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

Thirty-One

Estrid

Zaljuras Forest, Kalduran

17th of Tantus

From her vantage atop one of many decrepit, broken towers, Estrid saw the prisoner force-marched into the ruins of the city.

She made her way down into the sunken basin the ruins inhabited, a miniature world within the world. Tall, imperious Kaldurani spirewood trees stubbornly rose amongst the carnage, dotting the landscape like grey hairs on an old dog's pelt. These ruins, or what remained of them after all these millennia, though not as large as a city of Varanos's stature, were still labyrinthine enough to hide an entire army, and she and her Dasjurans had waited here for the past five days. The rest of Kalduran's armies, and newly defected Kavan Aza, marched northwards, preparing to protect Varanos against the enemy. Her diversion to the remote forest of Zaljuras and the dead city encased within had been derided as ill-advised, especially so soon after her victory at Allodek. Even Borso, usually her staunch supporter, had raised his brows at her plan, though he'd followed her to this abandoned place without too much grumbling.

As she'd told him, this was something she needed to do.

She'd sent her scout out twelve days ago, and he'd returned a day later, beaten and bloody from the ministrations of Avelyn Brazus, but she knew Endarion would take the bait. The delay was unexpected—she'd assumed Endarion would answer her summons the day of its delivery—but the forest had proven bountiful enough to feed her soldiers. Besides, none of the Imperial armies yet neared Varanos, and Endarion himself remained in the vicinity with his Denjini and Dobran's army, so Estrid could afford to tarry.

She looked around at the vaulting archways, none of them intact, and the looming spires, all of them felled, and tried to imagine the city's immortal denizens prowling the once-immaculate streets. Then her military mind shifted to the subject of the city's defeat, and she contemplated the power required to topple an architectural wonder such as this. Novhar ruins were scattered throughout the continent, but none had left carcasses as expansive and intact as Zaljuras.

Had the city not lain within its depressed basin, hidden in a forest of Zaljuras's impenetrable density, no doubt it would've formed Kalduran's capital, as Empyria had formed the Imperium's over the ruins of the once-great Novhar city of Caeldari.

The original name of the ruined city here had been lost to time, and the exact circumstances of its toppling formed a battleground of conflicting theories. Some Kaldurani historians suggested the metropolis had been razed during the Cataclysm, a fate shared by many cities during that long-ago epoch. Others believed it had fallen before that, around the time when the Novhar themselves had been overthrown, ten thousand years before the Cataclysm. After the recent butchering of Dykumas and Vadonis, Estrid was of the mind that something as mundane as a military campaign could've ended Zaljuras's lost city, its execution carried out by an uncaring opposition who thought nothing of its innocent inhabitants. There needn't be an epic tragedy behind every destroyed settlement, after all.

She'd chosen this as the setting for today's task very deliberately.

She halted beneath one of the only intact arches, this one distinguished by its sheer size. It described an empty portal, its stark half-oval made all the more noticeable for the blackness of its stone. Thousands of years ago, it had served as an Atlas Gate, a gateway between this world and another. When the Novhar had fallen, they'd taken not only most of their cities with them, but almost the entire network of their Atlas Gates. Access to the Vast Infinite's other worlds and their sentient denizens had been all but severed, maintained only by the small handful scattered across the world, forgotten by the Novhar.

She'd only ever travelled through one Atlas Gate, overseen by the government of Castrio on the southern desert continent. It led to the blasted world of Shaeviren and its demonic natives, conveniently ensuring no nation would bother fighting over it or try to colonise it. Not after the Imperium's disastrous attempt at first contact, anyway.

A rudimentary camp had been set up for her here; a guttering fire encircled by two camp stools set facing each other. Around the camp, only ruins and pristine silence unbroken for thousands of years.

She took her seat as the prisoner trudged in and was forced to his knees with no small amount of aggression, his blindfold and hand bindings torn off. The captive grunted as his braced left knee struck the ground. The soldiers escorting him backed away warily, as if expecting him to turn around and snap at them. More Dasjurans, including a squad of combat-mages, stood guard amidst the rubble surrounding the camp, their collective presence subtle. More subtle than the archers, anyway, whose arrows Estrid regretted feeling the need for.

Endarion looked around, his eyes snagging on the decayed Atlas Gate before hitching on each of her guards, marking how surrounded he was. Then his gaze found her and he heaved a sigh complimented with a small smile. "The restraints were unnecessary," he said.

"Not after what you did to my scout," Estrid replied steadily. She nodded to the stool opposite the fire.

He rose to his feet and carefully lowered himself onto it, stretching his braced leg out and baring his teeth in a pained grimace. "That was Brazus. She wasn't doing it on my commands."

Estrid rolled her eyes; she remembered Avelyn Brazus's fiery nature, her quickness to resort to violence. Though Estrid's soldier hadn't been fatally wounded, he'd been unlucky to find himself in the Doglord's clutches.

"How is she?" Estrid asked. "How are all your officers, for that matter? And Daria, as well."

Endarion kept his unwavering eyes on hers. "Well," he said. "Romanus is dead, but the rest are fine."

She noted then how much older he seemed, despite only a few short weeks since their last encounter at Dujaro. More tired, worn down by the campaign, his beard grown out and his usually military-short hair now longer and scruffier with lack of maintenance. There seemed to be more grey at his temples, more weariness to his features, less energy in his voice.

"You took your time getting here," Estrid noted.

A grimace swept across his heavy features. "I was going to answer your summons in a timely fashion," he replied. "But Khian and Dobran had me whipped, and I've spent the last week recovering." He cocked his head. "If you're planning on using psychological torture, you've got it all wrong."

She frowned in silent question and brushed past the comment about being whipped. No doubt she could prod him about that later.

"Never let your victim have a second of peace," he continued. "Never let them think you won't hurt them."

She barked a laugh. "You still think I want to hurt you?"

"Was that not what Allodek was about?"

She leant forward and braced her hands on her thighs, the stool creaking beneath her. "Allodek was about Kalduran defending itself. Kavan was my wild card, the one way I had of evening the field."

"And leaving Denjin untouched?" he said. "You had us pinned, yet you left us alone." He shifted his shoulders and huffed. "Dobran thought I'd colluded with you, which I suppose was your intention. The Warmaster came to our camp, dragged me in front of a crowd, stripped me naked, and had me whipped. That depraved cunt beat Daria and made me watch."

Estrid screwed her hands into fists and fought down the urge to apologise. She hadn't meant for him to be physically punished, nor for Daria to be implicated, but she'd wanted to alienate him from his fellow Imperials. She'd imagined a public warning, a reprimand, maybe. Not a whipping.

"You deserved it," she replied, jaw tight with discomfort.

"Excuse me?"

She wanted to shoot from her seat and loom over him but halted herself. "You started this when you accused me of trying to kill you. I came to you that night for clarity, nothing more." He opened his mouth to speak but she silenced him. "It's not even about abandoning me when I needed you most, though that surely deserves a mention. This is about Dykumas and Vadonis, and every other city and town and village you and yours plan to raze between here and Drasken."

He visibly deflated, a scolded dog, and averted his eyes. There was no victory in outstaring him, though. Not today.

"I left those cities open to you as part of a larger strategy to lure you into Kalduran and have you lower your guard. Pure, callous strategy, I'm sure we can agree, with little consideration for the citizens themselves." She tried to relax her tensed muscles but found herself too rigid to shift. "However, I only felt confident using this strategy because I believed in you and your honour. I suggested this to the other kandras and the Baltanos because I thought everyone I placed in your hands would be safe. You tell me you were whipped, but what you did was far worse. You killed thousands of people, rendered tens of thousands homeless, and ensured my colleagues would never trust me again."

She clapped a hand to her thigh, earning herself his attention. "Tens of thousands, Wolf. More than one hundred thousand people if you combine both cities. Our armies have been picking up the dispossessed ever since, but the survivors barely make up a fraction of the total population. We'll never know the true toll."

When the other kandras reached Varanos, if they hadn't already, they'd bring with them a bloated trail of camp followers inflated by the desperate citizens of Vadonis and Dykumas who'd' escaped the carnage and intercepted Kaldurani forces. Aladar wouldn't turn them away, but rather welcome them into an already overpopulated capital during a time of war, with the Imperium almost certainly preparing to besiege them.

For that reason, among many others, Kalduran couldn't afford a prolonged campaign. Estrid needed to end this swiftly, before the Imperium raised its siege engines against Varanos's walls.

And I need this man to help me accomplish that.

She briefly considered mentioning Aladar being forced to retire from the field in the wake of Dykumas's destruction, if only to highlight the severity of Endarion's actions, but knew she couldn't. After what he'd done, she had to assume he'd take that information back to his Imperial masters and further break her country.

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"Vadonis was razed before I knew the Caetoran's designs had changed," Endarion said. Though his heavy brow creased into a severe frown, she could see the doubt and shame and sadness in his eyes. He knew he'd done wrong, at least.

"Dykumas I was forced into destroying," he added. "I tried to get the prefect to warn the people, to prevent the slaughter. But he hid in his estate and neglected the warning. My soldiers had no choice but to fight back."

She threw her hands up and made a disbelieving sound. "Every evil you commit was because you were forced to," she said. "It's an old excuse, and I'm fucking bored of it."

"My men were threatened," he said, voice hardening. "Dobran was going to decimate my army."

That gave her pause, if only because of the threat's novelty; the Tyrannuses usually limited themselves to threats against Endarion's family. To aim their blades at his army implied the Caetoran now recognised the futility of menacing the Boratorrens themselves.

"The Caetoran will always threaten, but he has yet to kill any of you," Estrid replied, raising her voice to match his.

The muscles in his jaw feathered as he gritted his teeth, and Estrid locked herself more firmly on her stool, preparing herself for his rebuttal. "But he did kill Aemilia," Endarion murmured. When she offered no reply, his features tightened further. "You shouldn't take such threats lightly," he growled. "He actually went through with it with your family."

Anger's red mist clouded her vision, casting Endarion in a crimson sheen. She wasn't really in control as she lurched to her feet, stepped over the smouldering campfire, and grabbed a fistful of his shirt collar. Adrenaline pulsed in her veins, filling her with the urge to hit him, throttle him, throw him backwards off his seat.

The desire for violence overcame her as suddenly and recklessly as her urge to kiss him, back at Dujaro, and it waned with a similar sensation of guilt. She waited for a tense moment, leaning over him, his tired green eyes angled up at her. Though the line of his broad shoulders stiffened, he didn't reach up to push her away, nor move to defend himself at all.

Would he let me kill him?

She glared down at him, breath sawing her throat. A grimace flickered across her crooked mouth, and Endarion's attention dropped to her lips, all at once reminding her of their aborted kiss. How easily love and hate, fury and passion tangled together with him, making of her emotions a frustrating knot. Maybe one day she'd separate the threads and comprehend the true nature of her feelings for this man. One day, without a war between them, if such a thing were possible in their line of work.

Her fingers loosened of their own accord, and she moved back to reclaim her seat. Endarion didn't shift, though his stare tracked her, making her feel at once both predator and prey in this scenario.

"Hit me, if it helps," he said. His fingers grazed the ugly scar marring his left cheek. "We both know I can take—and thoroughly deserve—whatever violence you have in mind."

"Don't tempt me."

Endarion raised surrendering hands. "I had no right to bring up your family."

"No, you didn't."

In truth, it wasn't the personal aspect of the matter so much as it was the obligation that had made her almost strike him. Her family had been dead and gone nearly thirty years. Long enough for them to be faded memories, merging and distorting until they weren't people, but the idea of people. But she was the last Elerius, and an obligation to defend that name burdened her. The Elerius kestrel had never felt so heavy in her pocket as in that moment, despite how readily she forgot it was there otherwise.

"I shouldn't have suggested threats against family were to be disregarded," she replied, her words stilted and her tone stiff. "They're not always empty." She lowered her head, keeping her eyes fixed on his. "I do remember Aemilia."

Endarion's wife and Daria's mother, dead twenty years now. Executed, like the Elerius family, for fabricated treason. The woman's union with the Iron Wolf had been a threat to the Caetoran, just as Estrid's had been before it.

"I only abandoned you all those years ago because I feared what happened to her would happen to you," he said. "If we'd married, the Caetoran would have found a reason."

"I knew the risks," Estrid said. "I was willing to face them with you at my side." She shrugged, as if the gesture would banish all the implications of their exchange.

"I wasn't willing," Endarion said. "I lost you a long time ago, and it remains the worst thing I've ever done, but at least you survived." He huffed a laugh and rubbed at his jaw. "Survived and made yourself stronger than the rest of us."

She straightened her posture. "What's happened has happened," she said dismissively. "Here we are now. Enemies. I didn't bring you here to reminisce."

Endarion closed off almost physically, just as she'd done. Whatever emotion he'd sought to nurture with his words, with his flattery and his empty excuses, wasn't something she cared to provide. It would be too complicated to fall for him again, to ignore everything that had transpired between them and act like they were the people they'd once been. Her trust in him had been proven catastrophically misplaced, and she'd never recover her reputation with the other kandras. For that, all that could remain between them off the field was the formal courtesy of enemy equals.

"Why did you bring me here?" he asked.

"Why did you take the bait?"

He looked away, glanced up at the dead Atlas Gate for a moment. "Same reason you came to me at Dujaro," he said. "Clarity."

"Clarity's good," she replied. "I need some of that, actually. Let me start: do you think the Baltanos is responsible for your aunt's death and, by extension, that I am guilty of trying to have you assassinated?"

He didn't hesitate. "Not anymore. Though perhaps you can understand why I initially thought you had."

Estrid scoffed. "Then you never knew me at all, Wolf, to think I would."

"Kandras Elerius is a stranger to me. Forgive me if I thought her capable of my murder. My assassination made sense, from a political and military standpoint."

She grit her teeth against a denial, hating that he spoke sense. As a commander of several decades and a kandras of twelve years, she needed to disregard their former bond when taking to the field against him. Maybe she should've hired a shadowmancer assassin to kill him, knowing now he'd expected it of her. "Should I point out how ridiculous your campaign is, now you've come to your senses?" she asked.

"I always knew how ridiculous this campaign was," Endarion said. He adjusted his braced leg, setting a hand on the cup encasing his knee with a scowl. "Before I even took to the field, I asked an agent of mine back in Empyria to find out who really killed Novissa. Me being here, facing you, is because I'm an Imperial commander. Not because I have any belief in the cause."

"Perhaps you should've come with me, when I asked you at Shaeviren."

Her words seemed to have an almost violent effect on him. He sat more upright, angled his injured leg as if he meant to stand up, frowned so deeply he looked enraged. "You know how desperately I wanted to," he said. "You know I couldn't."

"Daria could have come as well," she said.

Though not her daughter in any way that mattered to the Imperium, Daria was as close as Estrid would ever get. Prohibited from having her own children by virtue of her aasiurmancy, the small family unit she'd temporarily formed with Endarion and his eldest child had been a near-perfect emulation. It was a foolish dream to imagine the three of them free in Kalduran, just as it was a dream to imagine she might've ever married Endarion and had children of her own with him, back in her wretched homeland.

The loss of that family unit was, she admitted to herself, most of the reason why she'd not started again in Drasken. She hadn't allowed herself to make connections with anyone but Borso, who she'd befriended by necessity. She hadn't married, even though, as a kandras, she could've picked almost anyone with whom to continue her near-extinct name. She hadn't had children, despite Drasken having no barbaric restrictions on mages, because by the time she'd defected from the Imperium, she'd no longer desired children, no longer cared if her name died with her.

Concern for those things had withered the moment she and Endarion had ended their final ill-fated courtship, twelve years ago.

Endarion sighed. "And Valerian? Sephara and Kaeso? Lexia and Bekker and Remus? What about Iana and Kesa and Avelyn?"

She snorted. "I suppose having three of your ex-paramours around would've been awkward, but I'm sure we would've adapted. I would've even stomached your brother's presence, if you can believe it."

A silence developed, large and ungainly. She broke it with a loud sniff and an intake of breath. "You followed my scout's directions here because your loyalty to the Imperium is, as it's always been, in question. Only now you're more swayed. You came to see if a conversation with me could help you decide what to do." She leaned forward, hoping she gave the impression of a confident interrogator. "Well, has it?"

He seemed to do silent battle with himself, his jaw clenching, one hand unconsciously playing with the buttons of his shirt. His ever-present frown deepened, as if the unspoken words he now considered pained him. Finally, he puffed air out of inflated cheeks—an oddly childish gesture on such a gruff man—and spoke.

"Our plan was always to strike for Varanos, taking what we could on the way," he said. "When we get close to the capital, I'm going to propose we hit it at two points: the League Gate and the Empire Gate. Our forces will focus on the city. If it helps, I'll release false scouting reports about your location. I'll tell everyone the main Kaldurani body is east of us. If you strike from the west, you can cripple us."

She nodded and let the words settle, considering him as she did. Was he lying? Could she afford to trust his word again, so soon after she'd been proven idiotic to do so?

It seemed anticlimactic, for so significant a thing as his ultimate defection—because that's what this was—to be uttered so softly. Her own defection had exploded with the force of a cavalry charge, Dobran's entire army pursuing her clear out of Aukruna, hounding her through Tharghest, menacing her right up to the border at Dujaro, where Kaldurani soldiers had been waiting to pluck her to safety. Surely the Iron Wolf meant to outdo the dramatics of that?

"And after?" she prompted.

"After?"

"After we repel your attack and drive you away. What happens then?"

He cocked his head and lowered his eyes. "I don't know. I don't imagine I'll long outlive the fight once Dobran knows what I did."

"You'd still do this, if it means your death?"

"How can I not? After everything I've done, and everything I've allowed to happen, annihilation on the field at your hands is the fairest fate I can imagine."

She echoed his earlier frown. "What of your army, your officers, Daria?"

"I'll make efforts to protect my own, but I'm placing the Denjini army in your hands. Just as you placed Dykumas and Vadonis in mine." A grim smile split his mouth. "I hope you prove a better custodian than I."

He got unsteadily to his feet, the struts of his brace creaking. She felt, as she rose to match him, that she stood before a man condemned, that she'd be escorting him to his execution once they finished talking. She wanted to skirt around the failing campfire and place a consoling hand on his shoulder but knew that to be unwise.

"What about your family?" she asked. "You've protected them for so many years. Surely this betrayal would condemn them as well?"

From the way his jaw moved, she guessed he was probing the gap in his mouth left by the tooth a Shaeviren dagger had punched out. It was a habit she'd noticed when the wound had still been fresh. "I was only made the Paramount-General so I could be toppled. Valerian is too canny to fall with me, and my paramours and their children are too far removed from this campaign to be connected to me."

"And Daria?"

He regarded her with the same soft familiarity she'd revelled in during their courtships. "It's up to her what she does in the wake of the battle, but I'm going to ask her to defect to you. Would you take her in?"

Estrid didn't need to think about her answer. "Of course," she said. "If she'll accept the woman who killed her father as her guardian, I'll protect her."

"She'll accept you. She loves you like a mother, Estrid. She's always defended you, even when I didn't."

He spoke with an awful and ominous finality; he really was willing to die for this. For her. It confused her how readily he betrayed his Imperium, when every horrific act he'd committed in this campaign so far had been in service of it. It had been the same throughout their myriad courtships; he placed his loyalty to his homeland above his loyalty to her.

Had it become too much for him? Had the massacres broken him? Was his madness looming, convincing him his life was due to end? Or had her cornering him outside Allodek and robbing him of Kavan's loyalty finally proven how pointless his service to the Imperium was?

She'd intended to drive him to despair with Kavan's defection but seeing the ramifications of her tactics made her hesitate.

"Better blindfold me," he said. "I need to return to my army before anyone gets suspicious." He turned, seeking out the soldiers who'd manhandled him here.

She raised her hand and gestured to her men, who'd hidden themselves within the rocky detritus of the surrounding ruins. As they approached, she stepped over the smoking embers of the campfire and took his hand in hers, skimming her fingers across his callused palm.

"Thank you for this," she murmured. She held out her free hand and took the bindings from her soldier, then fastened Endarion's hands behind his back. Leaning forward, she set her forehead against the back of his shoulder. "My only regret in this life is that things didn't work out differently between us."

"Mine too." He tilted his head towards her, resting it for the briefest of heartbeats near hers, before she pulled back and fastened the blindfold around his eyes.

She turned away as the soldiers removed him, facing the emptiness of the long-dead city and finding herself, once again, alone in a hostile world.