Blood of Empire

by Brian McClellan

  “Meln-Dun is down. Mama Palo can begin to operate in the open again. How does this help us?” Ichtracia was clearly frustrated.

  Michel smiled, trying to keep any sense of condescension out of his tone. “Because with this,” he said, “we can break Meln-Dun in the way I need him broken.”

  The now-former quarry boss was being kept in a dank little cell underneath Greenfire Depths. The stone down there was cold, oozing water that drained down through a crack in the floor. When Michel put his hand on the slimy wall, he could feel the vibration of the steam pumps that kept the lower levels of the Depths from flooding. They were well below the Hadshaw River here—below even the nearby ocean.

  Michel let himself into the cell, hanging his lantern on a hook in the low ceiling and turning to face the man huddling in the corner. It had been two days since his kidnapping, and Meln-Dun did not look well. He was pallid and shivering. His bed was a mess of damp straw barely held together by something vaguely resembling a mattress cover. All he had for his waste was a bucket in one corner. By the smell of it, it hadn’t been changed since he arrived.

  Ichtracia had wanted to come along, but this kind of questioning was most effective if Michel could work one-on-one with the prisoner. He gave Meln-Dun a sad smile. “I’m sorry about the lodgings.”

  “No you’re not.” Meln-Dun’s words were angry, but they had no bite. He looked more pathetic than anything else—a man who didn’t take much to feel as if he’d been broken. Michel had to remind himself that most people ended up that way. No matter how much courage a man thought he had, it amounted to nothing when he’d lost everything dear to him. “What are you here for? To torture me?”

  Michel peered at Meln-Dun. Per his instructions, it appeared he hadn’t been touched. “You think that’s what I do?”

  “I don’t know. I can hear them talking, you know. They’re planning on killing me. They hate me. They want to make sure my death lasts a long time.”

  The “they” clearly referred to the guards posted outside the cell. Michel wondered whether he should put a stop to that kind of talk. If they actually planned to go through with their threats, it could ruin all his hard work. If, on the other hand, it was a bit of wishful chatter… well, that could be useful. “Of course they hate you,” he said with a sigh. “You sold out their leader’s predecessor to Lindet, then sold yourself to the Dynize.”

  “I did what I had to.”

  “For yourself. Yes, I understand that. I’m here to talk to you about what else you can do for yourself.”

  Meln-Dun studied him through distrustful eyes for several moments. “What do you want from me?”

  “Information.”

  “I don’t have anything of use to you.”

  “That’s for me to decide.”

  Meln-Dun’s lip curled. “I’m not going to tell you anything.”

  Michel put on a strong air of world-weariness. It wasn’t a hard act. He found a dryish spot on the wall to lean against and let out a heavy sigh, careful that he look as unconcerned as possible. “That’s your choice,” he replied.

  “It… it is?”

  “Sure. I’m not interested in bloodying my knuckles with your face. I’m just here to ask a few questions.”

  “And if I don’t answer them?”

  Michel shrugged. “Not my problem.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I turn around and walk out of here. Nothing changes. You stay down here, shivering in the darkness, listening to the brutal fantasies of the guards and eating whatever slop they feed you until you catch pneumonia and die alone.”

  Meln-Dun’s teeth began to chatter audibly.

  “Or,” Michel continued, “you answer my questions. I leave you a light, get you an extra blanket and a dry mattress. Small kindnesses, you know?”

  Meln-Dun stared at him as if he were a demon crawled from the very pit. “What’s going to happen to me?” he whispered.

  “I just painted a pretty vivid picture,” Michel replied. “I mean, they could lose their patience and execute you, of course. Nice and fast. That would probably be better.” Michel was careful to phrase the actions in terms of “them” versus “me.” Two different entities. Give the prisoner something hopeful to grab on to.

  “I mean if I help you.”

  Michel took a deep breath. “You’re never going to be a free, powerful man again, Meln-Dun. But if you help me, it gives me leverage to help you. Best-case scenario is that, once the war is over, you are retired to the countryside with a permanent guard but some amount of comfort and autonomy.”

  This best-case scenario didn’t seem to sound all that best-case to Meln-Dun. He visibly withdrew into himself, his face twisting in horror, hands clutching at his knees. “You’re not going to win, you know,” he said, his voice stronger. “The Dynize. They’re going to beat you.”

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t root for them.”

  “They’ll free me.” Meln-Dun raised his chin. “They’ll free me when they flush you out. All of this will be explained to them, and—”

  Michel lost his patience, tossing a careful selection of Emerald’s report onto Meln-Dun’s lap. “I’m guessing you can read enough Dynize to see what those say?”

  Meln-Dun slowly lifted the reports, flipping through them as he peered at the words.

  “Those,” Michel explained, “are internal memos regarding the traitor Meln-Dun.”

  “These aren’t real.”

  Michel shrugged again, as if it didn’t really matter. “I could mock those up, probably. Getting the grammar right might be hard unless I found a native speaker willing to do some forgeries for me. I didn’t need to, though. We stole those right from the capital building.”

  Meln-Dun read through the report again and then looked up sharply at Michel. “You set me up. Everything you told me when you woke me up the other day—”

  “Was all true,” Michel said with a gentle smile. “Except for the part about me working for Dahre. You were set up, and the Dynize did come and try to arrest you about an hour after we left. Whatever suspicions they had—and I gave them quite a lot to work with—were cemented when they arrived only to find that you’d fled with all your valuables.” Michel scratched the back of his head. “You’re dead to them now, Meln-Dun. Doesn’t matter what the truth is. They think they know, and if they ever find you, they will execute you without a second thought.”

  Meln-Dun stared at Michel in horror. This was, he admitted to himself, a form of torture. Michel produced a newspaper from his pocket and handed it over. “Third page. The Dynize have already taken over your quarry. Several of your foremen have been apprehended for questioning. They’re not leaking any more information, of course. They want to keep the betrayal quiet. But they’ve quietly put a price on your head.”

  “What are your questions?” The sentence seemed to tear itself from Meln-Dun’s throat. Michel had finally gotten through to him.

  “Are the Dynize kidnapping Palo for their own purposes?”

  There was a flicker in Meln-Dun’s eyes, so quick that Michel might not have noticed it if he weren’t watching carefully. Recognition. Then fear. Meln-Dun turned away, looking at his feet. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “You’re sure?” Michel prodded gently.

  “I’m sure.” The protestation had a firm, desperate finality to it, as if Meln-Dun was hoping that if he exclaimed hard enough, it would put the matter to rest. “What else do you want to know?”

  “I want to know about the disappearances,” Michel pushed.

  Meln-Dun suddenly surged to his feet. “I know nothing about them!” He stared at Michel, his whole body trembling, until he melted back onto his bed. He turned his face to the wall.

  Michel watched him for the next couple of minutes. They remained there in silence, the only sound that of trickling water and Meln-Dun’s unsteady breathing. Michel knew beyond a doubt that he’d touched something. But whatever it was—if Meln-Dun kn
ew the truth that Michel feared was behind the abductions—it was too sinister for the greedy old snake to address head-on. Michel needed to give him time that he didn’t have.

  “Do you know why you haven’t been tortured and killed?”

  Meln-Dun shook his head fearfully.

  “Because I’m holding the wolves at bay, Meln-Dun. Because I think you’re more useful to the Palo cause alive than dead. I can convince them of that, but only if you point me in the right direction.” No response. Michel swore inwardly. “I’ll give you twenty-four hours. Give me an answer, or I’ll let Mama Palo decide what to do with you.” Michel opened the door. “I’ll leave you the light, and the papers. Give you something to read. To think about.” He closed the door behind him, nodded to the guards, and headed up to street level.

  Ichtracia was waiting for him, sitting against the wall in an empty room above the holding cells. “Anything?” she asked, getting to her feet. There was an anxiety in her tone and mannerisms. She wanted to know—to be vindicated in her hatred of her grandfather. For some reason, that thought gave Michel a moment of sadness.

  “Something,” Michel replied. “Definitely something.”

  “You don’t sound like it was something.”

  Michel considered the conversation. “I think we’re on the right track. I think Meln-Dun was privy to the disappearances, maybe even had a hand in them.”

  “No evidence, though? He didn’t give us a trail to follow?”

  “Not yet.” Michel glanced back down toward the cells. Twenty-four hours. “Not yet, but he will.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Styke lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling of Maetle’s infirmary, considering the thousands of hours he’d spent doing the same in the labor camps outside of Landfall. He’d come up with games to pass the time—sorting pebbles, thought experiments, even new war hymns to sing while fighting. He couldn’t recall any of it now; all flushed away in the flurry of excitement that followed his release. He wished he remembered. It might make being confined in one corner of Etzi’s Household compound a little easier to bear.

  This was by far the most helpless he’d felt since leaving the labor camps. Well, second-most helpless, after his duel with Fidelis Jes. But this was worse than sitting in his cabin on the Seaward. At least there he could go up on deck and watch the waves. Here, however, he had to wait for days hiding in a tiny room in a foreign city at the mercy of a single man.

  A tiny part of his brain wished for something to go wrong; that soldiers would suddenly fill the doorway, bayonets fixed, here to arrest or kill him. At least then he could draw his knife and do something.

  A noise caught his ear and he twisted to look toward the door. There were a lot of noises around the compound—children playing, Household maintenance, men and women going about their trades inside the walls of the Household or heading out into the city for their work. It was a busy, thriving place that reminded him of his earliest memories of childhood on the plantation. Before the madness took his father.

  This particular sound came from several voices, and it was getting closer. He rolled to his knees and stood up, facing the door when it opened to reveal five figures: Etzi, Maetle, the night watchman, and Ka-poel and Celine. The latter two had been living out in the open in the Household for the last few days. No one was looking for them, nor seemed to question their presence.

  Etzi nodded seriously at Styke. “I’m sorry to keep you cooped up like this longer than expected.” He ran a hand through his hair. He looked tired, but pleased. “But we’ve finally made some progress. Follow me.”

  Styke pulled on his boots, checked his knife, and followed Etzi out of the infirmary. It was midafternoon and he had to shade his eyes from the sun, squinting to try and see any of his surroundings. Three days being stuck inside and his legs felt cramped, his shoulders tight. Etzi led him down an immaculately kept series of gravel walks that connected and ran between the buildings of the compound until a narrow alley opened into a grass courtyard. The ground here was slightly depressed so as to create a sort of amphitheater, and it was filled with several hundred people.

  Styke fought a moment of panic at all the Dynize faces looking at him. He felt foolish, like an ape in a zoo, and had to remind himself to stand tall, hands clasped behind his back, his face impassive. There was surprise written on most of the faces, and they stared at him with open curiosity as murmurs laced back and forth through the small crowd.

  “I’ve assembled the Household,” Etzi told him, leading him to a spot at the head of the tiny amphitheater.

  “You could have warned me.”

  “Ah. I thought Maetle told you. My apologies.” Etzi scowled, giving Styke no time to consider the gathering. “You’ll have to excuse them. Kressians are rare enough, but I doubt any of them have ever seen anyone of your size. Now then…” He lifted one hand, and the amphitheater fell silent as quickly as Styke’s Lancers would responding to his orders.

  “My friends,” Etzi addressed the Household, “for the last three days, we have been harboring a pair of fugitives. These fugitives were unjustly and illegally attacked in the same violence that ended my mother’s life.” Whispers of sympathy and anger tittered through the assembly. Etzi stilled them with a gesture. “One of those fugitives is my brother, Ji-Orz.” Gasps followed the announcement, and the ripple of excitement was harder to quiet. Styke gathered from the outburst that Orz was well known. Etzi continued over it. “Orz was released and pardoned by the Great Ka in Fatrasta. Why he was attacked, we do not know. But we will get to the bottom of it, even as he struggles for his life in our own infirmary.”

  Many of the crowd glanced toward Maetle, nodding and whispering as they put together her mysterious sequestering with Orz’s presence. “Master!” someone called. “Who is the giant?”

  A flicker of a smile caught the corner of Etzi’s mouth. Instead of rebuking the questioner, he gestured to Styke. “This man is named Ben. He is a warrior from Fatrasta, and he is an ally of my brother. In fact, he saved Orz’s life. He will be our guest while my brother recovers from his wounds, and I want you all to treat him as you would a member of this Household. Understood?”

  Styke cleared his throat and eyed the group. The faces staring back at him looked as normal as any group he might find in a city or town—men, women, children; tradesmen, laborers, students; even a handful of soldiers. It reminded him again of the plantation when he was growing up, except that on the plantation there had been a very clear divide between his family and all of the “help.” Here, it seemed as if everyone was family. It felt odd, but not bad.

  He spotted Celine and Ka-poel in the back corner and gave them a small nod. Celine waved back at him. No one seemed to notice.

  Etzi said a few more words and then dismissed the Household. He turned to Styke and gave him a tight smile. “The Household is open to you now.”

  “And it’s wise that they know I’m here?”

  “Everyone knows you’re here,” Etzi said. “I’ve spent the last two days laying the groundwork for a suit against Ka-Sedial’s agents who attacked you and Orz. I took it to the Quorum Hall this morning.”

  “And you’re sure they’re not going to come here asking questions?”

  “It will take them weeks to get that far,” Etzi replied confidently. “A lone dragonman and a handful of foreign soldiers is a curiosity, to be sure. But they care far more about the murder of my mother—a retired Household head—and they care about the overreach of the Ka. I told you, things here are boiling over. No one is happy, and Sedial isn’t here in person to silence the debates.”

  Styke opened his mouth, but he was interrupted by the approach of a child. It was a small boy, perhaps Celine’s age, with a mop of dark red hair, a broad face, and a stout, almost chubby body. He cleared his throat loudly, and both Styke and Etzi looked down.

  “Sir,” the boy said, the slightest tremor in his voice. “Celine says that you are the head of her Household.”

  Styke
blinked back at the child, looked up toward the corner to find Celine watching him, and then over at Etzi, who shrugged. “I suppose that’s true.”

  “May Celine and I play, sir?”

  Etzi clearly and unsuccessfully tried to hide a smile. He took a step behind Styke’s shoulder and said in a low voice, “One of the boys tried to kiss her yesterday.”

  “And I didn’t hear about this?”

  “She knocked his front teeth out. Baby teeth—he’ll grow more—but the children are scared of her now.”

  Styke cocked an eyebrow at Celine, then looked down at the boy in front of him. “And this one?”

  “He doesn’t scare easily. His name is Jerio. A distant cousin of mine. Much more polite than the other boy. And much smarter.”

  Styke cleared his throat. “That’s up to her,” he answered in his broken Dynize, kneeling down next to the boy and holding up one finger. “But I’d suggest not making her mad.”

  “Thank you, sir!” Jerio said, turning and running toward Celine before the last word had left his mouth. He reached Celine, and the two had a quick exchange before they both ran down one of the corridors that left the amphitheater. Styke felt like he had just witnessed some sort of strange, childlike ritual. Celine had made it clear that she could not only fend for herself but that her guardian was bigger than anyone else in the city. She was now forging alliances. Celine, he realized, was going to be a terrifying teenager.

  “Sir!” someone called. This time the word was directed toward Etzi. A young man approached in a hurried walk, his face pale, and whispered something in Etzi’s ear. Etzi looked up sharply at Styke.

  “What is it?”