Swords of the Imperium (Dark Fantasy Novel) (The Polaris Chronicles Book 2) (31 page)

The crowd of onlookers on the Astarte side of the bridge murmured excitedly, and some reached out to try and touch the trio. Taki shrugged off the grasping hands and continued to walk. He walked silently until they were in the middle of a town center, where inns and taverns offered weary travelers rest and liquid courage.

“Taki!” Enilna jerked his sleeve. “You with me?”

Taki blinked and forced himself to turn. His heartbeat throbbed all the way up to his ears.
How the godrotting hell did we manage to survive that?
He brought a thumbnail to his teeth and started to chew frantically.

“Is this the mental sickness of a virgin?” Enilna asked, rapping on his skull.

Taki glared at her and stopped chewing. “No, it’s not! We were nearly discovered! You were nearly…ugh, I don’t want to talk about it! Dammit, Jibriil! What happened to your grand plan?”

Jibriil rubbed his face. His palms were smeared with sweat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect a trial by combat! I’d forgotten what a twisted bastard the man was.” He clapped a hand on Taki’s back. “Look, though! We’re through the gate. We’re home free! We’re alive, and that’s what matters.”

Taki twisted away. “Look, we just need to leave. I want to get as far away from here as possible, right now.”

Jibriil hung his head. “We can’t. There’s a blizzard cresting the horizon. The roads will be naught but death within a bell. Our best bet is an inn. It’ll be warm. We can eat and then leave early in the morning. Besides, the castellan’s done with us. He doesn’t have jurisdiction over these towns, just his fortress.”

Taki cursed but knew Jibriil was right about the impending blizzard. The clouds overhead were starting to darken, and the air had taken on an unfriendly chill.

“I’m with Jibriil on this one,” Enilna said. “Besides, my feet are cold.”

“I suppose we can hunker down for the night,” Taki said. “Do we even have enough for a room, though?”

“I, uh, know an innkeeper here,” Jibriil said. “She’ll accept forms of payment other than grad.”

Taki scrunched his brow. “Other forms?”

“I’ll pay her back with certain favors.”

“What sort of favors? Jibriil, be clear.”

“Taki, he means that she’ll make him rub her feet all night long,” Enilna said. “Isn’t that right, Jibriil?”

“Absolutely,” Jibriil said with a smile.

“What the hell is it with women and their feet?” Taki said, feeling slightly better.

A silver dusting of snowflakes had already settled on the rooftops in announcement of the storm to come. Taki drew his cloak tighter. Though it was damnable luck that they couldn’t leave until the next day at earliest, Enilna’s presence lessened some of his worry. She was ill mannered and impulsive, but that in turn only warmed him more.
Damn you lot,
he thought to his companions in Tirefire the Lesser,
you’ve all made me a masochist.

Jibriil’s promised lodgings were more humble than Taki had expected.
Actually, it’s more like a cell,
Taki thought as he rearranged the embers in the meager hearth. He looked at their dwindling stack of wood and regretted not having the funds for more. Jibriil was absent, having disappeared into the innkeeper’s chambers to pay off his debt.

“It’s so godrotting cold! Maybe I should’ve taken up the castellan on his offer,” Enilna said.

“Ugh, why did I ever try to stand up for you, again?” Taki said.

“Oh, hush. You know I’m just japing.” Enilna sidled up next to him on the edge of his pallet and slung her blanket around his shoulders. “Here. It’ll be warmer if we’re like this. We’ll save body heat.”

“I think you’re the one draining most of it,” Taki said.

Enilna scowled and shoved her hands under his jerkin and shirt. The chilliness of her fingers against his bare belly made Taki want to yelp and wiggle away, but he controlled himself.

“Thanks for the warms,” she said with a sardonic smile.

“My hands are cold, too. Maybe I should do the same to you!” Taki said. A moment later, he blushed in realization. Hadassah would have slapped him for that. He did not want to think about how Lotte or Lucatiel would have reacted. To his surprise, Enilna moved her hands from his skin, grasped his, and guided them under her shirt. “I w-wasn’t being serious…”

“I lied earlier,” she said. “I don’t see you as just a friend. I like you, Taki Natalis. I desire you as a man. I want you to see me as a woman, not as the scared little girl I was before. You told me I shouldn’t offer myself until I’m ready. But I’m ready now.” She locked her eyes with his. “Please, believe me this time.”

Taki swallowed. The terror that had been in her eyes on the zeppelin was gone. He inched his trembling hands up her torso, and she smiled and kissed him. Again, his heart fluttered as it had when Lotte had done the same. Unlike many times before, he felt truly at ease. It did not matter that he was a virgin and inexperienced. It did not matter even if his comrades were somehow eavesdropping and making jests at his expense. It did not matter if he was Enilna’s superior by age and rank. It did not matter that the castellan of the Teufelsbrucke had almost slaughtered everyone. For once, everything was right. He drew closer.

“Can I…take you?”

Enilna’s lips tickled his ear.
“Yes!”

An axe head crashed through the thin wooden boards of their door, and Taki scrambled for his pistol. Enilna was slower but raised her weapon a moment later when the door shattered on its hinges and a pair of footmen rushed in with cudgels raised.

Taki’s head throbbed painfully as he shot the closest intruder, but he only gritted his teeth and continued. Enilna’s pistol belched fire as it discharged and bowled the remaining man over. Two more, this time in stiff boiled leather, charged in with spears. Curiously, the tips had been blunted. One of them caught Enilna in the side and knocked her back. She crashed against the shutters of their window, clutching at her ribs, and the aged wooden slats fell to pieces.

A howling gust from outside dusted snow in Taki’s hair. He knocked one of the spears away and sent the last round in his pistol into another man in armor. Enilna seemed to want to bolt out of the door, but a deep thudding sound stopped her.

A fully armored Templar ducked into the room wielding a bar mace wrapped in leather thongs. One of the wounded Ursalan footsoldiers tried to reach out for help, only to have his hand crushed under the Templar’s boot.

Taki swore and flooded his prana gates.
They’re trying to capture us alive!

“Out the window!” he ordered Enilna. “Take the roof and get out of town. I’ll hold them here!”

“No! We’re leaving together,” she said.

Taki whirled around and leveled his side arm at her. “
Do not question my orders!
If we don’t get back to the captain, we’re dead for nothing!”

Tears streamed from Enilna’s eyes, and she gnashed her teeth, but she slipped into the icy gusts. Taki turned back to face the Templar. He wondered why it had not simply clobbered him yet. Taki thrust his right hand forward and braced his elbow with his left hand.

“I see,” he said. “It’s me you want, after all. Well, I don’t have all night. Come at me, man!”

The Templar raised its mace to attack. Taki let out a grin and started his incantation. A second later, the swirling whiteness of the blizzard was saturated with blinding light.

With the one eye that wasn’t sealed shut from bruising, Taki stared at the rat with a mixture of fascination and dread. It was one of the largest he’d ever seen, almost the size of Babu back at the Cloud Temple. How the rat had gotten so large was no mystery: it obviously had a taste for human flesh. If Taki wasn’t vigilant, if he fell asleep, then the biting would begin anew.

It was surprisingly hard to figure out how much time had passed since his capture. Enilna had fled, and then he’d woken up in a gaol, bound in chains and encrusted with filth. The first thing he’d seen clearly in the darkness was a yellow-hot iron going into a dirt-encrusted slash on his thigh. He had pissed himself and passed out. When he had woken up again, it was to the pain of a rat trying to tear into his jugular.

He wanted to just strike the creature, but his hands were chained tightly and his feet were manacled together. The rat was his only roommate in a small, squarish cell devoid of even a decaying pallet of straw. Flickering torchlight filtered in from a tiny cutout window set in a thick wooden cell door banded with iron. He wondered if he was in the Teufelsbrucke, but there was no way to be sure. What was obvious, however, was that he was at the enemy’s mercy.

Weakened as he was, there was no hope of casting. Escape was impossible, and he knew better than to expect his comrades to try to rescue him. Even if the primate had been convinced to let the army march, the Imperials were at least a fortnight away. If the rumors were true, the Ursalans would have a slew of tortures planned before they executed him. He wondered if the Templars would want to harvest his corpse for parts, and if that would happen before or after he died.

If any of them see my manhood, I’m in trouble!
Remembering Draco’s words from long ago made Taki smile.
Well, mine’s never been used. Get it while it’s fresh,
he thought. Letting the rat tear his throat open might be less painful than what his captors had in store and would ensure that he did not betray his comrades while maddened with pain.

He wondered if Enilna had made it back to safety or if she’d died. Sending her out into a mountain blizzard was a stupid idea in retrospect, but death from hypothermia was much gentler than anything that awaited her here. If she had been captured, though…Taki clenched his jaw and bared his neck for the rat. It was better to die not knowing.
Kill them for me, Lotte. Kill them for me, Sir Aslatiel. I’m sorry I failed.
The creature inched forward with its teeth bared and tail flicking in anticipation of blood.

The cell door opened. The rat whirled and hissed at whatever was coming to steal its prey and was promptly crushed by a massive iron boot. A Templar reached down, grasped Taki by his wrists, and jerked him upright. Taki gasped as his shoulders bent at an unnatural angle, and he retched bile all over the Templar’s gauntlets.

A man sucked his teeth and shook his head. “My dear squire, you’re filthy.”

Taki raised his head. He recognized the voice from before. It was the castellan, Duvalier.

“You’ll get nothing from me,” Taki said. His voice was weaker than he would’ve wanted for this show of bravado.

Duvalier smiled. “Are you talking about your plan to entice the primate into Osterbrand clutches? I knew what that apostate was up to before your little trek to the Cantons. I also know the Liberation Army’s on its way, but none of that is of any consequence. My humble fortress is located in quite the natural bottleneck, so it matters not if the padishah sends fifty men or fifty thousand. We’re well prepared for any attack and always have been. So I need no betrayal from you, little squire.”

“Then just kill me.”

“That simply won’t do,” the castellan said. “You’ve attracted the interest of my princess. Her Highness was quite attracted to your display of chivalry, no matter that you’re a deceitful Polaris serving the Imperials now. She could barely contain her excitement. I was obligated to follow her wishes and retrieve you for further study.”

A princess? Like that monster in Astarte? And one who can smell us?

“Oh, and the girl you were with,” Duvalier said, licking his lips. “If it consoles you somewhat, we found her frozen corpse being gnawed on by wolves. A pitiable sight.”

Taki lowered his head and stared at the grimy cobbles below.
Thank God
. His teeth began to chatter, and tears dripped to the floor.

“Now, time to make you presentable for Her Highness,” Duvalier said. “She simply cannot wait to begin. Templars, take him to the chamber.”

“I’ll have you know something, milord,” Taki grated.

“Yes?”

“We don’t have fifty, or fifty thousand, or fifty million coming for you. There are
seven
of us.” He looked up and met the castellan’s gaze. “And I give you my word that those seven are going to come here and kill you. Then, they’ll tear down your capital and kill the Sanctissimus Rex. They’re going to destroy your putrid society and spread the Way to all corners of Ursala. We’re going to liberate the shit out of you.”

The Holy Sepulchre of the Dominion had once been a pilgrimage destination, but now its gates were closed to all. Angry devotees had raged that the usurper basileus had ceded to Imperial mandate and shuttered the site to all, for the Osterbrand oppressors hated all things built on faith. The booming towns built on the pilgrimage route had since fallen into ruin, and only brothels and alehouses remained.

Ringo regarded his dingy surroundings with disinterest and disdain. The Argead Dominion was little more than a buffer state and a knockoff of true Ursalan cultural glory. The only thing that had prevented the Rex from simply unseating the pretentious basileioi was the God Hand. But if the Argeads truly worshipped their precious God Hand and its vessel, the
Ooss
, then they were doing a poor job of showing proper reverence. Now, he no longer felt any twinges of guilt about the impending theft.
These people don’t deserve nice things.