Dark Empress (31 page)

Things had been unsettled for some time in the palace. Asima had made the most of the last three years, but had been continually beset by difficulties. The satrap of Siszthad had taken no interest in the harem, finding his entertainment in less reputable directions. As a result, things had become static among the women. With no master or husband, the women were not required to leave their harem, were even forbidden to do so. In this stilted, lifeless situation, Asima had taken to playing games with her fellow inmates, turning them against one another and watching the resulting mayhem with interest.

Causing discomfort among her rivals was her only diversion, though, and even that had begun to pall after a few months. After all, she was at the pinnacle as it was, and playing the game repeatedly when you’d already won was no fun at all.

She had wondered whether, given Siszthad’s notorious preferences, one of the other two important satraps would come to the harem to take a woman, but they had not done so. On one of the rare occasions, half a year ago, when a guard had come to the building on a chore and had shown a little humanity to the women, Asima had quizzed him about the three satraps.

She had been surprised initially to learn that Siszthad had led an army across the sea to track down Prince Ashar and strike a deal with the Lord of Velutio. It had seemed strange for the little piggy hedonist to embark solo on such an impressive military campaign, but then it would have been the other two pushing him into it, and Asima was sure they considered their figurehead King to be thoroughly expendable.

The dark-skinned nomadic satrap apparently already had a harem of wives he had brought with him from the desert as he ‘despised’ the softer, lighter women of the coastal regions.

And as for Ma’ahd? According to the guard, Ma’ahd simply had no time for them. He was busy effectively ruling the country and planning expansion, and that left few hours for frivolities.

Life had become dull, but still Asima kept herself alert; on the edge. When things were quiet, in her experience, it was almost always a prelude to busier times. And, indeed, it would appear that busier times were arriving. This morning, one of the younger girls who was so far below Asima on the ladder that she felt almost friendly toward her had come with news that the palace was a hive of activity.

Asima, of course, had been blissfully unaware of this. Her apartment looking out over the sea meant that the only activity she ever witnessed in the palace were the guards patrolling the walls far below. The younger girls, though, desperate for excitement, had taken to hanging around the window that Asima and Yasmin used to frequent and others that were more readily accessible these days.

She had listened half-heartedly for a moment, reasoning that what the girl thought of as a ‘hive of activity’ could be anything, but it had appeared she was correct. The stables had apparently been emptied, the horses, camels and carts of the palace loaded up.

Asima had frowned and gone to her window. Sure enough, the guard had been changed. The common arrangement, to which she was now very accustomed, called for two guards to each stretch of wall, passing one another as they patrolled, with one more in each tower and more on duty below and out of sight. Now, however, there was one guard alone patrolling the two stretches of wall and three towers visible from her window.

That was why she now found herself standing like a sneaky child at the narrow window of the kitchens close to the harem’s main gate, watching as the guard were paraded back and forth, kitted out for a campaign. Whatever Ma’ahd and his crony were up to, it would appear that it would take them out of Akkad and that could be dangerous for him. Even in such seclusion as the women now suffered, the mood of the populace was common knowledge. The ruling triumvirate was not popular, it seemed. Hardly a surprise, particularly given the respect that had been accorded the God-King Amashir.

Asima frowned as her eyes strayed from the marching soldiers to the heavily-laden carts being marshalled in the gravel area between the public palace and the mausoleum. What in the name of sanity were they taking that weighed so many carts so far down?

Her frown deepened as two servants left the public palace, carrying something large under a sack-cloth covering toward one of the carts. As she watched in interest, one of them got their feet tangled in the cloth and it slide from their burden. The large, filigree gilded shutters that protected the God-King’s reliquary flashed in the sunlight.

Asima growled. Ma’ahd wasn’t going on campaign; he was simply leaving and taking whatever he wished with him. She scoured the grounds for more signs of the satrap’s greed and suddenly spotted the man himself with one of his officers striding toward the main door not ten feet from this very window. Holding her breath, she ducked back out of sight. The two were deep in conversation as they approached, but their voices were low and quiet. Asima strained to hear as the two men stopped outside the closed door.

“Will they leave the building, sire?”

“They’ll have to, Siva. See to it. Let’s make this quick. The storm approaches”

Asima frowned for a moment. Storm? It was a perfect day. There…

She adjusted her thinking to the likelihood of a metaphorical storm. Something so huge was about to happen that Ma’ahd and his men were leaving Akkad and raping it of anything valuable. She allowed herself a small crooked smile. Ashar… that had to mean prince Ashar. He was coming back for his throne.

Her smile slid a little. Things might be bad right now with that unpleasant pig on the throne and the two most callous satraps in the Kingdom running things, but at least they had no opinion of her either way. Ashar, on the other hand, had never made any secret of the fact that he distrusted and disliked her. It would appear that she was about to be delivered from an uncaring captor by one who actively disliked her. What sort of choice was that? Moreover, where were they being taken? Ma’ahd and his ally held no interest in the women of the harem.

As the great doors of the harem rattled and creaked open, Asima’s heart lurched and the colour drained from her face as she became sure of their fate. Ma’ahd was raping the city but had no interest in the women, so they would not take the girls with them. But he would leave nothing for Ashar. In the brutal world in which these satraps lived, a retreating soldier left nothing for the enemy.

The women would be killed, probably along with the servants of the palace. Then, very likely, the whole complex would be put to the torch, and maybe even the city, so that when Ashar arrived there was nothing but soot and wreckage awaiting him.

She realised she was growling gently. Her hand closed on something and she looked down in surprise. She had grasped one of the cleavers hanging from the rack above the heavy wooden bench. Now why had she done that? If she’d believed in Gods or fate, or indeed anything but her own will, she might have put that down to some hidden influence.

Smiling coldly, she walked quietly along the wall of the kitchens, parallel with the entrance corridor of the Harem; a foot-thick wall all that separated her from the two men. She approached the kitchen door with a little trepidation and paused, listening. This portal led back out into the central courtyard of the harem beside the entrance passage. She heard Ma’ahd and his man stop nearby; heard the satrap clear his throat and begin to address the harem in a clear voice.

“Women of the royal bedchamber! We no longer have any need of you and the time has come for you to escape this prison. You are to be set free.”

Behind the decorative door, Asima snarled. She knew exactly what sort of ‘escape’ and ‘freedom’ the man was talking about. Well, she was not going to curl up and accept her fate quietly.

Outside she could hear girls rushing out of the doorways around the building and into the garden, chattering with excitement. Could they really be so dense and short sighted that they believed the masters of Akkad after leaving them to rot for three years actually intended to free them? Just how stupid were some of these women?

She heard a hoarse chuckle from the officer.

Without a plan; without forethought or even taking a breath in preparation, Asima ripped open the kitchen door and stepped out, directly behind the captain of the satrap’s guard. In that brief moment she took in the entire scene. The women were filing out into the open square from which Ma’ahd addressed them. The guard officer was armed, but the weapon was sheathed; Ma’ahd likewise.

With no grace or elegance, Asima swung the heavy cleaver to her left, her eyes fixed on Ma’ahd and not even breaking her step as she tugged the gleaming blade back out of the man’s neck, hearing the unpleasant sounds as it snapped a tendon and left the spine almost severed.

Behind her, captain Siva of the palace guard, his eyes bulging in shock, collapsed to his knees and then, one hand going to the huge chasm in his neck, toppled gently forward, making gurgling noises.

The whole assault had been so brief that she had already taken her next swing before Ma’ahd, his eyes wide with surprise, had begun turning to see what had happened.

Her blow took off Ma’ahd’s left arm just above the elbow, the razor-sharp, heavy blade continuing on to dig into his ribs. He stared at her, his mouth opening and closing as he registered the gruesome damage she had just inflicted on him.

The whole world, having slowed to a crawl for Asima as she dived into her assault with no thought and delivered her initial blows, suddenly sped up and left her in a minor panic. What in hell’s teeth had driven her to do this? Before her, satrap Ma’ahd was recovering his composure. The wound was crippling but far from fatal. He roared and reached around with his right hand to draw his long, curved sword.

Asima swallowed and sighed. No going back now; she had to finish it.

As the wounded tyrant began to draw his sword, the blade rasping against the metal edge of the scabbard, Asima kicked him in the kneecap with as much force as she could muster. There was a satisfying crunch and, sword still half sheathed, Ma’ahd cried out in pain and fell heavily on to his back.

Now they were fighting on Asima’s terms and not his. Like all of her plans, carefully constructed over many years of harem life, this one had to be played out in the appropriate steps and carefully. First: the element of surprise. Well, she’d accomplished that easily. Second: leave nothing for your victim to use against you.

Taking a deep breath, she drew back the cleaver and let it fall with all the power she had behind it. The satrap, agonised and in shock, floundering on the floor with a missing arm and a shattered knee, could do nothing but watch in horror as his other arm, hacked off above the wrist, scraped across the gravel and came to a halt beneath a decorative rose bush.

“What?” he managed, blood bubbling around his lips as he managed to speak in a wheezy whisper. “Why?”

Asima smiled and the effect made the satrap recoil as far as his position allowed.

“You invaded our town, burned our homes, killed our people, turned on your own country and usurped your King, among many other smaller failings. There are countless reasons, I’m sure, why people want to see you dead, Ma’ahd. But not me. You see, I have changed since the days you sent me away from M’Dahz.”

As she spoke, she stooped and finished the job of drawing his curved sword from the sheath, flinging the cleaver, covered in viscera, into the bushes away from them. She became aware of the horrified silence that filled the garden and the increasing proximity of some of the other women, who were slowly closing in from behind her. They were hardly a worry.

“Quite simply, Ma’ahd, you took a happy young girl and turned her into me. For that I suppose I should really thank you. I am far stronger and more powerful than I could ever have hoped to be as Asima the merchant’s daughter.”

She paused in her speech for a moment to bring the long curved blade down in a precise blow that severed his other leg below the knee. The satrap shrieked. Third step: make sure you have them exactly where you want them and there is no escape.

She turned and the women approaching her stopped in their tracks.

“I’d wait there, ladies. I’m rather enjoying myself and I don’t know whether I’ll be able to stop at two.” She licked her lip hungrily

Without paying any further heed to them, Asima turned back to the maimed and bloody mess below her. He was flailing, but not a single limb remained intact to obey his brain’s desperate commands to flee this mad woman.

“No.” Asima stated flatly. “I’ve long ago got past hating you. I’m sorry if it bruises your ego, your lordship, but there are girls in this building that I consider more of a threat than you. No… I couldn’t have cared less about you.”

She gave three light slashes with the blade, delivering random cuts across the man’s torso, eliciting new cries of agony.

“No. This is quite simply self preservation. I will not go to my death, Ma’ahd. Some of these women may be stupid enough to think you might free them, but the only thing I’m not sure of is whether you would have had us shot full of arrows or simply locked us in a shed and set fire to it.”

And the last step? Make sure the game goes on long enough to enjoy it. She delivered a few more painful cuts. He was bleeding quite profusely now and his face had become gaunt and grey, the hollows of his eyes taking on a purple tint.

“More even than that, you see. Prince Ashar never liked me much. I don’t think I’ll thrive under his reign, but I may be able to begin closing the gap between us when I present him with your neatly severed head on a bed of rose petals.”

Without taking her eyes from the groaning heap below her, Asima gestured over her shoulder with her free hand.

“You girls… get me a few hundred rose petals and a silver serving dish. Satrap Ma’ahd’s reign is over.”

The last thing the mighty satrap Ma’ahd, power behind the throne of Pelasia and conqueror of M’Dahz, ever saw was the happy grin on the face of a blood-spattered beauty as she went to work, sawing through his neck with his own sword and whistling a lullaby as she did.