Deathstalker 03 - Deathstalker War

together with her pale face and long blond hair made her look like some vengeful family ghost. Normally she wore her long mane of hair piled up on top of her head for Court appearances, but now it hung down in long uncared-for tresses, through which her icy blue eyes stared unwaveringly. And on her head the tall spiky crown, cut from a single huge diamond—the symbol of power and authority in the Empire.
    At the base of her Throne, her maids-in-waiting crouched watchfully like the guard dogs they were. Naked and unashamed as animals, mindwiped and surgically altered to be loyal unto death, they watched the Court through cybernetic senses, ready for any threat to their beloved mistress. They would kill or die to protect her, and their ferocity was legendary. Their teeth were pointed and their fingers ended in implanted steel claws. Within their naked bodies they had other, nastier surprises, the best that money could buy. Once they had been as human as anyone else, with minds and lives of their own, but that was before Lionstone chose them, and took them away from their old lives to be a part of hers. They could be commoner or aristocrat; all were made equally vile under Lionstone's wishes. No one objected. No one dared. Besides, it was an honor to
    be a maid-in-waiting to the Empress.
    Floating on the air before the Throne, dozens of viewscreens showed scenes from all across the Empire. The views changed rapidly, constantly updating themselves on the growing path of the rebellion. Announcers with sweating faces read the news almost apologetically. There were charts showing rebel advances and Imperial losses. Shaky cameras showed scenes of blood and chaos and the roar of battle. They all looked much the same. Increasingly confused commentators chattered endlessly about what it all meant. On some worlds the rebels had seized control of communications, and triumphant smoke-blackened faces called for the downtrodden to rise up and overthrow the Iron Bitch. Screens blanked in and out as the underground and their cyberat allies interfered with the comm channels, but there were always more signals coming in to replace them. The whole Empire was shouting at the top of its voice, desperate to be heard. The Empress watched it all, her steady gaze cold as death itself. For those who thought they knew her, her cold calm was more worrying than her earlier shouted orders and temper tantrums. It meant she was thinking. Planning. Deliberating on her revenges, and the awful forms they would take.
    Standing quietly before the Iron Throne, at what they hoped was a safe distance, were two of the few people apart from guards and their victims still admitted to the Imperial Court. General Shaw Beckett and the Warrior Prime, the Lord High Dram. There were no courtiers present. No Lords and their Ladies, no representatives of the great Families, no Members of Parliament, no one from the one true Church, none of the usual celebrities and characters and hangers-on.
    Lionstone didn't trust them anymore. Any of them. And so Beckett and Dram stood together, ignoring each other as best they could. They were both men of war, but
    all they had in common was their loyalty.
    Tall and imposing. Dram wore his usual jet-black robes over black battle armor, looking like some gore crow fresh from the battlefield. He wore both gun and sword in the presence of his Empress, one of the very few so allowed. Beckett, on the other hand, looked a mess, as always. His carefully tailored battle armor couldn't hide the fact that he was seriously overweight, his robes were decidedly scruffy, and he carried himself with immense calm but little authority. He was smoking an evil-smelling cigar and not caring where the smoke went.
    Around them, the Hell that Lionstone had fashioned for her Court. The light was bloodred, and the air was thick with the stench of brimstone. Great vents had opened up in the floor of the Court, through which sudden bursts of flame erupted, adding to the sweltering heat. And from far below came the faint screams of the damned and the suffering. Great pillars of stone rose up farther than the eye could follow, covered with carved tormented faces, screaming in silent agony, contorted by unimaginable pain.
    And all around, the dead and the dying. Unfortunates who'd caught Lionstone's attention at just the wrong time. The hanged hung limply from their ropes or chains, the impaled had mostly stopped twitching on their bloody stakes, and only smoke