Soldier, Brother, Sorcerer. Morgan Rice
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was the hardest part of it. Thanos had thought that these people respected him, and would know he could never do what he’d been accused of, but they jeered him as if he were the worst of criminals. Not all of them insulted him, but enough did, and Thanos found himself wondering if they really hated him that much, or if they just wanted to show the new king and his mother which side they were on.
He fought when they came for him, dragging him from his gibbet. He punched and he kicked, struck out and tried to twist free, yet whatever he did it wasn’t enough. The guards caught his arms, twisting them behind him and tying them in place. Thanos stopped fighting then, but only because he wanted to have some dignity in this moment.
They led him, step by step, to the gallows they’d built. Thanos climbed up without prompting onto the stool they’d set beneath the noose. If he was lucky, maybe the fall would snap his neck, depriving them of the rest of their cruel sport.
As they set the noose around his neck, he found himself thinking about Ceres. About everything that could have been different. He’d wanted to change things. He’d wanted things to be better, and to be with her. He wished…
There was no time for wishes though, because Thanos felt the guards kick the stool away, and the noose tightened around his neck.
CHAPTER SIX
Ceres didn’t care that the castle was meant to be the Empire’s last, impenetrable bastion. She didn’t care that it had walls like sheer cliffs or doors that could withstand siege weapons. This ended here.
“Forward!” she yelled to her followers, and they surged in her wake. Maybe another general would have led from the rear, planning this carefully and letting others take the risks. Ceres couldn’t do that. She wanted to take apart what was left of the Empire’s power herself, and she suspected that half the reason so many people were following her was because of that.
There were more now even than there had been in the Stade. The people of the city had come out into the streets, the rebellion spreading again like burning embers given fresh fuel. There were people there in the clothes of dockhands and butchers, hostlers and merchants. There were even a few guards now, their imperial colors hurriedly torn away when they saw the tide of humanity approaching.
“They’ll be ready for us,” one of the combatlords beside Ceres said as they marched on the castle.
Ceres shook her head. “They’ll see us coming. That’s not the same thing as being ready.”
No one could be ready for this. Ceres didn’t care how many men the Empire had now, or how strong their walls were. She had a whole city on her side. She and the combatlords raced through the streets, along the wide promenade that led up toward the gates of the castle. They were the head of the spear, with the people of Delos and what was left of Lord West’s men following along behind them on a tide of hope and popular anger.
Ceres heard shouting ahead as they neared the castle, and the sound of horns as soldiers tried to organize some kind of meaningful defense.
“It’s too late,” Ceres said. “They can’t stop us now.”
Yet there were things they could do even then, she knew. Arrows started to fall from the walls, not in the numbers that had formed such a deadly rain for Lord West’s troops, but still more than dangerous enough for those with no armor. Ceres saw one take a man beside her through the chest. A woman went down screaming further back.
“Those with shields or protection, to me,” Ceres called. “Everyone else, be ready to charge.”
Yet the castle’s gates were already closing. Ceres had a vision of her followers as a wave breaking on it as if it were the hull of some great ship, but she didn’t slow. Waves could swamp ships, too. Even when the great gates slammed together with a sound like thunder, she didn’t stop. She just knew there would be more effort involved in defeating the Empire’s evil.
“Climb!” she yelled to the combatlords, sheathing her twin swords so that she could leap at the wall. The rough stone had enough handholds for anyone brave enough to try it, and the combatlords were more than brave enough for that. They followed her, their muscled frames pulling them up the stonework as if it were some training exercise ordered by their blade masters.
Ceres heard those behind her calling for ladders, and knew that the ordinary people of the rebellion would follow her soon enough. For now though, she just concentrated on the gritty feel of the stone under her hands, the effort needed to drag herself from one handhold to the next.
A spear flashed by her, obviously thrown by someone above. Ceres pressed herself flat to the wall, letting it go by, then kept climbing. She was a target as long as she was on the wall, and the only solution was to keep going. Ceres found herself feeling grateful that they wouldn’t have enough time to prepare boiling oil or burning sand as a protection against climbing.
She reached the top of the wall, and instantly there was a guard there to defend. Ceres was glad she was the first one up there, because only her speed saved her, letting her reach out to grab her opponent and pull him from his perch atop the battlements. He fell with a scream, tumbling down into the seething mass of her followers.
Ceres leapt onto the wall then, drawing both her blades to cut left and right. A second man came at her, and she parried while she thrust, feeling the blade sink home. A spear came in from the side, glancing from her partial armor. Ceres cut back with brutal force. In seconds, she’d carved a clear space at the top of the wall, and combatlords poured over the edge then to fill it.
Some of the guards there tried to fight back. A man struck at Ceres with an axe. She ducked, hearing the thud as it struck stone behind her, then lanced one of her swords through his gut. She stepped around him, kicking him down toward the courtyard. She caught a slash against her blades and pushed another man back.
There weren’t enough guards to hold the wall. Some ran. The ones who came forward died. One ran at Ceres with a spear, and she felt it nick her leg as she dodged with no space. She cut low to hamstring her attacker, and then brought her blades across at throat height.
Her brief beachhead atop the wall quickly expanded into something approaching a wave front. Ceres found steps leading down to the gates, and took them four at a time, pausing only to parry a thrust from a waiting guard and strike back with a kick that sent him sprawling. While the combatlord behind her leapt at the guard, Ceres’s attention was on the gates.
A great wheel stood beside the gates, obviously there to open their bulk. There were almost a dozen guards beside it in a ring, trying to protect it and keep out the horde of people beyond. More stood with bows, ready to shoot down anyone who tried to open the gates.
Ceres charged at the wheel without pausing.
She thrust through the armor of one guard, drew out her sword, and ducked under a second’s blow. She swept her sword across his thigh, leapt up to her feet, and cut down a third. She heard an arrow clatter from the cobbles, and threw one blade, hearing a scream as it connected. She snatched up a dying guard’s sword, rejoined the battle, and in an instant, the others were with her.
It was chaos there in the next few moments, because the guards seemed to understand that this was their last chance to keep out the rebellion. One came at Ceres with two blades, and she matched him cut for cut, feeling the impact as she parried each one, probably faster than most of the others around them could follow. Then she thrust in between the strokes, catching the guard through the throat, moving on before he could even collapse so that she could parry an axe blow aimed at a combatlord.
She couldn’t save all of them. Around her, Ceres saw violence that never seemed to stop. She saw one of the combatlords who had survived the Stade looking down at a sword that pierced his chest. He pulled in his attacker as he fell, hitting him with one final swipe of his own blade. Ceres saw another man fighting against three guards. He killed one, but as he did so, his blade caught, and another was able to stab him in the side.
Ceres charged forward, cutting down both of those who were left. Around her, the battle for the door wheel raged to its inevitable conclusion. It was inevitable, because faced with the combatlords, the guards there were like ripe corn, waiting