Semper Indomitus by Robert Brady

Author:Robert Brady [Brady, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Robert W. Brady, Jr.
Published: 2018-12-21T22:00:00+00:00

“On morning cold,

“With breeze in branch,

“And fog upon the air!

“On horse of white,

“In battle tight,

“The blood in his blond hair!”

Like it always did, Vulpe’s song wafted out like a living thing, like a stream of consciousness directly to the mind, giving you a picture show in song, the images of whatever he sang of – in this case, the Second Invasion of Thera.

People who heard it for the first time would, for lack of a better word, swoon. Even when I’d heard him sing a dozen times, I could find myself drifting off into the song, into this world he created, when I could see an idealized Lupus the Conqueror, slaying his enemies on his white horse.

Eric shook his head, then ripped the door open.

The two guards stared dreamily into the air, even as he decapitated the first one and drove his black sword into the chest of the other. Both fell without a sound or a change in the blissful expressions on their faces.

Nina looked him in the eyes, and the two nodded to each other. Together they bounded down the stairs.

Without a word, Dagi and Lupennen behind me, we charged up.

We found the same thing on every landing – warriors looking blissfully into the void, three and four at a door. We cut them down, me with my sword, Dagi with hers and even Lupennen with his dagger. At the top of the stairs one of the soldiers seemed about to blink himself out of his reverie when Lupennen’s dagger caught him in the throat.

He grasped at the buried hilt as he fell to his knees. My son pulled the weapon from his neck and wiped the blade on the fallen warrior’s shirt.

In all, we killed twelve. We turned and started back down the stairs, meeting Eric and Nina back in front of Lee’s room.

“Got them all,” Eric said.

“Except the loyal soldiers,” Nina said. “We have five at the base of the stairs – they’ll hold their position if more come for us.”

“More will,” I said. I stuck my head into Lee’s room, where Vulpe had just finished his song.

“We move!” I informed them.

“Where?” Dagi demanded. She held her sword dripping blood at a downward angle to her body, her shield loose on her left arm.

“The stables?” I asked Shela.

“The wharves,” Lupennen said. I turned to him.

“It’s three daheeri at least,” I told him.

“We don’t all go,” Lupennen said. “You and the Empress – there are Sea Wolves in the harbor.”

I nodded. Sea Wolves – and each with as many as one hundred ready warriors available, depending on how many were on liberty.

“I can take us to the stables,” Shela said. “But what of the children.”

“The children,” Nanette said, “will be fine.”

“We can hold the stairs, if their plans aren’t ruined already,” Vulpe said.

“If they are,” I said, “then they’ll be more desperate, and then the children of the Emperor would make good hostages.”

“Hostages need to be alive,” Lee said.

My kids were growing up fast.

Shela had apparently made her decision, because the next thing I knew, I was in the stables.

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