Empress Adirn 13: No Place Like Home
Cobblestones rattled the wheels of Adirn’s carriage and clattered underneath the hooves surrounding her; it made for a loud bed of white noise but the empress willed it to be louder still, so that it might drown out the greetings and well-wishes of the people of Serenitas. Although the curtains were drawn to block out any sights of the White Alliance’s capitol, the doggedly persistent sunlight still assailed them and leaked in through the edges. Empress Deepgrave wished for rain more than she ever had in her life; for a downpour that would send the crowds scattering back to their homes, and for thick, black storm clouds that would blot out the sun and do a real credit to the mood she was in. Clouds had always co-operated with the protagonists of stories she’d read before her coronation in that regard, but apparently even the weather sough to conspire against her as an empress.
In the faint glow that penetrated the carriage she could see little but Captain Toxis’ ever-impassive expression and the ugly, impudent ‘gift’ which Divine Light Thomas Dove had bestowed upon her. It bled the aroma of another of his perfumes, this one smelling like a combination of freshly cut grass and cinnamon, into the body of the carriage and made the air almost unbreathable. Every now and again, when it became almost too much, Adirn would lean for the window to ventilate the carriage, but to open the window would be to invite another bombardment of generous offerings from the townspeople; she already had plenty of shoes and enough of a reputation on that front.
Barely a word was spoken in the dark interior of the carriage as they wound their blind way back through Serenitas. Captain Toxis wasn’t a gregarious conversationalist at the best of times, and Adirn herself was far too preoccupied with some top-flight imperial seething to get a chat flowing. Previous bad moods of her life and times had given her practice with minor seething, generally over having insufficient light by which to read books, or unhelpful attitudes to whether or not she needed to be in the bath for that long and so forth, but none could compare to the regal fury with which she was seething on that journey. It encapsulated the indigence of being denied what she wanted, the offence at being insulted, the frustration of a wasted trip, the anxiety of an unknown path forward, and even, a little bit, the feeling of inferiority inherent in needing to use staircases back in her own palace. Her mood was an artwork of negativity and anger that explored whole new realms of betrayal by her own hopes and expectations.
It was only by dint of reduced noise from enthusiastic passers-by that Adirn knew when they’d left Serenitas itself. Rolling along the spitefully well-maintained roads that led back through the meadows and farmlands of the White Alliance, she was at least granted peace and quiet by which to ruminate. Over and over again the insults and prejudices levelled at her by Thomas Dove and his cabal of self-righteous Illuminators played through her mind; a new and more-devastating counter-argument came to mind every time, and the empress cursed herself for not being wittier, or angrier, or in the company of a zealously aggressive Captain Toxis. It was only when they reached the mouth of the hilly pass, and they were back at the perfect angle for Serenitas to reflect its beam of blinding light at the road, that Adirn could snap herself out of the fatal loop. Once again a flare of dazzling brightness lit the curtains up like a floppy lampshade and shocked the empress into breaking her mental rhythms. As she squinted against the awful illumination, blinking away afterimages, she could at least console herself that Serenitas had been left behind; out of sight and out of mind for at least a little while.
Unfortunately, that only made way for the next source of utterly overwhelming dread.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Keto.” She said, her voice dry from under-use since leaving the Radiant Citadel.
“With regards to what, eminence?” He asked innocently.
“With regards to what?” She echoed incredulously “To everything! To the whole reason we made this trip. They’re not going to call off the debt.”
“Then the situation is largely as it was before. You’ve lost nothing but a handful of days inside the walls of the Imperial Palace.”
“I think I’ve lost more than a few days, Keto. The Dark Council are going to depose me there and then when I admit that we failed. I’m not so naïve as to believe that they’ll actually honour their mutual blackmail with me after this failure.”
“Then you enact your blackmail on them, your eminence. That’s sort of how the whole premise works…” He suggested. Adirn shook her head defeatedly.
“It won’t make any difference. You and I both know that they’ll go further than I will to get their own way. We’ll find Count Rott’s militia on our doorstep, or an assassin courtesy of Lady Vipus in my bed chambers long before they relent to my threats against them. I’m too weak and good to stand up to the Dark Council, I’m too weak and evil to win any headway with the White Alliance, and you are just one man. A loyal and capable one, but just one. Against a whole empire we’re doomed.”
Captain Toxis shuffled a little in his seat and rested both hands in his lap.
“You underestimate the loyalty and capability of my palace guard, eminence. Were it so easy to invade the City of Torment then every one of your predecessors would have fallen that way, or they’d have been slain by my forces at the pay of one noble or another. My commitment and duty to the throne is also that of my palace guard, and you have my word on that. You are safe from any of the amateur militias that your council might field against us.”
Keto’s words poured like warm was through the back of Adirn’s mind, seeking out cold crevices and dark thoughts in an effort to bring comfort. Those negative spaces, however, did not want to be filled; with feral desperation they searched for a reason to perpetuate themselves and find fault with Keto’s logic.
“None of the earlier rulers gave the Dark Council a reason to try very hard to overthrow them, though.” She said, relaying the fruit of her malaise’s labours. “Sending assassins and orchestrating accidents is an easy and distracting pastime for these people, and one they clearly enjoy, but open insurrection takes far more organisation and coin. Tyrranick gave them freedom to cull and mutilate as they pleased so why would they expend all that effort in ousting him? I’m a different matter. I’m making life harder for them. I might well be worth the effort. Everyone has a price, and it would only take one of your guards to be bought off by the combined coffers of the Dark Council, open the gates for the insurrectionists, and let the council succeed.”
“Not so, eminence.” Keto defied. “Forgive me, but you are mistaken. The reason we are safe from insurrection and bribery is because heads roll at the suggestion. The loyalty of the palace guard is to me and me alone; any who insinuate otherwise find a blade at, or possibly through, their throat before they can finish making the offer.”
Adirn looked at him with dejected disbelief etched onto her face.
“Loyal they might be, but anyone can be tempted with enough gold.”
“They know that they wouldn’t make it out alive if it happened, eminence. Treason is a capital offence and I exact the punishments personally.”
“But how would you possibly know every clandestine offer made to your palace guard? Do you keep track of every one of your soldiers’ movements?”
“I don’t need to. I learn everything I need to from Chamberlain Greysoul.”
The empress dropped her head into her hands and sighed heavily.
“I have the loyalty of your guard based on the ever-present threat of the testimony of a ghost?”
“Until my dying breath, your eminence.” Keto said, without a shred of humour or irony. “This situation with the White Alliance is a lost battle, not a lost war. I will keep the palace guard in check, and they in turn will hold the nobles to account, and you can concentrate on ruling. With or without the White Alliance and with or without the loyalty of the Dark Council you will be kept safe and you will deliver what you promised.”
Adirn blinked tears away. Openly weeping in front of Keto wasn’t an enormous problem in and of itself, but taking the great, heaving breaths of a really hearty sob would lead to inhaling too much perfume from the chaise-longue. Still her frustration wanted to grow yet further at Captain Toxis’ dogged belief in her, but more and more of his cascade of comfort was flowing in. Slowly, it began to overwhelm the maelstrom of her own negativity.
“Argh.” She growled. Captain Toxis remained passive as he watched her. “I can’t even wallow in self-pity without someone contradicting me.” Captain Toxis shrugged. Then smirked. Adirn couldn’t help copying him, and then, without having realised how tense she’d become, her body flopped loose. “Thank you captain. Your dedication is much appreciated. Again.” She said, swallowing the lump back down and pursing her lips. “But I still don’t know what to do or where to go next with this. I need to make something else happen, some other plan to rescue the Onyx Empire, and me, from the Dark Council. Two years is the absolute maximum amount of time we have, and probably they will all betray me far sooner than that.”
“You managed to think of this plan. You’ll think of another, your eminence.”
“What do you think I should do? Do you have any ideas of other support I could garner?” She asked earnestly.
“I am just a soldier, eminence. I leave the state craft to you.”
“No, Keto. Please. I need some help.”
Captain Toxis rubbed at his chin with one gloved hand. There was a rough, scratching sound which was either the glove moving against his stubble or the wheels turning in his head; it was impossible to tell.
“It seems to me that you’ve made an assumption, your eminence. Namely, that you’re going to admit anything to the Dark Council about the truth of this visit.” He said.
“You think I should lie to them?”
“I think that you could lie to them, and that it would be the best way to prevent them from using the lack of success here against you.” He clarified.
“Hm.” The empress pondered, frowning. “It feels too… dishonest” She assessed, redundantly.
“I do not think that they are owed honesty, eminence.”
“True enough. Yes, fine, I could lie to them. It would waylay their wrath, but the money will still be leaving our treasury and I still won’t be able to use it. If I can’t use it then they’ll still find that conditions are poor and, eventually, revolt.”
“Another assumption, eminence. Why pay still pay the White Alliance when you could keep the money and spend it on something worthwhile?” He suggested.
“Why pay? Because they haven’t written the debt off! They refused on the grounds that we’d use it to raise an army and they will expect the money.” Adirn explained, worried that Captain Toxis might have suffered a devastating attack of short term memory loss.
“They refused to stop collecting payments, your eminence, but you could equally refuse to offer them.”
Such a flagrant and consistent display of encouragement to betray a commitment and disobey an accord left the empress speechless. As if it were as simple as not throwing one’s shoes onto a passing carriage, or not declaring war on a much larger neighbouring empire, Keto was seriously proposing that she plainly refused to pay. Like a fish biting ineffectually at flies above the surface of the water, Adirn’s own jaw opened and closed to deliver a refutation that wouldn’t arrive. There had to be a reason that they’d not withheld payment in the past. Why did anybody ever pay anybody else? In that moment it seemed like the most preposterous promise that a person could possibly keep when instead they could just not.
“Surely…” she finally started, unsure of herself. Keto waited politely for her to finish the thought. “… surely they’d just take it by force if we refuse to pay.” The captain shook his head.
“I don’t believe they will your eminence. They said so themselves when they spoke to you this morning. They refuse to be the aggressor in any conflict, and there are no trade deals or treaties between your empires beyond the war debt, so they have no way of forcing to you comply. Why would you pay?”
“I… I hadn’t thought of it like that.” Adirn admitted, an appealing warmth suffusing through her at the idea of defaulting on a debt. “I could just hold on to the money. All I would need to do it prove that I wasn’t using it to raise an army and their objections would all be based on nothing. And it’d be easy to prove that because I wouldn’t have an army raised at all.”
“It would demonstrate that you are true to your word.”
A contradiction began to trickle through the back of Adirn’s mind.
“No. No I think it would be doing the opposite Keto. It would be breaking the terms of a treaty. Several treaties, technically.”
“Not ones to which you personally gave your word. They were signed by the Dark Council on in lieu of living rulers every time.”
“True…” Adirn agreed, before another gut-punch of reality slammed into her. “… except I just asked for permission not to pay and they didn’t grant it. Why ask permission if I intended to ignore the answer I didn’t want? It’s effectively the same as making that promise and giving that word myself.”
“You are Oathbreaker Adirn Deepgrave the Denier, though, your eminence.” Captain Toxis said without hesitation.
Never had the empress suspected that she would give so severe a look to Keto, especially while he was busily lifting her from despair. And yet, across the dim carriage, she stared daggers fit to adorn any imperial gown.
“You might not like the name, but if they judge you as an oathbreaker regardless then why not at least get the benefit of it. You get to spend the money on the people and try to save your empire, and they get to feel smug and superior about it.”
“I don’t want to be an oathbreaker though, Keto. I appreciate what you’re saying but if I do this then I’ll be endorsing lying, breaching treaties, and betraying trusts. The White Alliance will never believe a word out of my mouth no matter what else I do to win it.”
Captain Toxis shrugged.
“When I judge a solider of mine to be unreliable it is across several disobeyed orders or failed exercises. For them to win that trust back takes just as many demonstrations that they are dependable, your eminence.”
“You think that as long as I double down on reliability after this betrayal then they’ll come around?”
“Not quite, eminence. I think that the reputation of the Onyx Empire has been built across hundreds of years, and by hundreds of rulers, despots, injustices, atrocities and impolite interactions. It may well take another hundred years for that reputation to be repaired.”
Adirn’s heart sank.
“You think that I have no hope of being trusted anyway? Because of what the previous rulers did?”
“I think that you are trying to build a new legacy, your eminence. You fight battles against hanging and burning so that future rulers can fight against unkind words and unfair treatment. While those unkind words and unfair treatment are still ongoing the White Alliance will not trust us, but that’s beyond anyone else’s control. It serves us better to default on a debt and improve our empire than it does to make payments and remain as we are; the broken promise is less of a travesty then perpetuating poverty. History will remember what you did even if Thomas Dove will never accept it.”
Empress Adirn interlaced her fingers and rubbed at her palms with alternate thumbs. She wrung her hands and stared into her lap, bit the inside of her lip, shuffled her feet, and pulled her elbows close into her sides.
“I think you’re right Keto.” She said softly, after her various bodily manipulations. “History will remember Oathbreaker Empress Adirn Deepgrave the Denier as my name, but they’ll remember my deeds as what lifted the Onyx Empire from the hole in which it has been languishing. And whatever the White Alliance decides to remember about it is their own business. To hell with the stuck-up pigeon. Thank you, Keto.”
“I am just doing my duty eminence.”
“I appreciate it. Even if your duty is to remove all hope that I will ever be seen as a kind empress, and to turn my imperial ambition into a multi-generational event.”
Captain Toxis shrugged.
They sat in silence for a minute or two while Adirn came to terms with the real world. Feeling her whole her perspective being twirled around bodily in mid-air was hardly a welcome sensation, but it did bring relief too; she had a path to dealing with the Dark Council in the aftermath of her failure in Serenitas. Presumably, she thought to herself, they would all respect a decision to simply withhold payment far more than securing an agreement to write off the debt; she might as well lean into the useful aspects of their moral destitution if it was going to persist. Another thought occurred to her.
“Where on earth did all that insight on the relative morality of debt, alleviating poverty, building a legacy and all the rest of it come from? I’ve spent most of my reign begging you to provide some opinions or advice on every decision I try to make and getting nothing back. And now suddenly you’re a philosopher as well as apparently being an ex-clergyman and having a brother who can mix the most potent poisons in the empire. I swear the more I learn about you the less I feel like I know who you are.”
Captain Toxis shrugged.
“I just described the situation as I see it, your eminence. My own history is nothing of particular interest.”
“I could order you to tell me about it all, you know? Then it’d be your duty to tell me.”
Keto offered no reply, nor refutation, nor argument.
“I won’t though. Your privacy is to be respected, especially having done so much for me. But maybe, one day when things are more settled and stable, I would like to hear about it all. As a friend rather than your imperial eminence.”
“As you wish, your imperial eminence.” He said, smirking.
Through the valleys and meadows of the White Alliance the imperial retinue travelled, heading ever-onward to the border and back towards the City of Torment. For much of the day Adirn was preoccupied with planning. There was the matter of exactly how she would sell the new story to the Dark Council, how to put an end to the payments, and, most importantly, how to determine where best to use her newly liberated funds. When details eluded her grasp the empress would ask Keto for his recollection or opinion, and together they would craft some kind of solution which satisfied as many needs as possible. Sitting there in that carriage, looking at her guard captain over an infuriating chaise-longue and rolling through the roads of a foreign empire, Adirn finally felt like she was taking care of the business of an empress. This was statecraft and the management of an empire. This was helping people and making sure that the right actions were taken across her lands, rather than legislating against trying to make the external parts of someone’s ear become internal.
While Adirn was grappling with the minutia of how exactly one would go about having the golden gallows in her palace’s storeroom melted down, vitally without the mistress of records knowing about it until the deed was done, a cry from outside the carriage caught her attention.
“Did you hear that?”
“It sounded like Elizabeth.” Keto answered. He leaned over, pulled back the curtains, and opened the window. The light of midday had long since faded into the dull glow of a late afternoon, casting a golden pallor over the grasslands outside the carriage. A conspicuous line ran perpendicularly to the road, with the grass behind them looking lush and vibrant in comparison to the blackened scrub on parched earth in the direction they were heading.
“We’re back! We made it out of the White Alliance!” Cassandra Spite shouted from the other side of the carriage, to the mirth and merriment of the whole retinue.
“You know what that means then. Guard up. There will be bandits around again.” Keto ordered, to another cheer. Adirn rubbed at her face. “Better the devil you know than the over-polite farmer you don’t, as they say, your eminence.” Captain Toxis explained. It didn’t make her feel any better about it.
Adirn closed the window but left the curtains open. Dead and decaying though it might have been, this was her home and her empire; at least when she was called a liar here, it was because people hated how nice she was rather than how evil they presumed her to be. She could feel the exact moment that they crossed back into Onyxian land, thanks to the sudden rattling, rumbling and general bouncing around of the carriage. Smooth surfaces had once again become a loose collection of rubble under the wheels, and in protest at their less-than-salubrious travel conditions the chaise-longue and the roof-shoes had all started to jump up and down. More than once the chaise-longue threatened to slide across the floor and crack into the imperial knees, until she started using it as a footrest. It made her feel dirty to get any use from a gift of Thomas Dove’s, and she resolved to tie it in place when they next stopped to camp.
It was barely twenty minutes of travel into the Onyx Empire that Keto’s prophecy came true, with another cry from outside.
“Ambush!” Cried one of the riders, before their voice was overtaken by the creaking and crashing of a tree slamming down across the road. Another rang out from behind, shaking the ground.
“Hold where you are, pretenders!” A woman’s harsh voice shouted.
“Cut them down!” Keto ordered, swinging out of the carriage door. “Oh…”
“What’s happening Keto?” Adirn asked. He’d not sounded so worried about any of the previous bandit attacks they’d experienced.
“We have you surrounded and outnumbered! Lay down your weapons and hand over the pretender empress.” The woman ordered.
“That’s what’s going on, your eminence. Stay in the carriage. It will keep you safer from their arrows when they attack.”
“They want me?” She asked dumbly. Half-a-second’s thought made her remember how unsurprising that should have been.
“What is the meaning of this! By order of Captain Keto Toxis you will stand down or face my wrath for desertion and treason!”
“We answer to the new regime, not that of the Oathbreaker. Release her to us and no blood need be shed.” The woman ordered back. Adirn unhappily noted her telling use of the word ‘need’ in place of ‘will’.
“There is no regime other than that of Empress Deepgrave’s, and no authority higher than mine from which you take orders.” Keto shouted back. Rustling from either side of the carriage was the only response.
“Actually, you’d better come out, your eminence.” He murmured into the carriage.
“What about the arrows?”
“They also have torches. Better to be shot than burned inside a carriage.”
Recognising good advice when she heard it, Adirn brushed down and straightened her clothes, then, with as much regal grace as she could muster, stepped from the carriage into the dusk of the Onyx Empire. Standing over them on the raised banks either side of the road were thirty or more soldiers dressed in the livery of Viscount Sinistere; a grey-green that suited nothing but mould, and that shone wetly with an oily sheen. Around half of them had bows trained on the carriage and the retinue, while the rest had spears, swords, or flaming torches and a glint in their eye.
“Ah, the false empress!” The woman said. Adirn turned towards the head of the carriage and saw, standing a short way along the road by the felled tree was a tall, muscular woman in the same colours. On her head was the kind of plumed helmet that screamed both ‘authority’ and ‘gaudy’ at equal volumes. “Hand her over to us and you shall be rewarded as the vermin-catchers you are.”
“You are all traitors! Stand down!” Keto bellowed, by way of declining.
“Who are you and what is the meaning of this?” Adirn demanded, as imperially as she could manage from her position of admitted disadvantage.
“Flagella Bite, head of Emperor Sinistere’s traitor-hunters.” Smirked the woman. “And you will be my greatest capture; the woman who would try to sell our empire to the White Alliance.”
“Emperor Sinistere?!” Shrieked Adirn in raw fury. “This is treason!”
“The mutinous filth will be cleaned from your throne, eminence.” Keto said, as a matter of undeniable fact.
“The only treason is attempting to buy your life from the White Alliance at the cost of our gloriously despicable empire. To deny our heritage of blood for some weak notion of holding hands in a flowery meadow.” She spat. “If you wish to be a lap dog then it won’t be to Thomas Dove the sunlit pigeon; you can lie in chains at Emperor Sinistere’s feet.”
A cheer erupted up from all around the carriage. They were entirely encircled. Adirn looked around herself, as much as she could with a carriage in the way, and saw each of her retinue marked by at least two archers.
“I am the ruler by right, and my business with the White Alliance is my own. Viscount Sinistere will answer for his crimes but you needn’t be punished for following orders. Stand down and you will suffer no recrimination for this.”
“Pah! You show weakness and mercy, even here! You’re no empress of mine.”
Keto drew his sword.
“There’s no way you can fight them all, Keto.”Adirn warned.
“I’ve survived worse odds than this, your eminence.” He dismissed.
“And can you say the same of the rulers in your protection at the time?”
Captain Toxis stiffened, and didn’t respond.
“It looks as though they have reinforcements on the way, sir.” Cassandra called to Captain Toxis. Behind the band of soldiers more shapes were indeed moving along the road towards them. But where the intercepting band were decked in the livery of the Sinistere’s grimy regime, this new group rode under a different banner; a flaying knife and a rather unhappy looking gentleman at its business end.
“Countess Lascera.” Adirn cursed. All those acts of obedience had been a smokescreen, and all those polite words had been honey-coated poison.
A few of Sinistere’s traitor-hunters looked around at the approaching riders.
“We were not expecting reinforcements, ma’am.”
“No. And they have had a wasted trip, but more witnesses to our victory is no shame.” Answered Flagella. “Now you, Oathbreaker, to my side.”
Adirn sighed heavily and took a step forwards. Keto’s hand lashed out and pushed her back.
“Not while there is breath in my body.”
Countess Lascera’s riders still approached quickly. Less than a minute and they’d be standing there, among the ranks of Sinistere’s traitor-hunters. Even if the odds had been workable before, there was no way of fighting back now.
“You are a tiresome old fool, Keto, but the Viscount wishes for you to suffer more greatly than an arrow here and now would allow. That is the only reason you are not already dead. Now allow the Oathbreaker to come to my heel or you will be made to regret your actions.”
“Keto please-“ Adirn said, pushing against his arm, but it was like trying to knock down a wall using a steamed dandelion.
“Come and get her.”
Flagella gave a flick of one finger, and there was a thunking noise. Captain Toxis, to his credit, didn’t scream. He simply looked down and saw the arrow pinning his right foot to road. Adirn, to her discredit, did all his screaming for him when she saw the blood start to pool. Still his arm was held as rigidly as Count Rott’s determination to invade the White Alliance.
“Keto let me past! I’m going with them before someone gets killed!”
“Bit late for that one, pretender.” Sneered Flagella. Another flick from her finger sent an arrow soaring into the heart of the carriage driver. He slumped over the reins. “You see, only Keto has the special honour of glancing blows.”
The sound of hoofbeats finally overtook Flagella’s voice. With a weary sigh and a roll of her eyes she waited for the sounds to die off so that she could continue gloating. Behind her, Countess Lascera and a small group of the riders with her pulled to a halt and dismounted.
While the stand-off remained as tense and taut as the bowstrings on the banks of the road, the empress stared daggers, not unlike the ones on Lascera’s own banner, at the countess. Dressed as ever in her leather bindings, with blades strapped around her body and a cruel, thin smile on her face, she landed gently on the road and left her horse where it was. A few others did so alongside her, while the rest rode around and took up the rear of Flagella Bite’s ranks. Waiting impatiently but without action, the traitor-hunters allowed their unwanted reinforcements to finish getting into position such that they might witness the arrest. Soon, the encircling force was twice as thick again as it had already been. Adirn shook her head in dismay at not only her own precarious position, but the Dark Council’s penchant for going overboard in their cruel designs. She half expected to see a legion of Count Rott’s militia carrying a galleon down the road towards them at any second.
“Greetings, Flagella. Greetings, your eminence.” Countess Lascera called out, barely holding back a snigger as she stepped along the road. She vaulted easily over the fallen tree and then reached towards two sheaths at her hips, drawing her weapons in a smooth, practiced motion. With one cruelly curved blade in each hand she sauntered towards the front of the ambushing ranks. Every footstep rattled with her additional sheathed blades. Holding her hands in front of herself at shoulder-height, palms facing up with bent elbows and dagger blades facing inward, she looked like the front of an enormous ant with metal mandibles. Adirn wasn’t sure if that was supposed to make her more intimidating or if it provided some kind of advantage in combat, but either way it was ridiculous.
“You seem to be hard at work here, Mistress Bite. On the order of the slimy Viscount himself?”
“The new Emperor Sinistere, you mean.” Flagella snapped without turning to face the Countess. Her gaze was still hungrily on Adirn. Captain Toxis was taking the arrow-wound like a champ, standing almost perfectly still despite what must have been excruciating pain.
Countess Lascera was less than an arm’s length behind Flagella Bite, and her own retinue were closely in rank with the remaining traitor-hunters. It was, for all intents and purposes, an army standing around a single carriage with less than ten combatants.
With the butt of one dagger, Countess Lascera tapped Flagella on the shoulder and winked at the empress.
As the head traitor-hunter turned reluctantly around, the mandible arms of Countess Lascera closed together in a whip-crack of motion, slamming twin blades into either side of Flagella’s neck. A gout of blood fountained from one side and she crumpled to the floor with a gurgling wheeze. In almost perfect unison, Lascera’s whole retinue plunged their own weapons into the ring of traitor-hunters; with a few sad rattles of chainmail and weaponry, the ambush was turned into a perfect ring of blood. Adirn stood gaping at the ring of death and stared fearfully at Countess Lascera. Keto couldn’t defend her this time. The Countess looked up from the limp and useless form of Mistress Bite and smiled at the empress in a way that Adirn found deeply confusing.
“Your eminence, I came as quickly as I could. I regret that your driver and Captain Toxis’ foot could not have been spared.” She said simply.
The empress had no idea of how to respond. The cogs turned inside her mind and she slowly came to realise that for once the Countess was actually sincerely smiling and not smirking.
“Are you hurt, eminence?” Continued Lascera, advancing on the empress and Keto. Instinctively Adirn moved to stand further behind Captain Toxis. “You are all safe. See to your empress and your captain.” Lascera ordered the riders. The imperial retinue began to dismount and gather around the empress and Captain Toxis, while Countess Lascera continued to casually approach. She took an oil cloth from one of many leather pouches at her waist and wiped each of her blades in turn. Elizabeth Ichorborn crouched down and started to gently work the arrow free from Keto’s foot with a series of deeply unsettling squelching and cracking sounds.
“Er… no. I’m fine.” Adirn said, suspicion gouting from her mouth like blood had from Flagella Bite’s neck. The image refused to leave her mind’s eye.
“Excellent. We’ll get Captain Toxis’ foot seen to immediately; there are bandages and poultices in our packs.”
Under Adrin’s uncertain gaze Countess Lascera continued to advance. From all around she could see the countess’ riders searching the bodies of Sinistere’s traitor-hunters, apparently unconcerned about the empress or her retinue.
“Did… did you come here to rescue me?”
“Of course! You are my empress. I will never bow to Viscount Sinistere as an Emperor, even if he hadn’t snuck upon the throne like a coward.” She sneered, grimacing at the mere taste of Sinistere’s name on her tongue. It was a lot like the foul taste that Adirn got whenever she saw the oily sheen around him.
“So there’s been a coup? I was away for all of three or four days and there was a coup!?”
“I’ll explain all the details when there is the opportunity, your eminence, but for now we must leave. I’m sure that the Dark Council will realise Flagella’s failure to capture you soon, and my failure to assist her, and then they’ll send a larger force out. It’ll take longer because they’ll go via different villages; can’t burn the same one down twice in two days.”
“I assume they’ve tried before.” Adirn asked. Countess Lascera nodded. “Wonderful. But you are right, we should leave.”
“Everyone! Form two teams to clear these barricades, then gather up the bodies and burn them. No flaying.”
“Why is it so much worse to flay them than burn them? They’re dead either way.” Called back one of the men in Countess Lascera’s team. The countess shrugged and turned to Adirn.
“Well, your eminence?”
“It’s… it’s just unnecessary. Why do you want to flay them?”
“It’s what we do. It’s an art. It’s a dance between blade and flesh that tells a story every time. We can make leather from it too, so there’s less waste.”
The empress took another look at the countess’ clothing and shuddered. It was the kind of shudder that shook her whole body and made her gag.
“It’s not people leather that you’re… you know…”
Countess Lascera looked down at herself and then started to laugh hysterically. As her shoulders shook so did her various sheaths, and the daggers rattled along in laughter with her.
“Oh my word.” She said, wiping a tear from one eye. “Oh word no. Human leather is terrible for clothing. We use it for banners, and wrappings for the prisoners to let them know what happens.”
Adirn’s grimace was deeply expressive.
“That is to say, we used to do so, your eminence. But our question remains as to whether we have permission to flay these executed men?”
There was a final wet, tearing sound as the arrow was wrenched free from Captain Toxis’ foot. He wobbled slightly, but remained standing at Adirn’s side and faced Countess Lascera with one hand still on his weapon.
“No. While I grant that they’re already dead and burning them isn’t much better, we haven’t the time to spare. And if I let you flay them all then any force that chases us down will know that you had a hand in their downfall.”
“I think they’ll know that anyway. There’s no way that Keto here and your eight riders could have slain all of the traitor-hunters, your eminence.”
“Even so, we need to be on our way without delay or making an enormous trail.”
“But you accept that, without time pressure, we could do a little flaying?”
Adirn looked flatly at the Countess’ expectant excitement. Clearly she was a disturbed and sick individual, but she was trying her best. And she had just saved their lives at great risk to her own for nothing other than loyalty; loyalty that had been won, perversely, by denying the woman access to a privy. It was too hard to say no.
“Fine, you can flay one of them while the bodies are burned and the barricades are cleared.” The empress conceded. Countless Lascera nodded gratefully and then leapt into action.
“No flaying the bodies, just get them burned and the barriers away. And someone bring bandages and poultices for Captain Toxis.” She ordered. There was a flurry of frenzied activity as her forces set about rolling tree-trunks, stripping bodies, making a pile, and bringing medical supplies to the imperial carriage. Adirn made the mistake of looking up towards Countess Lascera, and felt all the revulsion of potential human-leather clothing come rushing back as the flayer went about her grim business. It was an almost fascinating ballet of the macabre as Flagella Bite became less of a person and more of a lesson in subdermal anatomy, but the empress had to look away before she passed out. In an impressively and alarmingly short time, the countess returned to the carriage with a horribly full and wet satchel.
“Flagella’s body is with the others for burning now, and I have my trophy, your eminence.” She announced, as if that was something that the empress had explicitly requested.
“Fine. Are we ready to leave?”
“It won’t be long. I can have one of my soldiers drive the carriage for you, but we will need somewhere to go. All of the fiefdoms will be under surveillance.”
“What about the church of Virum?” Adirn suggested.
“The church will provide information and give sanctuary if they are loyal, but they can’t defend you from a full militia. The rector’s guard, while impressive, is only really effective in the Cathedral of the Deep.” Keto assessed with a wince. Adirn really wished he would sit down, but ordering him to do so felt too patronising.
“I could provide you shelter in Castle Skinless but my own forces will be quickly overwhelmed by the combined might of Count Rott, Viscount Sinistere, Lady Vipus and the others.” Countess Lascera added.
“The whole empire is rife with those who would sell the empress out. No-one can be trusted here. If we are to remain within the borders than we need to wrest back control immediately.” Cassandra said, bloody arrow for some reason clutched between her teeth.
There was silence.
“I know a place where we can hide. We’ll be welcomed and safe there, and none of the Dark Council will think to look for us.” The empress declared suddenly.
“Where? I shall order Marcus Slasher to drive your carriage there.”
“The name won’t mean anything to him, but I can provide directions. I would be grateful if you and your forces followed along as well, Countess. We can formulate a plan of action and you can tell me what’s been going on in my absence.”
“As you will, your eminence. We will follow and reconvene in safety.”
With clinical efficiency the roadblocks were cleared, the bodies were stacked, and put to the torch, and the newly enhanced retinue set off along the road towards what they hoped would be safety. Behind them the sky glowed orange with flame, as Lascera’s pyre consumed those who sought to kidnap the empress, erasing them from the world. With a sinking feeling Adirn observed that the flames seemed far brighter and broader than the pile of corpses had been, and tried not to dwell on how much of the forest had just been put to the torch. There were far more important matters to mull over, and a long road ahead to sanctuary.
A quiet, narrow track led through the darkness. Flanked by hedges twice as high as a mounted rider, the only way to travel was inexorably forwards along the ruts left by years of carriage wheels that cut the road come rain or shine. Hooves clattered against the dry ground and carriage wheel s crunched loose earth and stones away underneath themselves. From outside only the light of a few torches, leading the way and checking for sudden bends, could be seen. Around one final hairpin the hedges dropped away to reveal vast open land on either side, and a respectably sized wooden farmhouse ahead of them. There was no light from any window and no activity to be seen.
Cautiously the retinue rode up to the front entrance and pulled the carriage to a stop. Against Keto’s hissed protests, as he lay reclined on the chaise-longue, Adirn climbed out first and marched straight up to the wooden door, knocking hard three times.
Weapons ready, the riders and Captain Toxis waited alongside the empress in silence, ready to spring on any ambushers. They could feel their hearts pounding with the anticipation of another battle. For a minute they stood there, perfectly still and waiting for anything to happen. No signs of life came from inside. Another minute passed and Keto looked to Adirn, but she waited patiently at the door. Then, from an upstairs window, a light started to bob and spill out. It disappeared from sight and then reappeared as a glow just barely visible through a ground-floor pane, growing closer to the front door. A lock turned inside, and the door swung open to reveal a ruddy-faced, woman dressed in her nightclothes and clutching an oil lamp.
“What a lovely surprise! A visitor! Welcome to Humble Farm!”
In the faint glow that penetrated the carriage she could see little but Captain Toxis’ ever-impassive expression and the ugly, impudent ‘gift’ which Divine Light Thomas Dove had bestowed upon her. It bled the aroma of another of his perfumes, this one smelling like a combination of freshly cut grass and cinnamon, into the body of the carriage and made the air almost unbreathable. Every now and again, when it became almost too much, Adirn would lean for the window to ventilate the carriage, but to open the window would be to invite another bombardment of generous offerings from the townspeople; she already had plenty of shoes and enough of a reputation on that front.
Barely a word was spoken in the dark interior of the carriage as they wound their blind way back through Serenitas. Captain Toxis wasn’t a gregarious conversationalist at the best of times, and Adirn herself was far too preoccupied with some top-flight imperial seething to get a chat flowing. Previous bad moods of her life and times had given her practice with minor seething, generally over having insufficient light by which to read books, or unhelpful attitudes to whether or not she needed to be in the bath for that long and so forth, but none could compare to the regal fury with which she was seething on that journey. It encapsulated the indigence of being denied what she wanted, the offence at being insulted, the frustration of a wasted trip, the anxiety of an unknown path forward, and even, a little bit, the feeling of inferiority inherent in needing to use staircases back in her own palace. Her mood was an artwork of negativity and anger that explored whole new realms of betrayal by her own hopes and expectations.
It was only by dint of reduced noise from enthusiastic passers-by that Adirn knew when they’d left Serenitas itself. Rolling along the spitefully well-maintained roads that led back through the meadows and farmlands of the White Alliance, she was at least granted peace and quiet by which to ruminate. Over and over again the insults and prejudices levelled at her by Thomas Dove and his cabal of self-righteous Illuminators played through her mind; a new and more-devastating counter-argument came to mind every time, and the empress cursed herself for not being wittier, or angrier, or in the company of a zealously aggressive Captain Toxis. It was only when they reached the mouth of the hilly pass, and they were back at the perfect angle for Serenitas to reflect its beam of blinding light at the road, that Adirn could snap herself out of the fatal loop. Once again a flare of dazzling brightness lit the curtains up like a floppy lampshade and shocked the empress into breaking her mental rhythms. As she squinted against the awful illumination, blinking away afterimages, she could at least console herself that Serenitas had been left behind; out of sight and out of mind for at least a little while.
Unfortunately, that only made way for the next source of utterly overwhelming dread.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Keto.” She said, her voice dry from under-use since leaving the Radiant Citadel.
“With regards to what, eminence?” He asked innocently.
“With regards to what?” She echoed incredulously “To everything! To the whole reason we made this trip. They’re not going to call off the debt.”
“Then the situation is largely as it was before. You’ve lost nothing but a handful of days inside the walls of the Imperial Palace.”
“I think I’ve lost more than a few days, Keto. The Dark Council are going to depose me there and then when I admit that we failed. I’m not so naïve as to believe that they’ll actually honour their mutual blackmail with me after this failure.”
“Then you enact your blackmail on them, your eminence. That’s sort of how the whole premise works…” He suggested. Adirn shook her head defeatedly.
“It won’t make any difference. You and I both know that they’ll go further than I will to get their own way. We’ll find Count Rott’s militia on our doorstep, or an assassin courtesy of Lady Vipus in my bed chambers long before they relent to my threats against them. I’m too weak and good to stand up to the Dark Council, I’m too weak and evil to win any headway with the White Alliance, and you are just one man. A loyal and capable one, but just one. Against a whole empire we’re doomed.”
Captain Toxis shuffled a little in his seat and rested both hands in his lap.
“You underestimate the loyalty and capability of my palace guard, eminence. Were it so easy to invade the City of Torment then every one of your predecessors would have fallen that way, or they’d have been slain by my forces at the pay of one noble or another. My commitment and duty to the throne is also that of my palace guard, and you have my word on that. You are safe from any of the amateur militias that your council might field against us.”
Keto’s words poured like warm was through the back of Adirn’s mind, seeking out cold crevices and dark thoughts in an effort to bring comfort. Those negative spaces, however, did not want to be filled; with feral desperation they searched for a reason to perpetuate themselves and find fault with Keto’s logic.
“None of the earlier rulers gave the Dark Council a reason to try very hard to overthrow them, though.” She said, relaying the fruit of her malaise’s labours. “Sending assassins and orchestrating accidents is an easy and distracting pastime for these people, and one they clearly enjoy, but open insurrection takes far more organisation and coin. Tyrranick gave them freedom to cull and mutilate as they pleased so why would they expend all that effort in ousting him? I’m a different matter. I’m making life harder for them. I might well be worth the effort. Everyone has a price, and it would only take one of your guards to be bought off by the combined coffers of the Dark Council, open the gates for the insurrectionists, and let the council succeed.”
“Not so, eminence.” Keto defied. “Forgive me, but you are mistaken. The reason we are safe from insurrection and bribery is because heads roll at the suggestion. The loyalty of the palace guard is to me and me alone; any who insinuate otherwise find a blade at, or possibly through, their throat before they can finish making the offer.”
Adirn looked at him with dejected disbelief etched onto her face.
“Loyal they might be, but anyone can be tempted with enough gold.”
“They know that they wouldn’t make it out alive if it happened, eminence. Treason is a capital offence and I exact the punishments personally.”
“But how would you possibly know every clandestine offer made to your palace guard? Do you keep track of every one of your soldiers’ movements?”
“I don’t need to. I learn everything I need to from Chamberlain Greysoul.”
The empress dropped her head into her hands and sighed heavily.
“I have the loyalty of your guard based on the ever-present threat of the testimony of a ghost?”
“Until my dying breath, your eminence.” Keto said, without a shred of humour or irony. “This situation with the White Alliance is a lost battle, not a lost war. I will keep the palace guard in check, and they in turn will hold the nobles to account, and you can concentrate on ruling. With or without the White Alliance and with or without the loyalty of the Dark Council you will be kept safe and you will deliver what you promised.”
Adirn blinked tears away. Openly weeping in front of Keto wasn’t an enormous problem in and of itself, but taking the great, heaving breaths of a really hearty sob would lead to inhaling too much perfume from the chaise-longue. Still her frustration wanted to grow yet further at Captain Toxis’ dogged belief in her, but more and more of his cascade of comfort was flowing in. Slowly, it began to overwhelm the maelstrom of her own negativity.
“Argh.” She growled. Captain Toxis remained passive as he watched her. “I can’t even wallow in self-pity without someone contradicting me.” Captain Toxis shrugged. Then smirked. Adirn couldn’t help copying him, and then, without having realised how tense she’d become, her body flopped loose. “Thank you captain. Your dedication is much appreciated. Again.” She said, swallowing the lump back down and pursing her lips. “But I still don’t know what to do or where to go next with this. I need to make something else happen, some other plan to rescue the Onyx Empire, and me, from the Dark Council. Two years is the absolute maximum amount of time we have, and probably they will all betray me far sooner than that.”
“You managed to think of this plan. You’ll think of another, your eminence.”
“What do you think I should do? Do you have any ideas of other support I could garner?” She asked earnestly.
“I am just a soldier, eminence. I leave the state craft to you.”
“No, Keto. Please. I need some help.”
Captain Toxis rubbed at his chin with one gloved hand. There was a rough, scratching sound which was either the glove moving against his stubble or the wheels turning in his head; it was impossible to tell.
“It seems to me that you’ve made an assumption, your eminence. Namely, that you’re going to admit anything to the Dark Council about the truth of this visit.” He said.
“You think I should lie to them?”
“I think that you could lie to them, and that it would be the best way to prevent them from using the lack of success here against you.” He clarified.
“Hm.” The empress pondered, frowning. “It feels too… dishonest” She assessed, redundantly.
“I do not think that they are owed honesty, eminence.”
“True enough. Yes, fine, I could lie to them. It would waylay their wrath, but the money will still be leaving our treasury and I still won’t be able to use it. If I can’t use it then they’ll still find that conditions are poor and, eventually, revolt.”
“Another assumption, eminence. Why pay still pay the White Alliance when you could keep the money and spend it on something worthwhile?” He suggested.
“Why pay? Because they haven’t written the debt off! They refused on the grounds that we’d use it to raise an army and they will expect the money.” Adirn explained, worried that Captain Toxis might have suffered a devastating attack of short term memory loss.
“They refused to stop collecting payments, your eminence, but you could equally refuse to offer them.”
Such a flagrant and consistent display of encouragement to betray a commitment and disobey an accord left the empress speechless. As if it were as simple as not throwing one’s shoes onto a passing carriage, or not declaring war on a much larger neighbouring empire, Keto was seriously proposing that she plainly refused to pay. Like a fish biting ineffectually at flies above the surface of the water, Adirn’s own jaw opened and closed to deliver a refutation that wouldn’t arrive. There had to be a reason that they’d not withheld payment in the past. Why did anybody ever pay anybody else? In that moment it seemed like the most preposterous promise that a person could possibly keep when instead they could just not.
“Surely…” she finally started, unsure of herself. Keto waited politely for her to finish the thought. “… surely they’d just take it by force if we refuse to pay.” The captain shook his head.
“I don’t believe they will your eminence. They said so themselves when they spoke to you this morning. They refuse to be the aggressor in any conflict, and there are no trade deals or treaties between your empires beyond the war debt, so they have no way of forcing to you comply. Why would you pay?”
“I… I hadn’t thought of it like that.” Adirn admitted, an appealing warmth suffusing through her at the idea of defaulting on a debt. “I could just hold on to the money. All I would need to do it prove that I wasn’t using it to raise an army and their objections would all be based on nothing. And it’d be easy to prove that because I wouldn’t have an army raised at all.”
“It would demonstrate that you are true to your word.”
A contradiction began to trickle through the back of Adirn’s mind.
“No. No I think it would be doing the opposite Keto. It would be breaking the terms of a treaty. Several treaties, technically.”
“Not ones to which you personally gave your word. They were signed by the Dark Council on in lieu of living rulers every time.”
“True…” Adirn agreed, before another gut-punch of reality slammed into her. “… except I just asked for permission not to pay and they didn’t grant it. Why ask permission if I intended to ignore the answer I didn’t want? It’s effectively the same as making that promise and giving that word myself.”
“You are Oathbreaker Adirn Deepgrave the Denier, though, your eminence.” Captain Toxis said without hesitation.
Never had the empress suspected that she would give so severe a look to Keto, especially while he was busily lifting her from despair. And yet, across the dim carriage, she stared daggers fit to adorn any imperial gown.
“You might not like the name, but if they judge you as an oathbreaker regardless then why not at least get the benefit of it. You get to spend the money on the people and try to save your empire, and they get to feel smug and superior about it.”
“I don’t want to be an oathbreaker though, Keto. I appreciate what you’re saying but if I do this then I’ll be endorsing lying, breaching treaties, and betraying trusts. The White Alliance will never believe a word out of my mouth no matter what else I do to win it.”
Captain Toxis shrugged.
“When I judge a solider of mine to be unreliable it is across several disobeyed orders or failed exercises. For them to win that trust back takes just as many demonstrations that they are dependable, your eminence.”
“You think that as long as I double down on reliability after this betrayal then they’ll come around?”
“Not quite, eminence. I think that the reputation of the Onyx Empire has been built across hundreds of years, and by hundreds of rulers, despots, injustices, atrocities and impolite interactions. It may well take another hundred years for that reputation to be repaired.”
Adirn’s heart sank.
“You think that I have no hope of being trusted anyway? Because of what the previous rulers did?”
“I think that you are trying to build a new legacy, your eminence. You fight battles against hanging and burning so that future rulers can fight against unkind words and unfair treatment. While those unkind words and unfair treatment are still ongoing the White Alliance will not trust us, but that’s beyond anyone else’s control. It serves us better to default on a debt and improve our empire than it does to make payments and remain as we are; the broken promise is less of a travesty then perpetuating poverty. History will remember what you did even if Thomas Dove will never accept it.”
Empress Adirn interlaced her fingers and rubbed at her palms with alternate thumbs. She wrung her hands and stared into her lap, bit the inside of her lip, shuffled her feet, and pulled her elbows close into her sides.
“I think you’re right Keto.” She said softly, after her various bodily manipulations. “History will remember Oathbreaker Empress Adirn Deepgrave the Denier as my name, but they’ll remember my deeds as what lifted the Onyx Empire from the hole in which it has been languishing. And whatever the White Alliance decides to remember about it is their own business. To hell with the stuck-up pigeon. Thank you, Keto.”
“I am just doing my duty eminence.”
“I appreciate it. Even if your duty is to remove all hope that I will ever be seen as a kind empress, and to turn my imperial ambition into a multi-generational event.”
Captain Toxis shrugged.
They sat in silence for a minute or two while Adirn came to terms with the real world. Feeling her whole her perspective being twirled around bodily in mid-air was hardly a welcome sensation, but it did bring relief too; she had a path to dealing with the Dark Council in the aftermath of her failure in Serenitas. Presumably, she thought to herself, they would all respect a decision to simply withhold payment far more than securing an agreement to write off the debt; she might as well lean into the useful aspects of their moral destitution if it was going to persist. Another thought occurred to her.
“Where on earth did all that insight on the relative morality of debt, alleviating poverty, building a legacy and all the rest of it come from? I’ve spent most of my reign begging you to provide some opinions or advice on every decision I try to make and getting nothing back. And now suddenly you’re a philosopher as well as apparently being an ex-clergyman and having a brother who can mix the most potent poisons in the empire. I swear the more I learn about you the less I feel like I know who you are.”
Captain Toxis shrugged.
“I just described the situation as I see it, your eminence. My own history is nothing of particular interest.”
“I could order you to tell me about it all, you know? Then it’d be your duty to tell me.”
Keto offered no reply, nor refutation, nor argument.
“I won’t though. Your privacy is to be respected, especially having done so much for me. But maybe, one day when things are more settled and stable, I would like to hear about it all. As a friend rather than your imperial eminence.”
“As you wish, your imperial eminence.” He said, smirking.
Through the valleys and meadows of the White Alliance the imperial retinue travelled, heading ever-onward to the border and back towards the City of Torment. For much of the day Adirn was preoccupied with planning. There was the matter of exactly how she would sell the new story to the Dark Council, how to put an end to the payments, and, most importantly, how to determine where best to use her newly liberated funds. When details eluded her grasp the empress would ask Keto for his recollection or opinion, and together they would craft some kind of solution which satisfied as many needs as possible. Sitting there in that carriage, looking at her guard captain over an infuriating chaise-longue and rolling through the roads of a foreign empire, Adirn finally felt like she was taking care of the business of an empress. This was statecraft and the management of an empire. This was helping people and making sure that the right actions were taken across her lands, rather than legislating against trying to make the external parts of someone’s ear become internal.
While Adirn was grappling with the minutia of how exactly one would go about having the golden gallows in her palace’s storeroom melted down, vitally without the mistress of records knowing about it until the deed was done, a cry from outside the carriage caught her attention.
“Did you hear that?”
“It sounded like Elizabeth.” Keto answered. He leaned over, pulled back the curtains, and opened the window. The light of midday had long since faded into the dull glow of a late afternoon, casting a golden pallor over the grasslands outside the carriage. A conspicuous line ran perpendicularly to the road, with the grass behind them looking lush and vibrant in comparison to the blackened scrub on parched earth in the direction they were heading.
“We’re back! We made it out of the White Alliance!” Cassandra Spite shouted from the other side of the carriage, to the mirth and merriment of the whole retinue.
“You know what that means then. Guard up. There will be bandits around again.” Keto ordered, to another cheer. Adirn rubbed at her face. “Better the devil you know than the over-polite farmer you don’t, as they say, your eminence.” Captain Toxis explained. It didn’t make her feel any better about it.
Adirn closed the window but left the curtains open. Dead and decaying though it might have been, this was her home and her empire; at least when she was called a liar here, it was because people hated how nice she was rather than how evil they presumed her to be. She could feel the exact moment that they crossed back into Onyxian land, thanks to the sudden rattling, rumbling and general bouncing around of the carriage. Smooth surfaces had once again become a loose collection of rubble under the wheels, and in protest at their less-than-salubrious travel conditions the chaise-longue and the roof-shoes had all started to jump up and down. More than once the chaise-longue threatened to slide across the floor and crack into the imperial knees, until she started using it as a footrest. It made her feel dirty to get any use from a gift of Thomas Dove’s, and she resolved to tie it in place when they next stopped to camp.
It was barely twenty minutes of travel into the Onyx Empire that Keto’s prophecy came true, with another cry from outside.
“Ambush!” Cried one of the riders, before their voice was overtaken by the creaking and crashing of a tree slamming down across the road. Another rang out from behind, shaking the ground.
“Hold where you are, pretenders!” A woman’s harsh voice shouted.
“Cut them down!” Keto ordered, swinging out of the carriage door. “Oh…”
“What’s happening Keto?” Adirn asked. He’d not sounded so worried about any of the previous bandit attacks they’d experienced.
“We have you surrounded and outnumbered! Lay down your weapons and hand over the pretender empress.” The woman ordered.
“That’s what’s going on, your eminence. Stay in the carriage. It will keep you safer from their arrows when they attack.”
“They want me?” She asked dumbly. Half-a-second’s thought made her remember how unsurprising that should have been.
“What is the meaning of this! By order of Captain Keto Toxis you will stand down or face my wrath for desertion and treason!”
“We answer to the new regime, not that of the Oathbreaker. Release her to us and no blood need be shed.” The woman ordered back. Adirn unhappily noted her telling use of the word ‘need’ in place of ‘will’.
“There is no regime other than that of Empress Deepgrave’s, and no authority higher than mine from which you take orders.” Keto shouted back. Rustling from either side of the carriage was the only response.
“Actually, you’d better come out, your eminence.” He murmured into the carriage.
“What about the arrows?”
“They also have torches. Better to be shot than burned inside a carriage.”
Recognising good advice when she heard it, Adirn brushed down and straightened her clothes, then, with as much regal grace as she could muster, stepped from the carriage into the dusk of the Onyx Empire. Standing over them on the raised banks either side of the road were thirty or more soldiers dressed in the livery of Viscount Sinistere; a grey-green that suited nothing but mould, and that shone wetly with an oily sheen. Around half of them had bows trained on the carriage and the retinue, while the rest had spears, swords, or flaming torches and a glint in their eye.
“Ah, the false empress!” The woman said. Adirn turned towards the head of the carriage and saw, standing a short way along the road by the felled tree was a tall, muscular woman in the same colours. On her head was the kind of plumed helmet that screamed both ‘authority’ and ‘gaudy’ at equal volumes. “Hand her over to us and you shall be rewarded as the vermin-catchers you are.”
“You are all traitors! Stand down!” Keto bellowed, by way of declining.
“Who are you and what is the meaning of this?” Adirn demanded, as imperially as she could manage from her position of admitted disadvantage.
“Flagella Bite, head of Emperor Sinistere’s traitor-hunters.” Smirked the woman. “And you will be my greatest capture; the woman who would try to sell our empire to the White Alliance.”
“Emperor Sinistere?!” Shrieked Adirn in raw fury. “This is treason!”
“The mutinous filth will be cleaned from your throne, eminence.” Keto said, as a matter of undeniable fact.
“The only treason is attempting to buy your life from the White Alliance at the cost of our gloriously despicable empire. To deny our heritage of blood for some weak notion of holding hands in a flowery meadow.” She spat. “If you wish to be a lap dog then it won’t be to Thomas Dove the sunlit pigeon; you can lie in chains at Emperor Sinistere’s feet.”
A cheer erupted up from all around the carriage. They were entirely encircled. Adirn looked around herself, as much as she could with a carriage in the way, and saw each of her retinue marked by at least two archers.
“I am the ruler by right, and my business with the White Alliance is my own. Viscount Sinistere will answer for his crimes but you needn’t be punished for following orders. Stand down and you will suffer no recrimination for this.”
“Pah! You show weakness and mercy, even here! You’re no empress of mine.”
Keto drew his sword.
“There’s no way you can fight them all, Keto.”Adirn warned.
“I’ve survived worse odds than this, your eminence.” He dismissed.
“And can you say the same of the rulers in your protection at the time?”
Captain Toxis stiffened, and didn’t respond.
“It looks as though they have reinforcements on the way, sir.” Cassandra called to Captain Toxis. Behind the band of soldiers more shapes were indeed moving along the road towards them. But where the intercepting band were decked in the livery of the Sinistere’s grimy regime, this new group rode under a different banner; a flaying knife and a rather unhappy looking gentleman at its business end.
“Countess Lascera.” Adirn cursed. All those acts of obedience had been a smokescreen, and all those polite words had been honey-coated poison.
A few of Sinistere’s traitor-hunters looked around at the approaching riders.
“We were not expecting reinforcements, ma’am.”
“No. And they have had a wasted trip, but more witnesses to our victory is no shame.” Answered Flagella. “Now you, Oathbreaker, to my side.”
Adirn sighed heavily and took a step forwards. Keto’s hand lashed out and pushed her back.
“Not while there is breath in my body.”
Countess Lascera’s riders still approached quickly. Less than a minute and they’d be standing there, among the ranks of Sinistere’s traitor-hunters. Even if the odds had been workable before, there was no way of fighting back now.
“You are a tiresome old fool, Keto, but the Viscount wishes for you to suffer more greatly than an arrow here and now would allow. That is the only reason you are not already dead. Now allow the Oathbreaker to come to my heel or you will be made to regret your actions.”
“Keto please-“ Adirn said, pushing against his arm, but it was like trying to knock down a wall using a steamed dandelion.
“Come and get her.”
Flagella gave a flick of one finger, and there was a thunking noise. Captain Toxis, to his credit, didn’t scream. He simply looked down and saw the arrow pinning his right foot to road. Adirn, to her discredit, did all his screaming for him when she saw the blood start to pool. Still his arm was held as rigidly as Count Rott’s determination to invade the White Alliance.
“Keto let me past! I’m going with them before someone gets killed!”
“Bit late for that one, pretender.” Sneered Flagella. Another flick from her finger sent an arrow soaring into the heart of the carriage driver. He slumped over the reins. “You see, only Keto has the special honour of glancing blows.”
The sound of hoofbeats finally overtook Flagella’s voice. With a weary sigh and a roll of her eyes she waited for the sounds to die off so that she could continue gloating. Behind her, Countess Lascera and a small group of the riders with her pulled to a halt and dismounted.
While the stand-off remained as tense and taut as the bowstrings on the banks of the road, the empress stared daggers, not unlike the ones on Lascera’s own banner, at the countess. Dressed as ever in her leather bindings, with blades strapped around her body and a cruel, thin smile on her face, she landed gently on the road and left her horse where it was. A few others did so alongside her, while the rest rode around and took up the rear of Flagella Bite’s ranks. Waiting impatiently but without action, the traitor-hunters allowed their unwanted reinforcements to finish getting into position such that they might witness the arrest. Soon, the encircling force was twice as thick again as it had already been. Adirn shook her head in dismay at not only her own precarious position, but the Dark Council’s penchant for going overboard in their cruel designs. She half expected to see a legion of Count Rott’s militia carrying a galleon down the road towards them at any second.
“Greetings, Flagella. Greetings, your eminence.” Countess Lascera called out, barely holding back a snigger as she stepped along the road. She vaulted easily over the fallen tree and then reached towards two sheaths at her hips, drawing her weapons in a smooth, practiced motion. With one cruelly curved blade in each hand she sauntered towards the front of the ambushing ranks. Every footstep rattled with her additional sheathed blades. Holding her hands in front of herself at shoulder-height, palms facing up with bent elbows and dagger blades facing inward, she looked like the front of an enormous ant with metal mandibles. Adirn wasn’t sure if that was supposed to make her more intimidating or if it provided some kind of advantage in combat, but either way it was ridiculous.
“You seem to be hard at work here, Mistress Bite. On the order of the slimy Viscount himself?”
“The new Emperor Sinistere, you mean.” Flagella snapped without turning to face the Countess. Her gaze was still hungrily on Adirn. Captain Toxis was taking the arrow-wound like a champ, standing almost perfectly still despite what must have been excruciating pain.
Countess Lascera was less than an arm’s length behind Flagella Bite, and her own retinue were closely in rank with the remaining traitor-hunters. It was, for all intents and purposes, an army standing around a single carriage with less than ten combatants.
With the butt of one dagger, Countess Lascera tapped Flagella on the shoulder and winked at the empress.
As the head traitor-hunter turned reluctantly around, the mandible arms of Countess Lascera closed together in a whip-crack of motion, slamming twin blades into either side of Flagella’s neck. A gout of blood fountained from one side and she crumpled to the floor with a gurgling wheeze. In almost perfect unison, Lascera’s whole retinue plunged their own weapons into the ring of traitor-hunters; with a few sad rattles of chainmail and weaponry, the ambush was turned into a perfect ring of blood. Adirn stood gaping at the ring of death and stared fearfully at Countess Lascera. Keto couldn’t defend her this time. The Countess looked up from the limp and useless form of Mistress Bite and smiled at the empress in a way that Adirn found deeply confusing.
“Your eminence, I came as quickly as I could. I regret that your driver and Captain Toxis’ foot could not have been spared.” She said simply.
The empress had no idea of how to respond. The cogs turned inside her mind and she slowly came to realise that for once the Countess was actually sincerely smiling and not smirking.
“Are you hurt, eminence?” Continued Lascera, advancing on the empress and Keto. Instinctively Adirn moved to stand further behind Captain Toxis. “You are all safe. See to your empress and your captain.” Lascera ordered the riders. The imperial retinue began to dismount and gather around the empress and Captain Toxis, while Countess Lascera continued to casually approach. She took an oil cloth from one of many leather pouches at her waist and wiped each of her blades in turn. Elizabeth Ichorborn crouched down and started to gently work the arrow free from Keto’s foot with a series of deeply unsettling squelching and cracking sounds.
“Er… no. I’m fine.” Adirn said, suspicion gouting from her mouth like blood had from Flagella Bite’s neck. The image refused to leave her mind’s eye.
“Excellent. We’ll get Captain Toxis’ foot seen to immediately; there are bandages and poultices in our packs.”
Under Adrin’s uncertain gaze Countess Lascera continued to advance. From all around she could see the countess’ riders searching the bodies of Sinistere’s traitor-hunters, apparently unconcerned about the empress or her retinue.
“Did… did you come here to rescue me?”
“Of course! You are my empress. I will never bow to Viscount Sinistere as an Emperor, even if he hadn’t snuck upon the throne like a coward.” She sneered, grimacing at the mere taste of Sinistere’s name on her tongue. It was a lot like the foul taste that Adirn got whenever she saw the oily sheen around him.
“So there’s been a coup? I was away for all of three or four days and there was a coup!?”
“I’ll explain all the details when there is the opportunity, your eminence, but for now we must leave. I’m sure that the Dark Council will realise Flagella’s failure to capture you soon, and my failure to assist her, and then they’ll send a larger force out. It’ll take longer because they’ll go via different villages; can’t burn the same one down twice in two days.”
“I assume they’ve tried before.” Adirn asked. Countess Lascera nodded. “Wonderful. But you are right, we should leave.”
“Everyone! Form two teams to clear these barricades, then gather up the bodies and burn them. No flaying.”
“Why is it so much worse to flay them than burn them? They’re dead either way.” Called back one of the men in Countess Lascera’s team. The countess shrugged and turned to Adirn.
“Well, your eminence?”
“It’s… it’s just unnecessary. Why do you want to flay them?”
“It’s what we do. It’s an art. It’s a dance between blade and flesh that tells a story every time. We can make leather from it too, so there’s less waste.”
The empress took another look at the countess’ clothing and shuddered. It was the kind of shudder that shook her whole body and made her gag.
“It’s not people leather that you’re… you know…”
Countess Lascera looked down at herself and then started to laugh hysterically. As her shoulders shook so did her various sheaths, and the daggers rattled along in laughter with her.
“Oh my word.” She said, wiping a tear from one eye. “Oh word no. Human leather is terrible for clothing. We use it for banners, and wrappings for the prisoners to let them know what happens.”
Adirn’s grimace was deeply expressive.
“That is to say, we used to do so, your eminence. But our question remains as to whether we have permission to flay these executed men?”
There was a final wet, tearing sound as the arrow was wrenched free from Captain Toxis’ foot. He wobbled slightly, but remained standing at Adirn’s side and faced Countess Lascera with one hand still on his weapon.
“No. While I grant that they’re already dead and burning them isn’t much better, we haven’t the time to spare. And if I let you flay them all then any force that chases us down will know that you had a hand in their downfall.”
“I think they’ll know that anyway. There’s no way that Keto here and your eight riders could have slain all of the traitor-hunters, your eminence.”
“Even so, we need to be on our way without delay or making an enormous trail.”
“But you accept that, without time pressure, we could do a little flaying?”
Adirn looked flatly at the Countess’ expectant excitement. Clearly she was a disturbed and sick individual, but she was trying her best. And she had just saved their lives at great risk to her own for nothing other than loyalty; loyalty that had been won, perversely, by denying the woman access to a privy. It was too hard to say no.
“Fine, you can flay one of them while the bodies are burned and the barricades are cleared.” The empress conceded. Countless Lascera nodded gratefully and then leapt into action.
“No flaying the bodies, just get them burned and the barriers away. And someone bring bandages and poultices for Captain Toxis.” She ordered. There was a flurry of frenzied activity as her forces set about rolling tree-trunks, stripping bodies, making a pile, and bringing medical supplies to the imperial carriage. Adirn made the mistake of looking up towards Countess Lascera, and felt all the revulsion of potential human-leather clothing come rushing back as the flayer went about her grim business. It was an almost fascinating ballet of the macabre as Flagella Bite became less of a person and more of a lesson in subdermal anatomy, but the empress had to look away before she passed out. In an impressively and alarmingly short time, the countess returned to the carriage with a horribly full and wet satchel.
“Flagella’s body is with the others for burning now, and I have my trophy, your eminence.” She announced, as if that was something that the empress had explicitly requested.
“Fine. Are we ready to leave?”
“It won’t be long. I can have one of my soldiers drive the carriage for you, but we will need somewhere to go. All of the fiefdoms will be under surveillance.”
“What about the church of Virum?” Adirn suggested.
“The church will provide information and give sanctuary if they are loyal, but they can’t defend you from a full militia. The rector’s guard, while impressive, is only really effective in the Cathedral of the Deep.” Keto assessed with a wince. Adirn really wished he would sit down, but ordering him to do so felt too patronising.
“I could provide you shelter in Castle Skinless but my own forces will be quickly overwhelmed by the combined might of Count Rott, Viscount Sinistere, Lady Vipus and the others.” Countess Lascera added.
“The whole empire is rife with those who would sell the empress out. No-one can be trusted here. If we are to remain within the borders than we need to wrest back control immediately.” Cassandra said, bloody arrow for some reason clutched between her teeth.
There was silence.
“I know a place where we can hide. We’ll be welcomed and safe there, and none of the Dark Council will think to look for us.” The empress declared suddenly.
“Where? I shall order Marcus Slasher to drive your carriage there.”
“The name won’t mean anything to him, but I can provide directions. I would be grateful if you and your forces followed along as well, Countess. We can formulate a plan of action and you can tell me what’s been going on in my absence.”
“As you will, your eminence. We will follow and reconvene in safety.”
With clinical efficiency the roadblocks were cleared, the bodies were stacked, and put to the torch, and the newly enhanced retinue set off along the road towards what they hoped would be safety. Behind them the sky glowed orange with flame, as Lascera’s pyre consumed those who sought to kidnap the empress, erasing them from the world. With a sinking feeling Adirn observed that the flames seemed far brighter and broader than the pile of corpses had been, and tried not to dwell on how much of the forest had just been put to the torch. There were far more important matters to mull over, and a long road ahead to sanctuary.
A quiet, narrow track led through the darkness. Flanked by hedges twice as high as a mounted rider, the only way to travel was inexorably forwards along the ruts left by years of carriage wheels that cut the road come rain or shine. Hooves clattered against the dry ground and carriage wheel s crunched loose earth and stones away underneath themselves. From outside only the light of a few torches, leading the way and checking for sudden bends, could be seen. Around one final hairpin the hedges dropped away to reveal vast open land on either side, and a respectably sized wooden farmhouse ahead of them. There was no light from any window and no activity to be seen.
Cautiously the retinue rode up to the front entrance and pulled the carriage to a stop. Against Keto’s hissed protests, as he lay reclined on the chaise-longue, Adirn climbed out first and marched straight up to the wooden door, knocking hard three times.
Weapons ready, the riders and Captain Toxis waited alongside the empress in silence, ready to spring on any ambushers. They could feel their hearts pounding with the anticipation of another battle. For a minute they stood there, perfectly still and waiting for anything to happen. No signs of life came from inside. Another minute passed and Keto looked to Adirn, but she waited patiently at the door. Then, from an upstairs window, a light started to bob and spill out. It disappeared from sight and then reappeared as a glow just barely visible through a ground-floor pane, growing closer to the front door. A lock turned inside, and the door swung open to reveal a ruddy-faced, woman dressed in her nightclothes and clutching an oil lamp.
“What a lovely surprise! A visitor! Welcome to Humble Farm!”