Blood of Empire

by Brian McClellan

  “Were you there when…” Styke let the question drop off.

  “He died? No. If I was present then, he’d either still be alive or I would have died defending him.”

  Styke wondered about the man who could command such loyalty. “Where do the bone-eyes come into this?” he asked, resisting the urge to look at Ka-poel. She had ridden a little closer as they spoke, and he had no doubt she was listening in on the conversation.

  “Bone-eyes are supposed to be like Privileged or dragonmen—we are tools of the state. Wards of the emperor. At the beginning of the civil war, the bone-eyes split nearly down the middle onto either side. As time went by, especially after Ka-Sedial came into power, more and more of them were swayed under his leadership. They became a cabal unto themselves. The few bone-eyes that remained on our side at the end were murdered with their emperor.”

  “So Ka-Sedial owns the bone-eyes?”

  Orz nodded.

  “And based on what I’ve seen her do”—Styke jerked a thumb over his shoulder—“that means that Sedial effectively runs the country.”

  Another nod.

  “And most everyone is happy with this arrangement?” Styke tapped his ring against his saddle horn, watching a platoon of young Dynize recruits march by on the highway.

  “Not at all,” Orz answered. “But they fear the bone-eyes. And they fear a return to the bloodshed of the civil war. You have to understand, the war lasted decades. When Sedial assassinated our emperor, no one had the energy to fight anymore. Peace was more important. Politicians on both sides were just eager to secure their positions in the new order of things. Sedial offered complete amnesty to his enemies, and they took it.”

  “And then they let Sedial goad you into another war.”

  Orz swayed unhappily in his saddle. “It was a… what’s the word? ‘Unifying.’ It was a unifying tactic. People were tired of the fighting, but it’s also what they knew best. Turning all that expertise and energy against an outside entity was the smartest thing Sedial’s ever done.” Orz passed a hand across his face. “Sedial is a man of limitless ambition. I fear what he will do with all three godstones.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping to stop,” Styke offered.

  Orz gave him a cool look. “I fear what anyone would do with all three godstones.”

  “Point taken.” Styke watched the side of Orz’s face for a moment, wondering if he would still have to fight him at some point in the future. Everything about the man, from his knives and tattoos to his posture, indicated violence. All except the way he spoke. Orz was as tired of the bloodshed as the rest of them. The idea seemed anathema to Styke. Violence had been his life’s work. He had never gotten sick of it. Even in the labor camps, he’d just been taking a rest.

  What would it be like to leave it behind for good? Could he?

  “Were you planning on letting me live, back at Starlight?” he asked.

  Orz didn’t look at him. “No.”

  Styke remembered the fight well. He’d been badly wounded. Completely tapped out, running on strength reserves that he wasn’t entirely sure were his own. Orz could have easily killed both him and Lindet. “You didn’t have to answer that honestly.”

  “I would have killed you, because I wouldn’t have had a choice,” Orz replied. “If I had shown an ounce of hesitation, Sedial would have taken control of me. He would have raped my mind and used my body as one of his puppets. I would have done anything to prevent that. But…” This time he did look back at Ka-poel, speaking loudly enough to include her in the conversation. “I felt his hold upon me snap in those last few moments. I assume she did it when she got close enough to his other puppet—your old companion that he had in thrall. It was like a yoke lifting from my shoulders and with that”—Orz smiled—“I couldn’t help but spit at his feet like I’d spit at the feet of his emperor.” He nodded respectfully to Ka-poel and then turned forward. “That’s why I didn’t kill you.”

  “And that night at my mother’s grave?”

  “He wasn’t watching. Acting as the eyes of a bone-eye is like having someone standing over your shoulder. With practice, you can get a sense when they’re paying attention and when they’re not.” He cleared his throat, then urged his horse a little faster. “Come, let me show you something.”

  Styke rode to follow, and when he’d caught up, he saw Orz pointing into the bushes. “What is it?”

  “Nothing,” Orz replied. “I just didn’t want her to overhear us. I’m not sure if I could have killed you, Ben Styke. That bone-eye back there has her mark on you, and it is a damned powerful one.”

  Styke opened his mouth to reply that he’d asked Ka-poel that very question and she’d denied that she helped with anything more than a nudge. He realized that she had no reason to tell the truth. “In what way?”

  “She is not controlling you. You’d know. But she is protecting you.”

  “A little protection can be handy.”

  “But when does it end? When does she take control at a vital moment? A friendly warning: Be wary.” Orz turned around and rejoined the small column as it reached them, nodding once again to Ka-poel.

  Styke let them pass, watching his soldiers and eyeballing passing Dynize. Slowly, he lifted one arm to his nose and gave a deep, powerful sniff. His Knack was not perfect, but he’d always been able to smell sorcery. There was, perhaps, the slightest hint of copper about himself. He smelled it on Ka-poel and he smelled it on Orz.

  How strong was Ka-poel’s hold on him? He thought back to all the battles he’d fought since they first met—to the wounds that should have incapacitated him, to the exhaustion that should have left him on the ground. He’d fought through all of it because that’s what he was used to—he was, after all, Mad Ben Styke. But the legendary Mad Ben Styke had been a young man, unbroken by the labor camps. He was something else now, and maybe there was wisdom in Orz’s warning. Maybe he wasn’t as strong as he thought he was.

  The thought gave him a moment of disquiet deep in his belly. Ally or not, he did not like the idea of being enhanced by Ka-poel’s blood sorcery.

  CHAPTER 9

  Michel sat cross-legged on the floor of a rented tenement room deep in the guts of Greenfire Depths, working by the dim light of a gas lantern. The lantern was fed by a shoddy-looking tube that jackknifed out of the ceiling, touched the back of the lantern, and punched into the next room via a gap large enough for a cat to squeeze through. He could clearly hear talking and laughing through the paper-thin walls, so when he himself talked, he made sure to keep his voice down.

  He finished removing the stitches on one side of Ichtracia’s vest pocket, then flipped the vest inside out. “Hand me your left glove,” he told her. She sat on the floor beside him, watching him work, and occasionally reading aloud from a Palo book with an affected northern accent. Or at least what she seemed to think was a northern accent.

  She handed him the glove. “The Palo have been oppressed for hundreds of years,” she read. “Since the arrival of the Kressians, who have sought to steal our land, break our spirits, and enslave our people.”

  “No, no,” Michel cut her off. “Longer ‘o’ sounds. Your accent is all over the place. You’ve got to be consistent.”

  Ichtracia’s eyes narrowed, but she repeated both sentences and continued reading until the end of the paragraph. “Better?”

  “A little. You’ll have to keep practicing if you want to hold an actual conversation with anyone from up north.”

  “Is that a risk?”

  “Enough of one that you should be ready.” Michel finished putting a handful of stitches into the hem of her Privileged glove, attaching it to the inside of the vest with enough strength that it wouldn’t fall out but not so firmly that it couldn’t be loosened with a quick tug. “Try this.”

  Ichtracia stood up, putting on her vest. She put one hand slowly into her pocket. It took several tries, then with a quick yank she pulled her hand back out, loose threads hanging from the glove that w
as now on her hand. She smirked. “That works better than I expected.” She lifted her hand and inspected the symbols on the back of the glove. “No damage that will prevent me from using my sorcery.”

  “Good. I’ll put it back in and do the other glove,” Michel said. “You’ll want to practice this a few dozen times every night.”

  “Are you serious? It worked like a charm.”

  “The first time, yes,” Michel answered. “But maybe not the second or third or tenth time. We want to make sure you’re comfortable enough with the process that you can do it while someone is shooting or stabbing you. You’ve seen a card trick before? Or watched someone twirl a knife?”

  “Yes.”

  “They had to practice that thousands of times before they got it right. This is a trick, too. Not as complicated, but it could save our lives. I’ll redo the stitches. You practice.”

  Ichtracia snorted and handed the glove back to him, then the vest. “This sounds stupid, but now that I’ve seen such a simple trick, I’m shocked that every Privileged doesn’t have spare gloves stitched into their clothes.”

  “Maybe they do?” Michel asked.

  “Perhaps. But most Privileged I’ve met wouldn’t stoop to such a trick.”

  Michel began restitching the glove into the vest. “Taniel’s friend—Borbador—is full of tricks. Or so Taniel tells me. Borbador was a street rat who never quite took to the Privileged cabal. He wasn’t the strongest, or the smartest, but he was by far the cleverest. From what I’ve been told, you’d either like him or hate his guts.”

  Ichtracia sat back down beside him. “I’ll keep that in mind if I ever meet the man.”

  “You might,” Michel said. “If that rumor of an Adran army up north is true, then there’s a chance Borbador is with them.” He checked his voice and glanced at the wall of their room, where the sound of laughter had waned. He heard a grunt and a giggle, then chuckled himself. The occupants had gotten on to something else. He finished restitching the glove and had just turned his attention to the other pocket when he heard footsteps stop outside their door. The pause was brief, and a piece of paper was slid under before the steps continued down the hall.

  It was a note written in cypher. He read it aloud, quietly. “Meln-Dun is looking for foot soldiers without links to the city to help him find Mama Palo. You have a meeting at three o’clock at the quarry. Contact name is Dahre. Expendable.” He read it to himself several more times, then held it up to the flame of the gas lamp above his head. Within moments it was ash and a wisp of smoke. “Sounds like Emerald has gotten us a job,” he said.

  “Shouldn’t we make contact with this Mama Palo before we go work for the enemy?”

  “If I knew where to find her, I would,” Michel replied. “But she’s to the wind.”

  “So you’re going to use Meln-Dun to find her?”

  “If the tool is there, I might as well use it. Are you ready?”

  Ichtracia swallowed hard, then nodded.

  “Good. Practice your accent while I finish with the gloves. Then we’re heading to meet Emerald’s contact.”

  Michel and Ichtracia navigated the web of streets, paths, rickety bridges, and shortcuts that connected the tenements of Greenfire Depths. They headed down to the river, then followed it upstream to the only corner of the mighty old quarry still producing rock for construction.

  The working quarry was walled off from the rest of Greenfire Depths by a high palisade fence, and Michel found the gate thrown open to the streets and a large crowd gathered. What looked like a foreman was speaking from atop a large limestone column, flanked by thugs with truncheons. Michel shoved his way along the edges of the crowd, careful to keep one hand on Ichtracia’s arm. They proceeded through the gate and worked their way to one of the large wooden warehouses that were crowded into this corner of the quarry floor.

  The sun was directly overhead, peeking through the wide spot of open sky between the end of the Palo tenements and the walls of Greenfire Depths. Michel shaded his eyes as he reached the doors of the office building, where he tipped his hat to a truncheon-wielding guard. He cleared his throat, rolled his shoulders, and sank into his character.

  “We’re here about work,” he said, adopting a northern Palo accent. He assumed the body language of a confident man-about-town, with his shoulders relaxed, eyes half-lidded but watchful, and a polite but forceful note in his voice.

  The guard was a young woman with a smashed-up face pitted with old scars. She gestured with her truncheon. “So is everyone else. They’re only hiring thirty new workers to fill the Dynize orders, so best of luck with that.”

  “No,” Michel said, “not that kind of work. I’ve got a meeting with Dahre.”

  The guard cocked an eyebrow. “Right. Head inside. Upstairs, first door on the left.”

  Michel jerked his head for Ichtracia to follow. The inside opened out into a wide, long room filled with the clank and scrape of stonemasons carving blocks of a thousand different sizes while foremen organized sledge teams to haul the finished products down to the river. An iron staircase took them up the closest wall to where a series of large offices overlooked the workspace, dangling precipitously from wooden girders. Michel strolled up to the first door and pounded on it, then slumped casually against the wall while he let his eyes travel across the big workroom.

  Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Stonemasons went about their work under the watchful eye of the foremen, and there were a couple of truncheon-wielding thugs, but the latter seemed more intent on watching the doors than enforcing any sort of labor code. He did spot a single Dynize soldier, dressed in morion helmet and breastplate, standing at attention on the catwalk that stretched off from the offices.

  “Who is it?” a voice responded to his knocking.

  “Name’s Tellurin,” Michel responded. “Got a meeting with Dahre.”

  There was a shuffle, the sound of a chair being pushed back. “I thought there were supposed to be two of ya.” A bald head stuck out of the doorway. “Ah. There are two of ya.”

  “Tellurin and Avenya,” Michel introduced himself. “Got a recommendation to come down and see ya about some work.”

  “You’re the thief-takers from Brannon Bay?” Dahre eyed them both up and down and seemed more impressed by Ichtracia than he did by Michel. Disguise or not, she had the unmistakable confidence of someone who commanded respect.

  Michel stifled a smile at Dahre’s appreciative nod. “That’s us.”

  “Good, good.” Dahre stepped out of his office, closing the door behind him, and shook both of their hands. He was tall, well over six feet, and paunchy around the middle from too much time behind a desk. He seemed the jovial sort, not the kind of man Michel would want to stab in the back. More was the pity. “Follow me, let’s go find the boss.”

  As soon as his back was turned, Michel shared a glance with Ichtracia. He hadn’t actually planned on meeting with Meln-Dun. A lieutenant, certainly, but not the man himself. He must be more itchy to get rid of Mama Palo than Michel had even expected. Dahre spoke over his shoulder as they zigzagged through a handful of offices and then took a catwalk that extended the length of the building and headed up toward a single office at the far end. “What brings you down from Brannon Bay? Most people are leaving Landfall, not coming to it.”

  “No work,” Michel responded. “City is flooded with refugees, speculation has hit every industry.”

  “I’d think that would be ripe for thief-takers.”

  “You’d think.” Michel injected a note of irritation into his voice. “But everyone wants someone found. Nobody wants to pay the price.”

  “Aye, aye.” Dahre laughed. “That’s the way of things. Believe it or not, the Dynize have been pretty good to us.” Michel couldn’t tell whether Dahre meant the Palo or Meln-Dun’s organization. Probably both. “We’ve had to triple the size of the quarry since they arrived. Stone for that big fortress they’re building south of the city. They’ve got work camps and factor
ies and they’re paying with anything you can imagine—ration cards, jade, gold, and even Adran krana.”

  They reached the end of the catwalk and Dahre stepped to one side, indicating that they should head up to the office. He continued, “Surprised you came to us looking for work. Dynize are convinced the city is full of spies. Paying good money for anyone willing to help round up Kressians connected to Lindet.”

  Michel made a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat. “Figured we’d come to the city and work for someone we can trust before we put ourselves in the employ of foreigners.”

  “Smart man.” Dahre rapped once on the office door. A sharp bark answered, and he stepped past them and went inside, gesturing for them to follow.

  Michel barely kept himself from blanching the moment the door opened. The office was spacious, decorated in an old-world style of the Nine, with musty carpets, low light, and dark wood-and-leather furnishings. But the first thing his eyes fell on was a woman sitting in one corner, arms crossed, the black tattoos of a dragonman spiraling up her neck. She wore swamp dragon leathers and pared her nails casually with the end of a bone knife, her leg thrown over one arm of the chair.

  The dragonman studied Michel’s face, then Ichtracia’s, and then her gaze fell back to her knife. Michel’s heart hammered in his chest and he prayed that Ichtracia hadn’t reacted to the sight of the woman. He raised one eyebrow at the dragonman, as one might toward a curiosity, then turned to the man sitting behind a low ironwood desk.

  Meln-Dun was a Palo in his fifties, wearing a tailored Kressian suit with big, ivory buttons and a turned-up collar. He sat straight-backed, a paper held to his face like a man who was nearsighted but refused to wear spectacles. Dahre rounded the desk and whispered in Meln-Dun’s ear. The quarry boss gave Michel and Ichtracia the same weighing glance as Dahre, then turned his head toward the dragonman. “Could you give us a moment? Local business.”

  The dragonman didn’t move. “Local business is Dynize business,” she answered, her eyes remaining on the knife.