They hoped, at least.
A commotion caught their attention, and the twins pulled back as they watched a long column of bedraggled men, women, and children come to a halt near the edge of the town, where tents were already being set up.
Brennan wanted to head back to the skimmer and preferably take flight before any more people arrived, but Lydia ignored his entreaties. Instead she grabbed the first person she could, one of the townsfolk who was watching the scene with morbid fascination.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
He didn’t look back at her. He was too intent on the people and the tents. “Refugees from the fighting out near the capital.”
“I thought that was over weeks ago.” Lydia blinked, genuinely confused.
“That was then, wasn’t it?” He shrugged. “Word is that some senator or another thought the emperor was weak after the attempted coup.”
Attempted? Lydia hardly knew what to think of that.
“The new high general put an end to that thinking, though, I’d warrant.” The man grinned widely. “Corian’s not one to lose a trick. I marched with him before I retired, about fifteen cycles back. He was just a captain then, but one look at him and you knew he was destined for better things.”
High general? There’s no such position … Lydia just nodded, affixing a fascinated look onto her face. What in the burning skies is going on?
She allowed Brennan to pull her away, withdrawing to a safe distance from all the commotion, where they could observe it for themselves and still be able to escape if anyone took note of them. It didn’t seem likely that anyone would, however, as the attentions of every living soul were on the refugee column.
“Something’s gotten out of hand,” Brennan whispered. “This sort of thing won’t sit well with anyone, not so close to the capital.”
Lydia nodded absently, eyes flicking across the sea of dirty faces.
Conflict was commonplace along some of the empire’s borders; it was almost expected in certain areas, even inside the empire. Father had once told them that some areas were like that by design, lawless and violent. People who desired to be lawless and violent had somewhere to go, a place with fewer laws and fewer lawmakers.
The best of those people were on the frontier, expanding the empire and adding to the wealth of the whole. The worst tended to congregate in the pits, isolated sections of the empire that no one in power cared about. Deaths in these regions were used to distract people, to remind them of just how well they had things. She’d thought it horrible, but knew that those who died in places like that weren’t considered people by many in power, just numbers to be manipulated.
What she was seeing here, however, was something else. She wasn’t certain what it was just yet, but it was certainly something else.
“We have to find out what happened,” Lydia hissed back. “We have to.”
“Why?” Brennan scoffed. “Not our problem anymore, if it ever was. Father played his games, and Kayle did too. Look what it got them. Kayle shot dead like an animal, and Father …”
He trailed off, shaking his head. “It’s not our concern.”
Lydia slapped him.
“Brennan Scourwind!” She glowered at him. “People are dying! Our family—”
“Is dead,” he hissed angrily back, one hand to the side of his face that was glowing with heat, “because they served the empire and it turned on them. Do you really want to be next?”
Lydia took a deep breath, closing her eyes against the tears that threatened to fall. Not sadness, not anger. She didn’t know how to describe what she felt, other than a great frustration at the world and its treatment of her family and everyone else within it.
“Do you remember what Father said about the strong and the weak?” she asked.
Brennan snorted. “Which thing he said? He spoke about such matters all the time. Don’t tell me you want to protect the weak because we’re strong, Lydia. We’re two teenagers with only a skimmer and some stolen provisions between us. We’re the definition of weak.”
“No. We are strong,” she said passionately. “We’re Scourwind. Our family has stood against the storm for generations. We earned our name in flesh and blood. You and I may be the weakest of our family, but that still makes us strong.”
She paused for a moment. “Father once told me that it is not the duty of the strong to protect the weak. Our duty is to take the weak and make them strong.”
Brennan looked to her for a moment, shaking his head. “I’m not going to turn you from this, am I?”
“No, you will not.”
“All right. What’s the plan?”
The stumped look on Lydia’s face was so profound that Brennan started laughing at her there and then.
The teen angrily stomped her feet, glaring at her brother. “Stop laughing at me!”
Corian sat stiffly on the throne, glowering at the projection display floating in front of him, furious with what he was reading.
“I want the military commanders we captured shot,” he ordered. “Any sane man would know to bow against the force we marshaled. I don’t care if they did believe they were being loyal to the empire; I won’t tolerate that level of stupidity.”
“Yes, sire.”
For the most part his plan had progressed very nearly perfectly, but there were ugly shadows in the tapestry. Several officers had escaped the palace after the initial strikes, apparently with the intent of retrieving reinforcements. He could appreciate their determination, and was even thankful that they hadn’t elected to go for the much more damaging option of forming an underground resistance, but the sheer waste of personnel and equipment they were fomenting was enough to drive him mad.
Over the weeks since the coup, Corian’s forces had destroyed several centuries of men. Mostly mere guardsmen, certainly not people in any short supply, but the principle of the matter was absolute.
For the moment he’d been forced to maintain the illusion that a Scourwind still lived and sat on the throne of the empire, if only for the common fools on the streets. The Senate and the military ranks of consequence were well aware of who now wore the crown, and they were the only ones who mattered for now.
His day in the light was coming, sooner than some of his erstwhile allies would believe, but first he had to end this damnable waste.
CHAPTER 9
Field Marshal Groven sat tiredly in his command tent, staring at the projection display floating in front of him and willing it to change. Not through the link. Had he done that it would have changed on command, but that wasn’t the sort of change he desired.
The damned traitors who’d taken the empire seemed to control far too much of its military resources. There was no way some jumped-up tyrant should have been able to take as much as had been lost, let alone control it, and yet the legions smashing his fellow loyalists spoke volumes about just that.
His fellow field marshals had done their best to stem the treason, but it was like attempting to blot the heat of the sun in the burning sky without the aid of one of the Great Islands. It seemed like for every square foot you succeeded, there were many square miles where you didn’t.
The forces under the control of the mad general were blanketing this entire section of the empire faster than he’d have believed, cutting the resistance off from supplies and sanctuary. The fact that the new emperor had managed an effective disinformation campaign made it all the worse, confusing many regiments into staying quiet and leading others to brand the loyalists as traitors.