World War IV: Empires Read online

  “Rise, Tao. You’ve brought the correspondence?” Delun kept his tone calm, doing his best to hide the growing anxiousness inside.

  “Of course.” Tao pulled a cluster of letters from his pockets and opened them for Delun on the desk. “Lance Mars had only sent one letter to his brothers, while Dean Mars had sent two.”

  The writings offered nothing more than news Delun already knew, and he tossed the letters away from him in frustration. “There has to be more than this, Tao. You assured me we would have eyes on them. I need something I can use.”

  Tao remained hesitant, and Delun could sense the conflict running through his director’s face. “There was one piece of information that one of our scouts learned from Rodion’s occupation of the Northwest capital.”

  “Speak, Tao. Or you will regret biting your tongue.”

  Tao fidgeted his fingers nervously then found a seat next to the emperor. “It was before the battle started. With the large number of North Americans fleeing into the city, we believed it to be the perfect cover for our people to get a closer look. But with the governor away, they trailed his nephews and wife.”

  “And?”

  “Although it was never confirmed, we received word that the governess had a miscarriage several years ago. It was a personal devastation to both parents, one that took years for the governess to overcome.”

  Family. The word grew stronger in Delun’s mind. Exploiting the weakness of the governor’s spouse could be useful in triggering the Mars brother to sail before he was ready. A hasty decision in a moment of passion often led to failure.

  “The same source provided another piece of information. Something few know outside of the Mars family.” The smile that curved up Tao’s cheeks twisted with a mischievous evil. “The governess is pregnant once again.”

  Delun rose, and Tao quickly did the same, bowing his head. Keeping the pregnancy secret meant the governess still harbored hesitation from the miscarriage. And where hesitation rested, fear resided. “The Mars family still wishes to grow even amidst the chaos of war and death.” That was the dagger to the governor’s heart. Lay barren what was left of his roots, and he would die with the rest. “Do we still have our scouts with Rodion?”

  “Only one, Emperor. The rest were killed in battle.”

  “Send him word, and see to it that he has whatever his heart desires. And make sure he understands what fate will await him if he fails.”

  ***

  Smoke from the wreckage of the capital drifted into the morning sky. The tired, worn faces of the people of the Northwest slowly walked through the rubble that was once their home. Families sifted through ash and broken pieces, looking for anything they could use to rebuild, but Rodion’s men and the bombs Jason had placed had done their work well.

  Burning the city had been Rodion’s final cry of defiance as he fled to the north, seeking the safety of the wilderness before Dean’s men relinquished their chase. The dead still littered the ground as soldiers hauled off body after body into the mass graves they’d dug on the outskirts of the city.

  With his home burnt to the ground and the Russians still a threat, Dean planted his quarters at the front lines, where he reestablished the ranks of his army. He wanted to make sure that his people knew where he was and what he meant to do to make sure they kept what was left of their homes and their lives.

  The war council hadn’t rested since the planning of the bombs, and Dean could see the ragged faces sagging over the map as General Monaghan pointed out what strategic options Rodion had available to him now that he was on the run. “Delun has called back his ships, and our scouts say that they don’t have any inclination to return to the general’s aid.” Monaghan guided his hand along the Alaskan wilderness, deep into the north. “Rodion’s men are used to the cold, and all that’s left to him is the tundra north. Governor, he’s cut off from supply lines, the Chinese are thousands of miles away, and he has no way to get back to his home country. I say we let him starve himself up there.”

  The canvas walls of the tent had been pulled up, offering a clear view of the capital’s ruins behind them. Dean gestured to the ashes. “Do you see that, General? Rodion left his mark on our people, on our land. He came to conquer us, and I can promise that he will not starve. If we let him go, then he will return, and it will be with a vengeance we may not be able to stop. We will pursue him, and we will kill him.”

  Monaghan gave a slight bow, and Dean dismissed them, leaving him alone with Jason. “Monaghan has a point, Dean.” Jason offered his opinion carefully. “Chasing after Rodion may be what he wants. He’ll have the advantage in the cold.”

  “Not with the weapons the engineers are designing for us.” Dean snapped his words more harshly than he intended them to be. The surge of adrenaline that accompanied retaking the capital had not been able to shake the lust of war from his bones. “Rodion was responsible for our brothers’ deaths. I will not allow him to live while I still have breath in my lungs.”

  Jason gripped Dean’s shoulders and spun him around. “Dean, our people still need you to lead them. Kemena still needs you, and Kit and Sam. If you keep trying to avenge every death, you’ll have nothing left of your soul. And I can’t carry the weight of rebuilding once this war is done. I need you, brother.”

  The last bit loosened the war vise in Dean’s mind, the tunnel vision of Rodion’s head on a spike slowly fogging, as he turned his attention to what was in front of him: family. He let out a sigh and gave Jason a light pat on the back of his neck. Just before Jason left, Dean called out to him. “How’s Canice?”

  “Kemena worked on her last night. I’m going to check on her now.”

  “If she’s awake, send her my regards.”

  “I will.”

  Dean leaned back on the table with the war map still resting on top, and he felt the creak of the wood under his weight. It seemed he’d grown heavier over the past few weeks, though he had shed weight from the stress of battle.

  “Escalation.” The voice came from behind Dean, and he whipped around to see Alvy standing at the edge of the canvas, half his face and body cast in light, the other in the shadow of the tent. He took a step inside. The clothes he wore were far too big for his small frame. “It’s hard to say when it ends.” Alvy crossed his arms and joined Dean by the table, watching the people of the capital slowly try and pull their lives out of the rubble and ash. “It’s a shame war is only measured in battles won and lost. If we started tallying up the cost, I would think we’d war less often.”

  “We wouldn’t.” Dean watched another body be tossed into the mass grave a few hundred yards to their left. “Men are violent because we are taught to be violent.”

  “There are other ways to combat violence, Governor.” Alvy picked up one of the figurines meant to represent a unit of soldiers on the map. “Life is too precious to let it starve in war.”

  “Is your impartation of wisdom the only reason for your visit? Or do you have something else in mind you would like to ask me?”

  “I heard about your professor and what Rodion did to him. I was told he was a valued advisor.”

  “He was.” A well of anger rose from him at Hawthorne’s memory. If he’d just taken the time to heed the old man’s counsel from the start, then perhaps all of this could have been avoided.

  “I’d like to replace him,” Alvy said, keeping his voice even and calm.

  Dean turned to him sharply, trying to feel out the engineer’s motive. “Well, let’s start now, then.” Dean turned to the map behind them and pointed to where Rodion had fled. “My war council tells me that I should let Rodion starve in the north since he has no supply lines and no way to get home. I want to go in and finish the job. What is your advice?”

  Alvy turned to study the map and picked up a few more figurines before placing them back where he’d found them. “When I was held by Ruiz in Brazil underneath his palace, he would let us out once a month to see our families. It was always a very stressful da
y, and it either offered my mind pain or relief, but never any joy. Ruiz eliminated that joy with the strict deadlines to produce his weapons, and he waited until the day we saw our families to tell us whether or not we met them. If we did, our families would leave unharmed. If we didn’t… then we’d be forced to watch our family be tortured.” Alvy’s eyes grew wet, but no tears fell, even as he tilted his head to the side. “You gave me a choice, Governor. That was never an option with Ruiz, because he was evil, and the men he associated himself with were evil; you spoke of that evil the day we met. I never knew this Russian general, but I know that if he was working in concert with the Chinese and Ruiz, then he shares that same viciousness. And the only way to stop that evil from growing is to kill him.” Alvy picked up the figurine meant to represent Rodion’s men and placed it in Dean’s palm. “Make sure there’s nothing left of him, Governor. You’ll lose more men, but if you let him live, you’ll lose your mind waiting for the day he’ll come and find you.” He patted Dean on the shoulder and then made his way to the door.

  “Thank you,” Dean called out just before the engineer was out of earshot.

  “For what?”

  “Telling me what you thought instead of what I wanted to hear.”

  “That’s an advisor’s job.” Alvy gave a smile then disappeared into the crowd of soldiers and townspeople.

  Dean examined the figurine in his hand. With Alvy’s words still fresh in his mind, he crumpled the figurine in his fist then tossed it aside.

  Chapter 9

  Another soldier collapsed to the frozen ground, the wind and snow burying him in a thin blanket of cold, freezing the man’s blood. Haggard and worn faces ignored their fallen comrade; the sight had become all too common during the retreat north, and Rodion slowed for no one. He sat at the front of his army, only a third of what it had been when he began his conquest and limping forward on its last leg.

  Rodion reined up, the snow thick in his beard. The stallion underneath the saddle whinnied with a puff of frost blowing from its nostrils. He adjusted the AK-47 strap on his shoulder then dismounted, his legs buried in the snow up to his shins. “We make camp here for tonight.” Rodion’s orders echoed down the line, followed by a collective exhausted sigh from the men as they stopped.

  Rodion squinted into the fading evening sky, the snowfall keeping a steady pace. He no longer had feeling in his cheeks and face, and he flexed his fingers to work out the growing stiffness from holding the reins. Never in his life had the cold disagreed with him so much.

  Camp was constructed sluggishly, and when Rodion’s officers arrived to debrief their general on the casualties of the ride, he broke the jaw of the first soldier who spoke. “I don’t care how many die; thousands more will perish before this is over. I would sacrifice every one of my men if it meant victory. Get out of my sight!”

  The ring of solitude Rodion created for himself continued to isolate him from even his closest advisors and officers. All of their pleas and reasoning fell on ears that heard only excuses. Never in his life did Rodion wish to return to the fighting pits of his youth to rid himself of the aggressive rage that stoked his fire. He picked up the rifle and trudged off into the wilderness, hoping a hunt would provide a temporary quencher to the growing thirst of death in his mouth.

  The snowfall thickened and shortened his field of vision to less than six feet. The snowdrifts grew taller the farther north he marched, the cold freezing his veins. Rodion felt himself grow short of breath, and he stumbled in the thick snow, burying himself in the wet slush.

  Rodion punched the ground in a fit of rage, his fist cutting through the icy soil, sending spiderweb-like lines around each crater fisted into the earth. He should have chased the Mars governors down when he had the chance. His arrogance had cost him, and now even his beloved cold sought to kill him. I will not die here. The words came to him like the slow surge of a wave, building momentum the closer it grew to shore and cresting at its peak before crashing into the coast.

  Rodion pushed himself from the ground, the wind howling in the black night. He closed his eyes, letting the icy air fill his lungs and permeate to the very depths of his body. Every breath burned like fire, but each painful breath filled his body with life. He grew stronger, and he picked up his rifle from the snow, the piece of steel frozen like a block of ice.

  The Mars governors were back in their capital, waiting for Rodion to either die in this frozen land or come crawling back for surrender. But there was still an army at his back. Whatever was left in his last breaths he would use to slaughter as much of his enemy as possible.

  ***

  It felt like it was the first time seeing him, standing in his cotton white shirt and tan pants. Canice knew his clothes were dirty, but the smile on Lance’s face nullified the attire. He stood there on the deck of the Sani, the sun on his face and wind in his hair. The corners of his eyes crinkled as he looked back at her, but something wasn’t right, and suddenly Lance’s smile twisted in pain. His white cotton shirt had become bloodied, and he collapsed to the deck.

  Canice sprinted toward him, but the harder she ran, the farther away Lance became. He was screaming for her help, his hand reaching out to her, but never getting closer than a graze with her fingertips. She felt the hot burst of tears burn her cheeks, and suddenly a pain ripped through her own body, and she felt short of breath, the life being choked from her.

  A pair of massive hands had wrapped around Canice’s throat, and the face the hands belonged to was Rodion’s. Blood poured from his eyes, and he roared with laughter, the grip around her neck tightening harder and harder.

  Canice awoke, covered in sweat, the pain in her throat gone but the rest of her body aching. All of her muscles cramped, and every movement stabbed a cluster of knives into her. She felt hands groping her arms and voices dulled from the screaming pain her body shot back at her. The faces in front of her were blurred. “Where is he?” The words left her mouth involuntarily, and she heard herself repeating it over and over again.

  “Who? Canice, can you hear me? I need you to calm down.”

  The blurred faces and dulled voices suddenly became clearer, and Canice recognized Kemena, her face tired. Her mind slowly went through the accounts of the battle against Rodion, the bombs, sneaking into camp, finding Rodion’s quarters, and the gunshot that killed the servant that stepped in front of her bullet meant for Rodion. After that, the scenes started to blur together. “How did I get here?”

  Kemena’s hands seemed to have minds of their own as one prepared some type of needle and the other checked her pulse. “Jason.” She plunged the needle into her patient’s stomach, and Canice winced from the intrusion but bit her tongue on the scream. “You were nearly dead when he brought you here.” She pulled back on the syringe slowly, draining a pussy area of Canice’s stomach. “You need to rest.” She placed a gentle hand on Canice’s cheek, which felt oddly cool.

  Canice’s mind wavered back and forth between consciousness and sleep, between pain and rest. The dreams continued, but for how long she was bedridden, she couldn’t be sure until she woke in a jolt, the once-busy room she was held in suddenly replaced with a calm quiet and the faint whisper of voices outside the walls of her quarters. She pulled the blanket off her and found that the pussy wound around her stomach had been cleaned and dressed in a white bandage.

  When Canice went to swivel her legs off the side of the bed, her entire core seized up, transforming her graceful exit from bed to an avalanche of limbs crashing into the floor. She clutched her stomach, feeling as though her very insides would spill out of her if she tried moving too quickly again.

  Two girls rushed inside at the sound of her commotion and gently helped her back up to the bed. They asked Canice questions, but the pain rushing through her body blocked any chance at understanding what they wanted.

  “It’s okay, ladies. I’ll keep an eye on her.”

  Once back in bed, Canice tried lifting her head at the sound of the familiar voice
but couldn’t muster the strength. It sounded like Lance, but… but…

  “How are you feeling?” Jason asked, his face invading her line of sight to the ceiling above. He pressed his hand against her forehead. Even with the light touch, it still felt heavy on her skull. “Your fever’s gone down. That’s a good sign.”

  Canice brushed his hand off her and shut her eyes hard. “How long have I been out?”

  “Two days.”

  The dreams that had filled that time felt much longer, and hoped that the torments that plagued her during the fever wouldn’t return. As she lay still, slowly, she subdued the pain, letting her mind clear. She quickly opened her eyes. “Rodion. Did he—”

  “He got away.” Jason spoke calmly, placing his hand on her arm as the words left his mouth. “My brother means to chase him down. He won’t live much longer.”

  “I have to come.” Canice attempted to prop herself up but was immediately pinned down by the rippling ache in her body. She could barely lift her head, let alone fight. She pounded her fists by her sides, gritting her teeth. “I can’t just lie here.” Canice squeezed her hands tight, her knuckles turning a bright white from the pressure. “I have to help.” The anger slowly gave way to grief when Lance’s face penetrated through the thick clouds of rage in her mind. “I’d never loved anyone like your brother before, nor will I love anyone like him again.” The words blurted out of her like a geyser, quick and unexpected.

  “Do you remember how he was when he was younger?” Jason asked. He picked at his fingernails as he stared into the wall. “I’ve been trying to remember him before he was soaked with war, but I was too little. I see the hard face of a sea captain but nothing of the brother Dean remembers.”