Blood of Empire

by Brian McClellan

“That dragonman. He’s outside.”

  “I thought you said it would be a couple of weeks before he came calling.”

  Etzi swore under his breath and hurried after the young man. Styke followed, checking his knife as he went. They navigated the corridors of the compound and were soon at the front gate. This was the first time Styke had actually seen it since carrying Orz in here three nights ago. It looked smaller in the daytime, an open-air vestibule that led off in a half-dozen directions. The big doors were closed and a concerned-looking soldier stood on a raised platform that let him look over the wall. Etzi climbed up to join him.

  Styke elected to remain on the ground, putting his back to the wall and keeping his eye on the gate, listening.

  “Good morning, Servant of God,” Etzi said in a formal tone.

  Styke couldn’t see the dragonman, but he could imagine the condescending sneer on his face. He seemed the type.

  “Open the gate,” the dragonman called. “There are traitors I must arrest.”

  “You must be mistaken.”

  “I am not. And I am not in the mood for games. Open the gate.”

  Etzi, to his credit, did not seem as cowed as everyone else. Probably because his own brother was a dragonman. He shook his head. “You know the law, Servant. Take your henchmen and be gone. The men inside this compound are under the protection of myself and the Household Quorum.”

  “This doesn’t have to go badly for you.”

  “It won’t,” Etzi replied with a hard note in his voice. “I am doing my duty. Or do you forget what it’s like to have a mother and a brother?”

  “You’re making a mistake.”

  “If you force your way into this compound and lay a finger upon my brother or his friend, the Household Quorum will turn on your master with a fury he is not prepared to fight. Go ask him. Go speak to one of Sedial’s puppets and find out just how much he’s ready to risk for a single dragonman.”

  “It’s not just about Orz.” The dragonman had the tone of someone trying to be reasonable with an unruly child. “It’s about that giant.”

  “He’s also under my protection.”

  “You have no idea what kind of snake you’re dealing with.”

  “He strikes me as more of an ox,” Etzi said. “Now, go on back to one of your master’s puppets. Tell him he has to wait for the law to run its course just like everyone else.”

  Styke heard the distinct sound of someone spitting at the base of the gate, then the tramp of a dozen pairs of feet receding down the causeway that led away from the compound. Etzi remained on the guard post, watching them go, before descending. His face was troubled. “That one is going to be trouble.”

  “You knew that,” Styke pointed out.

  “Yes, I did. What did he mean about you being a snake?”

  Styke shrugged. He wasn’t about to tell him about the army that might be south of the city. “He still have that limp?”

  “Ah, yes. I forgot that it may be personal for him. However, I had the sense that it was more than that. Something from Sedial.”

  “I killed a few of Sedial’s dragonmen.”

  “You don’t strike me as a boastful man, Ben,” Etzi said in a manner that very clearly told Styke that he didn’t believe him.

  Styke shrugged again and deflected. “Orz said that the emperor is under Sedial’s influence.”

  “It is a… rumor.” Etzi shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other as if Styke had just committed some blasphemy.

  “What happens if the emperor himself orders you to open that gate and hand Orz and me over to the dragonman?”

  “The emperor doesn’t get involved,” Etzi said. He cleared his throat, avoiding Styke’s eye, and turned toward the watchman at the gate. “Keep this door closed at all times. No strangers in or out.” He took a deep breath and nodded at Styke. “Again, thank you for your patience. I have a lot to do to prepare for the days ahead. Feel free to get to know the compound. If you want to leave, I’ll send you with an escort. Good day.” He strode away before Styke could respond.

  The whole exchange had been hurried, a very obvious cover-up of the fact he hadn’t answered Styke’s question. Styke grit his teeth, unable to do much more than that. He tried to remember Celine’s advice: Don’t attract attention. That’s all he needed to do until Orz recovered.

  But he also needed to be realistic. Etzi was using him for his own ends. The winds could shift at any moment and this safe haven would be upended. Styke needed to make sure he had his own plans in motion.

  He hurried to catch up to Etzi, who’d already rounded a corner and was giving orders to a couple of his Household members. He looked up in expectation when Styke approached. “I’m sorry, Ben. I have a lot to do.”

  “Just one request: I want to visit my soldiers in prison.”

  Etzi considered this for a moment and gave a hesitant nod. “I’ll try to arrange it.”

  CHAPTER 35

  Michel spent his free time integrating both himself and Ichtracia into Mama Palo’s command structure. Ichtracia’s eagerness to belong to something came in handy, and although she kept her aloof demeanor, she remained omnipresent—hanging around Jiniel or her lieutenants at every moment, giving insight into Dynize operations, and never hesitating to offer a helping hand whenever it was needed.

  Her gloves remained out of sight, and her true nature was only revealed to a handful of Mama Palo’s inner circle, with those sworn to secrecy. Michel kept his ear to the ground, listening for any rumbling that the Dynize Privileged and bone-eyes had become alerted to her flash of sorcery the other day. As time went by and soldiers did not march into the Depths by the thousands, Michel began to relax.

  They’d gotten lucky.

  Michel himself did much the same as Ichtracia. He was immediately slotted into Jiniel’s command structure just below Mama Palo herself. But while her lieutenants seemed to accept this new state of things, he could tell that it was uncomfortable for them. His reputation as a maverick spy won him admiration, not loyalty. As he’d told Ichtracia, he was still an outsider. He’d have to work to change that.

  In the meantime, the fact that he had a reputation gave him anxiety. A known spy was a bad spy. All it took was a single informant, or even one pair of careless lips mentioning his name at the wrong time, to bring the might of Ka-Sedial down upon them. He wondered if he should change his identity again and work from the shadows, or leave the city altogether. Jiniel was about as good a leader as the Sons of the Red Hand could get: competent, intelligent, fervent. But she was short-handed, her attention divided among a thousand different directions. She needed Michel almost as much as he needed her.

  He was pondering this conundrum, sitting on the floor in the corner of Jiniel’s office, when Ichtracia burst in through the door, a victorious grin on her face.

  “What’s gotten into you?” Michel asked.

  “Meln-Dun has called for you. He’s agreed to talk.”

  Ichtracia accompanied Michel into Meln-Dun’s cell. The quarry boss huddled on his mattress, the spent lamp hanging from the ceiling, and the newspapers and reports Michel had left for him sitting on his lap. He had the thousand-yard stare that Michel had seen on more than one broken convict. Michel replaced the spent lamp with his own and leaned casually against the one dry spot on the wall. “You wanted to talk.”

  “You have to guarantee that they won’t torture me,” Meln-Dun croaked.

  “I’m not guaranteeing anything,” Michel replied coolly. “As I said, I’ll do what I can to make your life more comfortable. But my ability to do this depends completely upon how useful you can be.”

  Meln-Dun stared at him for several moments, a flurry of emotions crossing his face. He barely even glanced at Ichtracia. Once again, a sliver of pity nearly broke into Michel’s thoughts. He steeled himself, remembering who Meln-Dun was and everything he’d done.

  “You want to know about the disappearances,” Meln-Dun finally said, looking down at his hands.


  “I do.”

  “It was Ka-Sedial.”

  Michel glanced at Ichtracia. She was watching Meln-Dun just as intently as he was looking away in shame. “Go on.”

  “He came to me just after the invasion. Told me that he needed people that wouldn’t be missed. Said that if I could provide him with two hundred a week, he would make sure that my quarry remained independent, that my people would be taken care of.”

  Michel had expected this. He knew the sinister implications. But hearing it out of Meln-Dun’s mouth made his gut twist. “So what did you do?”

  “I provided them,” Meln-Dun whispered. “Kresimir help me, I provided them. Old men. Children. Drifters and dispossessed. I put a couple of my foremen in charge of the gathering. I didn’t want to know the details.”

  “You’re a monster.” The absolute lack of emotion in Ichtracia’s voice caught Michel’s attention more than any amount of anger. Her face was a stone wall, but her eyes smoldered. He prepared to throw himself between them if it came to that.

  Meln-Dun looked up, his lip curled. “I did this to survive.”

  “You did this to enrich yourself.”

  “And save my people! Thousands depend on me for work! Tens of thousands depend on my quarry and work projects for survival! Without me, the entire Depths is doomed!”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” Michel said, trying to hold in his own anger. He needed to remain uninterested, detached. “So you gathered up the unwanted. What happened to them?”

  “Like I said, I didn’t want any details.”

  Michel almost swore out loud. The testimony of a condemned man might be enough evidence to convince Mama Palo and her lieutenants, but it wasn’t enough to galvanize the population. He needed more. “You don’t know anything?”

  Meln-Dun flinched. “I know they were taken to a keelboat every night at about one. A handful at a time.”

  This was something. Michel leaned forward. “And?”

  “They shoved off downriver.”

  “Toward the bay?”

  A nod. “I don’t know what happened to them after that. I didn’t ask; I didn’t want to know.”

  “Are you still making deliveries?” Ichtracia demanded.

  “No. No! I… the requests stopped. Ka-Sedial said that he had enough.”

  Michel didn’t like the look of alarm that crossed Ichtracia’s face, and he didn’t stop her when she crossed the room to snatch Meln-Dun by the front of the shirt. Despite her size, she jerked him around to face her and shook him hard. “How long ago did the deliveries end?”

  “Weeks ago! He said he didn’t need any more. I think… I think we gave him a couple of thousand people in total.”

  Ichtracia released Meln-Dun, dropping him and staggering away. Her whole body trembled, and she fled from the room without another word. Michel watched her go, then turned his attention back to Meln-Dun. “Is that all you’ve got?”

  “It is,” he whispered. “I don’t know anything else about it. I’ll give you the names of the foremen I had doing the work. I’ll give you the keelboat launch. That’s all I have, I swear.”

  Michel swallowed his disgust. Meln-Dun didn’t need to know exactly what those “unwanted” Palo would be used for to know that it wouldn’t be pleasant. He’d sold the lives of his own countrymen and worse, those that couldn’t defend themselves. There was a strong temptation to go back on his word and let Mama Palo’s foot soldiers tear the bastard apart. He wrestled with the thought for several moments before leaving the room in disgust.

  “Give him a better mattress,” Michel told the guards outside. “And a permanent light.” He stormed off to find Ichtracia.

  She’d retreated to the street outside. He found her on the stoop, her whole body still shaking. Michel took one of her hands gently, sitting down beside her.

  “I should have seen it happening,” Ichtracia whispered. “I should have put a stop to it.”

  “You couldn’t have known.”

  “I should have. I was willfully ignorant.” She rubbed her face hard enough to turn her cheeks red. “I knew that Ka-poel—I didn’t know her name then, just that my grandfather had an adversary—I knew that Ka-poel had somehow locked the godstone. I knew that Sedial and his Privileged and bone-eyes were trying to remove that lock. I just thought they were…”—she gestured mysteriously—“doing magic things to solve the problem. I never went near it myself. I should have known that those magic things would require blood, and lots of it.” She cradled her head in her hands. “And that blood should have been mine.”

  Michel frowned, trying to catch up. A slow realization entered the back of his head. “So if the blood of those people was being used to undo Ka-poel’s sorcery, and the deliveries stopped weeks ago, that means…”

  “That Sedial already managed to unlock the godstone,” Ichtracia finished.

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah. Shit.”

  “If he’s had it unlocked this long, then what is he waiting for?” Michel asked.

  Ichtracia shook her head. “He doesn’t know everything. Perhaps he’s been studying it, trying to figure out how to activate it. Or maybe he’s waiting until they can get their hands on the third godstone. Or waiting until he’s finished off his enemies. I don’t know, but he must have a good reason for not having used it yet.”

  Michel let out a shaky breath. “This is bad.” He wished he could tell Taniel and Ka-poel. They needed to know. He would get the information to Emerald as quickly as possible, but even if the albino knew how to find them, it would take weeks to reach them. “Okay, one thing at a time. This makes it even more vital that we rouse the Palo. But to do that, we need evidence.”

  “You think anyone will care?” Ichtracia said, a note of defeat in her voice.

  “About the abduction and blood sacrifice of thousands of their kin?” Michel finally let his anger out. He was mad, but he was not helpless. He could do something to avenge these people. “Of course they’ll care. Ka-Sedial has made a mistake.” He got to his feet.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “To follow the path Meln-Dun just gave us. To find evidence. Are you coming?”

  Michel got the name of the keelboat landing from Meln-Dun. He and Ichtracia found it without a problem, near the southeastern exit of Greenfire Depths. There was nothing particularly unique about the landing—it was one of dozens within the Depths. Michel examined it thoroughly, asked a few of the workers about smuggling opportunities, spread around a little bit of money. No one reported anything out of the ordinary. Michel wasn’t surprised. With many weeks since its last insidious use, these might not even be the same people.

  Michel hired a small, two-man canoe. Ichtracia sat in the front while Michel took the back, giving her a brief boating tutorial as they pushed into the middle of the river.

  There was plenty of traffic on the river, both from the Depths itself and from farther upriver, shipping supplies and soldiers back and forth from the bay. Michel allowed the gentle current to take them and kept his eyes on the rock walls of the plateau. They were soon out of the Depths and entirely buried within the canyon. He watched for smugglers’ coves, outcroppings, low entrances to the catacombs—any place that the Dynize might take a keelboat full of old people and children.

  “They’re taking them down to the godstone south of the city, correct?” he asked Ichtracia.

  She nodded unhappily. “From what I understand, the longer the blood is separated from a person, the less useful it is. The most potent use will be direct from them.”

  “That’s how je Tura described it,” Michel said, shuddering at the memory. “Men, women, and children, their blood being spilled directly onto the godstone.”

  “That sounds right.”

  “So if they kidnapped them from the Depths, loaded them into the keelboat, then…”

  “They would take them south.”

  “Right.” Michel kept his eyes on the walls of the plateau, but
began to suspect that he’d find nothing here. Already loaded onto the keelboat, it would be easiest to take the prisoners out through the bay and down the coast a couple of miles. “There’s a barge landing on the coastal plain near the godstone. I’d be willing to bet that’s where they’re unloaded.”

  They continued down the river in silence, dodging keelboats and river barges, letting the current take them out into the bay, where they canoed past the big Dynize ships laying in anchor. It was a calm day, the ocean like a sheet of glass, so they proceeded out past the breakers and turned south to hug the coast. They were not alone, either—plenty of traffic moved up and down the coast, making them just one of hundreds of boats, ships, barges, and canoes.

  Once they were out of the harbor, the stink of dead fish and city sewage dissipated, and Michel found himself breathing the ocean air in deeply. He wondered why he didn’t do this more often, then remembered that he’d been an active informant for most of his adult life, which left very little room for innocent pleasures.

  “You act like you’ve done this before,” Ichtracia said.

  They were the first words spoken in almost an hour, and Michel reluctantly brought his mind back from its pleasant trance. “When I was a kid,” he said, “I used to steal a canoe after the really bad storms and paddle up and down the shoreline looking for anything washed up from shipwrecks.”

  “Isn’t that… dangerous?”

  “Wildly. But you can see more when you’re out on the water. Trick is to stay close enough to land that you don’t get swept away, but far enough that you don’t get bashed against the rocks. A day like today? An absolute breeze.” Michel continued to paddle with long, even strokes, propelling them through the calm water. His arms were beginning to hurt, but he didn’t mind.

  The shoreline was his main concern. Much of it was marshy scrubland, providing a barrier between the ocean and the plains beyond—the same kind of horrid swamp that Lindet’s forced labor camps had spent the last ten years trying to irrigate around the plateau. This was broken by the occasional rocky outcropping and, even less often, a gentle sandbar big enough to constitute an actual beach.