Imperius Ch. 06

Content warning: The following story contains strong themes of non-sexual violence, including killing.

Author's note:

When I first told my significant other/editor about this story, I predicted it would encompass maybe five chapters.

So that wasn't how it panned out.

My work life is busy, but the thing that really slowed this chapter down the most was the rewrites. This chapter has moved through the perspectives of three different characters, and with three different sequences of events. I had an idea of what needed to happen generally, but the specifics were this shifting, changeful canvas that I could never seemed get a clear image of.

At this point, Imperius will have to be somewhere between seventeen and twenty one chapters. I do have an idea of where it's going, in the end, but the ambition and the reality are often frustratingly in conflict.

This chapter will introduce numerous peripheral characters, so if you notice a name you don't recognize from previous chapters or the list provided, it might just be new.

To those of you who have been waiting for this, you have my heartfelt gratitude for sticking it out. This chapter was exceedingly difficult to get right.

So, without further ado, here at last is chapter six of Imperius.

~*~

Main Characters:

Magnus - Imperial Praetor (elite military title), Dracian ethnicity.

Lilah - Regiment medic, captured slave, Illythian.

Supporting (Imperial):

Saphir - Magnus' personal slave, serves as a groom to Lilah since her capture, undetermined mixed ethnicity.

Daegon - Magnus' personal guard, tasked currently with protecting Lilah, a Gauthrien.

Legatus Hesiod - A prominent political figure in the Imperius, recently arrived in camp. Part of the Imperial house.

Vero - Consular (common political title meaning official advisor) and spymaster. Dracian. He gave Lilah to Magnus. He oversees the initiation and training for the most desirable slaves, those intended for the Imperial house.

Pontius - A consular who overseas initiation and training for the largest bulk of slaves, including concubines and gladiators. Dracian.

Jadir - Consular overseeing the training of the slaves deemed undesirable for pleasure or fighting. A Southern Islander.

Cato - A Praetor with a particularly contentious relationship with Magnus. Dracian.

Ariadne - An aloof Praetor. Undetermined mixed ethnicity. Part of the Imperial house.

Ajax - A Praetor and former gladiator with the love of the common people. D'Azurian ethnicity.

Supporting (Illythian)

Elspeth - Illythian medic who served alongside Lilah. She and Lilah share a contentious relationship.

Mairi - Illythian medic who served alongside Lilah. Lilah feels protective of her.

Antony - Alias: Xavier. A Valencian aristocrat who joined the Illythian militia. Upon capture, he pretended to be a Navarrene merchant, potentially entitling him to Imperial citizenship.

Diarmund - Illythian soldier instructed to guard the Illythian medical team. He took his failure hard.

Eris - Soldier with the Illythian regiment. Rumored to have evaded capture.

~*~

Everything was mist and smoke and the screeching of steel. Lilah's head rang with the sound, and she could barely hear the words Eris shouted at her as she reached her side, but the urgency in her tone penetrated Lilah's daze.

"We have to go, now!" Eris shouted, taking hold of Lilah's shoulders.

They stood in the center of the Imperial camp, the air flooded with a mist so dense it made distance of ten feet into a mystery and muted the cries of panic and pain in the air. The magnificent imperial tents that would have stood here only minutes before lay in shreds all around them.

Eris stood in front of her, a vision of war and beauty. Blood dappled her angular features, hard determination turning her depthless black eyes hard and glinting. Behind her a metal behemoth lay sprawled in the muddy grass, two stories of soldered steel crafted into humanoid shape, its glassy and luminous eyes flickering in its displaced head, as mist continued to seep from a half dozen places on its body and the low sound of grinding clockwork growled from within. It's appendages and chest were charred by the gun Lilah still held, but it was that missing head that bore the strongest signs of the cause of its destruction.

Eris. Who was here, her inhuman strength and senses as formidable as ever. Lilah's heart rose and then stuttered at all of the implications of seeing her in an Imperial camp, and she resisted the urge to seize Eris in a hug or scold her for embarking on such a mission, and most of all, she resisted the other woman's efforts to pull her away.

"Not without them," said Lilah, pointing toward the cage full of Illythian captives behind her. She had fought the behemoth for them, and she wouldn't leave them here now.

She saw Eris' indecision, the temptation to simply haul Lilah along whether she went willingly or not. Lilah braced herself, knowing that if Eris chose, she could overpower her easily—could even simply knock her out and carry her.

Instead, Eris growled in frustration, and whirled toward the great cage. Those inside were all military personnel, but they had been stripped of their armor and tormented for weeks. They were crying out, panicked and pleading.

Lilah circled to the side of the cage, out of Eris' way as the other woman tore at the metal as though it were thin corkwood.

The door was heavy and thick and the lock was exceptional, a flawless example of cursed Imperial innovation. Eris focused instead on the bolts, prying them away from their grafting.

For a moment Lilah sensed only the tense energy of the other woman's effort, and then the metal door tore away from the frame, and crashed to the damp earth.

The captives poured from the cage, and Eris urged them to move northward.

"Spread out through the camp. When you reach the hills, stay low and hidden," she ordered. Lilah's anxiety spiked at that—they were fleeing too far and with too little a head start. They wouldn't all make it.

When Lilah made to follow in the same direction, Eris grasped her wrist and shook her head. "We're not following them."

Lilah looked at her, alarm rooting through her heart like a burrowing animal. "Eris—,"

Eris only shook her head again, her expression hard. "West, Lilah," she said, and drew her along. "Move quickly."

Ignoring that alarm inside her, Lilah moved. Quickly.

All around, she could hear the enemy they evaded in the mist. Imperials, alarmed or injured, were trying to regain some semblance of control. They sounded afraid. For the first time, she could clearly feel how unnerving this must be for them, surrounded by the dense curtain their enemies wielded like a weapon.

It struck her that it must be nightmarish for them to wonder what might slip behind them any moment or shoot them silently from the haze, there was so little sense of the space between them and the cacophony on all sides. When Lilah did make out shapes through the fog, it was only the remaining war tents, just a few feet higher than her head.

Once, Eris grabbed her arm and drew her behind a beam as someone raced past them, too close for comfort. The other woman's senses were acute, and this wasn't the first time Lilah had thanked the heavens for them.

"Alright, move," she growled, and drew Lilah after her.

They continued to run, and as the ground began to rise, turning hilly and lush with grass, Lilah realized they had left the camp behind.

It was also when she remembered the damned vibrator.

Pain blossomed in her stomach, the result of the device Magnus had put in her, nearly making her stumble a dozen times across the rolling hillside. It hadn't bothered her quite so much in the camp, on level ground and surging with fresh adrenaline. Now her legs worked harder, and the dormant thing inside of her felt like it was scraping the walls of her sex. Her vision was blurred, both from the seizing discomfort in her gut and the layer of fog all around them.

Though the fog was at last beginning to disperse, Lilah was fraught with sharp anxiety that someone, some soldier, or scout, or Magnus himself, would look out over the slowly calming mayhem in the imperial camp and see them: two lone figures racing over the hills.

It was fortunate that she had years of experience trying to keep up with Eris. There was no way she could have managed it otherwise. The device that Magnus had inserted into her that morning alone made it nearly twice as difficult as it ought to be, and Eris was regulating her pace to accommodate Lilah's as it was.

While Lilah navigated the terrain gracefully enough, Eris moved like a mountain cat, and once they reached the tree line, she resorted to deftly hoisting Lilah over fallen branches or thick roots in order to maintain their pace.

It wasn't until they were half a league into the woods that she finally signaled permission for the two of them to rest.

Eris looked scarcely winded, but Lilah's face was flushed and dewy with exercise. She rested one hand on a tree and pressed the other to her side, breathing deeply through the sharp ache even while she gave Eris a gauging look, a nagging worry at the back of her mind.

"Eris," Lilah began slowly, "Please tell me the ones you sent north have a detachment waiting for them, or supplies, or anything."

Eris shook her head, still looking into the woods behind them. "We're too few," she said.

"You used them as bait?" Lilah asked, chilled by the thought.

"Of course not," said Eris. "There are markers all over this area. If they're clever, and lucky, they can get away and find one of the shadow outposts."

"We should have brought them with us," Lilah retorted.

This time Eris did look at her. Her black eyes were inscrutable. "I came back for you, Lilah," she said. "The others would have slowed us down."

Feeling suddenly shaky, Lilah covered her stomach with her forearm as she straightened, taking a step away from her friend. "Did you send that behemoth into the camp wild?" she asked, searching Eris' face.

Eris shook her head. "It was supposed to be functional, according to the damn techs. It took them two days to get the fucking thing running. They said it might be slow. They didn't say it would turn wild at the first glimpse of an enemy."

"Which they?" asked Lilah. "Are there many with you?"

"A little over a dozen. The techs did most of the work. They were probably too relieved to get it moving at all to consider whether it would rampage."

"I wondered if they made it out," murmured Lilah. "How many others from—,"

But Eris tilted her head as Lilah spoke, like an animal sniffing movement on the wind, and lifted a hand to caution silence.

She listened carefully for a long moment, tension radiating from her, until she breathed at last. "Commander MacCrannach," she said, with a faint flicker of relief shift across her expression.

~*~

They came from the trees in silent response, a half dozen of them, moving silently and with almost ethereal fluidity. An Illythian regiment, clad in the grey green, that could lend such a thorough camouflage in the woodlands--the better to sneak up on unsuspecting imperial troops in their noticeable black ballistic armor. They held their weapons in their hands, but lowered as they approached.

Lilah startled to realize she knew them—or of them. Even among an army of tested soldiers, these people before her were renowned.

Some she had even tended, or merely offered consolation during their recovery after a battle. Her superiors had taken to sending her around among the injured troops for their morale as much as for practical, tangible treatment in the last year, and she had felt desperately un-deserving as she held the hands of the soldiers and tried to be what they wanted her to be. She felt like a fraud, always, even a little now as a few cast her wide-eyed glances of recognition. They avoided letting their gazes linger on her skintight clothing—Illythian modesty—but she was too busy being lightheaded with relief at the sight of them to succumb to embarrassment.

Several of the soldiers were marked by symmetrical, swirling, woad tattoos spreading the length of their arms and along their neck and cheeks, a hallmark of highland culture. These in particular looked stoic and unnerving enough to make Lilah grateful she was on their side.

The commander was one of the few who looked at her directly. He was a broad, tall man with hair the color of iron, his eyes dark and reassuringly stern as they met hers.

"Lieutenant Claremont," he said, his voice solemn and deep, "It's good to see you well."

"Commander," she murmured, "Thank you."

"You may know my second in command, Lieutenant Raighan." he said, gesturing to a striking, auburn haired man standing at his side, who nodded at her graciously. "He'll need to debrief you about your capture."

Lilah nodded and murmured her acceptance, but MacCrannach's eyes had already moved to Eris, who shook her head infinitesimally in response. "No sign of him, Commander, not with the largest group of captives."

Lilah's heart hurt for him when his eyes shut briefly, and the attending soldiers looked elsewhere. It was the same standard that compelled them to avoid letting their gazes linger on Lilah. He had lost his son, and then lost hope of finding him. They wouldn't make a spectacle of his pain.

A woman, a few paces behind the Commander moved forward, and Lilah knew her as well, enough to be surprised that she hadn't noticed her right away. The woman was generously proportioned, her eyes the color of fine brandy, and they were filled with misery.

"You should have searched harder," she said, bitterness turning her rich voice raspy.

Lilah lowered her eyes. She didn't know Maeve well enough to try to comfort her—but she had known the commander's son, Callum MacCrannach, better—enough to be aware the two were lovers. She had worked alongside him through most of the war, had seen the lingering looks the two exchanged, the excursions they made into one another's tents when the night was quiet and dark.

"I worked on the damned behemoth for three days—," said Maeve.

"And it failed," said Eris, cutting her off, her teeth gritted at the other woman's challenging tone. "It rampaged. I had to break it by hand to keep it from slaughtering an entire caravan of your people."

Frustration and misery warred in Maeve's expression, and one of the other soldiers, wearing tech officer insignia, placed a consoling hand on Maeve's shoulder.

But before either could say anything else, Eris lifted a hand to forestall conversation for the second time, her head tilted in the same listening pose as before.

The soldiers came to attention, their eyes searching the trees around them. They were all familiar enough with the strength of Eris' senses to take her warnings as law.

It wasn't long before they could hear the cause of her tension. Someone was moving toward them through the trees, and with very little stealth.

A series of communicative looks ensued, and guns were leveled to their full height.

Eris drew Lilah behind her, but she seemed calm, and a little resigned. Lilah felt a suspicion bloom inside of her that Eris already had a theory on who their intruder was, and that it didn't alarm her as much as if it were an imperial.

Somehow, Lilah wasn't surprised when the person who stepped into the clearing was a gangly woman, with hair like a volcano around her face, her pale, freckled complexion ruddy with exertion.

Elspeth.

The tension eased, slightly. Most of the soldiers in the clearing knew her, and those that didn't were fairly reassured by her Illythian features and her slave garb.

The other woman rested her hand on the very tree Lilah had been leaning on as she stepped into the clearing.

She greeted the guns half pointed at her with a look of perfunctory contempt, but there was fire beneath that ice. Lilah knew Elspeth better than the other woman might like, and she knew when fear and frustration urged her to wield disdain like a shield.

"Your instructions were to go north," Eris said, unmoved by Elspeth's difficult breathing.

Lilah shot Eris a reproachful look, but Elsbeth's response came faster and fiercer than she had expected.

"And be used as your bait, like the rest of them?" she said, "I'd rather not."

"They were your orders," said Eris, a growl lurking beneath the words.

"You aren't my superior," Elspeth shot back, her lip curling.

"No," said MacCrannach, his voice startlingly deep. "I am."

Elspeth straightened at the words, and tempered the disdain in her features.

"Commander," she acknowledged evenly.

"Did anyone follow you?" he asked her, searching her face.

"No, sir," Elspeth replied, resentment simmering in her tone at the suggestion.

MacCrannach didn't seem reassured. Lilah didn't blame him. For someone who moved with visible grace when she ran, Elspeth had a fairly thunderous footfall, as though all her anger pounded from her into the earth below. The commander threw a glance at one of the soldiers with the woad tattoos and pale, focused eyes, who immediately moved into action, climbing the nearest tree for a vantage.

"We'll need to get those off you," said MacCrannach, in a manner almost reminiscent of one intending to pass the time, nodding his head at Elspeth's shackled wrists. "The imperials like to put trackers in them."

Lilah paled as a horrible thought occurred to her, but there was no chance to voice her alarm before the soldier in the tree interrupted from his branch.

"Commander," he said, "Someone comes."

The group tensed, collectively. Elspeth's already pale skin whitened, the flush of exertion in her cheeks fading.

"Ours or theirs?" MacCrannach asked, his voice steady.

There was a long pause.

"Not ours," said the lookout at last, "But—he wears no imperial raiment. He's dressed like a slave."

The soldiers exchanged looks, confused and wary.

Lieutenant Raighan looked to the commander, who nodded him forward to investigate before glancing at Eris, silently directing her to do the same.

Raighan shifted and moved, wolf-like and silent, toward the trees, while Eris circled toward another angle.

There was a shuffling, a frightened, muted cry, and a heavy pause. It was the sort of pause shared in a standoff, and the silence of it sent waves of tension vibrating in the air.

It was only several moments before Eris returned, but each of those moments held an eon.

The person she returned with bore the markers of an imperial slave, tightly fitted cloth sculpted his torso and wide, metal bands circled his wrists. His skin was a rich, creamy brown. She carried him by the throat before dropping him unceremoniously to his knees.

The eyes he looked up at them with were the deep blue color of a southern sea.

"Saphir?" Lilah said, her lips parting in dismay.

Relief filled his eyes, "Lilah, I was worried--,"

"Quiet!" barked one of the Illythian soldiers harshly. Lilah had to mentally grasp to retrieve the memory of his name as he moved forward and shoved his gun close to Saphir's head. Callow, she recalled, after several moments of mental stutter. She remembered him as ambitious, with a few rough edges. He pushed his gun to the slave's forehead.

"You know him?" prompted Lieutenant Raighan, his eyes trained on Saphir along with his gun even as he directed the question to Lilah.

"Yes," said Lilah, staring at Callow's gun pressed to the back of Saphir's head. "He's another slave—and he helped me."

"Why have you followed us?" asked the commander, his voice without inflection.

"I just came to look for Lilah," he said, his blue eyes wide, lips parted by shaky breaths.

Eris' eyes were narrowed. "So far?" she asked.