Heirs of the Enemy (2 page)

“Escape?” balked the general. “I will not run like a frightened doe.”

“You will do as I command,” snapped Emperor Forkuna. “Get out the window while there is still time. Bring back only the most loyal troops and attack them from the rear. Hurry.”

General Jaar remained frozen for a moment before nodding his head and sheathing his sword. He ripped the curtains from the window and hastily fashioned a rope that he tied around a leg of the desk. He tossed the free end out the window and then climbed down to the ground. He stood in the dark for a moment as he listened to the sounds of the night. He could not hear any commotion coming from the palace, and he realized that no one was even aware of the attempted coup. He raced for the closest entrance to the palace, but he halted before he entered the cone of light cast by the torches. Two bodies were spread across the palace steps, and in that instant, General Jaar knew that there would be no help to be found inside the palace.

General Jaar turned around and raced through the dark night. He wormed his way into a tall hedge that grew alongside the walls of the estate and found the old hidden door he had discovered when he was a child. He quietly eased the door open and stepped through the wall into another hedge that lined the outside of wall. He peered out and saw that the street was deserted. Breaking free from the hedge, the general raced through the city streets to the garrison nearby. When he burst through the door of the garrison, the soldiers stiffened at his arrival. The general glanced at the faces of the men as if he could determine if any of them were in league with the rebels. He could not determine their loyalty, but their presence in the garrison indicated that they were not involved in the coup. Besides, Jaar had no choice in the matter. If the throne was to be saved, he needed to act quickly.

“Prepare for battle,” commanded the general. “Rebels are attempting to assassinate Emperor Forkuna. Move! Move! Move!”

The men scrambled to get into their boots and grab their weapons. The colonel in charge of the garrison approached the general and saluted.

“What are our orders?”

“We take the palace by force,” answered General Jaar. “Everyone inside the walls of the palace is suspect, with the exception of the emperor and Lord Kimner. Get these men inside the palace now.”

As the colonel shouted orders to his men, General Jaar stepped out onto the street. He stared towards the distant palace as the soldiers rushed out and formed ranks. With a thousand men at his back, General Jaar led the charge towards the palace. He made no attempt at a stealthy approach, but rather shouted death to the rebels. The soldiers manning the gates to the palace took one look at the charging army and ran. General Jaar and his men climbed over the gates and walls and then continued the charge towards the palace. Defending soldiers appeared on the steps of the palace.

General Jaar had no idea if the defenders were loyal or rebels, and he did not care. He shouted orders for his men to head towards the emperor’s study and then unsheathed his own sword. He led the charge into the defenders. For a brief moment, the charged halted as they battled, but General Jaar sliced his way through the knot of defenders, and his men quickly followed. Other defenders rushed into the large entry foyer, and Jaar’s men spread out to meet them. The general halted only briefly as he shouted instructions to his men. He ordered several squads to each side of the grand staircase to hold off the defenders while he led the rest of his men up the stairs. Uniformed bodies cluttered the floors of the corridors as the general led his men towards the emperor’s study. The general slipped on the blood-soaked floor and almost lost his balance. As he straightened himself, the colonel and several men raced by him. Jaar hurried after them.

The corridor outside the emperor’s study was littered with bodies, and the door to the study was shattered to pieces. The general could hear fighting still going on in the study, and his hopes rose for the first time since fleeing the study. He followed the colonel and a couple of soldiers into the room. Five black-clad men turned to meet the new threat. The assassins were highly skilled, and the colonel and two soldiers immediately fell to their blades. General Jaar veered to the right as his soldiers followed him into the room, his primary goal being the protection of his father. As he leaped over the bodies of his father’s guards, General Jaar saw the bodies of Lord Kimner and Emperor Forkuna. He turned with a vengeance to lash out at the assassins, but four of them were already dead. The fifth was fighting a losing battle against three soldiers.

“Capture him alive,” spat the general.

The three soldiers went to a defensive mode, and it cost them their lives as the assassin slashed out with precision strokes. General Jaar did not appear to notice as he knelt next to his father’s body. For several moments he knelt and stared into his father’s dead eyes and then he noticed that the room had gone silent. He rose and turned towards the door. Two soldiers held the limp form of the last assassin.

“Is he alive?” asked the general.

Both soldiers nodded silently.

“Take him to the dungeons and secure him. No one is to get near him until I am done with him.”

The two soldiers dragged the assassin out of the study as the other soldiers stood and stared at the general. General Jaar waved the men from the room, and they took up positions outside the shattered doors. For several long moments, Jaar did nothing but stare at his father’s corpse. Unexpectedly, he heard a moan behind him. Turning with his sword in hand, he gazed down at Lord Kimner. The emperor’s advisor held his hand over a bloody gash across his abdomen as he tried to sit up. The general moved across the room and knelt by his side.

“Stay still. I will have a healer brought to you.”

“I am beyond a healer’s touch,” the advisor said weakly, “but your father left a message for you. He knows that you do not care for his idea of the Federation, but he implores you to follow through with it.”

General Jaar called to the soldiers outside the door. He ordered them to get a healer and then turned his attention back to Lord Kimner.

“I will make a deal with you,” the general said with a thin smile. “You stay alive to help me, and I will pursue the Federation.”

The noble’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “What do you need me for?”

“I am not a negotiator,” answered the general. “I am a warrior, and I can change enough to become an emperor, but I will not accept other countries as the equals of the empire. I need your skills in getting the other monarchs to accept my terms for this Federation.”

“There are many in the palace who can aid you with that task. Do not pin your hopes for the future on one old man who is dying.”

“There is no one in this palace that I can trust now. You alone stood alongside my father. You shall be my advisor.”

“Then take this advice to heart,” wheezed the noble. “Secure your family far away from this palace and keep them hidden.”

The general frowned deeply. “What are you saying?”

“It was not soldiers who came here tonight. They were hired assassins. Gaze upon their bodies.”

General Jaar rose and walked to the black-clad bodies. He already knew that the assassins wore no uniforms, but the significance had not registered with him. He knelt next to one of the bodies and frowned. He reached out and plucked a golden pin off the body’s chest. He held it up and let the torchlight glance off of it.

“What is it?” he asked.

“A badger,” Lord Kimner replied. “The Badgers are a private band of mercenaries. They have been around for centuries, but they are a secretive group. They are seldom seen in private or in public, and I have never heard of one being captured before tonight. Whoever sent them here today had planned to annihilate the emperor’s’ entire family. They will try again.”

“Then the soldiers we slew to get in here were not part of the coup?”

“The soldiers were probably defending the palace. The Badgers would not stoop to allying themselves with soldiers. They would sneak into the palace and eliminate any soldiers that got in their way.”

A healer rushed into the room, and the general rose to his feet. While the healer tended to the wounded noble, the general walked out of the room and headed for the dungeons. He had wanted the last assassin kept alive to make an example out of him, but now he wanted him more for the information that could be tortured out of him. When the general reached the dungeons, he demanded to know where the prisoner was being kept. The guards directed him to the deepest part of the dungeons where the general found two more guards standing outside the door to one of the cells. The guards stiffened at his approach.

“Open the door,” demanded the general.

Clutching the golden pin in one hand, the general snared a torch from the wall with his other hand and stepped into the small cell. He saw the assassin chained to the wall across from the door, and he strode across the room. At first, Jaar thought that the assassin was still unconscious, but his face clouded with anger when he noticed the blue tint to the man’s skin.

“What is the meaning of this?” shouted the general.

Both guards rushed into the room. One of them, noticing the general’s gaze, hurried to the assassin’s side. His brow furrowed in confusion as he examined the corpse.

“He is dead.”

“I ordered that he be kept alive,” snapped the general. “Which of you will take his place?”

“No one entered this cell once he was confined,” the nervous guard near the general stated. “No one.”

The guard closest to the corpse noticed a glint between the assassin’s teeth, and he forced the Badger’s mouth open. Stuck in the back of the assassin’s throat was a small golden pin.

“He must have ripped the pin off his chest with his teeth,” the guard mused as he reached in and extracted the pin.

“And choked on it?” scoffed the general.

The guard handling the spittle-encrusted pin was clumsy. As he was trying to give it to the general, it pricked his skin. The guard’s eyes immediately glazed over, and his body teetered before falling to the floor. The other guard rushed to his partner’s side, but refused to pick up the pin. He stared at it in disbelief.

“The pin is poisoned,” he announced. “Look at the tint near the tip.”

General Jaar’s eyes suddenly grew large as he opened his palm and stared at the golden pin in his hand. He dropped the torch to the floor and slowly opened a pouch on his belt. With agonizingly slow movements, the general eased the pin into his pouch. When the pin was safely in the pouch, the general let out a deep breath and then retreated from the cell. Unnerved by his close encounter with death, the general made his way to his own study. He slumped into his chair and called for his guard to bring a particular officer to him. A few minutes later, a colonel walked into the study. The officer saluted and waited for the general to speak.

“I have a secret task for you, Colonel Jurgon. I want you to assemble a force of one hundred men. Each man must be proven loyal to me, and he must be single.”

“Single, Sir?”

“Unmarried. You will have the pick of anyone you want, but no one is to know anything of what I tell you, even the men under your command. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly, Sir. What will be the task for this group?”

“You will be assigned to safeguard my family. Once the force is assembled, I want you to find an estate far from the city. The estate must be unseen from any road or trail, and once your men are assigned to it, they may not leave. You alone, Colonel, will have leave to travel to Despair, and only for the purpose of speaking with me. Do you understand?”

“Perfectly, Sir. Your family will be kept safe and hidden. I stake my life on it.”

“And the lives of the men under your command,” declared the general.

The demonkin was tall and handsome, his piercing blue eyes peeking out from beneath his short golden bangs. His skin was bronzed as if he spent his days under the sun tending to fields. His muscles bulged with impressive strength as he shed his fine garments and threw them into the massive fireplace. Feeling eyes upon him, Lycindor turned and saw the noble holding a pile of clothes staring at him. The demonkin’s lips curled upward in a menacing smile. If Lycindor had expected the human to tremble in fear, he was disappointed. The noble stared without emotion and then closed the door.

“You are very different from what I expected,” the noble stated as he crossed the room and handed a pile of clothes to the demonkin. “Your appearance is as far from K’san as anyone can be.”

“I am not K’san,” the demonkin replied contemptuously. “I am a Claw of Alutar.”

“A Claw of Alutar?” the noble echoed with a raised eyebrow. “And what does a Claw of Alutar do?”

“The Claws of Alutar are no concern of yours,” scowled Lycindor as he pulled on a pair of clean, but worn pants. “Your concern is to see that I have what is needed for my journey.”

The noble watched as the demonkin pulled on a gray tunic that matched his lowly pants. When Lycindor was done, the noble retrieved a few items from a dresser and handed them to the demonkin. Lycindor wrapped the belt around his waist and fastened it. Adjusting the sheath to his side, he slid a large hunting knife into it.

“There is a pack hanging from the mantle,” pointed the noble. “It contains everything you should need for a short journey. Check it, and I will supply whatever you feel is missing.”

Lycindor retrieved the pack and inspected it carelessly. He slung it onto his back and lifted a pair of boots off of the mantle. The boots were well worn, and the leather was deeply cracked in places.

“I was told that your clothing was to be clean, but also to hold the appearance of belonging to one who has traveled long and hard. I hope everything meets with your approval.”

“It is satisfactory. Where is the portal?”

“In the closet. Get your boots on and I will show you.”

Lycindor sat in a chair and pulled his boots on. He glanced up at the noble and waved dismissively. “I have everything I need. You may go.”