Steel Victory (Steel Empire Book 1) (30 page)

“Here’s our chance to find out,” Daliana said. “Lorus is here. But luckily for us, Max and the others are right behind him.”

Victory crowded into Daliana’s living room with the other councilmembers again, but this time the tension permeating the room seethed with anger rather than the earlier fear. Max’s injury warranted him a seat on the couch, and she perched next to him, Toria kneeling on the carpet at her feet. After they arrived, Toria spent almost ten minutes in the bathroom. The red skin on her hands told Victory her daughter had scrubbed them raw. She would never tell her daughter, but she still smelled blood. The afternoon’s events had already traumatized Toria enough.

They were all traumatized. Having accepted Daliana’s offer to borrow some proper clothing, Fabbri now sat on a kitchen chair in the corner of the living room. The space around her was clear, save for the solid presence of Lorus standing at her side. He seemed to return every glare aimed in his direction at once, his green eyes slit in true reptilian fashion. He might start hissing soon.

Instead, his voice remained steady and low. “These are serious accusations you level against me.”

“Talk to Fabbri,” Victory said. “She made them.”

“And now we’re going to trust the word of someone we should convict of treason?” The sibilants in Lorus’ words grew more pronounced with every word.

“I saved the note you sent me to arrange our first meeting,” Fabbri said, flinching away from the speed at which Lorus whirled on her. “It was handwritten.”

“So an analysis can be performed,” Lena said.

“We’d have to send it up to Calverton to do it,” Tristan said. “But I have a wolf who can sense where things come from. We give the note to her, and she can tell us who wrote it.”

“You’re talking about Patience?” Bethany said. Tristan nodded once. “Well then, Lorus, you’re screwed. I’ve never known that woman to be wrong in over twenty-five years.”

“This is outrageous.” Lorus spread his arms wide. “We have Fabbri in custody. Now we need to put this problem on a back burner while we deal with the Romans!”

“That was your plan, wasn’t it, Lorus?” Daliana rose from the piano bench. “Weaken the ruling body of the city, all the while feeding information to the Romans so they’d know when to strike.”

“That was the impression I got,” Fabbri said. “Too bad it didn’t work.” She drew back into silence at the looks from around the room.

“Why, Lorus?” Lena said. “Why sell out Limani?”

The weresnake retained his moody silence, and once again it was Fabbri who spoke. “He made a deal with the Romans,” she said. “He was supposed to be the new governor of the city once it was under Roman control and all the nonhumans who might oppose him were taken care of.” She paused. “I was supposed to be one of the lieutenant governors.”

Despite her best efforts, Victory couldn’t help but gain a bit of respect for the woman. She had damned herself with her confession. If Victory didn’t know better, she would swear the temperature in the room dropped a few degrees.

“In all your planning,” Genevieve said, “you forgot something.”

Tristan spoke over the confused look Lorus gave her. “It’s not really a surprise, considering snakes don’t have a proper sense of smell.”

“What the hell are you two talking about?” Lorus said.

“Lies,” Daliana said. “You’ve been making them since you walked into this house. Surrounded by a werewolf and panther, both of who can smell them literally, and two elves, who can sense them magically.”

From her spot on the floor next to Toria, Syri said, “And man, are you ever fucking screwed.”

“Does this mean we can arrest him and get on with the more important stuff?” Toria’s sleepy voice contained a steel edge that jolted the rest of the room into action.

Gripping Victory’s shoulder, Max raised himself to his feet, placing all of his weight on his uninjured leg. “Lorus Erikson,” he said, “you are under arrest for treason against the free city-state of Limani. And yes, Toria, now we can focus on more important things.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to wait until later?” Victory gave Max’s bandaged leg a pointed look. “Like tomorrow? After one of the elves has a chance to fix you?”

“I can get Daliana,” Syri said.

Max shook his head, but didn’t remove his attention from the maps spread on the Hall’s conference table. “No time,” he said. “And I’m not wasting anyone’s energy on my little scratch when I’ve got two people still in critical condition.”

Victory conceded the point. Time to act, before the Romans regrouped and hit the city with their full force at first light. After this afternoon, they should still be scouring the countryside looking for the remnants of Max’s initial strike. It was a race against time to see which force could recoup the quickest. Limani had the advantage of home territory and knowing when the next attack would come—because they would be the ones making it.

“That’s what the hospital is for,” Toria said. “That is, you know, why Saul and Mason are there. To heal people.”

“Then I’m saving them for the casualties we get tonight,” Max said. “Tor, hand me that notebook?”

Passing over the blue book, Toria said, “Wow, you’re optimistic.” Between them, Syri handed Max the pen he was searching for.

“And you should hear how cheery you are, dear,” Victory said. “Fine, Max. Suffer. Now why are we here and not the rest of your officers?”

“Because I’ve already briefed them on tonight’s main mission and they’re busy coordinating with Tristan and Genevieve’s forces,” he said. “Not to mention waiting for Tersiguel’s pack to show up. Bloody hyenas.”

“Be glad they’re here,” Victory said. “Tersiguel doesn’t work with just anyone.”

“Exactly,” Max said. “That is why she, Bethany, and Daliana are with you. This afternoon you’re giving them a crash course on guerilla warfare tactics so they can hit the camp from behind while my group takes on the Romans from the front with the wolves and panthers.”

Victory pulled one of Max’s maps toward her, covering her racing thoughts by pretending to study the area she already knew like the back of her hand. “Did we ever get an official count on the Roman forces?”

“Best estimate from what we’ve seen so far, both this afternoon and when we met with Octavian, is approximately two thousand men,” Max said. “It’s likely the vast majority is human and without much combat experience. These are local recruits, not troops from the Old Continent.”

“So, if I’m taking the elves and all the other weres,” Victory said, “that leaves you with barely a hundred for the frontal attack. Those are twenty to one odds in their favor, Max. When was the last time you did the math?”

Max slammed a hand down on the table. “Every damn second, Victory.”

The silence rang after his outburst. “Sorry,” Victory said. “The plan will work. I just haven’t led a force in centuries.” Much as it pained her pride to admit fear in front of her daughter, Max deserved her true thoughts on the situation.

But it was Toria who reassured her. “You’ll be fine, Mama. I’ve heard all your stories. I doubt you’ve lost your touch to cause mayhem.”

“Thanks,” Victory said. “I’ll try to live up to your grandfather’s exaggerations.”

“Not exaggeration,” Max said. “Asaron and I have spent years discussing tactics, and he’s always told me to go straight to you if I want something done that might not quite fit with my other officers’ sense of honor—not that you lack honor yourself.”

“No, Asaron’s right,” Victory said. “It’s hard to fight for nearly a thousand years and not come up with your own ideas on what can and can’t go in warfare. My sire is even more devious than I am.”

“Which brings me to the reason the girls have joined us for this little meeting,” Max said. “You two are going to get us Asaron’s devious mind.”

Victory could sense Toria’s elation soar. “And Kane!” Toria said. “I’ll get Kane back at the same time.”

Max nodded. “If the first part of your goal is to set a very pissed-off Asaron loose in the middle of the Roman camp, yes, the second part of your task is to get Kane.”

“That I can do,” Toria said.

He held up a hand, halting her enthusiasm. “But that’s not the hardest part. You three are going to find that nuclear weapon. And disarm it.”

Victory crouched in a hidden pocket between two trees covered in the ever-present kudzu, out of sight of the first row of Roman tents. She surveyed the woods in the direction they had come from, keeping watch for returning scouts or sentries. Daliana’s shoulder pressed into her back, the elven woman studying the movement within the camp itself. The heat of the day did not break with the fall of night, and the oppressive humidity made Victory’s hair curl out of its tight braid. Daliana must be roasting in her gear.

It worked in their favor, though. The army celebrated tonight, declaring themselves the victors in the first sortie against the Limani forces. The grunt troops must not know the difference between “driven off” and “retreated.”

Victory wished she knew which one was true. Damn Max for not letting her in on this from the beginning.

Daliana’s low whisper echoed like a shout to her strained hearing. Clamping down on an involuntary twitch of surprise, Victory listened to the report.

“Sounds like all the celebration is happening farther in,” Daliana said. “These tents are just filled with sleeping bodies, judging by the heat signatures I can see through the canvas. Haven’t seen any wanderers.”

Matching the other woman’s soft tones and blessing the fact that elven hearing equaled vampiric, Victory said, “Support staff, then. These guys have to be up early to make breakfast and probably weren’t involved in the combat today.” She gave the trees another pass. Moonlight filtering through branches lit the woods like a bright stage to her eyes. “The sentry we skirted is walking the same pattern over again. Haven’t seen anyone else.”

“Sneaking through here is probably our best bet, then,” Daliana said. A hint of question tinged the end of her words, bowing to Victory’s experience.

“Sounds good to me,” she said. “And support staff means supplies. Lots of supplies. Look for ammunitions wagons or trucks, and we’ve got our first target.”

Victory gripped the bark of the tree next to her, prepared to pull herself out of her stiff crouch, when a nearby explosion shattered the world. She covered her ears and suppressed a scream, turning down the sensitivity of her hearing too late to save the ringing in her head.

Fingers touched her temples out of the darkness—when had she closed her eyes?—and the pain receded to a manageable level. Echoes of leaving the Mists after a night of dancing versus remembered days of aerial bombardment in Castille. She shoved those memories aside, and thanked the heavens these Roman troops included no air force.

Daliana’s face hovered inches from her own when she opened her eyes again. “Better?” Daliana said.

“Yes,” she said. “You?”

“Shields are good for some things,” Daliana said. “Like preserving eardrums. But we need to move.”

Once more expanding her senses to the world around her, Victory took stock of the altered situation. Men boiled out of the tents, officers screamed orders, lamps on tent poles were lit to fill the forest with light. “Someone did not follow orders.” Victory and Daliana’s explosion was supposed to cue the rest of the teams
.

“They might have needed their own distraction,” Daliana said, her gentle tones more forgiving.

“And right now we need to take advantage of this one. Let’s go.”

No matter who screwed it up, it might be in their favor. This section was now empty. Checking over her shoulder, Victory watched the sentry they’d evaded abandon his post.

Both women rose to their feet, remaining in the black shadows of the trees until the last possible second. Now screams drifted across the Roman encampment, echoed by a few sharp reports of gunfire.

Victory drew her sword. Daliana already had her pistol in hand. Brief regret washed through Victory. The elven woman was a healer by nature if not in true power. Never a warrior. She damned the Romans for dragging her into Victory’s repressed, if not forgotten, world.

They dashed into the now-deserted section of camp. Victory drew to a halt next to an officer’s empty pavilion. “There,” she said, pointing to two trucks with large cargo containers hitched to the back.

“They blow up our trucks, we’ll take out theirs,” Daliana said.

“Keep watch.” Not waiting for Daliana’s assent, Victory darted through the empty space. She slipped to her knees between the truck cabs, trusting the monstrosities to keep her hidden from view.

She drew a package from her small backpack. One of Max’s mercenaries moonlighted as Limani’s resident demolitions expert, and it amazed her how fast the man had managed to throw these nasty surprises together. That he had such materials on hand bothered her civilian side a bit, but the mercenary in her trilled with glee. He’d even included simple step-by-step and color-coded instructions.

Another explosion from a different section of camp rocked the night. “Madness and mayhem” needed to be Limani’s Mercenary Guild’s official slogan.

Victory squirmed her head and torso underneath the truck, peering up into the unfamiliar workings. The mechanics of modern transportation had never been one of her major interests, despite her attraction to fast, shiny cars in the days when more engines ran on gasoline rather than electricity. The instructions indicated she should shove the small block wrapped in bright red plastic anywhere it would stay, so she wedged it between the front right wheel and axle.

A thought wormed its way through her battle-focused mind. The first explosion was Toria’s cue. Somewhere in the camp, Asaron was sating his hunger. And her children were searching for an ancient nuclear device.

Place the clip on one of the blue wires to the red part of the plastic casing. Attach the other end of the wire to the metal protrusion from the small cylinder of black plastic the size of two of her fingers. Press the green button on the other end of the cylinder. Sixty seconds to run a hundred yards away.

She shoved herself out from under the truck and ran.

Daliana saw her coming, and wisely chose not to wait. Not bothering to find another hiding spot, the two women dove through the rows of tents all the way back to their original shelter, pressing themselves to the ground on the opposite side of the trees.