The Broken (The Lost Words: Volume 2) (92 page)

“Put your sword down, Athesian. Stand down. You don’t want to die,” one of the Parusites teased.

“Do you trust that man?” Gerald asked the comrade on his left.

“No, sir,” the man said. It was Sergeant Liam.

Strange
, Gerald thought. They had fought together on the Night of Surprises, and now they found themselves in the same situation. The knot of defenders inched back. Only five paces away, the Parusites followed them, shields lowered, swords and spears extended, waiting.

“Stand down, Athesian!” the man roared.

Behind Gerald, someone slipped in a pool of blood and fell down, cursing. His friends lifted him up, and they sidestepped the pile of corpses. The corridor forked. And down both ways, more enemy soldiers were coming in a tight formation, weapons lowered. There was nowhere else to go.

“Surrender, boys, your last chance!” the Parusite taunted.

Gerald knew they could not break through the enemy ranks. There were just too many for a few exhausted soldiers. Most of all, he knew he did not want to die today. He wanted to live so he could see Amalia again. Deep inside, he knew he might hang for leading the resistance against the Parusite king. He wasn’t sure what had happened to Amalia, either. Was she dead? Had she managed to escape? In a way, he had failed her.
If I’d been near her, I might have saved her
, a romantic fool would have said in a book. But he knew better. Had he not stood on the battlements, shrieking orders, the city would have fallen sooner; more people would have died. Or maybe more had died because he had prolonged the fighting unnecessarily, sacrificing lives for the sake of illusion. All regrets bubbled up when one faced failure.

I tried. But I could have run. Amalia and I could have fled on our own, alone
. But that’s not what real life did to commanders. He knew what his dad would have done. He knew what Adam would have done. And now he faced a choice.

With the sword in hand, he would die. But if he surrendered, he might yet see Amalia. It was a stupid, foolish idea, but it was his grain of sanity in a sea of madness. He lowered his weapon. His troops did the same.

The shouting Parusite stepped closer. “I lied, Athesian,” he said, grinning. A man behind him discharged his crossbow into him. The bolt sunk deep in the hollow of his neck, slicing through armor with ease. Then, the grinning soldier pierced him in the chest with his spear.

Gerald noticed the man had two front teeth missing. Such a useless, annoying detail, he thought as he collapsed. The enemy soldier retrieved his spear in a gush of dark blood and stabbed again. Gerald closed his eyes and dreamed of Amalia.

Vlad listened to the battle unravel around him like a man blind. He could hear the scraping of steel on stone and wood; he could hear boots thundering. People screamed and howled. Doors slammed with force; glass shattered. He knew his father was leading the attack and succeeding. He had not expected any less. Soon, it would be over, and he would rejoin the army.

The door to his chamber burst open. Two men staggered in. They were filthy and sweating and wore uniforms spattered with blood. Vlad thought they might even be his father’s troops, but they looked at him with cold contempt.

The prince-heir wanted to say something smart. But he never got the chance. One of the soldiers wrestled his arms behind him and held him hard. Vlad began to struggle, but the man was too strong. The other guy stepped in front of Vlad, drew a short knife, and started stabbing him in the chest.

Vlad let out a long, breathless wail, thrashing with fury and indignation. How dare they assault the heir to the Parusite king, he thought. There was no honor in that! How could they? His thoughts sluiced away, leaving behind pain, dark, red, feverish.

And still the man stabbed, short, quick thrusts, his face taut with concentration and passion. Blood drops smeared his skin. Blood everywhere, on their filthy uniforms already smeared in gore, on the expensive carpet, on the chair and table. So much blood.

When the prince-heir stopped thrashing and his eyes glazed over, the stabber retrieved his blade and cleaned it on his sleeve. The other man let the body fall. It crumpled like a doll, small and lifeless. All of the royal glory was gone, and only a boy who never got to see his own child was there, dead in a pool of hot blood.

“Let’s go,” the stabber said, wiping his cheeks.

They left the chamber.

I don’t need this
, Amalia thought and threw her wig away. She would not face her attackers hiding under a rag of old hair and glue. She would stand proud and defiant. Her rule might be over, but her fight was not. Only, she did not want to admit she was scared.
Where’s Gerald?
she thought, her gut clenching with cold fear.
Where’s my mother?
was the second thought.

Agatha stood by her side, loyal, confused, lost. The poor maid had been weeping for hours, but now her tears had dried, and her face was red and swollen.

The Parusite soldiers were outside the study. She could hear them laughing as they went from door to door, poking, searching, stealing.
They are looking for me
, she knew with certainty. And then, one of them entered her office.

“Well, well, what do we have here?” he said ceremoniously. “Two lovely birds. Where’s your bitch empress, girls?”

Amalia wanted to shout her name and title, but she said nothing. Agatha was too dazed to notice. Amalia swallowed, trying to put fractured pieces of her frightened mind together.
He does not know who I am. He does not need to know
. Instinctively, she reached to her scalp.
It’s my hair. No empress would wear her hair so short. And the scar
.

The man was not amused by their silence. “Where’s the empress? Tell me!” He stepped closer. Amalia pulled Agatha with her, behind her. “No matter. We’ll find the whore. Now, since I’m here, and you two are here, we might as well play a little.”

Would they dare rape me if they knew who I was?
Amalia wondered.

“Our lord king wouldn’t let us have any fun in the camp. Imagine that. Almost a year without a cunt, a man can go mad like that. Now, be nice, and I promise you, you’ll keep your faces all nice and with teeth and no scars.”

He shuffled closer still. Amalia looked for a weapon, but she had none. How foolish of her. She wondered what had befallen her bodyguards. Oh, if only she had the bloodstaff, she could have destroyed the lot of them in a blink of an eye.
Where’s Gerald?

“You, shorthair!” He pointed at Amalia. “You got a nice mouth. I’ll let you kiss me when I fuck you. And your friend is way ugly. You gonna face the other way around, you hear!”

His fat fingers gripped her arms like a vise, pushed her toward a table, bent her down like a twig. She tried to kick, but he was heavy and strong.

“Don’t fight me, bitch, or I’m gonna cut you. We gonna have some fun, and you just enjoy it, as if you never sucked no royal cock round here.”

Amalia felt panic choke her, but then it was his arm, round her neck, twisting. She tried to punch him, she wriggled her knees, but it as if she was slapping a bull with a mosquito swat. He was leering and breathing in her face.

“Ah, you bitch!” he shouted suddenly and let go. He rubbed his cheek, and his hand came away bloody. “You cut me. Oh, I’m gonna beat you dead.”

At his right, Agatha stood holding a bread knife, shaking, weeping.

The soldier cracked his knuckles and stepped away from Amalia. Air rushed into her lungs. Rage suffused her instantly, turning to molten fire in her bones. The man was wearing a thick belt, studded with pouches and a large sword, and on his left hip, a knife. Without hesitation, she drew it and stabbed him in the neck, just below the jawline.

Whatever he tried to say next came in a torrent of syrupy blood. He staggered, tried another step, and landed facedown. His breath gurgled. He wasn’t dead yet, but he soon would be.

Amalia let the knife drop and vomited on the dying soldier. When she straightened, she saw Jerrica standing in the doorway. Her right arm was limp by her side. “Your Highness, we must go.”

Where is Gerald?
Amalia wanted to say, but she couldn’t find her voice. Instead, she nodded dumbly and followed the female bodyguard into a corridor littered with corpses, friend and foe alike. Agatha followed, clutching to her bread knife fiercely.

King Sergei entered the imperial hall, such as it was, flanked by his dukes. Two figures stood waiting for him. He recognized the old man, but not the somber lady standing at his side.

“Greetings, Your Highness,” Theo said in his slow voice.

Sergei looked around the empty room. “Where’s Amalia? Where’s my son?”

The old adviser put his hands in front of him, clasped, calm, resigned. “I do not know of Empress Amalia’s whereabouts. She might be dead or fled. I regret to inform you that your son has been killed.”

Time stopped.

Sergei felt triumph and excitement leave him, replaced by a dark void. The royal price.

Time resumed, and in an instant, his sword flashed out, leveled just below the old man’s chin. “Where is he?”

Unperturbed, Theodore pointed to the side, where a body lay, wrapped in bloody linen sheets.

Sergei knelt by the prone form and unwrapped the covering. It was Vlad all right, peaceful. He blinked hard. He must not cry. He must not. But someone else was. Archduke Bogomir was on his knees, wailing like a child, trying to cut his own wrist with a knife. His comrades rushed to disarm him and drag him away.

Slowly, the king rose, his heart empty. He looked back at the old man and then brought his sword up again until the tip touched the wizened skin at his gullet. It made no sense that an ulcerous fossil like this thing would live for so long, but his son be robbed of life so early. He wanted to curse the gods, but he wasn’t really sure if they had played a part in his son’s death. Maybe it was all his fault.

From the corner of his eye, now hazy with tears, he saw a slender hand reach up, touch his lethal blade, and gently push down. He turned his head. That woman.

“Where’s Amalia?” He focused.
Did that bitch give the order to kill his son?

Theodore swallowed. “I do not know, Your Highness.”

Sergei saw blood bloom on the metal. The big drop broke and oozed down the fuller. And then, emotions rushed, filling his chest like icy water. He gasped for breath. The intensity was overwhelming. Sergei gritted his teeth and kept them at bay. His sword hand wavered. Strength left him, and the woman turned the blade down, away from the old man’s throat.

“I am truly sorry for your loss, Your Highness,” the adviser said.

“I am sorry, King Sergei,” the woman offered.

He wanted to vent his rage. He wanted to scream. He wanted to hack this annoying old bastard to pieces. But he could not. Sergei had come here to carve a future for Parus. And his work was not done. Vlad had died as a soldier of the realm. Killing this shrunken fool would accomplish nothing.

His mind worked slowly, in bursts of pain and clarity. “Who are you, my lady?” he managed with something approaching civility, wondering where his compassion and manners came from in this dark moment.