Fourth Vector Ch. 42

"I offered you nothing," shot Jade, her eyes starting to tear up. "You took everything from me! You forced yourself on me for something that wasn't there, you animal!"

Bancroft found himself clenching his teeth. He flexed his fingers in an effort to calm himself down. In the process, he started to fiddle with one of the knives left over on his desk from his dinner earlier.

It was all he could do to keep from lashing out at the troubled brunette.

"What you're saying doesn't make any sense," said Bancroft in a more mannered tone. "You gave me every signal that you desired my attention. How could I not move forward after seeing such signals?"

"I gave you no signals," cried Jade. "You saw what you wanted to see. I was only being pleasant to my boss. How could anyone go for you? You're old enough to be my grandfather!"

That one stung Bancroft harder than he thought possible. He tried to offer a retort but Jade kept going.

"You're pathetic," she continued. "You have nothing to offer me. Not even your whole empire could make me want you! Now that the man I actually want sees me as tainted and I can't take that back! It's all your fault. You did this to me! You ruined me!"

"Jade, I did no such thing--"

"Liar!" she yelled. "You're a fucking liar!"

Bancroft was ready to snap now. His fingers clutched at the knife as Jade's behavior became increasingly erratic.

"You're a rapist and a liar! You're nothing to me!" raged Jade.

And then she did the unthinkable. The pitcher of tea that was in her hand suddenly went flying forward. In the next moment, Bancroft found himself completely doused with the contents, soaking his robes completely.

It was the last straw. The rage took over. It was the same impulsive behavior that led to the rape of Jade in the first place, and now it manifested itself into righteous anger.

Bancroft moved before he could think. He raised the knife with his hand and sent it crashing against Jade's stomach.

The brunette gasped as the metal blade pierced her flesh. Her eyes, which still showed confusion ather sudden impulsive behavior of throwing the pitcher, now registered the shock of the stab.

Bancroft didn't stop there. He kept stabbing as Jade started to cry out in pain. And when she fell to the floor a moment later, he followed her, stabbing along the way. Blood began to seep from her body, covering the floor as she flailed for life.

It was all for no good. Jade's struggle stopped after she'd been stabbed somewhere around fifteen times but Bancroft's rage was far from over. It wasn't until there were nearly forty individual stab wounds in the young woman that he finally stopped. He was covered with blood--her blood. So was his desk and his floor.

Jade was dead. She'd stopped breathing moments earlier.

Bancroft dropped the knife at the realization of what he did. He pushed away from the desk, horrified at killing something that he'd once admired so much. At someone who had been so beautiful to him.

What have I done?

He didn't have long to ponder on his own. Mortimus chose that moment to enter the room, and his eyes registered the shock of the scene in front of him. He nearly dropped the papers he was carrying when he saw Jade's body.

Bancroft knew instantly what he had to do.

"Don't just stand there," he snapped at Mortimus. "Get rid of her body! Clean this mess up!"

*****

"She's dead!"

"Truly? Are you sure?"

"As sure as can be, I heard the noises!"

"Hubert saw the page dragging her body out."

"I can't believe she's gone. What a sweet girl she was."

"A travesty. So young. Taken so young!"

"It was all because of that monster!"

"Shh! Keep your voice down! Do you want him to kill you too?"

No one in the palace was immune to the whispers, not even Michael. What had started as an uneventful night at the palace quickly turned upside down when he saw that Jade was once again back on her evening shift. She remained closed off to him and didn't say much but it was as he was talking with Shelly, the shift manager, about Jade's sudden reappearance on the late shift that he heard the awful news.

Artemis was the one to show up at the door, his face ashen and his expression morbid. His heavy eyes settled on Michael, and instantly, Michael knew something was wrong.

"What's happened, Artemis?" asked Michael, rising from his chair.

Artemis closed his eyes and shook his head. "Michael, I don't know how to tell you this but you better come with me right now." He turned his head to look at Shelly. "You too, Shelly."

The three of them left Shelly's office and made their way to the courtyard, where a small crowd of servants had gathered. They were all hovering around something in the middle, and it wasn't until Michael pushed his way forward that he could see it was a body.

"Who's body is that?" he asked, noticing the long dark hair of a woman.

Michael felt the heart pangs as he struggled to identify the deceased woman. She looked just a little too much like--

"Jade!"

Michael pushed his way to the front and sank to his knees, clutching the body of his beloved. She was covered in blood. Her servant's uniform might as well have been red instead of black and white. It was obvious from the start that her end had been met violently, and it was all he could do to hold her limp body close to him.

"Oh god, what's happened?" he sobbed, pressing his face against her neck. "What's happened to you?"

He didn't care that every servant in the palace was now witnessing his pain. The only person that he'd ever really truly cared about was now dead. Jade washis person--she was the woman he'd wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Even after the rape, his Jade was still there, and she just needed time to heal before she could return to her normal self.

Now there would be no healing. The lifeless and blank look in her eyes told him there would be no future.

Michael sobbed over her corpse for the better part of five minutes before all the servants were interrupted by Mortimus, the Emperor's personal page.

"Go back to your jobs, all of you," barked Mortimus as he led a team of two workers behind him. Both workers had shovels, and no doubt they were off to bury Jade's body.

"Get off of her, you dolt," snapped Mortimus to Michael as he flung the young man from her body. Michael pushed back at Mortimus in an effort to get back to Jade but then he felt the shovel to the back of the head.

His world exploded in pain. Michael lost control of his limbs and could only flail around in the dirt as Jade's body was quickly scooped up and taken away.

"Wait! I'll bury her! Let me do it!" he called but it was to no avail.

The two workers and Mortimus were already gone.

Michael continued to sob against the ground, comforted by those servants who still remained. One of which was Artemis.

"Come on, Michael, we need to get out of here," said a fearful Artemis. "If the Emperor sees this, he could start asking the wrong kind of questions."

"Oh, fuck the Emperor," snapped Michael through his tears, causing several of the servants to gasp out loud.

"Michael!" hissed Artemis. "Watch your words! Do you want to get in trouble?"

"He did this!" raged Michael. "He killed her! He wanted her for himself and when that wasn't enough, he killed her!"

"Michael!" warned Artemis again. "You're going to get yourself killed next if you don't shut up!"

But Michael wasn't about to shut up now. His sorrow at the loss of Jade was quickly morphing into anger--anger at the Emperor for taking the only woman he'd ever loved. Bancroft had already taken his family from him and now he'd taken Jade.

Was there nothing sacred left for Michael? Would Bancroft continue taking until he had nothing left?

Michael continued to struggle but it eventually took Artemis and three other cooks to restrain him and drag him back to the kitchens where he wouldn't be such a spectacle to the others. It was also for Michael's own safety that they got him away from anyone who could hear his words of anger.

"Michael, I know you're upset right now but you have to control yourself," warned Artemis. "You were saying wild things in front of everyone! Things that can get you hurt or killed. Most of the staff now know that you aren't as simple as you pretend to be."

"I don't care!" sobbed Michael. "She's gone and she's not coming back. That fucker stole her from me! I'll have my revenge on him. I'll kill him!"

"Michael!"

Artemis covered his mouth to get him to be quiet. "You have to understand what you're saying. You're one man going up against the most powerful man in the world! You're just a servant with a last name that could get you in serious trouble. Be reasonable, Michael."

Michael shook his head as he tried to calm down. It was only moments later when he pushed away Artemis' hand. "I can't be reasonable, Artemis. I can't bring her back. We were supposed to run away together. Live somewhere where no one would know us or find us. We talked about Thessaly--far away from Bancroft and the palace."

Artemis gave him a fatherly nod. "I'm sure she would have liked that, Michael. It sounded like a great plan."

"It was a great plan until it fell to shit," replied Michael sourly. "Now what am I going to do? I have nothing. Nothing inside of me but my need for vengeance."

"You're not going to get vengeance on him," explained Artemis. "He's too powerful and you're not. If you try anything, you're just going to get yourself killed."

Michael understood what Artemis was saying was correct. There was no plausible scenario that he could strike against Bancroft without suffering the ultimate consequence. Even still, he needed to avenge Jade's death. That something so sweet and beautiful and precious was taken from this world far too early was a total travesty.

Jade deserved life. She deserved justice for what happened.

And Michael would try to see to it that Bancroft was brought to justice. He would find some way to strike back at the man who'd taken everything from him.

Even if it was the last thing he did.

For that reason, Michael let himself be calmed by Artemis and the rest of the cooks. He also gave them his word that he wouldn't do anything rash in the meantime. He told them that he would retire back to his chambers and mourn Jade but he did so while making a promise that he wouldn't strike against Bancroft.

It was a carefully crafted lie. It pained Michael to have to lie to someone as close to him as Artemis but he was blinded in that moment by the need for justice.

And he would have it by any means necessary.

It was for that reason, in the dead of the night that evening, that Michael stole away from the palace. He moved through the palace grounds undetected, only stopping once to find the tree that he used to sit in with Jade.

At that tree, he made a promise to do all that was necessary. He pledged himself to her memory, and without giving a thought to the life ahead of him, he fled into the city.

*****

"Steady, men. It won't be long until they're in range. Once they are, don't hold back. Give them everything we have."

Trevor walked along the front lines of his men the morning of the final battle. The previous night was mostly spent in restless slumber, as just about everyone within the army wondered whether today would be their last day alive.

For Trevor, that was a very real possibility. Even now, he could tell the Javans were getting ready to start their attack, and just about all he could do was prepare his men for the carnage to follow.

"Remember, if they break us today, we will all die," said Trevor out loud. "The lives of every man in your unit are in your hands. We cannot let the enemy break us."

As Trevor walked the lines, he focused on the faces of those Tyroleans under his command. Some of them had been veterans of his earliest campaigns--before the army could truly have been called an army. There were some of them there today that were still raiding with him back in Amboy before the war grew hot. Gavin was one of them but so was Bowen Flint, now a major in Gavin's division. The former sheriff of Amboy nodded his head toward Trevor as he passed, a silent acknowledgment that he wouldn't let any Javans past his perimeter.

The pre-battle calm couldn't last forever. Sooner or later, the Javans would start attacking. It came quicker than anyone expected as the sounds of rifle fire grew intense on the flanks of the Tyrolean Army. Artillery strikes started to become commonplace, and soon the entire line was engulfed in a terrible carnage.

Though the Javans started the attacks on the flanks, the pressure became uniform on the entire line as Trevor's men struggled to hold on. The area with the most pressure was no doubt the gap of land not covered by the stream.

This was the area that was defended by the handpicked veterans that Trevor had called for the night before. They were the best men he could find, those that could be counted on to stand their ground and give back pain for pain.

And right now, they were just getting pounded with firepower.

"Are they going to hold?" asked Trevor to Gavin, who was nominally in charge on this side of the battlefield. "If they cave, the rest of the army goes with them!"

"They'll hold," promised Gavin. "I'll make sure they do!"

Trevor didn't want to doubt Gavin's word but he had serious reservations about whether such an outnumbered force could continue to offer resistance for the entire battle. They had no other option though, and there were no other men to spare to cover that flank.

The battle continued to progress throughout the rest of the morning, running several phases of hot and cold activity. A particularly hot period developed around midmorning, and Trevor had to move more men to the center to prevent it from breaking.

"Right here, get in that trench!" he yelled, directing a platoon to fill in the gaps left by their deceased comrades. "Give them hell, men!"

The center was the most critical part of the battle at that moment but after a sturdy defense by the Tyrolean Army, the Javans pulled back their brutal attack on the center by around midday. They weren't beaten but it became obvious that they were going to try another method.

That method was an all-out attack on the gap. Trevor found himself shifting to that portion of the battlefield once more, and there were several instances when he felt bullets fly just a little too close to his body.

The veterans here were holding their own better than he'd imagined, causing the Javans to break upon their trenches like water on rocks. What was even better was that his men kept shifting closer to the extreme right of the bank, allowing them to pour fire on the Javans from two different directions.

As the men kept shifting, the fighting became easier on this side of the battlefield. Their lines were still very thin, but having the Javans walk straight into crossfire from two directions was having a shattering effect on their morale.

And although Trevor had no way of knowing it, the Javans fighting in the gap were close to breaking.

It was a little after midday when the first bit of exciting news reached Trevor.

"I've never seen anything like it," said a clearly animated Gavin as he gestured to the gap. "The Javans are pulling back from the gap! Not only that, but they're damn near routing there!"

"You're serious?" asked Trevor. "Routing?"

Gavin nodded his head. "They must have been pushing too hard to break us. In the process, they've broken themselves! Come see it for yourself!"

Sure enough, Gavin was accurate. From Trevor's vantage point, he couldn't even see any of the Javans that were on the offensive. Those that he could see were pinned down and trying to move away from the direction of the crossfire offered by the Tyrolean troops.

In the process, the Tyroleans were moving diagonally across the battlefield, and the first units were crashing into the flanks of the rest of the Javan Army.

What started as a slow leak soon became a burst. The Tyroleans continued to exploit the opening they were given, falling on the flanks of the routed Javans and continued to push their line towards the center. The Javans, now finding themselves being fired on by two sides, continued to pull back, many of them doing so in disarray.

Trevor's first inkling that they might actually survive the day was when the Javan center broke in the late afternoon. It was a most glorious sight--Javan troops running around completely bewildered at the change of events. Those that didn't escape the flanking movement were quickly captured, throwing down their weapons in an attempt to surrender.

An hour later, Trevor was the master of the battlefield. The Javan force was decisively defeated, and a significant number of their forces were either dead or captured. By Trevor's own estimate, slightly less than ten thousand Javans escaped the carnage of the field, many of them running just as fast as their legs could carry them.

About a quarter of those would be captured in the upcoming days as they sought to escape the Wilds, but there was still a core of the Javan Army that managed to escape. Even still, it wasn't much of a threat to Trevor's army now.

"Trevor, we did it!" said an excited Nina as she came crashing into his arms as the battle winded down. "We defeated the Javans!"

Even Trevor couldn't help but smile. "I'm still trying to figure out how we did it, but you're entirely right. We've crushed them."

"Those men on the flank. The ones in the gap," said Nina. "How did they pull this off? From being outnumbered to routing the troops in front of them and then rolling up the rest of the Javan Army. How could they have done this?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," said Trevor.

"It's from their leadership," said a familiar voice behind them.

Both Trevor and Nina looked to find Gavin standing there watching them. He had a prominent smile on his face.

Trevor started to nod. "I suppose I can understand what you're trying to say now. What you both have been telling me all along. It's my army and I can take responsibility for the victory now."

Gavin actually snorted. "I was talking more about myself. It was my area on the battlefield that won the victory. I was talking about my leadership!"

That certainly made the three of them laugh, and it was only once they calmed down that Nina looked at Trevor once more.

"What now, Trevor? If we've decisively defeated the Javan Army, what are we to do now?"

Trevor turned to the east to give his answer. "We'll mop up what remains of the enemy here in the Wilds. And then, we'll go back where we came from. We'll go back to Worchester and take the supplies there for ourselves. And we'll continue this war until the Javans surrender. You have my solemn promise on that."

Both Nina and Gavin could only look on in admiration. It sounded like a damn good plan to both of them.

*****

Jack never tired of feeling the cool spray of the ocean on his face. In fact, he was quite agreeable to the notion that it had been too long since he'd last felt it. For the past several months, he'd felt like a land rat, stuck on Swabia conducting the war without being where he felt truly at home--the sea.

All that changed this morning as he stood near the bow of theDestiny and looked out to the western horizon. The waters were calm and the skies were clear as the majority of the Galician fleet headed for home. Just across the seas was Kalmar, and Jack couldn't be more anxious to settle down into peace and prosperity for the first time in ages.

Even though Jack was still conscious of the threat represented by Bancroft and Java, it was something that he hoped still wouldn't manifest, if not now and hopefully never. Fighting a war across the great expanse of ocean was going to be a stretch on anyone's resources, and Jack didn't think that Bancroft had the will to pursue a new conflict on the heels of his previous one. Ironically enough, they were both in similar positions, and Jack knew his exhaustion of pursuing the Swabian war to its conclusion was enough of a reward to give peace a chance.