Deathstalker War (60 page)

“We can argue about who gets the credit later,” said Random, cutting in firmly on what threatened to be a long tirade. “First, we have to win this war. Let’s make a move, people. It’s time to go to work.”

“Right,” said Hazel.

Owen grinned about him. “See you all in Hell.”

In the huge Court of the Imperial Palace, the Hell that Lionstone had made was growing worse. The surroundings continued to change from moment to moment, reflecting the Empress’s darkening mood, and the underworld grew steadily more disturbing. The light was more scarlet than crimson now, absorbing all other colors, and the stench of sulfur was almost overpowering. There were other smells, too: piss and shit and blood, the smells of fear. Batwinged shapes floated lazily overhead, dark shadows too high up to be seen clearly, like cinders coughed up from the depths of the Pit. The maids-in-waiting clustered at the foot of the Iron Throne looked more like demons than ever. And the open Court itself was studded with row upon row of men and women impaled on stakes. There were so many of them Dram assumed they had to be holograms, but he didn’t ask. He didn’t want to know. Their screams had sounded real enough. He stood where he’d been told to stand, beside the Iron Throne, and did his best not to draw attention to himself.

Lionstone had grown too restless to stay sitting on the Throne, and now paced back and forth before it, shouting orders at people on the floating viewscreens. She was still in control of herself, but her rage grew with every reported rebel victory or Imperial setback. Lionstone had stopped seeing it as a political struggle for control of the Empire, and was now taking it as a series of personal attacks. Everyone was out to get her. No one could be trusted. Every Imperial failure was a betrayal of her. She gave orders in endless streams, sometimes contradicting herself. Dram didn’t point this out to her. Lionstone’s legendary self-control was finally fragmenting in the face of so many attacks on so many fronts.

Valentine Wolfe had been summoned to Court, and stood patiently before the Throne, poisoning the air just by being there and looking pleased as Punch about it. His long black curls had been freshly oiled, falling to his shoulders in artful disarray. His mascaraed eyes gleamed with fever-bright intensity from his bone-pale face, and his scarlet smile seemed wider than ever. He was calmly pulling the legs from some squealing black thing in his hands. Dram hoped it was an insect. Valentine Wolfe had come to Hell, and looked perfectly at home there.

Dram stood facing him, not because he chose to, but because Lionstone hadn’t given him permission to move. He was still officially in charge of the Imperial Fleet, when Lionstone allowed him to be. He’d been doing his best, but his lack of real experience limited his insights and his options. Mostly, things were moving too fast for him to keep up. The Fleet was scattered all across the Empire, and the increasingly isolated ships were too busy fighting off Hadenmen and rebel mutineers to pay him much attention. Even if he’d had anything worthwhile to offer. Lionstone suddenly stopped her pacing and whirled on the two men.

“You! I should have you both executed! This is all your fault! I had things under control until you went mad on Virimonde! All you had to do was pacify one insignificant backwater planet, and you couldn’t even do that for me. No, you were too busy running wild and killing anything that moved. Fools! Even a mechanized planet will need some people to work it! What use is there in being an Empress if you don’t have peasants to rule?”

Both Dram and Valentine had been following Lionstone’s specific instructions on Virimonde, but neither of them was stupid enough to remind her of that. Lionstone glared at them both, and the maids stirred menacingly, picking up on her mood. Dram could feel cold beads of sweat popping out on his forehead. He felt very much that he would have liked to turn and run, except that a maid would undoubtably have brought him down before he managed a dozen steps, and besides, there was nowhere he could run to. He had no friends anywhere after Virimonde. Not that he regretted one delightful moment of his time there. He’d never felt so alive. No, for better or worse, his destiny was tied to Lionstone’s, the woman who had brought him into life from the cells of his dead original.

“I’m going to have to send you out to defend me, because you’re all I’ve got,” the Empress said finally, recovering some of her calm. “Valentine, you will take control of all the war machines currently on Golgotha. There aren’t that many, but do what you can with them. Most of my beautiful engines of destruction are still stuck on Virimonde, and by the time I could get them back here the struggle would already be over. One way or the other. So don’t waste any of them. Dram, I want you up on the surface, leading the troops in person. They’ll follow the Warrior Prime. I’m giving control of the fleet over to Beckett. He was right, damn him. He has the experience. All I can do is hope the bastard stays loyal.”

“I’ve done my best,” Dram said cautiously. “But I’m sure you can trust Beckett to do his best, too.”

“Very good,” said Valentine. “Polite but supportive, without actually meaning anything. If we survive this, you may have a bright future as a courtier.”

“I don’t like leaving you here undefended,” said Dram, ostentatiously ignoring the Wolfe.

“Investigator Razor and Lord SummerIsle are already waiting in my antechamber,” said the Empress. “And there are . . . others on their way, too. Now get out of my sight, both of you. And don’t fail me.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” murmured Dram, and he and Valentine Wolfe bowed low and departed. They passed Razor and Kid Death coming in, but kept their eyes carefully averted. In her present state, Lionstone might well take a warning glance as evidence of treason. Dram and the Wolfe passed through the Court’s great double doors, and out of Hell, walking as fast as they thought they could get away with.

Investigator Razor and Lord Kit SummerIsle approached the Iron Throne at a somewhat slower pace, stopped a safe distance from the maids-in-waiting, and bowed respectfully to the Empress. When they raised their heads, they were disturbed to find Lionstone smiling at them. It was truly said that the Empress was at her most dangerous when she was smiling. Her sense of humor was . . . not like other people’s, and tended toward the vindictive. Razor and the SummerIsle stood their ground, faces carefully blank, and kept their hands well away from the weapons they’d been ordered to wear in her presence.

“Well, well,” said Lionstone lightly. “My two favorite killers. How nice. Razor, I should be angry with you. I sent you to conquer Mistworld in my name, and you failed. But it wasn’t really your fault. So many people failed me on that mission, but you stayed true. And Kid Death, my smiling assassin. You brought me the young Deathstalker’s head, the only good thing to come out of that debacle. You always brought me the nicest presents, SummerIsle. I’ve got it here on a spike, somewhere.

“It is good to have you both back here with me. Good to have people around me I can depend on. Your duties here are simple, to protect me from any and all dangers. The odds against any of the rebels getting this far are vanishingly small, especially since I had the extra esp-blockers installed, but it seems I can no longer depend on all my people to do their duty. There are many layers of defense between my Palace and the surface, not all of them human, and I am not entirely helpless myself . . . but I’ll feel better with you two watching over me. Any comments? Bearing in mind that they’d better be extremely constructive and to the point if you like your heads where they are.”

“An honor to serve Your Majesty, as always,” Razor said smoothly. “I take great pride in the confidence that you have invested in me. But I feel I should point out that with my sword to guard you, I really don’t see the need for the SummerIsle’s presence. I am a professional fighting man of long standing. The young Lord is, at best, a gifted amateur.”

“An enthusiastic amateur with an exceptional track record has to be a better bet than a tired old man who’s already been retired once,” said Kit calmly. “Send this ancient obsolete away, Your Majesty. You don’t need him while you’ve got me, and I don’t want to be distracted trying to keep him alive as well as you, Your Highness.”

“You don’t have to like each other,” said Lionstone. “Just do your job. And don’t get too close to the maids. I haven’t fed them recently.” She smiled fondly at her two defenders. “Don’t worry, my most loyal subjects. Once this nonsense is over, and order has been restored, as it will be, I promise you both all the killing you can handle. The executions will last all day and all night, and blood will flow in the streets like tides.”

She turned away from them, ignoring their deep bows, and switched the floating viewscreens to the main news channels. The rebels were still shutting down military and Security comm channels as fast as new ones were set up, but they left the news channels alone. They wanted the people to see what was going on. All the floating screens showed a different news report, from all over Golgotha, but mainly from the Parade of the Endless, where the real fighting was. Urgent voices spilled out into the Court—loud, overlapping, almost hysterical. News of the rebellion was coming in from a hundred worlds at once, and the news stations were going crazy trying to keep up with it all. Lionstone fixed her attention on screen after screen, trying for an overview of the situation. She no longer trusted her own Security reports.

Scenes of bloodshed and fighting in the streets and buildings going up in flames filled the viewscreens, interrupted occasionally by news reporters and commentators. Their faces were flushed, and they talked too quickly. There’d never been a story like this, and with so much going on, most of it coming in live, there was little or no censorship anymore. Almost delirious with the truth, news editors threw caution to the winds and put everything on the air, irrespective of what it was or where it came from. Commentators were saying what they really meant for the first time in their lives, and couldn’t seem to get enough of it. Neither could the audience, according to the latest viewing figures.

It seemed all those who weren’t actually out in the streets fighting the revolution were glued to their viewscreens watching it. This is history in the making, said the news stations, and for once they weren’t exaggerating. Lionstone came across a familiar face and stalked over to that screen to stand before it. Toby Shreck’s fat sweating face stared back at her. There was chaos behind him, people running back and forth with weapons in their hands. Thick smoke drifted on the air from a gutted, fire-blackened building in the background. A troop of guards, their uniforms torn and bloody, ran past in full retreat, jostling the camera. Toby’s face was smudged with smoke, and his clothes were a mess. He had to shout to be heard over the bedlam around him.

“This is Toby Shreck, for Imperial News, reporting from the center of the Parade of the Endless. Rebel forces are overrunning the whole city, driving demoralized and decimated Imperial forces before them. The slaughter is incredible. There are bodies everywhere. The wounded on both sides are being left to die in the streets because there’s no more room in the hospitals. Civilians and non-combatants are running for their lives. There seems to be nowhere safe left for them to shelter. Imperial forces and the newly arrived war machines are treating everyone but themselves as the enemy. Security forces have been dragging civilians to the city squares and executing them, as a sign to others not to support the rebellion. If anything, this has had the opposite effect. Rebels are being seen as liberators. The Empress recently released a large number of the Grendel aliens onto the streets. No one knows how many civilians they killed. The body parts are too mixed up to make a count possible. Heroic espers from the underground took the aliens down eventually. This insane action on the part of the Empress would seem to indicate a growing desperation on her part, and a total disregard for the safety of her subjects.”

“The fat traitor!” Lionstone cut the signal off, her eyes bulging with rage. “I’ll have his head for this! How dare he!”

She ran from screen to screen, glaring at them as though she could force them to give her good news. But everywhere the story was the same. People fighting in anonymous streets, with smoke and fire in the background. Screams and shouts and incoherent orders. Flashing swords and axes, and blood flying on the air. The humming of force shields and the roar of discharging energy weapons. Quick shots of rubble that used to be buildings, and wild-eyed, traumatized children soaked in their own blood and others’. Women crying over still and broken bodies. Limp forms hanging from lampposts. Some wore uniforms. Some did not.

Swept along in the thrill of the unfolding story, the newscasters and commentators had given up trying to sound calm and objective. They grew steadily more excited and disheveled, gulping at glasses of water as their voices roughened from overuse. The first rebel victories were coming in. First it was cities, and then colonies, and finally whole planets, torn from Empire rule, starting at the Rim and working inward. Some channels still loyal to the Empress blanked out rather than show such news, while others were taken over by victorious rebel forces. Lionstone shut these channels down, but found it harder and harder to find broadcasts telling her what she wanted to hear. Eventually she shut them all down, and screamed into her comm implant for General Shaw Beckett. His face appeared on a screen floating before her. He looked tired. The top buttons of his uniform were undone.

“What do you want, Lionstone? I’m busy.”

“Don’t you dare talk to us that way, Beckett! This is your Empress! We have new orders for you, effective immediately. Identify all planets where rebel forces have taken control and scorch them, one after the other. You are not empowered to accept surrenders. We want those planets dead and lifeless.”

Beckett stared impassively at her out of the screen. “And the billions of innocents who would die?”

“Expendable. They should have fought harder against the rebels. Confirm our order, General.”