Page 142 of Earthbound

And there it is. She had hoped for a moment that he might have been the answer to all their worries.

‘You want Mosima to be annexed by the Elven Lands?’ she said neutrally.

‘Yes.’ He spoke eagerly.

‘And who will rule it?’

‘If this siege has shown us anything, is that too many rulers cause too many problems. We need an emperor.’

‘And who would that be?’

‘It would make sense for it to be one of the chieftains…but since the others are dead…’

‘Dead? ‘Lettle hated that her voice squeaked with surprise.

Malak nodded. ‘A tragic thing, they each fell face forward into a blade.’

Lettle’s throat burned with bile. ‘You killed them?’

‘Don’t worry. I gave them a soldier’s funeral, just like the thousands of soldiers who had died during their reign,’ he grinned. ‘We stripped their bodies of their uniforms then tipped them all together into an unmarked grave. Right behind this tent, actually.’

Malak spoke with pride, as though his actions had been righteous.

He thinks he’s different but he’s just like them.

‘So, you will be the one to rule this new nation of elf and fae?’

‘Exactly. An empire needs an emperor.’

Emperor Malak sounds awfully like Emperor Afa.

‘And all I need you to do is help me convince the fae to surrender to me, and no one needs to get hurt.’ He pulled out a piece of white paper and slid it across to her.

She looked at it, making a show of considering his words. Then she picked up the candle and flung it at him. Hot wax splattered across his face as she ran to the tent flap.

‘Alder! Mortah! Run!’ she shouted, but Lettle didn’t get far before rough hands grabbed her by the shoulders and she was dragged backwards.

She began to buck and bite at her assailants.

‘Argh!’ the soldier who held her cried when she managed to break skin.

She bared her bloody teeth at him as she got an arm free, swiping for his face with her nails. But before she could make contact, another soldier lunged forward and grabbed her, crushing Lettle against his chest with his arms.

She laughed, a bit manically, which perturbed the soldier enough for her to smash her head backwards into his nose. Hot blood sprayed from his face and he let her go.

The next soldier that came for her was promptly dispatched with a kick to the groin. Lettle stole a glance Mortah and Alder’s way. Mortah had managed to claim one of the soldiers’ drums and was using it to shoot drumfire at the soldier holding Alder. Blood was seeping from a bullet wound in her shoulder.

We might actually fight them off, Lettle thought. But then she saw Reena up ahead, and with her a dozen more soldiers with their hands poised above their drums.

‘Stop! Don’t harm her,’ Malak shouted as he strode out of his tent. The hot wax had left the skin on his face an angry red. ‘Take them all to the cage–a few days without food and drink will make her more amenable.’

Lettle felt all the fight go out of her. She slipped from the soldier’s hands and collapsed onto the ground, her bones weary, her spirit spent.

She was tired of people with power causing harm. She was tired with every race’s selfishness. She was tired, most of all, of being put in a cage. First it had been the cage of poverty, then the cage of war. Mosima’s walls had been a cage too, then the bonds of prophecy held her tight. And now, she would have no more of it.

She screamed and screamed and screamed.

Chapter Twenty-Eight