PROLOGUE
Frame Date, 2nd of Brist, 4950

From the cathedral's ornate balcony, the regent watched thousands of mourners file past the gold-inlaid coffin below, their faces sheened with tears. Millions more were tapped in and watched through the eyes of the linked man, whoever he happened to be. They watched on hover screens, safe on their own worlds or in the distant cities and towns of Cembel.

There was no way to identify the link, yet the regent couldn't help but look. His own link fluttered in his head, suddenly active, the feel of a thief inside his mind. A chill raced up his spine. He must hurry! The end of his own time drew near, but he'd prepared well, he and his late queen.

Amplifones screamed "Long live the Queen", though the queen lay dead. His tears fell not for her--though they ought fall in her favor for she would be called traitor, murderer, killer of innocents--but for her minions and their impending destruction.

For them, his heart bled.

Once the ceremony neared its end he would carry out her final command, a necessity upon which their survival depended. Destiny demanded he follow her. To delay jeopardized their freedom, what little hope they had for it.

Heavy artillery hummed above the cathedral, hovering over the city, weapons trained and loaded. The strained mercy a conqueror showed for his conquered ended today, his compassion no more than a cold drop of water lost in an inferno.

The first volley of heavy fire promised to fall soon. They would remain passive and withhold an answering strike, though they possessed both the power and the will to fight. By direct order of the late Queen of Cembel, monarch of the Li-Tai Alliance and seat of power, resistance had been forbidden. And for good reason.

He alone knew the truth, at least the tiny bit that favored secrets and deception: the plan that might save them. He would never know whether they had won, if their ploy had succeeded. So thin their plan, so fragile, yet strengthened with a dim ray of hope.

Beside him, the epitome of strength and dedication, Wallace stood tall and muscular at the stone balcony railing. His immaculate uniform melded to his frame, accenting his stalwart stance. His Asp, the standard A-sequenced plasma weapon, was lashed to his hip. Grim lines scored the otherwise smooth planes of his pleasant face as he watched the procession with a clear eye and keen perception, concealing the heartbreak that lay heavy in his chest. An antiquated tradition and final salute to their deceased queen, the first seven of twenty-one shots rocked the cathedral. He flinched at the sound, balling gloved hands into fists that stretched black leather tight across his knuckles.

"Why did she do it?" he whispered.

The regent offered no answer, for there were no answers that would not hasten his death. Wallace must not know the reasons until later. Another seven shots echoed off ancient stone walls and rattled stained glass windows.

Wallace leaned forward, gloved hand on the balcony railing, to face the regent. His strong, angular features were drawn in a frown. Dark hair fell across his forehead and clung in strands to his skin, moistened by the sweat of the damned.

"Can it not be rescinded?" he asked. "Can we not be released to return fire?"

"The order cannot be rescinded," the regent replied, though he knew his answer cut Wallace to the bone. "The order stands. We will not return fire."

Wallace lowered his gaze and said no more, the look of defeat tempered by the fire in his eyes, a fire the regent understood. The final salute echoed and died, as fleeting as their queen's last breath. Silence filled the vast space until trumpets sounded their mournful dirge.

Through a blur of tears, the regent turned to contemplate his apprentice. His heart filled with fresh grief, an open wound that bled for yet a little while. Thirty years it had been, thirty years of training since Wallace had been taken, a brave lad of five. In all his life the regent had not seen a more apt pupil. The man was exceptional in both skill and ability, though even now he saw it not. He knew more than he dared believe, a blessing and a curse for him.

Wallace would soon undergo inquisition, a fact about which he remained blessedly uninformed. He was well trained in a warrior's skill, but untried; a natural leader who would soon fall; possessor of a diplomat's tongue that would fail him shortly. Nothing in his past prepared him for his future.

"I am Regent for a few moments yet, and I must not fail. You must not, either."

"Sir." A whisper only the regent heard.

"You will protect Destazio, our heir apparent, at all cost."

Wallace glanced away. Distaste registered in his tight expression. He offered no argument, though the regent knew he longed to refuse.

"He has been named, and he will rule." The regent's tone was firm and filled with authority. The bastard son of the queen's half-brother would ascend the throne, a usurper of low character and tall ambition, the successor she had named. "You must remain faithful."

Wallace nodded, a tiny gesture drawn from his well of courage, a well the regent hoped ran deep for in the days to come great courage would be required. And great stamina.

The trumpets ceased. Pageantry slowed, while above the cathedral the artillery of Ami-Den prepared. Stillness fell heavy throughout the ancient, monolithic building, a poisonous cloud of quiet that rolled into every corner. From the commonway outside, the heavy tramp of booted infantry echoed faint in the sudden silence. The throng beneath the balcony drew closer, hoping for protection they would not find.

One thing remained, one puzzle piece to slip from the board and render the picture incomplete.

The regent drew his dagger, an ornament handed down from generation to generation. Wallace watched him with a question in his dark eyes, one the regent was forbidden by oath to answer. He offered the blade to Wallace, but the apprentice hesitated.

"I will have yours in return," the regent said, for he was forbidden to draw blood with his own.

Wallace paled and glanced toward the queen's coffin, then fastened his piercing gaze on the regent's face. "Might I ask the reason, my lord?"

The regent shook his head. "You may not." The utterance wounded, for he did his apprentice a grave disservice, he who had served carefully and well, he whom the regent loved as a son. "Do you refuse me your dagger? I ask as your friend and mentor, and not as your superior."

"I do not, sir, but I only--"

"Either comply or refuse. Nothing more."

Wallace lowered his gaze. With a trembling hand he covered the plated sheath that held his dagger, the heirloom that signified his rank and spoke to the honor of his family through the ages, a talisman the regent intended to ruin and forever render invalid with the stain of blood. Wallace grasped the slender, polished blade, ran his gloved fingers along the smooth steel and offered it to him.

"It is yours, my Lord Regent."

The regent accepted the blade, a shaft of light minting its haft red and silver in his hand.

"What do you intend, sir?" Wallace's voice quavered, a thing the regent had never heard, not even in the face of the enemy, nor in the face of death.

He pushed the hilt of his own gold-trimmed blade toward his apprentice, who reverently accepted the precious object. "I intend to fulfill my obligations, and I command you to do the same."

"You know I will, sir."

And Wallace was correct. The regent knew he would, though his heart would be rent as a sail before a hurricane. "Listen closely to what I tell you," said the regent. "Accept no link, but comply."

"Sir, I don't understand--"

He grasped the other's arm, and repeated, "Accept no link, but comply."

Wallace bowed his head. "Sir." He'd be left with nothing of substance, but enough for him to begin.

The regent gripped the dagger's haft with a steady hand and placed the clean blade against his own unarmored chest. With skill garnered from years of practice, he sank the blade deep and true, a testament to the marksman he had always been. The metal slid cold into his heart, the pain minimal, the knowledge of its purpose unbearable in its weight. He sank to his knees, and Wallace caught him.

"Sir!" Wallace shouted. His voice came as from a distance, but the anguish was clear. The regent went limp in Wallace's arms, unwilling to lend anything to the struggle. Death beckoned, and he listened, anxious for the moment to end. He had lived too long already.

"Sir!" Wallace shouted again. "What have you done?" He reached for the haft as if to withdraw the blade, then drew back his bloody hand, helpless before the regent's action. Tears slipped from his dark eyes, the first of many to fall in the days to come.

Much suffering lay in Wallace's future.

"It is as it must be," the regent whispered. He had honored his queen's command with the sacrifice of his own life. As light slipped from his perception, he fastened his gaze on his friend, regretting that he could not confide in him.

"Why? Why have you done this?" Wallace asked, his voice heavy with sorrow and laced with confusion.

The regent's voice broke weakly over bloodless lips, but he worked to bring forth words that might sustain his apprentice, a guide through the long black night ahead. He opened his mouth to speak, but darkness crowded closer still and stole his vision and his voice. "Courage..." he whispered, and hoped that Wallace understood. "Be of good courage...."

Chapter 1

Above the gilded Concord Cathedral heavy artillery phased up, a steady vibration that increased in pitch, the resonance of battle cruisers: an Ami-Den Wolf Pack. Wallace stared into Vared’s still face. Unable to bear the sight, he hugged his lord's body tight against his chest, his head back and eyes closed as he rocked back on his heels. Vared, his lord and friend, mentor, benefactor and guide lay dead in his arms. An ache grew deep within him, the advent of suffering, harbinger of greater ills to come.

Wallace reverently laid the body on the black marble floor, sorrow slowing his movements. His dagger, forever ruined by blood and made worthless, glinted crimson in the reflected light, a thousand years of distinction and place now made void with the forbidden stain. In its stead, he grasped Vared’s blade tight in his fist, an honor and advancement in rank, but one from which he took no joy. For now he occupied the regent's office--he possessed Vared's dagger and therefore his position--an office he did not seek yet one he was forbidden to refuse. With a prayer on his lips for the deliverance of Cembel and her Alliance, he stood, heart aching, and sheathed his mentor's blade.

Below, mourners clustered together, black-shrouded images of despair. Richly embroidered velvet draped the queen’s coffin, barely visible beneath the crush of red roses, her favorite. With death, her final command stood, rendered law by her signature. Vared had said as much. They would not return fire when the Jackdaw struck, but would suffer as a helpless child before a raging bull.

A hand gripped his shoulder. "What happened?" whispered Destazio, his young face ashen. He gazed upon the lifeless Vared.

Wallace withheld an answer and shrugged away the hand, the touch of a usurper he was ordered and sworn to protect. The thought sickened; he drove it from his mind.

Encircling them both, heavily armed black-clad infantry warriors stealthily loosed weapons from scabbards. Eagle feather insignia shone silver on their breasts: the queen's Royal Guard. Ferocious men bred for protection, trained for butchery. Tested at birth and, if found worthy, they were taken and conditioned for life, refused heritage and denied dagger, and proud to be so. No wives. No children. No family. The finest in all Cembel. And now given over to the Jackdaw warriors of Ami-Den by royal decree. Upon command, each man dimmed his visor.

"I asked you what happened?" Destazio demanded, his voice now tight and filled with tension, but also arrogant and cold. Blond hair curled about his face. He gestured toward Wallace’s dagger. "Is that not your--"

"Yes." Wallace held up his hand to stay the questions. "He took... he took his own life." He spoke with great effort, for he had never witnessed an act so irrational or one more forbidden. He looked away from the startled face of the future king and stared at the dead man. Vared's actions had irreversibly mapped his own future.

Two guards, both of the Queen’s Eagle, closed to either side of him. "You will come with us, sir," one said, a tall man whose expression remained hidden behind the darkened visor. Accusation resided in his tone.

Wallace nodded. Their reaction was the only one open to them in the aftermath of Vared's death. He dropped to one knee, bent and kissed his mentor's wrinkled cheek. The face was peaceful, eyes closed as though asleep, skin only beginning to cool. How often he'd seen that face filled with gladness, a smile emanating from sharp eyes, a note of joy in the voice. Dear God, what torment had invaded his lord’s mind to bring forth such a wicked act as this? In his heart he bade farewell to his fallen friend, whom he would mourn forever.

The tall Eagle gripped his shoulder. "On your feet." Wallace jerked away, but rose as ordered.

He stared into the shiny visor of the Queen’s Eagle, his the only defining image reflected, and one that stunned. His face was drawn, his eyes wide--the look of the defeated evident though no battle had been fought.

"That is your dagger, is it not, sir?" The guard gestured toward Vared.

Wallace glanced at the hurtful image and nodded. "It is, but I have been given his, an even trade." From his own sheath he drew Vared's dagger partway. The guard leveled his weapon, his aggressive posture speaking for his unseen expression.

"Step away, sir, and come with us."

Wallace reluctantly obeyed, eyeing the weapon. Eagles used lethal rounds of plasma with little concussion, only a snicking sound that left a burned hole in any target, their slim weapons set to kill rather than paralyze.

Destazio stepped forward, his fur-trimmed cape cast across one shoulder. "You killed him?" His demeanor was overbearing, his tone belligerent and filled with ill-concealed hope. Wallace glared at his ward. That the question was asked was disgraceful. That it be answered, worse still.

"You are not king yet, young prince. You may question me, your regent, when you become so. Not before."

"That day will come soon enough," Destazio answered, a glint in his spoiled eye. "Watch what you say, Regent. A king has awesome power, and this king possesses a long memory."

Wallace stepped to the side, in compliance with the Eagle, offering no reply. This king might have a long memory, but he was without mercy, and careless of his people.

The usurper thrust his chin forward, his expression sour. He addressed the officer, even though the Eagle's back was to him.

"See that he is well guarded."

He moved from their path with a flourish of his garnet mantle, his lust for power plainly written on his callow face and in his haughty actions. Why had the queen thrust such a pox upon them? What misplaced loyalty had overtaken Vared, that he could support her decision?

The Eagle commander, resplendent in silver trim from shoulder to decorative rosette of gold at his Asp-belt, issued orders via his com. His men reformed, a solid wall of armored flesh. Wallace stood with hands slightly raised, offering no provocation, his back to the balcony rail and the crowd below.

Two Eagles knelt and wrapped Vared’s robe of office tightly about the body. Two others joined them and lifted his lifeless form. Wallace looked quickly away from the bloodstain on the dark floor, and raised his eyes to the vaulted cathedral dome, vaguely aware of the warriors as they carried the body away. Even from the lavishly decorated balcony, the cathedral dome appeared lofty, a vast space crowned with crude stone of purest white, inlaid with golden-encased frescoes and mosaics of onyx and silver. Dust motes danced in varied shades of tinted light, shot by the sinking sun through the stained glass rosette filling the west wall. Any other time, the sight would have been inspiring, beautiful.

A moment of silence filled the awesome structure before a solitary voice rose and pierced the crowded building with the high, sad melody of the mourner’s requiem. Clear and lovely, the notes trembled in the air and plucked at Wallace’s torn heart. A lump rose in his throat, and he swallowed hard.

"This way, sir." The Eagle commander nodded toward the intricately carved door at the rear of the balcony. Guards took up flanking positions near them. The fragrance of roses hung in the air, the pleasant odor at odds with the pall of death. Wallace lowered his head in resignation and moved upon command.

With a shudder of power only the seasoned comprehended, the Wolf Pack idling above burst into a roar of battle readiness. Wallace caught his breath; his heart stilled in his chest. The cathedral quieted beneath the music; heads tilted upwards. All eyes fastened on the vaulted ceiling above, the grand mosaics of Cembelese warriors rushing to battle in phalanx formation, the point man’s hand raised above his console’s colored lights in a firing position. Angels swooped down from heaven to guard them. The obscured face of God looked on from beyond.

Wallace flinched at the sound, so familiar and now so full of doom. The Jackdaw, a war-mongering and brutal race, sounded their attack. The static air inside the cathedral electrified, a precursor to the actual shot. Eagles looked to their silver-trimmed commander, whose weapon sagged in his hand. His helmeted face turned skyward, toward a ceiling thin as fog against such firepower as the enemy possessed. A shout to his troops died beneath the booming violence of a laser cannon above, the first volley.

As with a ripple upon still water, the west corner of the cathedral wavered, then burst inward in a cacophony of shattered stone and glass, flying debris and flame. Below the balcony, black smoke roiled across the bereaved.

The concussion slammed the senses and strained eardrums, deafening many. Instinctively Wallace ducked away and flung his left arm up to protect his face. He drew his own Asp. "Destazio!" he shouted, his duty not forgotten.

The solo voice of the vocalist ended in a scream of agony, a keening wail that died away gradually, fading into echoes of destruction. Beauty died with it, the advent of disaster.

Below, shrieking mourners surged toward the rear entrance in a chaotic wave of terror, fleeing the cathedral into the imagined safety of the streets, only to find safety was an illusion. The courteous turned brutal; the gentle ferocious. A young mother screamed for her child who was swept away by the crowd; an old man fell and none paid heed. Countless more were crushed against walls and doorframes or trampled underfoot in the rush to escape. Outside, the cannon fire had turned buildings and commons into heaps of smoking rubble, and Cembel's trapped and dying citizenry stumbled through the wreckage.

Stone dust filled Wallace’s lungs, stung his eyes and obscured his vision. Now forgotten by warriors who surged around him, he lost sight of his young ward in the upheaval.

A second salvo tracked the path of the first.

The queen’s golden casket toppled from its gilded stand in a scatter of smoking, blackened roses as flames burst from the building's corner, rolled outward and engulfed the hapless in great waves of orange and red. Smoke, black and expansive, billowed upward dimming the bright ceiling; choking, stinking clouds that swirled under arched entryways and corbelled windows.

With a deep roar, the third volley came faster and more destructive than the others. The spired west end of the cathedral shattered into spinning, sizzling fragments--shrapnel disappeared into the crowd, cutting hot pathways through soft flesh wherever fate determined.

Shocked and decimated, mourners littered the scene, some struggling to move, others dead, those somewhere between adding their screams to the din.

On the balcony, the bombardment pounded Wallace, immense weight to his chest, knocking wind from his lungs. As the third blast slammed him to his knees, heat flashed across his skin. A fragment grazed his cheek, and he fell back, the air around him hot with flaming debris. Stunned by the blast he lay still, his vision blurred and breath shallow. He waited for the shock to pass.

Still conscious, he drew a deep breath of fouled air, blinked away the grit and smoke, and rolled up onto his knees.

"Destazio!" he shouted, then coughed, peering through the smoke-clouded balcony at shapes rendered hazy and indistinct. He sheathed his Asp, worthless against such firepower. "Destazio!"

From the fog of smoke and dust, an answer. "Wallace!" The crown prince staggered toward him.

Wallace pulled himself up with the hot balustrade and stumbled toward the voice as a strafing run cut through the balcony. The bright beam sizzled through the building, turning everything in its path to brimstone and smoke.

Destazio reached forward, one bloody arm outstretched, straining to stay upright on the swaying balcony. Shredded, burned remnants of his uniform clung to scorched skin, and flying debris had scored his face. He acted as though lost, unable to judge his direction, heading first in one direction then another.

Wallace called, striving to be heard over the cracking of the balcony, inches from the struggling man's feet. The future king lurched toward the sound of his voice. He stumbled; Wallace worked to catch him, grunting from the effort, and slipped to the floor beneath the sudden weight, a gasp unheard on his lips. Destazio rolled away from him. The crack widened between them, a gulf, a black pit.

"Give me your hand!" Wallace shouted. Destazio’s eyes fluttered. His gaze fixed on Wallace’s face, and he reached for Wallace's outstretched hand, but not far enough. Their fingers touched, but the grip was shallow, and the usurper slipped from his grasp as the cracked floor splintered with an almost human groan. Wallace leapt the gap, grabbed the other's wrist and waistband, then drove with all his strength away from the edge.

He heaved them both up, swinging Destazio's good arm across his shoulder, and hauled his charge toward the stairs. Behind them, stone arches collapsed in a grinding roar; smoke and dust blinding him. Beside him, Destazio groaned, then fainted, a dead weight Wallace could no longer support. He slid to his knees on the stairs, cursing his queen for her treachery.

Eagles rushed by on both sides, their shouts unheard. They shoved past him, bumping his shoulders, polished boots flashing black against the marble, their sound absent in the uproar. He lost his grip on Destazio, fell several steps and slammed hard against the wall, then regained his feet and fought his way through wave after wave of the black-clad guards.

"Destazio!" he shouted into the thunder of another round. The ruined cathedral shuddered and a wall opened to the outside in cascades of tumbling stone and shattered glass. Half the ceiling gave way, its silver trim now melted droplets that splattered hewn stone blocks and leaked onto the bodies beneath them.

Another volley roared in his ears and the building across the common disintegrated. The Jackdaw were laying waste specific targets, not intending widespread destruction but localized devastation. A black-garbed body tumbled down the stairs, pinning him against the wall, reeking of burnt flesh. He shoved it aside, taking the stairs two at a time.

"Destazio!" The pretender lay on the stairs above, head wedged against the stairwell wall.

Three steps away, Wallace lunged, but missed. The staircase collapsed in an explosion of dust and stone. Arm outstretched, he fell with the rumbling marble. Blackness, then a fight for breath, his ribs on fire, mouth filled with grit. Above him, open sky. Sky, and fumes and smoke. And Destazio. His limp body lay just above on a slab of fractured stone perched precariously on a pile of debris. The slab tilted, started to slide, hung for a second, slid again. Wallace struggled to stand, clutching his ribs, and gasped for breath. He braced against the rubble, jumped and caught the king's boot by its toe. He heaved back, and it was enough. Destazio's body fell across his shoulders.

He stumbled into the common on the north side of the cathedral, body straining, despair dimming his mind. He'd been wrong: the Jackdaw had used weapons common to contained and specific targets, but they'd used them repeatedly. Devastation filled his view for as far as the eye could see. From the ruined common, his city glowed red from the Wolf Pack guns. The azure sky filled with billowing pillars of smoke. Injured Cembelese lay unattended, begging for help Wallace could not stop to render. The dead littered the commons, crowded the concourses, and choked the alleyway, those who had survived the cathedral, but had failed to escape the guns.

Jackdaw infantry stormed the commons, armored and heavily equipped, firing at will, their Asps set to kill. Children lay bleeding in the gutter; mothers screamed; men cursed and shouted and died.

Across the concourse, a young girl of perhaps six or seven screamed as she ran, pleading for her own life. Wallace winced, swearing loudly, as a Jackdaw marksman calmly shot her and went on to the next.

Overhead, the hum of the Wolf Pack vibrated in his bones. Small arms fire hissed and sizzled from all directions. Cannon fire roared in his ears, the devastation not yet complete. Behind him, the cathedral groaned, her structure ruined beyond repair, her strength ripped from her bones. With the power of a detonation and the sound of thunder the ancient building collapsed in a wall of dust, flame and ruin.

He hesitated only briefly, his burden heavier in his heart than on his back. His mind raced. Where to go? What to do? How to keep his charge safe from the slaughter? They mustn’t kill or capture the heir, his responsibility. The nearest dock was sectors away, and the first of the Keeps much farther. He turned and ran for the alley, his path aflame and hot.

As he turned, from the corner of his eye he saw Jackdaw infantry, and a marksman tracked his movement.

Behind him he heard the snicking sound of a weapon brought to full cock, and a deep voice shouted, "Fire!"