beautiful, but that, too, was a cold kind of beauty, like the tall diamond crown on her head. The Empress, the worshiped and adored, whose whims were law and at whose merest word men died and worlds burned. Also known as the Iron Bitch.
She sat at ease on the Iron Throne, watching with a sardonic smile as the courtiers drew up before her, bowed their heads, and then held themselves in that humble and uncomfortable position while they waited for the word from the Empress that would release them. On bad days, she'd been known to keep them there for ages, till sweat dropped off their faces and their backs screamed for release. Today, she gave them permission to straighten up after only a few seconds, suggesting either she was in a good mood after all or she was really looking forward to something yet to come. The courtiers practiced looking polite and respectful and extremely loyal as the Empress's smile wandered over them.
They also kept a respectful distance, not just because of the twenty armed guards spread out behind the Throne, but also because of Lionstone's maids-in-waiting, who crouched snarling silently at her feet. There were ten of them, each more dangerous than any armed man. They wore no clothes, but they didn't feel the cold. They didn't feel anything unless the Empress permitted it. Mind techs had stirred their sticky fingers in the maids' brains until nothing remained there but unquestioning obedience to the Empress. They would die to protect her. Or kill, as required. They were cunning, deadly fighters, with hidden implanted weaponry. They were silent because they had no tongues, and they perceived the world only through grafted cybernetic senses. Their fingers had steel claws. They clustered together at the base of the Iron Throne, glaring at the courtiers, waiting eagerly to be unleashed on anyone foolish enough to displease their mistress. But for once, not even they were enough to hold the courtiers' gaze. Beside the Throne, standing a little to one side in the swirling snow, huge and awful, stood a yoked Grendel alien.
On the planet called Grendel, genetically engineered creatures lay sleeping in deep-buried vaults. Thousands upon thousands of them, an army waiting for an enemy that never came. The alien civilization that created them was long gone, but their work lived on. Unstoppable killing machines, living weapons, programmed to fight on until either they or the enemy was destroyed. An Empire exploratory team made the mistake of opening one of the ancient vaults, and the Sleepers emerged in a fury of blood and slaughter. They wiped out all the team and overran the exploratory camp on the surface in a matter of minutes. Hundreds of men and women died screaming, their weapons useless, and not one Grendel fell. In the end they had no starships, so were trapped on the planet's surface. The Empress gave the order for the planet's surface to be scorched from orbit, and that was the end of the Grendels. Except for those still sleeping in the vaults deep below. Lionstone put the planet under quarantine, and left starcruisers there to enforce it.
But faced with the threat of unknown alien foes massing against the Empire, Lionstone had conceived of a new plan: to waken and control the Grendels and use them as shock troops. And now here one stood, a thick cybernetic yoke gleaming on its shoulders, controlling the creature's thoughts. Theoretically. Everyone eyed the Grendel warily and hoped fervently that this time the scientists had got all the bugs out in advance. The Grendel alien stood nine feet tall, in spiked crimson silicon armor that was somehow a part of it. It had vicious fangs and claws and was roughly humanoid in shape, but its large heart-shaped face had nothing even remotely like a human expression. Just one of the creatures had wiped out a whole company of Silence's men when he went down to the vaults to capture and control the aliens, before he brought it down, as much by luck as anything. And now here one was in Court, with only a prototype yoke holding back its perpetual killing rage.
More than ever Silence wished he had his weapons with him. Or at least some idea which way the exit was. The courtiers studied the Grendel silently and were not happy. They understood the need for increased security at Court, after previous attacks by both aliens and elves, but a personal Grendel on a leash was going a bit far, even for Lionstone. This had gone beyond safety or style and headed firmly in the direction of overkill. Possibly literally. Those at the front of the crowd were seized with a sudden polite wish for others to take up their privileged vantage point and attempted to fade back into the crowd. The rank behind them were having none of this and resisted strongly. If the yoke should fail, everyone knew better than to think the armed guards would try to protect them. That wasn't what they were there for. The courtiers somehow managed to stir rebelliously in complete silence. Frost leaned in close beside Stelmach, who jumped slightly. Frost didn't smile.
'I thought you said you were the only one with a yoked Grendel. And that one was destroyed on Haden. So what's this doing here?'
'Apparently, research has moved on in my absence,' said Stelmach, his voice little more than a whisper, trying to talk without moving his lips so as to avoid drawing attention to himself. Frost frowned heavily.
'Just how dependable is that yoke?'
'Depends what you mean by dependable. Unless they've made some major breakthrough, which I strongly doubt, the yoke is strictly on/off. Once the Grendel's been unleashed it will kill anything it sees. The best you can hope to do is make sure it's aimed in the right direction. If that yoke follows the processes my people set up, it should do its job, but I wouldn't like to bet my life on it.'
'We are betting our lives on it,' said Silence.
'I know,' said Stelmach, unhappily.
Silence looked about him, not bothering to hide his interest. He had no doubt there were more armed guards around that he couldn't see, probably hidden behind concealing holograms. Plus any number of esp-blockers, to keep out esper terrorists. And a whole set of other protections he probably wouldn't even recognize. The Empress was said to have spent more than one fortune making her Courtroom as secure as was humanly and inhumanly possible. It wasn't just paranoia. There were a lot of people who would like to see Lionstone dead, who'd dance at her funeral and piss on her grave. Quite a lot of them could be found among the courtiers, which was why they were only admitted unarmed after a complete body scan. Sometimes answering a summons to Court could turn out to be a death sentence for someone who hadn't been as careful at plotting as he thought he'd been. It didn't stop the Families coming to Court. It was, after all, where things happened. The best place to see and be seen, watched on billions of holos across the Empire. The only place where they could have their say in how things were decided. And despite their justified nervousness, a great many of the courtiers were determined to be heard.
For the first time in years, they were pretty sure they had a chance to force power out of Lionstone's hands and into theirs. They had something that if properly handled might just drive a wedge between the Empress and the military that supported her. The rebels' triumphant trashing on the Tax and Tithe Headquarters, along with their breaking open of the planet's defenses, had made the military's position very vulnerable, politically speaking. The sudden alien attack had only emphasized this. And on top of everything else that had happened, the Empire's Warrior Prime, the Empress's own official Consort and good right hand, the Lord High Dram, was strongly rumored to be dead. Killed on some faraway planet, on an unknown mission entirely unauthorized by the Court.
The only people said to know for sure were the crew of the
Not being blind to all this, the military had taken steps to establish a strong presence among the courtiers. Officers of all ranks and stature, from the highest to the very high, stood at attention before the Throne. If the cold was bothering them, they were doing their best not to show it, though snow had accumulated on their heads and the shoulders of their uniforms. They had come to Court to make it clear that the Empress still enjoyed the military's support and confidence. And, of course, vice versa. The military was there to protect Lionstone against all threats; even those that might come from the Court itself. Though not above playing politics, when necessary, all branches of the Services owed their allegiance to the Empress, first and foremost. It was a matter of honor, which in the military at least, still ranked above politics—mostly.
The Church of Christ the Warrior had its own strong presence, with ranks of armored acolytes standing alongside the military and studiously ignoring them. They had pale faces and shaved heads and the unblinking glare of the true fanatic. They were warrior priests, raised in a hot and bloody faith since childhood; and they bowed to
