Industry & Intrigue (60 page)

Lawrence went over to the
window
. The
Galrians had shifted their carriages to the center of the town and
the sides were facing the largest buildings. The sides had been
opened up, cannons were packed closely together in all of them and
firing. Galrian soldiers could be seen between the carriages,
firing their rifles at the little resistance Rampart’s woefully
outnumbered watch was putting up.

“
Your Imperial Majesty, please
come away from the window
!” shouted Flint in panic and pulled him back,
albeit gently.

“
Madness, this is
madness
,”
said Lawrence. “They didn’t even give us a formal declaration,
they…”

“
No, Your Imp
erial Majesty. Not madness, war
and ambition. I fear they have been doing nothing since they came
here but play for time. This was always their intention. By now, I
suspect the Galrian armies have crossed the border and attacking
our own armies, who will not be prepared.”

Lawrence clenched his fists. “I have
to put a stop to this.”

“
Your Imperial Majesty, I have a
duty to get you out of here. I cannot
allow them to take you. They would
not kill you, but you would become a valuable hostage. We cannot
risk the train. If they haven’t seized it, they’ll have sabotaged
the tracks. We’ll have to make for the stables and hope to the
Creator they have left the horses alone.”

The shock of the attack was
beginning to wear off
on him. “Right, of course captain,” he replied.
“The stables. Yes, that is the best course of action. I am in your
capable hands.”

Flint
opened the door and three other
Imperial Guards entered the room, standing at attention. Flint
addressed them. “Moments like these are why the Imperial Guard
exists. These Galrian bastards have attacked us and they mean to
seize our emperor. You are men of the Imperial Guard and you will
do everything to ensure His Imperial Majesty is kept safe and
secure.”

“
Yes sir
,” they all replied in unison. They
drew their revolvers. They were armed with the Typhon Jaguar, one
of the most powerful handheld guns in the world. Lawrence had seen
the size of the holes its ten millimeter diameter rounds could
leave in a target.

Flint looked at
him
. “Your
Imperial Majesty, if you would please stand here.”

Lawrence
did as the captain asked. His
guards surrounded him in a human shield and Flint went to the front
to lead them.

They did not have much trouble
getting through
the upper floors of the building, but when they arrived at
the ground floor they came across most of his delegation. They had
been woken by the noises of the battle outside. They wanted to know
what was going on, but had not risked opening the main
doors.

“
Your Imperial
Majesty
,”
asked Siobhan. “Are the Galrians truly attacking?”

“
I’m afraid so Minister
Mason,
” he
replied from behind his guards. “They were deceiving us all along.
Leading us on so we would let our guard down and they could buy
time.” Siobhan deflated at that. Like him, she had truly believed
they had been making headway with the Galrians.

“
Minister Mason, it would
be
best if
you let the Imperial Guards do their duty” said Kate. “They have to
get the emperor away before the Galrians close off the
town.”

“
Of course
,” said Siobhan, admonished.
“I’m sorry, Your Imperial Majesty. You must go now.”

Lawrence’s blood was
boiling
.
These were his people, his officials and friends, and he had no
choice but to leave them. He wanted to say something to Captain
McLaren, but he didn’t. Flint was solely focused on one objective,
getting him out of here safely. He didn’t have time to concern
himself with anyone else in the building.

“
Listen to me all of
you
,” said
Lawrence. “Do not resist. They won’t risk firing the cannons at
this building. When they ask for your surrender, accept it. You
will not be forgotten. I will bring each and every one of you back
to Alkos.” All of them bent down on their knees in a gesture of
respect.

Flint
discussed the best way out of the
building with his men. “We can’t go out the front, they’ll see us,”
said Flint.

“
So what, they’ll know we have
the emperor, there’s no way they’ll fire on us
,” replied his second in
command.

“
I’m not risking
the emperor’s life
on the whims of Galrian bloodlust. Once we’ve distracted them, you
sneak out with the emperor.” His second nodded. Flint ordered ten
of the guard to line up behind him.

“
What are you doing captain?”
asked Lawrence, he di
dn’t like where this was going.

Flint grimaced. “I’m creating a
distraction so my lieutenant can get you away
safely
,” he
replied. “Unbar the door,” he ordered and two of the guards kicked
the bar off.

Lawrence clenched his fists, more of
his people going to die and he had to leave them.

Flint pressed his body to the
door
alongside the other guards. “Ready. One, two, three!” They
gave it a push and it swung open. “Fire!” yelled Flint at the top
of his lungs. He and all of his men unloaded their Jaguars towards
the surprised Galrian soldiers.

None
of the carriages or soldiers were
aiming at the stone building, so at first Flint and his men had the
advantage.

“
Move now
,” said the lieutenant
guardsman. His human shield moved and Lawrence moved with
it.

The outside was full of smoke and the
sharp smell of powder from the cannons. Many of Rampart’s buildings
were on fire and a few had collapsed. He didn’t want to know how
many people the Galrians had massacred.

His guards pushed him to the right and he
followed their lead. He watched as Captain McLaren kept yelling at
his men to fire, but they were being picked off by the more
numerous Galrian riflemen.

Flint took
several hits in the chest and
the man went down. It saddened him to see such a brave and loyal
man die. Then he heard a sound that concerned him even
more.

The Galrian artillery
crews
had
decided to turn their attention to the irritation that had
interrupted them. The cannons boomed and the building behind
Lawrence was hit several times, pieces of it shattering and
narrowly missing him and his guards. Another series of booms
sounded and this time they didn’t miss. There was an explosion of
grass and dirt right next to him and Lawrence felt himself being
lifted into the air.

The entire world
spun between the
night sky and the ground as he was flung around from the force of
the explosion. Lawrence couldn’t hear anything but a terrible
ringing.

He finally landed on his
back,
the
hit jarring his muscles. He felt an even sharper pain on his left
leg. He tried to look down, but his vision was blurry. He moved his
head to get a better look. The bone was sticking out of his shin.
He had landed on the body of one of his guards. Looking at the
injury increased the pain and he clenched his teeth as a shard of
hot agony ran along the length of his lower leg.

He was finding it hard to
think, his vision was wavy and distorted like the air on a hot
summer day. He heard another seri
es of booms, but this time it was faint.
He could hear the whistling of the cannon balls, but it sounded no
louder than that of a morning bird. His last thought before they
landed was of Clara.

***

Pyotr
Skalov was in an ugly mood. Not
because of the attack on Rampart, that had gone splendidly. No
Galrian casualties and once the watch and guards had been dealt
with, the rest of the town had meekly surrendered.

No, the reason for
his foul mood was
due to an over eager artillery officer who had fired exactly where
he shouldn’t have. Pyotr was now looking at a pile of dead Alkon
Imperial Guards surrounding the corpse of Emperor Lawrence McRath
the Second.

He stomp
ed back to the nearest
carriage, the one that had fired its cannons at the buildings he
had explicitly ordered Colonel Traxus Pavina not to fire at. He
climbed up and approached the officer who was doing a good job of
not looking worried. Pyotr pushed him off the side of the carriage
and the man fell onto the grass with yelp of surprise.

He then jumped down and beat
the man, while yel
ling at him, “You idiotic goat-fucker!!”

He kept hitting him, again and
again until he was wheezin
g from the effort. This wheezing was not faked.
His fists were sore and covered in the man’s blood. He had left him
alive, though his face was never going to be the same again and he
only had half as many of his teeth than before.

“
Colonel
Pavina
,” he
called out loudly. Traxus Pavina, a man in a green and black
Galrian officer’s uniform approached him. He was tall and muscular,
with a square jawed face and shaven head.

“
Lord Skalov?” he
asked.

“
Find a small
buil
ding
that hasn’t collapsed and put that man in it, until I decide what
is to be done with him.”

“
Of course.
” The colonel called his men to
take the artillery officer away.

“
The Second Army is approaching,
my lord
,”
said Traxus. “They will set up here for the night and continue in
the morning where they will rendezvous with the other forces for
the attack on Sethain.”

“
Excellent
,” he replied. “This is bad
business colonel. I was expecting to be taking the Alkon emperor
back to Urdov in chains. Now all I have is dead body. The Alkons
will not be happy when they hear about this. They will be fighting
with vengeance in their hearts.”

“
My lord, what’s
do
ne is
done. We cannot bring their emperor back to life. All we can do now
is to contain it as best we can.”

“
And how do you propose we do
that?”
he
asked.

“
We make it look
as if his death was
accidental,” suggested Traxus. They will still blame us no doubt.
But at least we can present a story that may lessen the
damage.”

“
There’s an entire building full
of the emperor’s delegation that would be able to attest to the
exact opposite of that
,” he pointed out.

“
Not if we make it look
like we simply
attacked every building here. We can say we thought their emperor
had already escaped.”

Pyotr pondered on it for a few
moments
.
“No, the damage has already been done.” He pointed at the largest
building with the captured prisoners and officials. “Everyone in
there is still valuable as a hostage, put them into the carriages
and send them to Nesjovo.”

Pyotr watched in
satisfaction
while Traxus carried out his orders. He moved off to
prepare for the arrival of the Second Army and thought about what
he would say when he arrived in Urdov and had to answer to the
king.

Chapter 59

Professor
Nathaniel Smith was saying
something important, but Reese barely noticed. His mind was
elsewhere, as it had been for the entire week. After arriving back
from Crean Valley and being questioned by the Custodian Service,
Reese had been taken to the university security office. He was put
in a chair and informed of the death of his best friend.

He
did nothing but sit in stunned
silence. Cassandra had taken him back to his room and tried to talk
to him, but he hadn’t responded.

It was only
later
, when
he found the note from his sister, did Michael’s death make
sense.

Dear Rius,

I am truly sorry for the death
of your friend. I should not have let it happen. I dropped my guard
because I wanted to see you again. It was all for nothing, you
weren’t even here. The man the watch will have found is an assassin
from the Arm, sent to investigate after I killed my contractor. I
blame myself entirely. I should have never come back to the
university and it cost the life of your friend.

I know this will be of little
comfort
, but
you can rest assured that your friend will be avenged. The Arm will
know by now that I have betrayed them. They will be coming for me.
I intend to take the fight to them before that happens. Not for my
sake, but for yours.

You will never be safe while
they are after me. So I am leaving Alkos
City. I do not know if I will survive
this or if I will ever see you again. I am truly thankful to know
that you are alive and well. Do not try to find me, you will have
no success. I was trained to avoid detection and you would only
invite attention from assassins like the one who killed your
friend. You will be safe if you keep your head down and stick to
your studies.