The Iron Empire

But that hope was fleeting. As Dak saw the countless soldiers and weapons and horses, and the bleak looks on the faces of those ready to fight, fear filled him. He realized through and through just how mighty the army was — which meant whomever they were prepping to fight must be scary as heck, too. What could Sera possibly do to save them from this mess?

They jostled along, weaving their way through a small break in the sea of soldiers, heading toward their deaths. Dak just hoped that he could be with his parents when it happened. That they could die together.

“You’re looking awfully glum,” Riq said.

“I should be more happy, huh? I mean, check this out. I’m about to get killed in a famous historical war. Yippee, right?”

“Right.”

Dak stared at the linguist, a guy who’d sneakily become one of his best friends. He seemed to have so much going on behind his eyes that curiosity won out over all that I’m-about-to-die stuff.

“What in Rasputin’s name are you thinking about over there?” he asked.

Riq yawned, then slightly shook his head. “Just wondering what I can do for this world.”

Dak didn’t know what answer he’d expected, but certainly not that. “What you can do for the world? Really? I’d say you’ve done quite a bit so far. And, hey, if we die, there’s still a pretty decent chance that Alexander doesn’t — especially with Sera on the loose. So, we saved the world, dude. If I had some root beer, we’d celebrate.” He was trying to cheer things up, and he was afraid he was doing a poor job of it.

“No, man, you don’t get it.” Riq stared off into the distance as he spoke. “Yeah, I think you’re right that we’ll fix the Prime Break. Avoid the Cataclysm and all that. But that doesn’t mean that the world still doesn’t have a lot of room for improvement.”

Dak nodded slowly, showing his best face of contemplation. “Well said. If somehow we don’t get gored by a hundred spears, we can start a charity.”

Riq laughed — the worst courtesy laugh Dak had ever heard. “Yeah. But I just wonder about this time and place. About King Philip and Alexander. It seems like . . . I don’t know. It seems like they need better guidance. With all this power, they could do a lot of good for civilization. For the future.”

“What’re you trying to say?” Dak asked. Something in Riq’s tone had scared him.

Riq never got a chance to answer.

People up ahead had started shouting, all their voices scrambling together to make it impossible for the translator in Dak’s ear to pick up anything. A tension seemed to pass through the crowds of soldiers like a visible wave. And somewhere, rising in volume, was the sound of thunder. A rolling, thumping noise that shook the ground.

The guard in charge of the horses that’d been leading their cart turned around to face them, his face snapped tight with fear, eyes wide.

“They’re attacking us!” he screamed, then lifted his sword and, for some reason, severed the ropes connecting the horses to the cart. He slapped their rears and shooed them back in the direction from which they’d just come. “Get out!” he shouted at Dak and everyone else. “Grab your weapons and get out! There’s no more time! By authority of the hegemon, I order you to make your way to the front line and help us stop the enemy’s charge. NOW!”

The soldier held his sword out as if he’d chop off the head of the first person who refused to obey. Riq was already on his feet, reaching out to help Dak stand. They grabbed their own swords — rusty and dented and dull — from a pile in the front of the cart. Then they jumped to the ground to join the others — most of them too old, too young, or too frail to fight off a chicken, much less an army of Persians.

Terror rattled Dak’s heart, made it hard to breathe. But somehow Riq was keeping his cool, like he’d done this a thousand times.

“Come on,” he said to Dak. “Come on, we can survive this. Stay by me, and we can do it. Come on.”

As they started running through the melee, going in the direction ordered by the guard, Dak struggled for every breath. He knew Riq was lying, saying whatever it took to make him feel better. And Dak loved him for it.

They ran off to war.

Sera had stood to the side of the cavernous tent for twenty minutes or so, watching the king, his son, Aristotle, and many others excitedly talk about what was going on just a few miles from where they stood. They’d been planning to take the fight wherever they needed to go — and soon — but their enemies had brought it to them instead. The hegemon seemed just fine with that, judging by the expression of something like glee on his face as he pointed at maps and barked orders left and right. The only times he ever paused were to take big gulps of wine from a pewter cup — which his page continually refilled.

A soldier came through the front flap of the tent and didn’t wait for permission to speak before he yelled what he had come to say. “They’ve broken through the front line! It’s all-out war!”

Sera’s heart shriveled like a rotted raisin. Dak. Riq. Dak’s parents. How could they possibly survive? Her only hope was that maybe they hadn’t gotten far before the fighting had begun. Maybe they were stuck in the middle of the huge army safe for the moment.

Dak, she thought. Oh, Dak. Riq. Please be safe. Please! She didn’t know what she’d do if she lost her best friends after all they’d been through.

The hustle and bustle of planning and shouting orders continued inside the tent. Every minute or so, a soldier would leave, sprinting, ready to carry those orders out into the field. At the same rate, others would return with progress reports. The whole thing seemed like chaos, but Sera was sadly familiar with it by now. It seemed to her that war was all too similar across cultures and epochs.

She then noticed something. Something very odd, that everyone else — amid that very chaos — had failed to realize yet. The king had sat down. Just a few minutes earlier, he’d been animated, throwing around his arms, stomping his feet, yelling and screaming. Now he sat as others continued in his place. And he looked weak. Pale. He slumped in the gilded chair, seeming to shrink right before her eyes. Every ounce of blood had drained from his face.

And then she knew.

Poison.

The wine.

Then, to her horror, she saw Alexander with a cup in his hand. The page must’ve just handed it to him — his hands had been empty before. But now he had some of the wine. He was raising it to his lips.