp and real. He knew that, in the depths of fitful slumber, every scar inflicted at Shaeviren flared and stung as if being carved into his flesh anew. He would always wake the second before the eldritch monster that stalked him moved to inflict its murderous designs on him. For the first few moments of consciousness, he felt that deathly presence still.

People often wondered why he'd shared his bed with multiple women over the years. Though he certainly enjoyed courtship and sex and used his handful of conquests to bolster his reputation, the truth was the presence of another person beside him often allayed his fears, lessened his nightmares. That he hadn't taken anyone to bed in the last twelve years was most of the reason his nightmares had gained a totalitarian control over his sleeping hours.

And it hadn't been his torture at Shaeviren that had originally birthed night terrors in him, because he'd suffered them for years prior. Shaeviren, he thought, had sharpened his fears, clarified his nightmares.

Basirius curled at his tent's entrance, watching him with calm golden eyes. He'd started keeping the stonehound with him as he slept, lest another assassin try their luck. Fortunately, the dog was used to his master's nocturnal terrors.

"Sorry, boy," he said to the dog, who canted his head. "Guarding me must be tedious work."

Basirius blinked slowly. Perhaps an agreement. The thought of his canine companion concurring made Endarion smile.

He always slept in shirt and trousers, should he need to leap into action as suddenly as he had at Allodek. After pulling on a simple blue coat, he sat at his camp desk and set about the arduous task of slipping on and fastening his leg brace. It was a simple contraption, built to support an ill-healed leg, rather than provide him with his former mobility. The cup that encased his knee had been designed with stability and protection in mind, much like armour. Often, though it was the jostling of the brace and the nudging of that cup against his joint that caused the most discomfort. Still, better a little pain than the indignity of limping everywhere.

When he ducked through the tent flaps and presented himself to the calm morning beyond, he found a doglord halfway to his pavilion. "Paramount-General, sir," the young woman said. "Doglord Brazus sends me with word of a captured Kaldurani soldier. She's begun interrogating him, if you want to oversee. She's in the amputation pavilion."

The soldier snapped a salute and turned away, leaving Endarion frowning.

Their flight from Allodek a few days previous had been unhindered, and it didn't look like Estrid would pursue them. No doubt she shadowed them, but her actions were not those of a general trying to defend her invaded territory. That the Baltanos himself hadn't made an appearance seemed to suggest he supported whatever game she played, that he was willing to allow the Imperium's forces to ravage his countryside and raze his cities.

If Avelyn had a prisoner, maybe he'd learn Estrid's true intent, beyond trying to force his defection.

After dismissing Basirius and watching him wend his way back to the rest of his pack, half the camp away, Endarion paced over to where his army's surgeons had embedded themselves. Allodek's casualties occupied at least half the tents here. A sickly aroma of blood, strong enough to almost form a cloud, saturated the air, and a charred clearing was visible a short distance away, where the severed limbs were burned.

When Endarion entered the amputation tent, he noted Avelyn had used her time alone with the captured soldier productively. The Kaldurani, a man of about thirty, was strapped to a chair, his arms and legs tied down with ropes pulled too tight. His own blood painted him, his bare chest a small masterpiece of shallow slits and cuts.

"Paramount-General, sir," Avelyn said, looking over her shoulder to him.

He ignored her and focused on the prisoner. This was how he looked in his nightmares: restrained and powerless as his torturers slowly pulled him apart mind, body, and soul.

Was I this pitiful? This pointless? Like I was nothing?

Of course he was. But now he stood on the other side of things.

"He's one of Estrid's," Avelyn said, nodding towards a discarded officer's jacket she'd flung on the floor. "I was trying to get him to tell me where she is." She prodded the man's chest with the tip of a curved dagger. "You can walk out of here once you do." She patted his leg, hard enough to make him jolt. "Or crawl. Whichever works for you."

Endarion stormed over and snatched the knife from her hand. He flattened a palm against her shoulder and pushed her away, his stare daring her to challenge him. "Why are you torturing him?"

"We lost soldiers at Allodek," she replied. "And dogs, too. I want recompense."

"You're targeting the wrong man, then. You want the ones who sent us here in the first place."

"As if I could get hold of the Caetoran," Avelyn snapped in reply. She nodded to her prisoner. "You get him to talk, then."

He pitched his voice to a whisper. "You only need the threat of violence, Avelyn."

"Speaking from experience?" Though her words were harsh, she spoke gently. It was an unspoken offer to spare him the rigours of an interrogation, to shield him from his own memories.

He turned back to the captive, neither needing nor wanting his Doglord's intervention. "Where is Estrid, and what is she planning?"

The man lifted weary eyes his way but said nothing. To him, Avelyn was the torturer, Endarion the one who'd offered a reprieve. He hadn't made himself a real threat to the Kaldurani yet.

To rectify that, he pressed the knife to the man's groin. "I will castrate you if you don't answer."

Though his voice remained calm, his mind writhed in turmoil against the ministrations of his own torturers. To stand before this man and administer the same threat, to hold the dagger against the soldier's groin in a similar fashion, felt grimly empowering.

"You can live without it, I'm told," he continued. "I can take everything, leave you with enough to piss out of. But you'll live. It hurts, though."

His torturer had only, in cruel taunting, sliced into the meat at the top of his inner thigh, and that pain had been transcendent. Almost worse than the kneecapping. Far worse than the flaying. Though he had an ugly scar there now, he couldn't imagine the pain of an actual castration.

To prove the sincerity of his threat, he pushed the dagger's tip into the man's flesh. "You can choose: one testicle at a time, or both at once?"

The captive pulled at his bonds, a token struggle, then released a pained sigh. "I've been sent to deliver a message to the Iron Wolf. I'll only talk to him. Kandras Elerius's orders." He spoke the Drasken tongue, close enough to Imperial that, even had Endarion not been schooled in the language, he would've grasped the soldier's words regardless.

The captive thrust his chin at Avelyn. "I told her to summon her commander but she wouldn't."

Endarion threw the scowling woman a glance, unsurprised. No doubt Avelyn had wanted to drag this torture out before sending someone to fetch him. She'd plead ignorance, but she understood Drasken as well as him. This poor bastard had picked the wrong officer to be snatched by.

"I could have spared you these wounds," Endarion said, returning his attention to the soldier. He gestured down to his leg brace, the easiest way of proving his identity. "I am the Iron Wolf. Pass on your message."

The soldier heaved a sigh, the motion forcing more tears of blood from his myriad cuts. At least Avelyn had given him only superficial wounds to start with. No doubt she'd meant to go deeper before long. "Ten miles northwest. In the old city, in Zaljuras Forest. She wants to talk to you. Just you."

"Old city?"

The man slumped back. "You'll see." His eyes closed, though he kept breathing.

He looked over to Avelyn. "Get a camp medic to see to him."

"And then?" Avelyn asked.

"Let him go."

"Let him go?" she said, outraged. "Let him fucking go? So he can run back to Estrid and tell her where we are? Why not run off with him and hand yourself over while you're at it? That's what she fucking wants you to do."

He waved her away, looking back at the captive.

Ten miles wasn't far. If he kept the armies marching steadily north, he could pretend to join a scouting patrol westward for a few hours. No one would suspect if he went looking for this old city and the woman waiting for him within.

―

He spent the rest of the morning hunched over his desk, sifting through reports compiled by his officers in the aftermath of Allodek, reviewing the names and ranks of the men he'd lost in the fight.

One hundred and five, most of them from the infantry Palla had sent to support Dobran's retreat, the rest from the doglords who'd assisted, with three stonehounds besides. Hardly a loss at all, when compared with how many of his soldiers hadn't been touched by the fighting. Even less of a loss, when one considered Dobran's casualties were some two thousand, with more succumbing to lingering injuries every day.

Still. One hundred and five soldiers and three dogs who wouldn't be returning home, who'd marched into this pointless campaign and spent their lives beneath the pointless walls of a pointless stronghold. Add that to Dykumas's tally—Cato Romanus and the Denjini soldier Endarion had accidentally murdered chief among them—and Endarion had already lost half a battalion's worth.

He felt ominous, fatalistic; death crouched in his shadow and peered up at him with malicious yellow eyes and bared teeth. He'd expected some form of punishment as soon as their armies had settled, some message from the Caetoran detailing how his impending execution would go, or some further threat against his family. Allodek, after all, had been his fault.

There'd been nothing. Somehow, that was worse.

It was cool and calm outside, the sun shining behind a wispy layer of cloud, the air still and peaceful. He closed his eyes as he stood outside his tent for some respite and found it easy to imagine the events outside Allodek hadn't happened at all, that he wasn't an invader in a foreign country, that he hadn't already personally killed untold dozens, that Cato wasn't dead at his hand, that he hadn't accused Estrid of trying to assassinate him. If he tried hard enough, he could imagine he wasn't Paramount-General. He could envisage freedom for himself.

But he opened his eyes and the illusion shattered.

He'd been planning to seek out Palla Hasund, to inform her he was officially making her first-general, to avoid the confusion that had taken hold outside Allodek. After that, a covert ride to Zaljuras Forest so that Estrid could berate him or hurt him or kill him. But a familiar and unwelcome pair of men approached, pissing on his intent for the rest of the day.

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Dobran Tyrannus strode towards him with a devious smile splitting his aristocratic features. He didn't look like a general who'd just lost a considerable portion of his forces, but rather like a man about to enjoy a victory. Beside him: his son Khian with a shit-eating grin that mirrored his father's.

"I didn't know you were here," Endarion said by way of greeting, addressing the Warmaster.

"One of my uncle's worldstriders brought me here this morning with urgent business," the young Warmaster replied. He nodded towards Endarion's pavilion but didn't wait for permission to enter and shouldered his way past.

Endarion waited outside for a moment, an eyebrow raised to no one in particular, then followed the two men inside. The pair had already claimed the seats opposite his desk. He pushed his chair away and stood facing them, leaning slightly against his desk, one hand gripping the edge.

"Don't offer us a drink," Dobran said.

"I won't."

"You know why we're here?" Khian asked.

"I do."

"Then I suppose it's simple." The Warmaster set his hands in his lap, his posture rigid and military, as if he were coiling to strike but trying to conceal the fact.

Endarion took a breath before replying. "Is it?"

"You colluded with Kandras Elerius and Arch-General Aza, and your betrayal cost the Imperium the lives of loyal soldiers." Khian's words were steady, as if he believed the bullshit he spouted.

"If I colluded with Elerius, I wouldn't still be here, would I?" he spat back.

"We can't account for your stupidity on that count, cousin," Dobran interjected. "But everything else is straight forward: yours was the ally who turned coat and yours was the army left untouched. Yours is the head on which blame for our defeat rests."

Endarion felt his shoulders slump unbidden.

"I had thought better of you, Iron Wolf," Khian said. His face softened, but Endarion suspected it was feigned. "A famed commander with a reputation for ruthlessness, elevated to the highest military title in the Imperium, brought low by a traitorous woman."

"Don't judge him too harshly, son," Dobran said, reaching out a hand and patting the Warmaster's shoulder. "For all we know, Elerius is a phenomenal fuck and he'd do anything for another go."

Endarion wedged his tongue into the gap in his teeth and bit back a retort. They endeavoured to goad him, of course. If he lashed out, he'd make matters far worse for himself.

Khian chuckled. "Even without…" He pointedly surveyed Endarion, those cruel bastard eyes scouring him from crotch to crown and back down again, the insinuation blatant. "The proper equipment?"

"Now, now, son," Dobran said, grinning wickedly. "It's poor sport to mock a man unmanned. It's the same as kicking a half-dead dog."

Some dark instinct overrode common sense, licking out across his mind with oily fingers, and Endarion slammed his fists down onto the desk, somehow with enough force to split it. It sheared away in pieces beneath his blow, and for a moment all three of them stared down at the fragments in shock. It had only been a standard issue desk, not particularly strong, but sturdy enough to bear the weight of mountains of reports. Surely a simple blow wouldn't dismantle it?

One of the upturned edges was scalded black, and when he shifted his foot against it, it crumbled like ash. It was rotten then. That's all it was.

Khian rose carefully to his feet, as if Endarion were a trapped animal liable to lash out. Dobran shifted towards him from the side, though his hesitance was unwarranted; anger numbed Endarion's mind, as did the dull throb in his knuckles and the knowledge he'd condemned himself.

He didn't even feel the rope Khian looped around his wrists until it had been tied painfully tight, raking the skin with its rough fibres.

"Am I to be executed?" he asked. He doubted the Caetoran would kill him here, where the sallow bastard wouldn't be able to enjoy the spectacle. If they tried to transport him back to the capital, he'd fight.

Dobran set his hand on Endarion's shoulders. He tried to shy away from the contact, but the Warmaster held him in place. "Don't be ridiculous," his cousin said. "You're still too valuable to be killed. The Caetoran would like you to see through this campaign to its inevitable Imperial victory, though you will be stripped of your titles when it's all over, and your daughter won't be succeeding you as arch-general of Denjin. If you cooperate, you will be allowed to retire, and a place found for Daria elsewhere."

Khian chuckled. "Your brother will have to negotiate with the Caetoran for your replacement. It's very likely your friend Arch-General Naevon will be removed from power as well, to ensure Aza's taint doesn't rot away our noble ranks."

Had that been the plan all along? He'd assumed, when he'd been granted his title, that the Caetoran wanted him dead. Discredited and forcibly retired would be much the same, he supposed. Better, if his daughter and allies could be dragged down into ignominy with him.

Endarion tilted his head toward his bound hands. "And this?"

"You'll see," Dobran replied.

Together they dragged him from his pavilion. At first, he didn't think to struggle, if only because he was dumbstruck by their audacity. To stroll into his camp, to seize him from his pavilion, to parade him through his army as if he were some prized captive? He didn't comprehend it until his eyes settled on the faces of his soldiers as they watched him being manhandled through their ranks.

Clusters of rankers move forward to intervene, to defend him. "Stand down," he ordered. His men needn't implicate themselves in this.

He regretted returning Basirius to the doglord kennels earlier that day; a stonehound at his side would've aborted whatever plans Dobran and Khian had concocted for him.

He only started to contest his captivity when they pushed him clear out of the boundaries of his camp, towards a bare clearing ahead. The ground here had been left undisturbed, a glaringly empty gap in the space between his and Dobran's camps. When Endarion spied the two posts driven into the ground in the clearing's centre, he yanked his arms from Khian's grip and started to turn towards Dobran.

The arch-general was ready, however, and delivered a brutal elbow to his face that sent him reeling to his knees. He caught his weight on his shattered kneecap and cried out.

"Don't be pathetic," Khian hissed. "We haven't even started yet."

They hauled him up and heaved him out into the clearing, his legs trailing in the dirt behind him as he strove to think past the flaring sharpness in his knee joint.

Around the clearing, spectators stood as if awaiting a duel, their gazes latching onto him as he neared. Endarion spied the colours and crests of not only Dobran's army, but Korzha Mazilu and Byrria Dumerian's, too. There must've been several hundred here, ready to bear witness to his humiliation. Those at the back of the crowd even stood on wooden storage boxes to gain themselves a better view. That Dobran had sent word to the other armies and allowed enough time for officers to reach them from where Endarion had sent them proved he'd been planning this for a while. It seemed everyone but him had known what would transpire here today, and that galled just as much as being manhandled through the dirt by two men he despised.

"What the fuck are you doing?" he demanded, only to be silenced by Khian's fist sinking into his jaw.

His teeth clacked together and the inside of his cheek ripped. A furious bell rang in his skull, rendering him insensible as his captors threw him down between the two posts. The immediate pain of the blow devoured the background ache of his abused knee for a moment. Khian bent over him, brandishing a knife he stabbed at Endarion's face. Endarion cringed away from what he imagined would be a killing slash to the throat, but the Warmaster instead hacked his shirt and bindings away.

He felt Khian's cold eyes on his myriad scars, and for a moment was stupidly self-conscious, as if an exposed torso was the worst of his problems.

"Impressive, what they did to you," Khian said, appraising. "We'll be gentler."

They made short work of tying his hands to the two posts, wrenching him into a standing position and fastening him there with his arms outstretched.

Endarion had thought the indignity might end there, but once they'd tied him in place, Khian came back at him with that fucking knife. He sliced into the top strap of Endarion's leg brace, the point of his weapon coming alarming close to Endarion's groin. Khian's nostrils flared as he lost patience, and eventually he sheathed his blade and tore the rest of the brace from Endarion's leg with a growl. The ferocity of the action jarred Endarion's knee again, igniting pain that hadn't yet faded from his falling on it.

And then, as if the destruction of his brace wasn't insult enough—as if being tied up half-naked wasn't fucking insult enough!—Khian unbuckled his trousers and tore those away too.

"Getting a bit close and personal, there," Endarion said, words mangled by his swollen cheek. "You're your mother's son, all right. She never could wait before ripping my clothes off, either."

Khian grabbed him by the throat and squeezed. "Don't belittle me."

"You do realise," Endarion continued despite the partial strangling, "that no one will be able to say I'm castrated anymore, not with my manhood so proudly on display. You've done me a favour."

The Warmaster scoffed and spun away.

Even so, he lifted his head and made the mistake of scanning the front row of spectators. Officers from three different armies regarded him with cruel smiles and raised brows, treating his nudity as they would the entertainment in Traian's Arena. His nakedness didn't gall him so much as the intent behind stripping him. Hung between two posts, relieved of his brace and his clothes, the tortured tapestry of his flesh exposed to all, he wasn't worth fearing. Wasn't worth revering. Wasn't even worth pitying.

That was why Khian had done it.

"Esteemed ladies and gentlemen of the glorious armies of the Imperium of Adhistabor, if I may have your attention," Dobran bellowed, his hands cupped around his mouth. "You may have noticed my dear friend, Paramount-General Boratorren, tied up naked behind me." He flourished a hand towards Endarion, as if his presence needed highlighting. "That is because he betrayed his Imperium outside Allodek when he colluded with Kandras Elerius and the former Arch-General Aza. Elerius and Aza will be dealt with appropriately when we apprehend them, but Boratorren has the fortune of being with us now, so his punishment may be delivered sooner.

"After learning of our defeat at Allodek, and his Paramount-General's role in it, the Caetoran has decreed that the punishment must be public, to teach everyone the cost of disobedience. But our Caetoran is gracious and merciful. It would make sense, of course, for Boratorren to receive one lash for every life he ensured was lost. I lost over two thousand men. So many lashes wouldn't just leave the poor man in a far worse state than he currently is, it would kill him outright, and we cannot be in the habit of killing our commanders."

Dobran moved from Endarion's field of vision briefly and, when he returned, brandished a whip.

"Twenty lashes have been decided upon, as we still require the services of our Iron Wolf and may need him to fight battles in the near future." The arch-general presented the whip before Endarion like a gift. "How gentle we are to you, cousin. We won't even use a scourge. Just a simple piece of leather."

Endarion snorted, spraying blood. He'd been scourged on Shaeviren. His captors had used a wicked length of knotted rope tipped with shards of glass. Most of the flesh on his back had been ripped away by the device, leaving him a patchwork of ridged scar tissue. A spoiled canvas upon which Dobran could inflict fresh atrocities.

As Dobran moved behind him, Khian took up position in front of him. At first, he thought it was so the young Warmaster could appear to be in command of the punishment, to take a central place in the scenery of it, but when Endarion saw the perverse glee warping the young man's face, he realised Khian wanted to see him in pain.

"I wish my mother was here to witness this," Khian hissed.

"She's not your mother," Endarion growled. "You're a whore's bastard."

The Warmaster's face spasmed and his hands twitched. Before he could decide whether to react to the insult, Dobran delivered the first lash.

The crisp crack preceded the impact, loud and sharp in Endarion's ears. Punctuating it was the hot slash of agony rippling out between his shoulder blades, spiderwebbing across his entire back. He lurched against his restraints and choked back a cry of pain.

As much as it hurt, Dobran had held back.

A second stripe, this one striking diagonally from his left shoulder blade down to his right hip, delivered with more force. He was aflame as the first droplets of blood trickled across his hot skin. Tears welled in his eyes and he hung his head low to hide them.

He didn't hear the crowd's reaction, because he was back in the bowels of a Shaeviren tower, chained to a rock as a primitive scourge was buried again and again into the flesh of his back. Fear and pain mingled, curdling in his gut and poisoning his insides until he whimpered through the excruciation, begging for his tormentors to stop in a language they didn't understand.

Dobran struck again. Endarion swore he heard his back split. The pain followed, much-abused flesh screaming in a hundred different tongues, all of them fluent in the primal language of agony. Blood soaked him now, staining the dirt beneath him and saturating his backside and legs so completely he couldn't be sure if he'd lost control of his bowels or bladder yet.

How many now? Five? Six? More? Less? Was he done? Was he dead? Had any of this happened at all? Was he going mad?

He heard a voice raised in his defence, its familiarity lost to a mind addled by pain and humiliation. The next blow didn't descend and, fighting the protestations of his abused body, he rested his chin on his shoulder and looked behind him.

Daria stood between him and Dobran, visibly shaking. She reached out and made to swipe the whip from Dobran's hands, but was intercepted by Khian, who kicked her legs from under her.

Endarion struggled as his daughter slumped to the dirt. He thrashed like a wild animal, like a rabid dog, the ropes burning his skin and opening raw wounds in his wrists. In his madness he thought he could use the ropes to saw though his hands, to cleave through his wrist bones to free himself and, handless, save his daughter.

Suddenly, his public and embarrassing torment meant nothing to him. The pain, nothing.

Another whipcrack aborted that suicidal plan and returned him to himself, the leather striking an opened wound and scouring into bared muscle. His legs buckled beneath him, his arms wrenched almost out of their sockets before he caught himself in a strained kneeling position.

"Daria!" he cried.

She was thrown bodily in front of him. He saw she was unarmed and wondered whether one of his officers had fetched her, or if she'd heard the commotion on her own. She must've raced over without stopping to consider bringing a weapon. Not that it would've helped.

"Father," she said. "I'm—"

Khian punched her in the face, silencing her. "You dare interfere with Imperial justice?" he seethed, and punched her again, his fist slashing across her cheek and rebounding off her cheekbone. "That one was for hitting me in Dujaro, you insolent cunt."

The Iron Wolf writhed in his bonds, no longer human. The sight of his daughter at the mercy of the Warmaster ignited something profound in him, something that went beyond the Iron Wolf's simple thirst for blood. A blackness boiled within him, a blackness birthed by the Abyss, the blackness of death and apocalypse. It subsumed him, consumed him, engulfed every shred of him until he was a slave to it, his unending rage fuelling its brilliant, blazing fire.

He was no longer Endarion. He wasn't even the Iron Wolf. He was altogether more monstrous as he gained his feet and pulled on his bonds again, this time focusing on bending the posts anchoring him. The muscles on his back danced with the exertion, their strain widening the bloodied slits left by Dobran's whip.

The posts gave a little, grinding into the earth and tilting sideways as he laboured.

When he freed himself, he planned to impale Khian on one of the posts. He'd do it slowly, in front of everyone, then hold the bastard aloft like a macabre flag. He'd wrap the whip around Dobran's throat and tie the other end to a panicked horse, and watch as his cousin was hammered by hooves, strangled by the pressure, maybe even decapitated by the force of it all. Then he'd turn his hungry attention on the crowds who'd come to see him shamed, tear them apart one by one, bathe in their blood, slake his thirst with it, devour their coward flesh.

He'd destroy the entire fucking Imperium if that's what it took. The entire world.

These thoughts weren't Endarion's, or even the Iron Wolf's, but they drove him nonetheless.

He might've succeeded in freeing himself had Khian not backhanded Daria smartly across the face, drawing his attention from his struggles. He might've seen those inhuman visions fulfilled had Dobran not decided to pull back his arm and deliver the final blow, this one a stunning explosion. He might've managed the impossible feat of tearing the posts up had his vision not blackened and blurred.

He was barely aware of his hands being cut from the posts. Even less aware of falling heavily to his knees, then slumping face down into the dust.

Then nothing but cold, dark silence.