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

Twenty

Estrid

Aukruna, Tharghest

23rd of Satimus

Though she'd had hundreds of her soldiers combing the streets of Aukruna for hours after his disappearance, Estrid found no trace of Endarion. No trace of Khian and his men, either, which suggested he hadn't garrisoned the city at all, but had come specifically for Endarion and willingly abandoned the city for the sake of seizing one rebelling general.

As Aladar took sole command of their mixed forces and set about occupying Aukruna, she continued to wander the streets in vain hope of finding something, anything, to lead her to where Endarion had been taken.

He'd been snatched right from his camp, that much had become clear. He'd been seen retreating to his pavilion following a public argument with his nephew, and no one had seen him emerge. He'd been visited by an infantry ranker, several soldiers claimed, though none of them could name the man in question.

It was a worldstrider, of this Estrid was certain.

The Caetoran owned a small cabal of worldstriders, commonly used as personal messengers. It seemed likely Khian had brought one with him, meaning he and Endarion could be anywhere on the continent by now. He might've been returned directly to Empyria and was being executed even as she marched along these empty streets in search of him, though she couldn't consider that if she wanted to remain sane.

Khian would've brought him back to Aukruna first, to try to lure more of us in.

She'd fixated on that conclusion, using it to convince herself hope still existed for Endarion. If Khian planned to use the Iron Wolf to further dismantle the insurrection, then maybe Endarion had been stashed within these walls somewhere, a prisoner, but not yet condemned. Perhaps swamping the streets with her soldiers hadn't been the calmest solution, but she couldn't help feel like it was all she could do. As soon as the last of her scouts returned with no news, that would be that. Endarion would be gone.

In response to her general's seizure, Palla Hasund had destroyed the painting of the stonehound she'd once used as an anchor to be able to 'stride to Valerian's estate in Empyria. "It is how they got in. My fault. I did not think to get rid of it when Kaeso arrived."

None of them had, because it had been such a small detail. In the midst of a chaotic campaign further complicated by Kaeso's sudden arrival, something as apparently insignificant as a picture of a dog had slipped all their minds.

And proved Endarion's undoing.

Aukruna loomed large and hostile above Estrid as she paced, her mind snagged by memories upturned by her surroundings. The conquest of Tharghest by the Imperium had been finalised by the toppling of this city, an event Estrid had been heavily involved in. She'd taken her orders from a nation she now despised and cut down innocents by the thousands, her soldiers flooding the walls and satisfying their rampant bloodlust on civilian Dontili. As many of her Quendinthans had writhed through Aukruna as Denjini; this city's emptiness, its current gutted state, was part of the morbid legacy she and Endarion shared.

As much as she hated Endarion for the way he'd razed Dykumas, had her actions at Aukruna been any different?

A presence shattered her thoughts and made her bristle like a cornered stray. She spun on her heels, drawing her sword from its sheath as she moved, and angled the tip at the intruder.

Borso regarded the sword with a single raised brow. "That's sweet," he said, then pushed the blade aside with his forefinger.

"Wouldn't have been sweet if I'd stuck you through the throat," she said as she returned her weapon to her hip, her words sharpened bolts hitching between her teeth. "Sorry, I'm—."

"—frustrated, on edge, tense, worried, nervous." Borso counted off the words on his fingers, then presented his open palm to her. "I understand that, but you're traipsing through a city where the enemy might still be hidden, alone and unguarded, only hours after one of our generals was snatched."

She wanted to argue, but he spoke sense. Though confident Khian had left Aukruna empty, there was still a chance he might try to ensnare more of them. It was stupidity of the highest degree for a seasoned commander like herself, and it highlighted how thoroughly she'd allowed her emotions to cloud her judgement.

"The Baltanos is gathering the high command to discuss how to proceed," Borso continued. "He sent me for you."

Aladar's mention made her recall how he'd appeared in his own head, malicious and predatory. It had been more than two weeks since she'd triggered a fit and forced herself into his mindscape, and Aladar had taken great care to avoid her. She still couldn't forget the way he'd looked at her, after, with a lucid, almost accusatory, glare.

"I'll be there soon," she said.

Borso rested a gentle but firm hand on her shoulder. "You can't punish yourself for what happened."

"Of course I can," she replied and shook him off. "It was obvious the whole ploy was a trap. I should have stopped it somehow."

"How could you know they'd send a worldstrider after him?" Borso pressed. "I know he means much to you, but what happened wasn't your fault. You do yourself no favours by thinking otherwise."

She turned away from her masantra. "He's one of our overall commanders, in the hands of the enemy," she said through clenched teeth. "Imagine what sensitive information he might be tortured into revealing."

Borso huffed, and she wondered why she'd bothered trying to lie. Her point was sensible enough, but hardly the reason she now drove herself halfway to madness pacing across the city when she should've been overseeing her army.

As absent as Endarion had been throughout her life, and as much as she'd been able to avoid thinking about him during the past twelve years, the knowledge that he currently languished in enemy captivity sharpened his absence. She'd lost him before to divided loyalties, but he hadn't been dead or imprisoned, so she'd been able to move on comforted by the knowledge he'd be there if she looked. But this time, as with Shaeviren, death was a possibility, a near certainty, even. Her helplessness in the weeks leading up to her rescue of him four years ago devoured her again.

Whatever she now felt for him, she meant what she'd said when they'd searched Dykumas's ruins together: she couldn't let him die. All her efforts before now—refusing to attack him outside Allodek, colluding with him at Zaljuras, leaping to his aid against Dobran at Varanos—would mean nothing if he perished.

Before Borso could suggest she return to her army with him, she nodded her head to the ramshackle building thrusting out from the ocean of architecture around it: Tharghest's former seat of government, and the place where, sixteen years ago, Endarion had murdered a dynasty. Located towards the southern extents of the city as it was, her soldiers hadn't yet searched it, only around it.

"I'm going to check in there, and then I'll be done."

Borso clapped his hands. "I'll join you."

She considered turning him away, but in truth it would be good to have an accomplished aasiurmancer at her back, just in case.

As expected, the estate's palatial sprawl echoed as empty as the rest of the city. Crowning a lengthy flight of worn stone steps stood a pair of immense doors of Kaldurani spirewood, propped open like broken front teeth. Estrid's hand fell to her sword as she and Borso climbed the stairs.

The interior wasn't quite as derelict and dusty as the rest of the city, having been garrisoned by the Imperial arch-generals on their way through to Kalduran, months ago now, but the entry hall rang no less hollow. Borso issued an alarmed hiss, and she exposed several inches of her blade on instinct. She only re-sheathed her sword when she realised he hadn't attacked anyone, because there was no one to attack.

No one alive, at least.

At first, she took the bodies for chandeliers that had fallen loose from the ceiling. When her eyes adjusted to the dimness, however, she stared up at a cluster of corpses strung at eye-level like macabre decorations. Most of them were incomplete, missing limbs or stripped of their innards. Viscera and congealed fluids pooled beneath them.

Her heart lurched as she scanned the faces she could define.

"He's not here," she said.

She recognised some of them, though. There, a woman with her throat cut so violently her head had almost been torn off, hung a grizzled old merchant who's trading empire had provided the Boratorrens with funds for their plots. And there, towards the back of the grotesque arrangement, the bloodied visage of Calvus Valens, who'd served as Quendinthan Corajus when Estrid had still been its arch-general. And right there, only a stride away…

"That's Ricardus's brother."

Caelinus Naevon, Corajus of Asineo and one of the last of the Boratorrens' allies. He lacked all four limbs below elbow and knee, like a child's doll that'd been pulled apart in a rage, and his head was half-severed. When she drew near, she saw a sheet of paper pinned to his bloodied chest with a dagger.

The blood, she noticed dimly, had long dried, and none of it spattered the stone floor. These bodies had been dead when they'd been pulled apart, then. But only dead for a day at most given how unstained their skin looked by decay and how a few of them were even still locked in the stiffness of recent death.

"Estrid," Borso warned as she plucked the dagger free and took the sheet.

Estrid,

You see what happens to dissenters. I shall do much worse to your crippled lapdog and his brother. I have quite the spectacle planned for their execution. Present yourself at the Sentinel at your earliest convenience, and I might be convinced to allow the two troublesome Boratorren brothers to live.

Ignore my offer, and I will send them both back to you, piece by piece. I may not be a patient man, but in this I will take my time.

Kind regards,

Khian

She regarded the scrawled words and for a moment wished she'd summoned aasiur to start a blaze. She'd burn this letter and these bodies and this pitiful fucking building and maybe herself as well. The grim thought sustained her for a handful of seconds, and then she turned to the doorway behind her and slammed her fist into the frame.

The pain proved a welcome distraction, and she had pulled her arm back for another swing when Borso grabbed her.

"Absolutely not the answer."

"Fucking feels like it should be," she snarled as she tore herself away. "He'll kill them both. He can't let them live, not now. Not when he's already slaughtered all of their supporters."

Borso took the paper, now scrunched into a ball, from her clenched fist and scanned the words. "He's still alive, at least."

"Is he?" Estrid asked. "Khian's a depraved liar. If Endarion isn't already dead, he will be long before I can get to him."

Her second shook his head, then set a firm hand on her shoulder. "He's too important to be removed." Borso let his eyes linger on the morbid display of death and torture around them before looking back to her. "We need to let the Baltanos know about this. Arch-General Naevon, too. He deserves to know his brother's dead."

"This will divide us," Estrid replied, gesturing to the letter. "That was Khian's intention."

All this death and suffering—fourteen corpses that Estrid could count—just to send a message. She wanted to believe Borso's words and convince herself Endarion still lived, but he was in Khian's custody now. Khian, who had just tortured and butchered and dehumanised his own countrymen as part of a disgusting warning to his enemies. Khian, who'd abandoned a fortified city for the sake of securing one man. Khian, who'd tried to have her and Daria and Borso killed on a whim.

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What stopped a man like that from taking one more life?

―

Because Tharghest's seat of government currently hosted relatively fresh cadavers, Aladar gathered the most senior of his commanders in an opulent and long-abandoned estate in the larger building's shadow. They convened that evening in an expansive dining hall, a spread of military rations dressed up to appear more appetising displayed along the central table. No one, Estrid included, gave the food any attention. Soldiers currently removed the bodies from the hall next door with the intent of setting them aside for a proper burial, and Estrid knew those present could think of nothing else, haunted by wraiths as they now all were.

She sat in her proper place at Aladar's right side, Elek on the other. The Baltanos studiously ignored her as the others took their seats, and she felt the force of his presence as a wave as black and destructive as the one he'd shown her in his most recent vision. Elek took several opportunities to glance across at her and scowl, though she didn't care to reciprocate. Borso was, as ever, a bulwark at her side, his shoulder dipped subtly in her direction as if ready to hold her up.

Sitting directly opposite Aladar, doing her best to look unbowed, poised Daria. She sat straight-backed and rigid, her head held high, her hands clasped in front of her. Her jaw was clenched and her eyes shone with unshed tears, though the young woman did an admirable job of holding herself together. Estrid met her eyes and nodded gently, wanting nothing more than to reach out and fold the girl into a protective embrace. Daria seemed to take a deflating breath as she returned the nod.

It had been easy to whip herself into a maelstrom storming around Aukruna in search of Endarion; it was harder, she realised now, to remember the impact his kidnapping had on others. He was Daria's father, after all, and Daria stood to lose a lot more than Estrid if Endarion died.

Ricardus was also in attendance, despite only learning of his brother's violent death an hour earlier. He cut an aging, haggard figure, no longer the hale young warrior Estrid had fought beside in decades long past. He kept his eyes lowered and his shoulders stooped, as if he were here only as a matter of propriety and didn't expect to contribute to the meeting. Estrid had heard that soldiers had tried to prevent Ricardus from seeing his brother's corpse, but the man insisted on identifying the body himself. Apparently, he'd stood over Caelinus's ravaged carcass, his expression flat, and nodded once before turning away to answer Aladar's summons.

Estrid could only hope this violent episode didn't prophesise the end of Ricardus's support for the Boratorrens. It was a small wonder, after all, that Ricardus was prepared to continue onwards to the Imperium with Endarion, the sole reason for him even being here, gone.

Kavan sat across from Ricardus, his opposite in just about every way. Tall and strong where Ricardus succumbed to the rigours of age, confident in the way he braced himself against the table and surveyed those around him. His gaze caught on hers and he offered a concerned smile, though she found herself looking away, unable to take comfort in her old friend's wordless reassurance the same way Daria had taken comfort from hers.

She looked upon the final member of their elite gathering, her lips twitching downwards in distaste.

Kaeso resembled his uncle as Endarion had been at that age, albeit softer and leaner, with less of a soldier's hardness about him. Since his unannounced arrival at Dujaro, Estrid had kept her distance. She didn't know him well, having never awarded his father Valerian much of her time when she'd still been serving the Imperium. But she'd seen him and Endarion come to blows and knew that Kaeso had tried to seize control from his more experienced uncle. She also suspected he would blame her for his father's captivity, since the details of Khian's offer had already spread through the allied camps. Estrid had made the thoughtless mistake of leaving Khian's note on Aladar's desk after she'd gone to him with it. Any number of staff coming to the Baltanos for instruction could've glimpsed the contents and spread intrusive rumours. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to extrapolate from that and deduce why Endarion and a small party had left to meet with Khian at the city gates.

When everyone settled, Aladar tapped the table and cleared his throat. "Let's get the obvious issue out of the way first," he began. "In Paramount-General Boratorren's absence, I will be taking command of this campaign. As soon as he has been recovered, we shall return to our former joint authority."

As she knew he would, Kaeso threw his voice out. "Why should it be you?"

"Who else should it be?"

"This campaign is to gain me the throne," Kaeso said, his imperious sneer robbing him of the natural nobility of his Boratorren features. "Does it not make sense I should helm it?"

The Baltanos regarded him for a heartbeat. "How many military operations have you overseen?" At the younger man's hesitation, Aladar continued. "How many victories in the field can be attributed to you? How large is your command? Which tactics do you favour?"

Kaeso slammed his fist down onto the table, upsetting nearby plates. "I don't need to know these things. That is why I have you all. I have the command, you follow my orders."

Estrid shook her head. He really believes what he's saying. It jarred how unlike Endarion he was when he physically resembled the Iron Wolf so greatly.

"And what would be your first command?" Aladar asked.

Kaeso's mouth quirked up in a self-righteous, shit-eating smile. "We find my father and uncle, get them back, then march straight into the Imperium and unseat the Caetoran."

Estrid couldn't hold back a derisive scoff, and Kaeso whipped his head in her direction. "That simple, is it?" she spat. "Do you know where Endarion and Valerian are? What about after that? How are we supposed to march into the Imperium when the Sentinel stands in the way? And don't forget Empyria. Janus will be safely hidden away in the Tower, and even the most effective siege won't break those walls."

"It is that simple," Kaeso retorted. "Khian offered my father and uncle in exchange for you. If we contact him, I'm sure we can accept his offer and get them both back. I think you should hand yourself over, Elerius. We need my father more than we need you. He masterminded this insurrection, after all." He regarded her with contempt. "You, on the other hand, are just a woman my uncle, in his unending foolishness, used to rut."

Oh, how tempting it was to meet the man's brash insults with venom of her own. She didn't think any of her companions would mind if she vaulted onto the table and kicked her reinforced boot through Kaeso's snide head, not if it meant shutting him up. Rather than indulge this fancy, though, she amused herself with the mere image of it as she replied. "You actually think Khian would return Endarion and Valerian to us, do you? He'd keep them both, then execute me alongside them." She nodded her head towards Aladar. "I hope you have a cunning plan to single-handedly topple the Imperium, because you'd lose Kaldurani support as soon as I'm handed over."

Before Aladar could voice his support, Elek raised his hands in a calming gesture. "The Exalt-Lord isn't incorrect in his suggestion that the Boratorrens are more important than you, Kandras Elerius," he said. "Wouldn't it make sense to try and retrieve the two men who planned this insurrection in the first place?"

"I would very much like both brothers returned to us," she countered, straining to keep her voice level. She needed to be Kandras Elerius now, not Estrid, the woman who feared for the fate of the man she loved. "But we need to think about how we go about it."

Elek folded his arms across his chest and leaned back in his chair. "Perhaps the Iron Wolf shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss what the Warmaster offered outside Aukruna," he said. "Had he just handed you over, he wouldn't now be helpless to the ministrations of our enemies. How long do you think he'll last, Elerius? Think of the torture he is undergoing, as we speak, all for the sake of preserving you." He shook his head and sneered, taking vile delight in his words. "I hope I'm never so lack-witted about an ex-lover." He gestured sharply to Ricardus, who had remained silent throughout. "And what of the people already killed for this cause? Arch-General Naevon's brother, and many more besides, strung up like animal carcasses across a butcher's stall. How many more must needlessly die before you see the sense in giving yourself up?"

Though she knew the bitter younger kandras spoke only to enrage her, Estrid felt a fire akin to her pyromancy scalding the air from her lungs as she regarded Elek. She looked through him, her gore-soaked imagination forcing upon her the tortures Elek spoke of. She remembered the state of Endarion in the aftermath of Shaeviren. His tormentors might've been inhuman brutes without any real interest in keeping him alive for a political cause, but she believed Khian would be crueller. She knew the only reason Endarion had even survived his ordeal on Shaeviren was because he'd been hearty and hale before being snatched, a state of being he hadn't enjoyed since. He'd never quite physically recovered, and she'd already noticed that age wore away at any remaining vitality the tolls of his torture hadn't already scoured smooth.

A forty-eight-year-old diminished Iron Wolf wouldn't last as long under Khian's knives as the powerful forty-four-year-old had beneath the hammers and fists of the Shaeviren Dhamara.

I told him his death would kill me, too. Is this how it happens?

It was Daria who struck the table, silencing the hall with a whipcrack sound and punching Estrid clean from the inside of her unfortunate mindscape. The young woman lurched to her feet, her narrowed gaze shooting between Elek and Kaeso, the men identical in their bitterness even if nothing alike physically. "Slinging insults helps no one," she said, and gritted her teeth as her cousin scowled at her. "Kaeso, both of our fathers' lives are at stake, and arguing over who's to blame and who should take control only prevents their rescue." She focused on Elek, who seemed almost cowed beneath the focus of a young woman he didn't know. "Kandras Danukos, my father sees the value in Kandras Elerius, and would never have given her up, nor would I. I would be thankful she's here now, rather than trying to get rid of her."

Elek opened his mouth to reply but was cut off when Aladar cleared his throat again and slowly shook his head. The young kandras clamped his jaws shut and Daria lowered herself back into her seat, meeting Estrid's eyes long enough to give a strained smile.

"Our priority is to locate the Boratorrens," Aladar said flatly, as if the argument Kaeso's interruption has caused hadn't happened. "The Warmaster's forces can only retreat south, towards their own borders. We shall leave a small garrison here to fortify Aukruna, but we should continue our southward march. With any luck, our scouts will find traces of where the Warmaster went."

"How certain are we of their retreat?" Kavan asked, his fingers linked atop the table in front of him. "The Imperium has long been obsessed with the idea of itself as unchallenged conqueror. Retreat doesn't serve them well."

Aladar gestured expansively to the room around them. "It would've served the Warmaster well to secure this city against us, but he did not. I don't know why. Given what our search of Aukruna indicates, he only had a small group with him. Our scouts have found no sign of the armies the Tyrannuses command, which indicates they have already retreated, and that Khian lingered here solely to secure Endarion."

The Imperium's tactics confused her, Estrid had to admit. She'd acted similarly to lure the Imperium's invading forces into Kalduran, so she could strike at them at the most opportune moment. But where she'd harried the Imperial advance and succeeded in turning Endarion against his empire, Khian made no such attempts at sabotage. He'd left them almost completely alone, save for his seizing of Endarion, and that made her think he was uncertain, maybe even afraid. Not just him, but Dobran and Nazhira, who seemed to follow their son's lead.

What could the Tyrannuses be afraid of?

"The bastard likely thinks stealing the insurrection's overseer would be enough to convince us to turn back and go home," Elek interjected. A sly smile claimed his smug features. "Which, by the way, isn't a bad idea."

Kaeso looked like he might argue, and before he could rile Elek into an argument, Estrid cleared her throat and leaned forward, bracing herself against the table, letting her anger simmer down. "We turn back now, the Imperium invades again next year. Only it'll be strengthened by its defeat of the Boratorrens and we have no one within their ranks to force into defection."

Elek shook his blonde head. "And what if Khian is lying and the Boratorrens aren't at the Sentinel? We march all the way there for nothing."

Before Estrid could reply, Daria snapped her fingers. "They will be there. Khian might be a spineless liar in everything else, but I know he's telling the truth now." She turned to her cousin as if seeking support, but Kaeso had hidden his sentiments behind a frown heavy enough to almost evoke Endarion.

Aladar cocked his head at the young woman. "How can you be sure?"

"Because," Daria replied, "this is not the full sum of Khian's gambit. They wouldn't snatch my father and then return to Empyria to execute him. Maybe they hope the insurrection will fall apart without him and Valerian, or maybe there's more going on here. They'll use our fathers against us. The Sentinel is the safest place for them to make their play without retreating across the border."

"The Sentinel is impossible to seize," Ricardus said, his first input of the meeting. He spoke quietly, eyes downcast, the physical manifestation of hopelessness. "It's practically a sheer wall built between two mountains. A siege would be pointless, an attack futile."

"Then what?" Kaeso demanded.

There were other options, but they were almost as impossible as tackling the Sentinel itself. Another, more distant valley cleaved through the Cloudbreakers, and the stronghold that guarded it was smaller and less likely to be fully garrisoned. But even if they managed to seize it, they'd have to march all the way south-westwards across Asineo and come at the Sentinel from the Imperium's side, which would be a time-consuming labour, and would put them in enemy territory, vulnerable, for too long. There were whispers of passes through the Cloudbreakers themselves, though Estrid didn't think it plausible to march all five of their armies through such unpredictable terrain. Not to mention, the supply train wouldn't be able to follow them there.

The Sentinel provided their only viable option.

"There must be ways inside," Estrid said, firming her resolve. "We're clearly not planning on heading home, so we need to march on the Sentinel and spring Khian's trap. We'll have to send scouts ahead when we near it, in search of weaknesses. There are always weaknesses." Her attention shifted over to Daria, who watched her intently. "All we need to do is get a few of us inside, and we can find Endarion and Valerian."

Find them both alive. Because they are alive. I refuse to entertain any other ending to this fucking farce.

"And if not?" Kaeso challenged.

Aladar levelled empty eyes at the younger man, and Kaeso visibly shrunk. "Your father and uncle are too valuable to be killed. If we can breach the Sentinel, we can negotiate for their safe return."

Though his words were meant as a reassurance to them all, Estrid found them as empty as the voice that spoke them. There would be nothing safe about the conditions Endarion and Valerian surely suffered in, if either of them were even still alive. After all, the bodies of Caelinus Naevon and the rest had been about a day dead when she'd discovered them. It seemed likely Valerian had been killed alongside them, the empty promise of his survival used only to stir discontent. If Aladar expected from the Caetoran and Khian the same treatment of war-prisoners he would himself offer captured Imperials, he would be sorely disappointed.

Their plans made, the gathering dispersed in short order, the attendees no doubt glad to be rid of each other. Estrid lingered as the others departed, sparing Daria a sad smile, before hovering by the table as Aladar pushed back his chair.

"Baltanos, sir," she began.

He glanced at her with hooded eyes. "Kandras Elerius." His tone was formal, of the kind he hadn't used since the earliest days of their professional relationship, before they'd forged a friendship.

"About that day, back in Varanos."

He cut her off with a slash of his hand. "We needn't talk about it."

"I didn't mean to push you," she said. "I spoke with Tanas and he claimed not to know what causes your ailment. I thought I might be able to help."

The muscles in his cheeks bunched as he watched her. "Even if you could have caused greater damage?" he asked. "What if you had triggered the fit that killed me?"

"That wasn't my intention."

He looked as if he wanted to say more and opened his mouth to do so. Instead, he heaved a sigh and averted his eyes. "I have nothing more to say regarding my fits. For both our sakes, neither should you.