Tarnished Empire (Dark Shores) Read online

  Marcus spit a mouthful of blood into the mud, then looked sideways at him. “Would you at least curb your tongue until we’re out of earshot?”

  Shrugging, Agrippa gave his commander a saucy grin. “I’m afraid my humor refuses to be so constrained, sir. It bursts forth like the bosoms of a barmaid in a too-tight dress.”

  “Your humor is going to be the death of you. And me.” Marcus wiped at his chin, then frowned at the blood on his hand.

  “You all right?” Felix asked. “Do you need to go to medical?”

  Agrippa eyed the Thirty-Seventh’s tribunus, wary that Marcus’s second might decide to turn on his heel and beat that jackass of a proconsul bloody, regardless of consequences. Felix loved Marcus like life and was protective of him at the best of times. With Marcus bleeding like a stuck pig and Grypus appearing ready to send them all to their deaths to get his fortress, these were not the best of times. “He’s fine, Felix. That was more slap than punch and if not for the fact that Grypus wears more baubles than his wife, it wouldn’t even have left a mark. I bet that it hurts less than the time that old woman nearly knocked him out cold with a single punch. You remember that, sir?”

  “Agrippa,” Marcus’s voice was weary, “I got punched by a grandmother because she mistook me for the legionnaire who’d been kissing her granddaughter behind a cowshed. A legionnaire that happened to be you. Of course I remember.”

  “It was hilarious.”

  “It wasn’t. It hurt.”

  “If it wasn’t funny then why do all the men still talk about it?” He grinned, elbowing Marcus in the side. “Besides, I heard the milkmaid made up for it later.”

  Wiping more blood from his chin, Marcus looked at him. “That’s not true. I swear half of what comes out of your mouth is complete bullshit, Agrippa. It makes it hard to take you seriously.”

  “Says the legatus who keeps getting punched in the face by old people.” He took a few skipping steps. “And, because I refuse to let a day go by without reminding you, the legatus who got shot in the face by Bardenese rebels while taking a shit.”

  The wound Marcus had taken a few weeks ago from said incident was healing well, but it would still leave a scar across the golden skin of his cheek. Sadly, it would probably only make him better looking, which was incredibly unfair. The Prodigy of Lescendor was famous enough as it was.

  “If you remind me one more time, I’ll demote you so I never have to see your obnoxious face,” Marcus muttered, but Agrippa caught the glint of humor in his blue-grey eyes, and to his left, even Felix was grinning, the tension fading.

  For now.

  Everything Marcus had said to Grypus was true, but that didn’t mean it was how it would go. And it was better to laugh than to consider that very soon, the Thirty-Seventh might be hurling itself against Hydrilla’s walls, arrows and burning pitch raining down on their heads, catapults shattering their ranks with rock. That half of the young men that he’d known since he was seven years old would be broken corpses on the fortress’s slopes, their names soon to be forgotten.

  And for what?

  So that patrician prick could take over the governorship of the region, lining his pockets with taxes taken from the conquered Bardenese? So that he could make a fortune selling off the indentures of those who survived the taking of the fortress? So he could return to Celendrial and march through the streets in triumph despite having never lifted a blade? It was the Thirty-Seventh who deserved the triumph and glory, who deserved statues of their faces carved and placed in positions of honor in the Forum.

  Except what difference did that make if they weren’t alive to see them?

  As though sensing his train of thought, Marcus said, “I know you need no reminders, but keep Grypus’s words to yourself. No need for the men to bear that burden until they have to.”

  Which really meant: No need to give them time to wonder if deserting is the better option. There had never been a deserter from the Thirty-Seventh, but then again, they had never had a man like Grypus cracking the whip at their heels.

  It made Agrippa feel powerless. And keeping it from the rest of the legion, many of whom were his friends, made him feel like a liar. “My lips are sealed. So, off to followers’ camp then, sir?”

  Marcus nodded.

  Raising his hands above his head, Agrippa clapped them. “An escort! We need an escort! Time to go on a walkabout!”

  “Agrippa…” Felix made a face. “Could you not?”

  Probably, but given that those in earshot—mostly Thirty-Seventh who looked dead weary from weeks of digging—grinned, Agrippa had no regrets. Nine of his men, which included his closest friends, Yaro, Quintus, and Miki, moved closer, forming up around their officers as they approached the high wall of the camp.

  Made from the towering redwoods Bardeen was famed for, the wall was thick and heavily fortified, the men standing atop it surveying the surrounding land with watchful eyes. After the incident where Marcus had been shot in the face by a rebel in a tree, Hostus had the Thirty-Seventh cut the forest back an extra hundred yards, the valuable lumber then transported to the coast where it could be sold. Grypus pocketed the profits even as the Bardenese wept, for they believed the trees grew from the spirits of their ancestors.

  As the gates swung open, it was to reveal ground barren of anything but stumps, mud, and dead grass. No cover for anyone to ambush them, but Agrippa still felt his hackles rise. A glance backward revealed several of the Twenty-Ninth standing on the wall, gazes feral as they watched them move down the path. One of them lifted a crossbow and pointed it at them. Agrippa blew him a kiss, then turned back to the path leading down to followers’ camp.

  Nearly as big as the legion camp itself and containing close to two thousand civilians, the slum of derelict tents and ramshackle structures made of deadfall were filled with the men and women who followed after the Twenty-Ninth Legion, providing them services in exchange for coin. Primarily paid company and those who pandered to vice, offering up endless selections of moonshine and narcotics, but there were also laundresses and cobblers and seamstresses and people who could do whatever it was a man needed done but didn’t feel like doing himself.

  It was good, reliable coin, which was why so many followed, but coin meant little when there were no food and supplies to be purchased. All food and supplies transported to Hydrilla went straight to the legion camp. Which meant thousands of people who were flush on coin yet slowly starving to death, the trek back to civilization too dangerous for most to consider.

  Crossing the bridge that had been built over the small river between the two camps, they silently picked their way down the muddy slope into the camp. The cold fall winds did little to dispel the stench of latrines and woodsmoke and sweat that permeated the place, but there was something worse hanging in the air as they entered the maze of tents.

  “Corpse,” Agrippa muttered, the smell far too familiar to be mistaken for a rotting animal.

  “Corpses,” Felix corrected, wrinkling his nose. “And not recently dead. They’re living surrounded by rotting bodies.”

  Lifting his cloak to wipe at his bleeding lip, Marcus huffed out an aggrieved breath, though his expression was unmoved. Which Agrippa knew from experience meant nothing—there was a reason why, when he deigned to play, Marcus was an excellent gambler. “If pestilence strikes here it will strike us soon enough.”

  It already had. Fluxes and infections and funguses, along with the always problematic lice, had kept the medics busy, and Agrippa wanted to rip his helmet off to scratch his head just thinking about it.

  “You want the camp searched?” Felix asked, and Marcus gave a slight nod.

  “We’ll find contraband,” Agrippa warned him even as he watched a pair of women walk past, their faces gaunt and ashen, one of them coughing violently. Neither looked long for this world. “The Twenty-Ninth will extract their pound of flesh if we collect all the opiates.”

  “Turn a blind eye to anything that isn’t dead. If it is d
ead, bury it deep,” Marcus said. “And have Racker and the medics escorted down here so they can do a few rounds.”

  “Yes, sir,” Felix said. “I’ll have it done straight away.”

  He started back the way they’d come, and Agrippa raised two fingers. Gibzen and Yaro broke away from the group to ensure he made it back to camp unscathed. Felix could take care of himself, but more and more frequently, Thirty-Seventh boys caught alone were being roughed up by the Twenty-Ninth. While they hadn’t been bold enough to target an officer yet, Agrippa had no intention of allowing it to happen on his watch. Quintus and Miki moved to take their positions, eyes roving through the shadows, hunting for threats. Though they kept far enough back that he and Marcus could speak without being overheard.

  “We can’t feed them,” Marcus muttered, then shook his head. “But Grypus might be convinced to bring in more supplies if he can sell at an excessive markup.”

  “What difference does it make if we’ll be done here in a matter of weeks?” Agrippa asked, even as the thought rolled through his head, what difference will it make to us if we’re dead in a matter of weeks?

  “We’re not going to be gone before winter.” Marcus’s eyes fixed on him. “Grypus will come around. He’ll see that a frontal attack is folly and that there is more to gain from patience.”

  “I think you’re underestimating the lengths he’ll go to appease his own vanity,” Agrippa found himself retorting, then bit down on the insides of his cheeks.

  They’d been rivals during their schooling at Lescendor, but it had been Marcus who’d won the position of legatus of the newly minted Thirty-Seventh. For the sake of his own survival, Agrippa had—bloodied and on his hands and knees—sworn an oath to the other boy to give up any aspirations at command. Which meant staying silent on his opinions of politics and those involved with them. Yet he couldn’t help but mutter, “Bastard just wants a parade and doesn’t care if we all die so he can have it.”

  “He’s posturing. The Senate won’t stand for that sort of decision-making and he knows it. We’re too valuable to throw away on this pile of rocks in the middle of a forest.”

  “If you say so, sir,” Agrippa answered, never mind that he disagreed. Never mind that he thought Grypus entitled enough to believe he didn’t need to ask for permission. Or to beg for forgiveness if things went wrong. The proconsul was done with waiting for his glory.

  And there is nothing you can do about it. Obey or die. Obey or die. The refrain repeated over and over in his head.

  Marcus watched him for a long moment, his eyes seeing too much. He always had—even when they were children newly taken from their families to embark on their new lives as legionnaires, he’d seemed to see down into a person’s most hidden thoughts. And often used the information he learned to his advantage. Agrippa had always been convinced that the reason he was so good at it was that Marcus had secrets of his own to hide, though what they might be, he’d never discovered.

  “For once, Hostus and I are aligned,” Marcus said. “His power rests on the shoulders of the Twenty-Ninth and if he gets them all killed, he won’t have any power at all.”

  “Maybe the murderous prick will do us all a favor and silence Grypus for good. But more likely, he’ll send us against Hydrilla’s walls first and the Twenty-Ninth will walk over our corpses to take the fortress.”

  Marcus gave him a long stare, then said, “I won’t let that happen, and you know it. Now shall we continue?”

  They meandered through the camp, Marcus muttering under his breath about this and that, though Agrippa ignored him in favor of watching for threats. The rebels knew what Marcus looked like, and they’d tried to kill him before. And only a fool would believe they hadn’t infiltrated this camp.

  Ahead of them, Quintus walked past a gap between tents, but the moment he passed, a girl strode out with her head down. Which resulted in her walking straight into Marcus, her forehead bouncing off his breastplate.

  Blades were in hands in an instant and the girl let out a soft gasp of terror, dropping the buckets she carried and sending water spilling over Marcus’s feet. Agrippa immediately pushed between them, gladius up. For if there was one thing he knew, and knew well, it was that girls could slip a knife between a pair of ribs as well as any man. “If you’d step back, please.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she blurted out in accented Cel, then looked up at him.

  A jolt ran through Agrippa as he stared into wide brown eyes framed with thick lashes. The girl was so deeply and profoundly beautiful that he half wondered if he was seeing visions. Because something so lovely did not belong in this place of death and despair.

  “It’s fine,” Agrippa managed to answer, though her dousing a legion legatus in freezing river water was probably not fine. But Marcus was not Hostus, which meant he could be intensely annoyed about something and no one would ever know. “He’s not made of sugar.”

  A smile split the girl’s face, teeth white against the deep brown of her skin. Curling, dark strands of hair that had escaped her braid danced against her cheeks. She smelled of the soap the laundresses used, but also of forest; the scent of redwoods filled his nose as he inhaled.

  “It was an accident,” Marcus said from behind him in flawless Bardenese. “Think no more on it and carry about your business.”

  Agrippa heard the dismissal in Marcus’s tone, and the girl must have too, because her smile faltered.

  Sheathing his blade, Agrippa reached down to retrieve the fallen buckets, holding them out to her. “Sorry that you’ll have to make another trip.”

  “A fitting punishment for not watching where I walk,” she said, then nodded. “Apologies, again, Legatus. May the balance of your day see more fortune than this moment.”

  Agrippa doubted anything could be more fortuitous than having seen her, but Marcus only said, “Likewise,” then stepped around her and started walking away.

  Agrippa trailed after him, but not before casting a backward glance at the girl as she carried the buckets away, braid blowing sideways in the wind. “Did you see that?”

  “I presume you mean the girl, to which the answer is: obviously.”

  “I mean, did you see her?”

  Marcus sighed. “She was pretty enough, I suppose. But my feet are now very cold, so if we could please finish this task without further comments about laundresses, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Pretty enough? It’s no wonder Amarin picks your girls for you—you’ve got no taste.”

  “Agrippa…”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” Practice allowed him to turn his mind to the task at hand, his focus entirely on ensuring his commander’s safety. But as they returned to the legion camp, he saw Yaro approaching, the next shift following at his heels. Take over? Agrippa mouthed at his best friend.

  Yaro shrugged, then nodded before saluting Marcus. “Back to your tent, sir?”

  Agrippa slung his arms around Quintus and Miki’s shoulders, pulling them to a stop. “Plans for your leisure hours, boys?”

  “Cards,” Quintus answered even as Miki said, “Sleep.”

  Would they say that if they knew they might be dead before winter struck?

  “I’ve a better idea.” Turning their trio so their backs were to the gate, he started back toward followers’ camp. “Let’s get our laundry done.”

  3

  Silvara

  The bucket handles rattled in her grip as Silvara forced herself to maintain the slow plod of a downtrodden follower rather than sprinting to safety like every one of her instincts demanded.

  Some warrior you’d make, she silently berated herself. Just them looking at you has you shaking like a leaf—imagine how well you’d fare in a fight!

  Then a hand caught hold of her arm, jerking her sideways into one of the tents.

  “Well? Did he notice you?” Carina demanded. The rebel leader was a full head and shoulders taller than her, and as always, she loomed over Silvara with intent to intimidate. And as always, Silvar
a was tempted to tell her that given she was shorter than everyone it would take more than superior stature to make her nervous.

  Sucking in a deep breath, because Silvara would be damned if she’d allow Carina to hear a shake in her voice, she said, “I ran into him. Spilled the water, just as we planned it.”

  That she’d been so terrified she’d nearly vomited, Silvara kept to herself. Everyone knew the Empire’s legionnaires were quick to blows when they were angered, but this was war. Blows were to be expected.

  “And?”

  “And…” Her eyes skipped from Carina to Hecktor, another leader in Bardeen’s rebellion. She hated the anticipation she saw on their faces, because they’d been waiting weeks for this opportunity. And she was going to disappoint them. “And nothing. He was courteous and forgave me for soaking his feet. Then he told me to go about my business and they carried on. He saw me but he didn’t see me.”

  Carina’s brown eyes narrowed. “The conversation went on longer than that, Silvara.”

  “Yes, but not with the legatus. With one of his men.” Though calling them such was a lie, for the Thirty-Seventh were still boys no older than she was herself. Very dangerous boys, the fact of which she’d gotten a terrifying reminder. So quickly, they’d had their weapons in their hands, surrounding their commander, ready to kill at the slightest provocation. “He was a centurion, I think.”

  “The Thirty-Seventh’s primus,” Hecktor said. “Name’s Agrippa. Not one you’d want to pick a fight with—he’s a killer. Ours stay far clear of his patrols.”

  Unbidden, memory of his hazel eyes flashed across her vision. Despite the gladius in his hand, there’d been no threat in them. Only wariness. Then curiosity. And then…

  “Catching the eye of one of his men does us no good, you idiot girl!” Carina threw up her hands. “And we’re running out of time.” Reaching forward to grip Silvara’s shoulders hard, she added, “Your family is running out of time.”

  Because her father and brother, both rebel warriors, were trapped in Hydrilla. And like everyone else in that damned fortress, they were starving.