Deathstalker 03 - Deathstalker War

smells, too: piss and shit and blood, the smells of fear. Batwinged shapes floated lazily overhead, dark shadows too high up to be seen clearly, like cinders coughed up from the depths of the Pit. The maids-in-waiting clustered at the foot of the Iron Throne looked more like demons than ever. And the open Court itself was studded with row upon row of men and women impaled on stakes.
    There were so many of them Dram assumed they had to be holograms, but he didn't ask. He didn't want to know. Their screams had sounded real enough. He stood where he'd been told to stand, beside the Iron Throne, and did his best not to draw attention to himself.
    Lionstone had grown too restless to stay sitting on the Throne, and now paced back and forth before it, shouting orders at people on the floating viewscreens.
    She was still in control of herself, but her rage grew with every reported rebel victory or Imperial setback. Lionstone had stopped seeing it as a political struggle for control of the Empire, and was now taking it as a series of personal attacks. Everyone was out to get her. No one could be trusted. Every Imperial failure was a betrayal of her. She gave orders in endless streams,
    sometimes contradicting herself. Dram didn't point this out to her. Lionstone's legendary self-control was finally fragmenting in the face of so many attacks on so many fronts.
    Valentine Wolfe had been summoned to Court, and stood patiently before the Throne, poisoning the air just by being there and looking pleased as Punch about it. His long black curls had been freshly oiled, falling to his shoulders in artful disarray. His mascaraed eyes gleamed with fever-bright intensity from his bone-pale face, and his scarlet smile seemed wider than ever. He was calmly pulling the legs from some squealing black thing in his hands. Dram hoped it was an insect. Valentine Wolfe had come to Hell, and looked perfectly at home there.
    Dram stood facing him, not because he chose to, but because Lionstone hadn't given him permission to move. He was still officially in charge of the Imperial Fleet, when Lionstone allowed him to be. He'd been doing his best, but his lack of real experience limited his insights and his options. Mostly, things were moving too fast for him to keep up. The Fleet was scattered all across the Empire, and the increasingly isolated ships were too busy fighting off Hadenmen and rebel mutineers to pay him much attention. Even if he'd had anything worthwhile to offer. Lionstone suddenly stopped her pacing and whirled on the two men.
    "You! I should have you both executed! This is all your fault! I had things under control until you went mad on Virimonde! All you had to do was pacify one insignificant backwater planet, and you couldn't even do that for me. No, you were too busy running wild and killing anything that moved. Fools! Even a mechanized planet will need some people to work it! What use is there in being an Empress if you don't have peasants to rule?"
    Both Dram and Valentine had been following Lionstone's specific instructions on
    Virimonde, but neither of them was stupid enough to remind her of that.
    Lionstone glared at them both, and the maids stirred menacingly, picking up on her mood. Dram could feel cold beads of sweat popping out on his forehead. He felt very much that he would have liked to turn and run, except that a maid would undoubtably have brought him down before he managed a dozen steps, and besides, there was nowhere he could run to. He had no friends anywhere after Virimonde. Not that he regretted one delightful moment of his time there. He'd never felt so alive. No, for better or worse, his destiny was tied to Lionstone's, the woman who had brought him into life from the cells of his dead original.
    "I'm going to have to send you out to defend me, because you're all I've got,"
    the Empress said finally, recovering some of her calm. "Valentine, you will take control of all the war machines currently on Golgotha. There aren't that many, but do what you can with them. Most of my beautiful engines of destruction are still stuck on Virimonde, and by the time I could get them back here the struggle would already be over. One way or the other. So don't waste any of them. Dram, I want you up on the surface, leading the troops in person. They'll follow the Warrior Prime. I'm giving control of the fleet over to Beckett. He was right, damn him. He has the experience. All I can do is hope the bastard stays loyal."
    "I've