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

Three

Endarion

Varanos, Kalduran

3rd of Satimus

Endarion had come to the city of Varanos, capital of Kalduran, only two days ago with the intent of razing it. How strange it felt to now stand behind its impenetrable walls and look down upon the battlefield he'd caused in his attempts to sabotage that intent.

The ground at the wall's base was churned into a mess of mud and blood and corpses, and the glare of the rising sun struck shattered armour plates, making the entire scene sparkle as if with starlight. His eyes snagged on the mass of movement some way along the wall and stayed there, assessing.

After the Kaldurani armies had driven the three enemy Imperial armies into a hurried retreat, and after he and Estrid had returned from the mountains she'd lured him into, he and Arch-General Ricardus Naevon had camped their forces outside Varanos, where they remained now. Though the defeat of the invading Imperial armies meant he and Ricardus were precarious allies of Kalduran, they were still not to be trusted. Endarion understood; they'd killed too many innocent Kaldurani citizens to be readily embraced as friends of the province.

Beside him, his daughter Daria sighed. "All that death, and we're not even nearly done."

He glanced at her, finding a stern expression unbefitting of such a young woman. Ever since he and Estrid had turned on Dobran Tyrannus in the mountains, Daria had been tight-lipped and surly. The first night they'd spent in Varanos, in a vacated barracks previously used by the city guard, she'd ignored him and locked herself in her room. It reminded him of her tantrums as an ill-tempered child, though her reasons this time were far more serious; she'd been side-lined in the fight with Dobran when he'd sent her to Estrid's camp. Had Estrid not decided to aid him, his royal cousin would've savaged him and his army and Daria, helpless as she was at Estrid's side, would've watched him die. She hadn't quite forgiven him for keeping her out of danger, though the fact she spoke to him now seemed a good omen.

His gaze moved out to the open wilderness sprawling away from the city. Beyond, at least a week's forced march south, were the Sidian Mountains that separated Kalduran from Tharghest. Beyond those, the Cloudbreakers bordering Tharghest and the Imperium. And beyond those, weeks away, Endarion's homeland, and the throne he and his brother meant to seize.

"It depends what the Kaldurani do with us now," Endarion replied after a lengthy pause. "I would understand if they ejected us from the city and chased us away."

"We defected," Daria said. "We lost more than three thousand soldiers in the process. Surely that shows our commitment?"

Endarion shrugged. "Not when considered alongside the razing of Vadonis and Dykumas."

It would be too easy to consider the deaths of those cities, and his personal role in that of Dykumas, as a blood-fuelled fever dream. To wave them aside as the actions of a man possessed, to shun all responsibility for the consequences. But he had no such luxury, because he remembered the grisly details and knew how grievously he'd wronged the innocent citizens. The Kaldurani were justified in holding him at arm's length as they deliberated on his future.

He'd spiralled into madness in Dykumas, losing himself so completely to the tyrannical nature of the Iron Wolf that he'd killed one of his own soldiers and then his long-serving first-general, Cato Romanus, in a frenzy. What was worse, he thought, was that the chaos had allowed for both deaths to be forgotten, and he'd never faced any punishment for his crimes. He'd never even given Cato a funeral, having left the man's body behind in the ruins of the city they'd destroyed together.

"We have nowhere else to go," Daria said.

"We never did," he replied. He tried to lift his voice beyond its stony deadness but found he couldn't. "I was never going to return to the Imperium alive. If you survived this campaign, the Caetoran would've stripped you of your inheritance and either imprisoned or controlled you."

He braced his hands against the wall and peered over it again. The temptation to let himself tumble down onto the battlefield below and make of himself just one of thousands of corpses polluted his mind. He had no real wish to die, not so soon after being pulled back from the brink of it, though couldn't help but think his demise would solve many problems. The Kaldurani would more readily accept Daria, for one, if he weren't around to remind them of her ties to him. The Caetoran wouldn't be so fervent in seeking revenge, for another, and would perhaps grant Kalduran and its kandras a small sliver of peace. And lastly, he imagined his family back in the Imperium's capital could more easily distance themselves from him, or at least avoid the worst of the punishments the Caetoran no doubt chafed to inflict on them. Everyone he cared for would be better off if he died.

A sobering thought.

Daria set one hand on his own, the weight firm and real enough to draw him from his mental wanderings. She cast him a shrouded glance, and he reminded himself that, though they'd made efforts to re-build the shattered bridge between them, there was still some distance to cross. He'd spent too long in tortured madness, relying on her as if he were a feeble old man and she his carer, to deserve a swift return to the father-daughter bond they'd enjoyed in the years before Shaeviren.

He might've spent all morning watching the horizon, Daria's hand on his own a comforting reminder of what he hadn't yet lost, had Ricardus Naevon, his only remaining ally, not interrupted.

The heavy slaps of Ricardus's boots striking the stone parapet announced him, a second set shadowing him. Endarion glanced over his shoulder and spied his friend's haggard figure. Ricardus had given his loyalty without question, many years ago now. He and Endarion had ascended to the position of arch-general at the same time, then spent their first years in the role making mistakes and correcting each other. When Valerian had started plotting, Endarion brought Ricardus into the fold, and there he'd stayed ever since, alongside his brother Caelinus. It was testament to his loyalty that Ricardus was here now, his army below, as much a traitor to his homeland as Endarion.

Ricardus had aged ten years since the battle two days ago. Though in his late forties, he'd always managed to look vigorous, with an unlined face and untainted black hair. He was greying now, his eyes sunken with tiredness, his face twisted into a permanent frown. His shoulders were stooped as well, and when he stopped before them, Endarion had to look further down at him than usual.

Behind Ricardus, having halted a few feet shy of them, his hands clasped behind his back and his face set in careful neutrality, stood Arch-General Kavan Aza. Then again, could Kavan even still be considered an arch-general?

Though an ally of Endarion's and as much privy to his insurrectionist plans as Ricardus, Kavan had defected at Allodek, turning against his Imperial allies whilst they were pressed up against the stronghold's walls. He'd calculated the move with Estrid, meaning for it to paint Endarion as untrustworthy and incompetent to the other arch-generals. In the aftermath, Endarion had been whipped and Daria beaten for their supposed involvement.

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"They sent me for you," Ricardus said, voice as strained as his appearance. "Will you come?"

He didn't meet Endarion's eye, instead letting his gaze settle at some unfixed point on the battlefield below. Endarion had yet to learn how many men Ricardus had lost in the chaos, but he knew all of them were dead because of him. He already had his own casualties—three thousand Denjini soldiers—on his conscience.

"I didn't mean for it to play out this way," he said. He wanted to place a hand on the man's shoulder but knew the gesture would be unwelcome. "We were backed into a corner. I had no choice."

Ricardus swatted his words away. "It's fine," he said, in a tone suggesting it very much wasn't.

Endarion wanted to say more, if only to gauge his friend's mood and decide whether Ricardus could still be trusted, but Kavan spoke first.

"They're waiting for us," Kavan said, moving up to brush shoulders with Ricardus, as if Ricardus were his ally instead.

"Don't talk to me, Aza," Endarion snapped.

Though one of his and his brother's key military allies, Kavan had always owed the bulk of his loyalty to Estrid, his predecessor as Arch-General of Quendinther. Endarion and Kavan had never been friends, hadn't trained together, hadn't served in any campaigns beside one another, and offered each other nothing but a distant sort of acquaintanceship. In fact, Endarion had only welcomed him into his family's insurrection because Estrid had vouched for him, and because they'd needed the additional military strength the Quendinthan army could offer. Perhaps, given the level of paranoia he usually displayed, he should've seen Kavan's betrayal coming.

"We're on the same side, Boratorren," Kavan sniped back, though his tone lacked Endarion's venom.

Endarion canted his head. "Are we?" he asked. "I'm not so sure anymore."

"If this is because of Allodek, maybe you should remember what came before. Maybe you should remember that your punishment was earned."

Dykumas, and his slaughter of it. Kavan was right, though the twenty lashes he'd received from an unadorned whip did nothing to absolve him of his sins. When he'd been held on Shaeviren and tortured for endless months, he'd been whipped far worse than that as part of the torturer's warm-up. Twenty lashes, on his scar-riddled body, was petty change, and an insult to the memory of Dykumas's massacred citizens.

But his whipping wasn't the issue.

"Was Daria's, then?" he asked.

Though his daughter's bruises had faded, and the cut on her cheek mostly healed, his memories of it were fresh and raw. He'd been tied naked between two posts when Daria had leapt in the way to intervene. As Dobran Tyrannus had whipped him, his son Khian had beaten Daria right in front of Endarion. There'd been nothing Endarion could do, though he'd still tried to tear himself free.

"Of course not," Kavan replied steadily. "She was never meant to be punished."

"Oh, well, that's fine then," Endarion snapped. He made a point of looking away from Kavan and settling his eyes on Ricardus instead. "You'd better escort us before I do something regrettable to this pitiful man."

"You'd hurt an ally, would you?" Kavan asked.

He forced a chuckle. "Hurt? Who says I'd stop at hurt?"

Kavan widened his stance at the words, his right hand bunching into a fist. His expression firmed into the arrogance of someone sure he wouldn't be harmed. It was a similar expression to the one Khian had worn as he'd started hitting Daria, safe in the knowledge no one could stop him, and the memory of the despicable Warmaster was enough to trigger Endarion. Before he knew what he did, he grasped a fistful of the collar of Kavan's greatcoat and lifted the smaller man onto the parapet, hanging his front half over the lethal drop. Kavan didn't struggle, nor did his expression change beyond a widening of his eyes. Endarion wanted to let go, maybe give him a bit of a push as well, just to see the man show panic and fear as he sailed down to his death.

"Endarion," Ricardus warned.

"Do it, then," Kavan said, as calmly as if they were standing on a city street conversing. "See what Estrid has to say if you murder her dear friend."

Her name brought him back, anchored him. His hands felt numb as he tugged Kavan back from the edge, waiting until the man was firmly on his feet before letting go. Daria and Ricardus watched, tensed, as if they both expected Endarion to attack like the feral stray he'd proven himself to be.

"I'm sorry," he grated, the words an effort.

Kavan made a show of brushing himself off, then donned a confident smile. "Forgiven. Knew you'd think twice before throwing an old friend off a wall."

But he hadn't. Not really. He'd just thought of the look on Estrid's face should she learn he'd killed Kavan in a fit of mindless anger. He imagined her turning away from him, banishing him from her life altogether, erasing him from her mind as easily as if he were a fragmented memory she no longer wanted to revisit.

Since the battle, her rescue of his floundering forces, and her unannounced appearance in his pavilion, they hadn't spoken. She hadn't come to the barracks they were lodging in, and he hadn't wanted to overstep a boundary by seeking her out.

Her absence, so recently after he'd done as promised and defected to her, stung. He didn't think he could live with himself if she shunned him completely.

As they walked along the parapet and down into the city proper, Daria stuck at his side like a shadow. He knew she watched and waited for the next trigger, ready to step in and yank him back from his madness. It hurt that she felt the need, but they both knew it was sensible. He had, after all, attacked and then murdered Cato Romanus because he'd been so far gone to insanity that he hadn't known it was his first-general he stabbed. Cato had been torturing an innocent at the time, but that hadn't figured into Endarion's decision to murder his officer. Daria knew this, and probably suspected he'd turn again at the slightest provocation.

What had he become? What had this latest campaign—the first he'd been on since his madness—turned him into?

Their progress through the clotted streets of Varanos was slow, hampered by the busy crowds. Since the battle, Varanos's citizens had been out in the streets, celebrating their victory over the Imperium. The presence of three Imperial arch-generals dampened the flames of their exultations, and Endarion noticed a subtle tension in the air, as if some citizens didn't believe the conflict over yet and expected him and Ricardus and maybe even Kavan to tear them down from within. In retrospect, wearing his sky-blue Denjini greatcoat when beyond the protected walls of the guard barracks on the city's edge hadn't been an inspired decision.

They received frowns and scowls and the occasional slung insult as they went, though Kavan had brought a squad of his own soldiers with him to guard them against the more fervent bystanders. Endarion kept his eyes averted, instead skimming his gaze across the city itself, seeking out similarities between it and Empyria. There were myriad; in many ways, Varanos and Empyria were echoes of one another. Though wars had been orchestrated and conducted from both capitals, most of the people here were civilians and non-combatants, people not interested in the territorial squabbles of their overseers.

But there were differences, too. Varanos lacked any structure of the Empyrian Tower's size, and though its more populous streets were just as wide as anything back home, they lacked Empyria's organisation. The overwhelming prevalence of white stone that marked Empyria as Novhar-built was absent here, and everything had been composed on a smaller, more restrained scale.

He couldn't help but think of Dykumas then. He hadn't seen it alive and peaceful, having entered its open gates shortly after the razing had begun, but he knew it'd been home to tens of thousands, a place its citizens thought large enough to be safe, too removed to be a target.

He'd proven them wrong in the most devastating way.

Aladar's estate, the closest thing the city had to a palace, perched atop one of the city's hills. Like a monarch looking down upon their domain it loomed, proud and expansive. When Kalduran had been independent, before becoming a Drasken province, its ruling council had been based within this structure. After the Drasken Empire swept across its southern neighbour some eight hundred years ago, the triarchy had been replaced with the Baltanos, a military governor and junior voice of the Varkommer. The gaudiest aspects of the then-palace had been stripped away, though what remained made for a handsome building that, at first glance, wasn't overtly military. It was, Endarion supposed, a subtle reminder of Drasken authority.

As Kavan led them through the sprawl of the front gardens, nodding to Aladar's personal guard as he did, a spike of nervousness impaled Endarion's stomach. In this, he was a disobedient student brought before a council of disapproving elders or, more accurately, a criminal soldier about to stand trial for his treason. The entire walk from the parapet to here had felt like the final journey of a condemned man.

Daria noticed, as she always did, and knocked her shoulder against his arm. Her expression conveyed the words she didn't voice: We'll be okay.