Swords of the Imperium (Dark Fantasy Novel) (The Polaris Chronicles Book 2) (26 page)

“Hey!” Jibriil snapped. “Take your petting inside. We’re in public here!”

Taki looked up, and his face reddened, as did Enilna’s. A small crowd of Imperials had gathered to point and laugh. Enilna rose to her feet and dusted herself off. Taki pulled himself up and tried to mime nonchalance.

“Well, uh, where to?” he asked.

“The quartermaster’s. The primate paid for our horses, provisions, and ammunition for the journey. After we’ve equipped, we’ll head west.”

“No more trains?”

“Nay, we’re on foot. This is a contested borderland, but we’ll be in the heart of Ursala soon. There’ll be no reinforcements if we get into a fight, so we must be discreet.”

Taki let out a small sigh. Despite the monotony of the train, it had been far more comfortable than riding could ever be. But more worrisome was the fact that now, he and Enilna would truly be alone with Jibriil. Back in Astarte, and even aboard the train, there had always been others around, but in darkest Ursala, there would be no one to help. He nodded and brushed his fingers over the grip of his pistol. If nothing else, steel was always dependable.

Taki’s eyes flicked up and down, alternating between the corpse and the gray chunk of decaying matter beneath it. The woman’s body was one of at least a dozen strung up on the low boughs of the dead oak. Judging from the amount of flesh already torn away by carrion, the hanging had taken place within the last week. The congested pattern of boot prints and hooves in the mud underneath suggested that the tree was a popular spot for executions.

The three had ridden hard for two days and had ventured near a few other killing grounds, but they had not strayed as closely as they had to this one. The shifting borderlands between the Imperium and the Serene Kingdom were a foggy, drab-gray hell where it was common to run across crows and vultures too fattened on corpses to fly. Even common game animals seemed to have changed their diets. A day before, the squad had hunted a deer, only to discover that its belly was full of human flesh.

Though Jibriil had maneuvered to avoid known patrol routes, it seemed as if the party constantly ran into the smoking remains of battles and skirmishes. Bodies, both Ursalan and Imperial, unburied and often desecrated, dotted the roadways. The farther in they’d ventured, the more corpses they’d found. These were not soldiers, though.

“Peasants,” Jibriil muttered as he surveyed the swaying, ghastly fruit. “Ursalan dirt farmers.” He tightened his reins to prevent his horse from drawing too near. He narrowed his eyes as he spied the same fleshy mass Taki had seen, and spat off to the side. “At nine months, too. What foul joss to see this!”

“Who did it?” Taki growled.

Jibriil shrugged. “Might’ve been Liberation Army, but we’re deeper in than they ever patrol.”

“Then bandits?”

“Highwaymen would just leave the corpses on the ground. Soldiers did this. Most like Ursalans against their own.”

“God! Why?”

“Chevaliers don’t need a reason. If you’re not one of them, you’re just practice. Livestock’s more valuable. You don’t kill those until they’re well fattened.”

Taki made a fist. “Whoever it was, they’ll pay.”

“They won’t,” Enilna said. Her voice sounded far away. “They never do. They just go around and rape and maim and kill, and then kill some more.”

Wait,
Taki thought.
She came from this same sort of hell.
He reached out to her, but she shrank away. He decided against trying anything more.

“Come, Sir Taki,” Jibriil said. “We’d best move, and off the main paths from now on. ’Twas my error to guide us so close to one of these.”

“Nay, Jibriil, I’m actually grateful you did.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Because when I signed up for this, I did it in hopes of a promotion. I hoped that Sir Aslatiel would be impressed by my bravery. I only thought of my own interests, but after seeing this…this bullshit, now I know that what I’m doing is right. We have to beat the Ursalans and destroy their entire godrotting nation. Now I know they all have to die.”

Days later and farther west, the fog finally lessened. The question of food, though, was becoming more important. Even after trying to supplement rations with game or forage, the trio’s saddlebags hung limp and empty.

“Finally, a homestead,” Jibriil said. “We should raid it.”

A thin column of smoke rose from a decrepit collection of huts and a barn in the distance. The horses dipped and bobbed slightly to steady themselves on the jagged crest of a shale ridge that jutted from a floor of clustered pines below. According to the maps, the squad was on the outskirts of a massive forest, well away from the usual army routes and surrounding patrols.

Taki nodded. “Aye, though only preserved meats and foods. Take nothing we have to go through great pains to prepare.”

“I’ll find a spot to tie up the horses,” Jibriil said.

“Wait,” Enilna said, “are we really stealing from them?”

“Yes,” Taki said.

“But we have milligrad to spare. Can’t we just buy whatever we need?”

Jibriil shook his head. “If they see our faces, they
will
report us to the next Serene Kingdom soldiers they see. It’s a death sentence not to.”

“Can we at least leave them something? A bullet or two?”

“Lady Enilna,” Jibriil said, “a peasant who flashes grad at the market is instantly regarded with suspicion. Everyone will assume he stole it from his betters, and he’ll be worse off for it. Better to just take what we need and leave them enough to survive. And if they don’t have enough to survive after a small loss, they were dead, anyway.”

“Taki, you can’t possibly agree with that!”

“I do,” Taki said. “We have to survive and succeed. If we don’t, then our companions will suffer.”

“Aye, sir,” Enilna said, looking away.

They scouted a small depression containing young trees and tied the horses to their trunks. The contour of the land hid the animals from casual view, and it was a clear break from the farmstead if the trio were forced to run. Taki crept silently through the leafy woods and stuck to the shadows. They had all invoked the
phon
sutra on each other, to keep the need to speak to a minimum. The forest floor was covered in a volatile carpet of shed pine needles, he noticed. A single errant flame would burn the entire place to the ground.

“
Split up,
” he muttered once they drew closer. The buildings were the typical ramshackle expected of isolated farmsteads, where the need to secure food for the table was at constant war with the need to keep everything from collapsing. The place was definitely inhabited. Smoke issued from a stone chimney attached to the main house, and goats chewed blithely out in the muddy yard.
“Jibriil, look in the root cellar. Enilna, keep watch on the road.”

Taki slunk around to the opposite side of the house and tried to peer in through the gaps in the slat walls. The house hadn’t been daubed in some time. Whatever family lived here would have to take care of the chore lest they freeze solid in the coming winter. He slowed his breathing and found a good-sized hole where a rat had chewed through. It gave him a view of the inside, where four peasants were sitting down to sup. Three women and a man, probably the patriarch. He didn’t relish the thought of stealing from them, but theft was far better than murder.

“Hark!
” Enilna’s voice quavered with a mix of fear and excitement.
“A company of horse approaches from the road. Sigil is a red shield with a golden fleur-de-lis. Six men, chevaliers, lightly armored.”

“Arms?”
Taki whispered.

“Swords and maces with bucklers. Three muskets, a few pistols, none true relics.
”

“Everyone conceal yourselves.
Let them pass.
” Taki held his breath to slow his heart. Six chevaliers weren’t insurmountable, especially with a former Triada under his command. But it would make noise, expose their presence to the farmsteaders, and leave Taki with bodies, equipment, and horses to hide from view if more chevaliers dropped in.

“Uh, Taki, this is bad. They’re coming in,
” Enilna said.

Taki swore under his breath. This would complicate things. The men had likely come for sport and plunder. While the former was detestable, the latter meant that his squad would get nothing for their trouble and time. It meant much more risk and much more of a chance of failure. They would have to retreat and try again at another farm, and that was assuming they ran across one before their rations ran out. Hunger meant they couldn’t travel, much less fight.

“Your orders?”
Jibriil sounded impatient.

Taki steeled himself.
“Stay calm. Report Ursalan positions as they change. Jibriil, hide in the cellar if you can’t make a clean break. I’ll watch the far side of the house. Defend yourselves if needed, but see if they’ll just leave.”

“Three coming to the house,”
Enilna whispered.
“One making his way to the barn. Another scouting around. Last one is lashing the horses to the gateposts.
”

Taki heard a chevalier bang his mailed fist against the door before Enilna stopped speaking. The peasants in the house fell silent. Even without the aid of prana-sense, Taki knew they were trembling in fear. A few seconds passed, and he heard the door crack and fall off its hinges. He cautiously raised his head back to the rat hole and peered in.

The old man with swollen, arthritic joints knelt with his eyes firmly fixed on the dirt floor. “Milord, you honor us with your presence!”

The chevalier had his weapon out and scanned the room with a suspicious glare. Taki pulled his head away to avoid it. After he heard a sword being sheathed, he returned to watching.

“Shut it, sniveling cur. You address Sir Silas of Rouen, not ‘milord,’” the chevalier said, and plopped down on a stool at the table where the peasant and his family had supped. He was stocky, with mean black eyes and a large red beard that looked like a bloody waterfall. “It smells like pigshit in here. Give us ale and have your lumpy wench feed my men, else I’ll cut your throats.”

Two other chevaliers loomed in the doorway. One was a lanky blond with an axe, and the other a redhead who carried a flanged mace. They strode in, casting menacing grins at the three women in the hut. One of the women was older and obese, with muscly arms from churning and milking.
Probably the wife,
Taki thought. The other two were younger and shapelier, and that meant they were in greater danger. For now, though, the men seemed more focused on eating than anything else.

The farmer’s wife rose to her feet and shuffled to the stove, where she started to stir porridge. “Cosette, Babette, slaughter and prepare a pig for your lords,” she said.

Trying to distance them from the men. Cover them with blood and feathers and excrement to make them less appealing
. How the wife remained so collected while being so helpless impressed him.

“No,” Silas said. “The comely one stays here and sings for us. We’ve been traveling long on the road, defending you ungrateful vermin against the ravenous Imperial hordes.” He rose to his feet, stomped over to one of the daughters, and grasped a handful of her hair.

The girl started to quake in fear.

“When the Imperium takes a town, they like to cut off all the girlies’ titties and serve the boys their own balls,” Silas purred. “They want to make everyone into a eunuch. That’s the sort of monster we protect you from every day. So, sing sweetly for the brave knights, my darling.”

“Babette,
get the pig
,” the wife said. The other daughter, who was more pockmarked, squeezed her sister’s hand, rose shakily, and headed out the broken front door with her head bowed. As she passed, the lanky blond chevalier swatted her rump with a mailed hand. She remained silent.

Taki rubbed his temples.
I have to do something, and soon.
He knew what fate likely awaited the comely girl, but at least she would probably live. If the pockmarked one was messy enough with the slaughter, she might sustain a few cuffs but avoid being violated.
Why do I care? I’m here to steal from these people, too.

“One’s coming up to the cellar entrance,”
Enilna whispered.

Taki clenched his fists. The moment had finally come.
“Jibriil, one’s coming to you. Kill him silently. Enilna, to the barn and kill the other. Watch out for the girl there.”

“With pleasure, Sir Taki.”

Taki let himself form a smile. Violence wasn’t the solution to all problems, but it was a sufficient answer to most. He resisted the temptation to talk while the others carried out their grim duty. The effects of
phon
allowed him to hear every stab, strangling, and thump of flesh against flesh well enough. Within the house, however, things were becoming more dangerous by the moment.