Blood of Empire

by Brian McClellan

  The roof was a narrow bit of gently sloped shingling that rose higher than almost all the other buildings in the Depths—almost to the rim of Upper Landfall. A man lay out nude on a blanket, his face covered with a washcloth and the rest of him bared to the sun. His freckles were thick and dark, his skin as wrinkly as a prune. He might have been a hard-living forty-year-old or an exceptionally fit octogenarian. Michel did not know, nor did anyone else who worked with him. Their host raised the washcloth as they stepped onto his roof, then lowered it back over his eyes.

  “Afternoon,” Michel said. “You’re Halifin?” He’d met Halifin on three different occasions, of course. But Halifin didn’t need to know that.

  “Have we met before?” the supine figure asked.

  “We haven’t,” Michel said. He didn’t bother introducing Ichtracia to the arms dealer or the arms dealer to Ichtracia. This was a business where names didn’t matter. “I need to put in an order.”

  “If we’ve never met, how did you know where to find me?” Halifin muttered from beneath his washcloth.

  Michel tensed involuntarily, stealing a glance over his shoulder at the hunchback. The fool still had that big grin on his face, but a pistol had appeared in his hand. He didn’t point it at anything; rather, just let it hang loosely there. Ichtracia’s eyes tightened, and Michel gave her a slight shake of his head. “I was recommended,” he offered.

  “Of course you were,” Halifin said. “All my new friends are recommended.” The hunchback’s pistol disappeared as quickly as if it were a magic trick. “What can I do for you?” Halifin asked. Never once did he touch the washcloth over his face, or attempt to cover his nudity.

  Michel produced the map he’d copied of a little corner of the Landfall catacombs from his pocket, then wrapped it in a wad of Adran krana. He handed it to the hunchback. “I need twelve crates of Hrusch rifles delivered to this spot by tomorrow night.”

  “You’re sure I don’t know you?” The voice was almost playful.

  “I’m sure,” Michel replied flatly. “Do I have an order?”

  Halifin sniffed. “Hrusch rifles are in steep demand. The Dynize are buying them up like kids in a candy store. Trying to update their arms.”

  Michel reached into his pocket and produced another thousand krana in a tight, folded clip. He handed it to the hunchback. “Does that cover it?”

  No apparent signal passed between the hunchback and Halifin, but the latter yawned loudly. “Yes, I do believe so.” He waved his hand, and the hunchback gave him both the money and the map. Halifin lifted the corner of his washcloth with one hand, unfolded the map with the other. “Behind Meln-Dun’s quarry? Are you working for that old hawk?”

  Michel gave him a shallow smile. “Is the delivery location a problem?”

  “No, it shouldn’t be. Nobody likes going into the catacombs since the Dynize cleaned them out last month. It’ll be a good spot to stash the guns.”

  “Wonderful.” Michel tipped his hat and wished Halifin a good afternoon. He refused a ride on the lift from the hunchback and waited until they were back down in the street—or what passed for a street in this neighborhood—before letting out a relieved sigh. He loosened his collar a little and wiped a bit of sweat from his brow.

  “Did we just buy guns from a naked man?” Ichtracia asked, staring back toward the door.

  “We did,” Michel confirmed, taking a mental inventory of how much money he still had left in his pocket.

  “Why are we buying guns for Meln-Dun?” Ichtracia asked.

  “Think about it,” Michel answered, his own thoughts already moving on to the next several steps of his plan.

  “This is how you’re going to make him a martyr?”

  “One part of it, yes.”

  “Are you going to explain that?”

  “No.” He saw her annoyed expression and spread his hands. “Compartmentalization. If you’re captured, I don’t need to worry about other parts of my plan coming apart.”

  “If I’m captured, you’d be smart not to stick around for more than a few seconds,” Ichtracia pointed out.

  “You’re probably right. But I haven’t survived this long without a little caution.” He shook his head. “Look, this may sound silly, but I do best not thinking too hard about my own plans.”

  “You’re worried about someone overhearing your thoughts?”

  “I keep myself”—he tapped his chest—“the real me, buried deep. When I worked for the Blackhats, I refused to even think Taniel’s name. It’s not about hiding my thoughts. It’s about being as much of the person others expect me to be as possible. There’s less room for screwups. We’re already working a hundred times faster than I would have preferred, with you learning to govern your accent on the fly.” He shook his head. “We better get back to our posts. Pretend we’ve gotten some work done.”

  They returned to their canvassing area. Michel put Ichtracia just behind him so she could watch how he worked, and fixed a gentle smile on his face. Starting at one end of the street, he began to move down it at a leisurely pace. He slapped men on the shoulders as if they were old friends, gently touched women on the elbow, meeting everyone’s eyes with a pleasant smile and a quiet word. “Hey there, I’m looking for someone,” he’d say, slipping a two-krana note into a hand. “Someone who goes by ‘Mama Palo.’ Any idea where I can find her?”

  “No,” came the answer. “I heard she was dead,” or “Not gonna find her anymore, she went up north.” Occasionally someone would turn away, or leave quickly after Michel passed. He’d note their face but keep moving.

  Hours went by and Ichtracia had just begun to work the other side of the street on her own when Michel spotted a familiar face jumping through the crowd, waving at him. It was Couhila. The old man’s face was alight with a grin. “We found her!” he babbled before he’d even reached Michel. “Dahre has called a meeting. We have to head back!”

  Michel forced a surprised smile onto his face and subtly waved off Ichtracia’s alarmed expression. “Shit, shit, shit, shit,” he muttered under his breath. Already? What kind of horribly rotten luck was this? His heart started thumping as worries shuffled through his head. What if they’d captured her already? Pit, what if they’d killed her? He widened his grin as Couhila got close. “That’s fantastic,” he forced himself to say, gesturing for Ichtracia to join them. “Let’s get back quickly!”

  They followed Couhila back to Meln-Dun’s quarry and up to Dahre’s office, where the rest of the group had already gathered. There was a nervous energy in the room, and Dahre had the sort of well-earned smirk that Michel himself might have been wearing in the same situation. For a few moments he forgot where he was—for a few moments these were the good guys, his allies, celebrating an imminent victory. Michel held on to the feeling, accepting the comradeship, holding his gnawing fear at bay.

  “All right, all right,” Dahre said, motioning for them to quiet down. “We haven’t caught her yet.”

  Michel suppressed a sigh of relief.

  Dahre continued, “But the canvassing has turned up the best lead we’ve had so far.” He crossed the room to pluck one of the sketches off the wall of Mama Palo’s known associates and waved it in the air. “This man, Kelinar, is a minor lieutenant of Mama Palo’s. Devin-Mezi found him today during her search. She was able to talk him down, feed him some cash, and offer him a fat reward for information. He took the bait.”

  Devin-Mezi looked smug enough that you’d think she’d captured Mama Palo already. Michel did his best not to roll his eyes, and focused on the sketch. The name Kelinar was vaguely familiar in a distant way, as was the face. Perhaps they’d crossed paths briefly at some point, or maybe he’d spotted the face on a list of criminals wanted by the Blackhats. As far as Michel knew, he wasn’t someone very high up in Mama Palo’s organization—but that might have changed, or he might just be in the right position to offer up his employer.

  “What does he know?” Michel asked.

  “He kn
ows where Mama Palo is, how many guards she has, and even the room she’s sleeping in.” Dahre grinned. “He says she’s about to change safe houses and that he can deliver us the location of the next one. If he does… we’ve as good as got her.”

  “Good, good,” Michel said out loud. Inwardly he continued to swear. Beside him, Ichtracia wasn’t nearly as good at hiding her true feelings. She was forcing a smile but looked vaguely alarmed. He hoped no one noticed. He was working through options with that desperation that he’d only recently warned Ichtracia was a bad way to operate as a spy. He might have to find this turncoat and silence him, or dig out Mama Palo himself to warn her.

  None of this was how things were supposed to go down.

  “Do we have him in custody?” Michel asked.

  Dahre shook his head. “We had to cut him loose or his friends would get suspicious. He’s going to report back tonight. At least, if he wants his money, he will.”

  “Did he say where they are?”

  “Not until he gets paid.”

  Michel forced himself to breathe evenly. The turncoat might get cold feet and never come back. Or pit, he might be conning Dahre. He hoped it was one of these options. He wasn’t ready to move against Meln-Dun yet, and he certainly couldn’t afford to lose Mama Palo and her resources before he’d even made contact with her.

  “How long until we move against her?”

  “Our new friend said she’s going to move tonight and settle into her new safe house tomorrow. We give her a little bit of time to get complacent. Three days, I think.”

  Michel tried to think of a good argument to delay their actions further, but came up with nothing. He nodded lamely. “When he comes back, we’ll want to give him a good interrogation. Nothing violent, mind, but put the screws to him. Make sure we’re getting exactly what we paid for.”

  “Good call,” Dahre agreed. “Couhila, can you deal with that?”

  “Of course,” the old man said.

  Michel almost swore out loud. He’d meant for him to do the interrogation. Alone. Pit and damnation. Nothing to do now but go along with things—and move his own time line forward. He let the others talk, half listening as everyone suggested interrogation tactics, questions for the turncoat, and how best to surround and isolate Mama Palo’s position. At the first chance he got, he took Ichtracia off to one side.

  “What the pit are we going to do?” she hissed. “If they kill her…”

  “We’ll deal with that if we have to. In the meantime, I’ve got work to do. Don’t expect me back tonight.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To Upper Landfall.” He didn’t offer any more information—if he told her the details she would definitely not let him go.

  CHAPTER 17

  The day after General Etepali’s deception, Vlora had turned her entire army around, crossed to the south side of the New Ad, and was marching double-time in pursuit of the slippery Dynize Army. She could feel an energy about her soldiers—a feeling of being cheated out of a battle, an eagerness to match bayonets with the Dynize that she herself shared. Rumors swirled that the Dynize were afraid of Vlora, and that seemed to put the soldiers in good spirits. From the gossip she heard through Bo’s informants in her own army, they considered Landfall—and the godstone—already won.

  She knew that the morale of a marching army was a fickle thing, but she also knew better than to squander it while it lasted.

  Her own mind dragged, and her body was full of aches and pains that she couldn’t get rid of. She’d learned very quickly that despite her powder blindness, liquor still had very little effect on her senses—it took several bottles of wine to feel even slightly woozy. A small part of her held out hope that this was a sign that the condition was not permanent. A much larger part of her spat with fury that there was nothing to take the edge off her anguish.

  She hid all of it behind a carefully constructed mask that allowed her to face her soldiers without tears in her eyes. She turned that mask on Borbador when he approached her late in the afternoon while she watched her men. After two hard days of quick marching they were beginning to flag.

  “How are you holding up?” he asked, letting his horse fall in beside hers.

  “Alive,” she responded.

  “Well, that’s a relief.” He didn’t press the question. “Odd thing to ask, but are you getting proper reports from your officers?”

  Vlora shook off her ennui and gave him a sharp glance. “Why?”

  He shrugged. “Just curious. Everyone seems to be stepping pretty softly around you.”

  “I don’t know,” she said with frustration. “Olem usually acts as a liaison between me and… well, most everyone else.”

  “He’s not here.”

  “Yes, I know.” She didn’t hold back the anger she felt at the statement. Olem should be here. He was her second-in-command. Her friend and lover. She needed him. “Any other bits of wisdom you care to share with me?”

  The venom in her voice washed off Bo like water over a turtle’s shell. “Not wisdom,” he replied. “Just information. You heard the New Adopest mayor has been dogging us since last night?”

  “We’re thirty miles from New Adopest.”

  “Exactly. He’s been chasing us, trying to get an audience with you.”

  “Nobody told me.”

  “Would it matter?”

  “How?”

  “Would you see him?”

  Vlora waved off the question. “No.”

  “Sure. But you probably should know that sort of thing anyway.” Bo chewed on his lip. “Look, I’m not going to fill in as a liaison for you and everyone else like Olem, but I am going to make sure you get a full report of important things.”

  “How is the New Adopest mayor important?”

  “He’s the mayor of a major city that your fleet is in the process of sacking.”

  “I’m not sacking it. I’m requisitioning from it.”

  “Against their will.”

  “That’s how requisitioning often works.”

  Bo rolled his eyes. “It’s near enough the same thing in their eyes, and don’t pretend like you don’t know it. They were on the edge of capitulating when we arrived. Few stores, ammunition and medical supplies low. We’re taking what little they have left.”

  Vlora wrestled with the idea, trying to summon that persistent fury to quash all sympathy. Was she doing the right thing? Winters in Fatrasta were practically balmy compared to Adro, but they were on the cusp of it, which meant a long time until another harvest. Was she leaving those people to starve if the war didn’t break? She hardened her heart, staving off the questions swirling in her mind. She was trying to save the world from another god. Sacrifices must be made.

  “Since when did your heart start bleeding?” she shot at Bo.

  “This isn’t bleeding-heart shit,” Bo retorted. “This is commanding-officer shit. You need to know these things and consider them with every decision. I’m pretty sure we both learned that from the same person.”

  Vlora’s hand went protectively to her saddlebags, where Tamas’s journal was close at hand. “Don’t do that,” she said quietly.

  Bo glared hard for a few moments before relenting. “Sorry.”

  They rode in silence for some time before Vlora ran a hand through her sweaty hair and called to a messenger. “Word for the fleet,” she told the boy. “Tell them to go light on the requisitioning. Leave the city grain—but take all the munitions we can get our hands on.”

  The boy snapped a salute and was off.

  She glanced at Bo, who was studying his saddle horn. He’d said his piece. She’d relented a little. Life would go on. “Davd,” she called over her shoulder.

  The powder mage left his casual guardsman’s position a few dozen paces behind them and rode up to join them. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Have we heard from Olem?”

  Davd went pale. “No, ma’am.”

  Vlora scowled at the reaction. “What do yo
u mean, ‘no’?”

  Davd looked to Bo, but Bo himself seemed surprised by the answer. “I mean we haven’t heard from Colonel Olem, ma’am.”

  “We’ve been in steady contact with the fleet ever since we got onto the Cape. He accompanied the godstone capstone and our wounded weeks ago. But we haven’t heard from him?”

  Davd was visibly sweating now. It made no sense. Had something happened to Olem? Were they hiding it from her? The whole thought was inconceivable. “Davd,” she said sharply. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing, ma’am. We just haven’t heard from him.”

  Bo nudged his horse back, then around to the other side of Davd. “Probably best if you just come out and say whatever it is you have to say,” he said gently.

  Davd looked over his shoulder, swallowed, and finally met Vlora’s eyes. He was no coward—she knew that from all the fighting they’d gone through together—but he was still young and he’d always gotten nervous before her moods. He cleared his throat. “Olem dropped the capstone off to our fleet several weeks ago,” he said.

  “And?”

  “And the wounded.”

  Vlora was getting impatient. “And where is he?” she hissed.

  “No one knows.” Davd looked away again. “He left his uniforms with his travel chest on one of the ships, took a horse, and disappeared. The last time anyone saw him, he was riding west. They thought he was coming back to join us. We scoured the countryside for him—no sign of him or his horse.”

  Vlora couldn’t comprehend what Davd was saying. “He left?” she asked dully.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Did he say anything? Tell anyone where he was going?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Vlora could see on both Bo’s and Davd’s faces that there was more to the story—Davd because he knew it, and Bo because he’d figured it out. She wanted to lean across and shake answers out of them both, but there was a sudden fear in the pit of her stomach. Did she want those answers? This sounded like Olem had abandoned his commission. He would never. She refused to believe it.