Blood of Empire

by Brian McClellan

  He stumbled back from Markus, taking deep breaths. One of the armored cavalry came to a stop in front of him, wrenching off her helmet. It was Ibana, and she barely paused to look at him before barking orders.

  “Secure that alley! Don’t let them get away! Leave a few alive for questioning! Gut the rest!” Her horse stamped and thundered beneath her, and Styke noticed distantly that the neck and forelegs of the beast were splattered in the blood of run-down enemies. He took a shaky breath.

  “How did you find me?”

  “Jackal’s spirits warned us you’d gotten yourself into a situation,” she said, her eyes still on the ensuing slaughter. “Looks like we arrived just in time.”

  Styke could no longer feel that joy of the battle. In its place was a hollow, distant grief. His gaze returned to Amrec, who now lay on his side, still but breathing. Styke could see now that one of Amrec’s hooves was hanging by a sinew. The mad beast had tried to stand, even with a leg nearly cut off.

  “No, you were too late,” Styke told Ibana. “Give me your carbine.”

  CHAPTER 62

  For the second time in his life, Michel watched as Landfall burned.

  The first time had been during the revolution. Fatrastan partisans and Kez soldiers had fought back and forth across the plateau while Ben Styke’s Mad Lancers barely kept the Kez fleet from landing reinforcements along the rocky shores. Lady Chancellor Lindet’s armies had arrived in the nick of time, finally capturing Fort Nied and pushing the Kez into the ocean. This time, he saw no Mad Lancers in their gleaming armor. He saw no rescuing army.

  Michel hid in a church bell tower and watched while frustrated Dynize soldiers raged back and forth across the plateau, continuing their slow and brutal suppression of the Palo rioters. Smoke rose from a dozen quarters, including Greenfire Depths. But the Depths was still there. It hadn’t been destroyed by Privileged, and no new Privileged had been sent to finish the job.

  It had been two days since he lost Ichtracia and his heart still hurt. He’d been unable to find so much as a body—hers, or the Privileged she’d been fighting. He’d spent his time since dodging patrols, trying to find some kind of organization among the rioters, and looking for Jiniel. Mama Palo’s headquarters was abandoned and refugees streamed out of the city by the thousands. If the Dynize cared about those that were fleeing, they made no move to stop them. The city had all their attention.

  Despite the inevitable end to the uprising, hundreds of Palo fought on behind barricades or engaged the Dynize in long, running battles. Michel watched as they were snuffed out one at a time, and scoured the city for any sign of his allies. The church bell tower was one of his preordained meeting spots, and the ninth such spot that he’d checked. Yet there was still no sign of Jiniel or the others.

  Michel saw a Dynize patrol gun down a lone stone-throwing Palo boy and averted his eyes. He’d expected violence at some point, but all of this? This was too much. This was not what he’d wanted. And yet he was responsible. He gathered up his pack of meager belongings scrounged from Mama Palo’s headquarters and headed down from the bell tower, making his way across the empty church and standing by the door for a few minutes to listen for a break in the fighting outside.

  “Michel!” The name was barked sharply, and it made him jump and spin. Across the room, back behind the altar, he spotted a familiar face, which brought a sigh of relief. It was Devin-Mezi, Jiniel’s cousin. Michel put a hand over his heart and gave her a nod. She rushed across the room to him. “Pit and damnation, it is you. We thought we’d lost you.”

  “Not yet,” Michel answered. “I’ve been looking for you as well. Where is Jiniel?”

  “We retreated to the catacombs,” Devin-Mezi said, looking Michel over with a scowl. “We’re hiding with Yaret and his Household.”

  Michel nodded tiredly. “That makes sense. I lost my maps and I didn’t really want to get lost down there looking for you.”

  “We have the maps,” Devin-Mezi said reassuringly. “We got most of our people out of… well, never mind. I’ll take you to Jiniel, she’ll want to update you.” Her scowl deepened. “Are you hurt?”

  Michel instinctively hid his left hand. The wound had opened badly during the explosion that had ended Ichtracia’s fight with the Privileged, and he hadn’t been able to stop it from weeping blood since. A hasty, one-handed stitch job was all that was keeping it together. It hurt so badly that he could barely see, but he forced himself to think through it. He gave Devin-Mezi a tight grin. “Where’s the closest entrance to the catacombs?”

  They were able to make their way through the street fighting and descended into the plateau through the basement of a bakery. Devin-Mezi produced a hidden lantern and two pistols, one of which she handed to Michel. “Just in case,” she told him. “Some of the soldiers have been venturing down here, but they rarely bother going very far for fear of getting lost.”

  Michel was too tired to harbor suspicions or fears. He followed Devin-Mezi through the maze of tunnels, descending deeper and deeper until they rounded a corner and suddenly spotted a pool of light. It was a sentry, a Palo who challenged them and stood aside when Devin-Mezi gave the password. Soon they were past, and descended still farther until they broke out into a number of large chambers well lit by oil lanterns and crowded with people, both Palo and Dynize.

  Michel allowed himself to feel pain again at the sight of familiar faces, but forced himself to keep walking rather than collapse into a sobbing mess. Devin-Mezi continued to lead him through the group until they stopped outside of a chamber cordoned off by a cloak stretched across a string. She swept it aside. “I found him!”

  Michel stumbled in after her and was mobbed by relieved faces, thumps on his back, whispered questions, and a jumble of news. He waved it all back, blinking through his pain, and collapsed into an offered chair before looking across the gathering. It consisted of Jiniel and several of her lieutenants, Yaret, Tenik, and a handful of Yaret Household cupbearers.

  “By Kresimir,” Jiniel swore. “Michel, you are covered in blood.”

  “I need whiskey, a needle, thread, and someone with a steady hand,” he answered.

  Jiniel barked orders, and within minutes the supplies were brought. It was Tenik who knelt beside Michel with the needle and thread, taking a damp cloth to wash Michel’s hand. Michel grimaced at every touch, but several swallows of whiskey took the edge off and allowed him to consider the faces before him with a little more clarity. He focused on Jiniel and pointed toward the rock above their heads.

  “Have you been outside lately?”

  She nodded. “We have word coming in from our people at a constant rate. All the coming and going is risky, but we’re trying to stay on top of everything happening.”

  “Our people are getting slaughtered out there.”

  Jiniel cast her eyes downward. “I know.”

  And there was nothing she could do. There was nothing any of them could do. Michel stared at his hand, trying to make himself think. They needed a plan, no matter how simple or cowardly. Run away. Fight back. He could barely summon the energy to move, let alone make that decision. He took another swig of whiskey and thought about Ichtracia striding to her death to face down three Privileged. She would have won, too, if not for the fourth showing up. He winced as Tenik finished cleaning his hand and began to pick out the sloppy stitches he’d done himself.

  “Do we have any plans?” Michel asked.

  “We’re working on it,” Jiniel replied, exchanging a glance with Yaret. The Household head cleared his throat. “We’ve coordinated with some of the larger groups of fighters, and spread evacuation orders to as many communities as we can.”

  Yaret spoke up. “We just received word from Etepali. She’s stuck up north between two of Sedial’s armies and Lady Flint. She doesn’t think she can slip away, but offers us succor if we can reach her.”

  Running away seemed like a really good idea right now. But how to get out of the city? “You should make a ru
n for it,” he told Yaret. “Right now, with all Sedial’s focus on Lindet’s armies and putting down the Palo.”

  “We’re considering the idea,” Yaret said seriously.

  “Good.” Michel turned his gaze on Jiniel, who grimaced at his hand until she noticed him watching her and tried to turn it into a smile.

  “You and Ichtracia saved Greenfire Depths,” she said. “I’m guessing the sorcerous fight on the Rim was the two of you.”

  “Just her,” he said with a sad smile, shaking his head. Beside him, Tenik finally began to stitch his hand. He barely felt the in and out of the needle through his gloom.

  “People are fleeing the Depths in droves,” Jiniel continued. “No one is stopping them, and Sedial hasn’t sent any more Privileged to start fires.”

  “I noticed that.” Michel took a long look as Tenik continued the stitches on his ruined hand. “I couldn’t even find a body.”

  Jiniel and Yaret looked at each other again. “Whose body?” Jiniel asked.

  “Ichtracia’s.”

  “But… she’s still alive,” Yaret said.

  Michel rounded on him, nearly tearing out the new stitches. “No, she’s not,” he growled, the words tumbling out with more emotion than he’d meant. “I saw that sorcery. No one could have survived that.”

  Yaret did not shrink before his temper. “One of my cupbearers saw her after the battle. Sedial’s people captured her. She was beaten up, but still alive.” He leaned toward Michel. “The People-Eater doesn’t die so easily.”

  Something flared in Michel’s belly, stirring upward through his chest until it reached his mind. He could feel the gears there begin to grind. He sought to grasp onto that flicker of energy, to use it to pull himself from his sleep-deprived, painful lethargy. If Ichtracia had survived that fight, she would be in dire straits now. Sedial might punish her in some way. Pit, he might still have need of her blood. The very thought of her as a sacrifice made Michel retch. Something had to be done. But what? It would take the biggest army in the world to rescue her from Sedial—or the best spy. He wasn’t the latter on the best of days, let alone in his current condition, and he didn’t have the former.

  “Where is Sedial?” Michel asked.

  “We have contact with some sympathetic Households still near the capital building,” Yaret said slowly. “They said that Sedial has retreated to the fortress down south.”

  “To use the stones?” Michel asked sharply.

  “Or just to wait out the violence,” Yaret said with a shrug.

  There was the rustle of a soft voice outside the meeting chamber, and Tenik finished tying off Michel’s stitches and climbed painfully to his feet to cross to the makeshift door. He spoke to someone on the other side, then turned to Yaret. “We have more information coming in from the plateau.”

  “Go on,” Yaret urged.

  “Sedial is gathering his troops, pulling them out of Upper Landfall.”

  “He’s regrouping?” Michel guessed.

  Tenik spoke to the messenger outside in a low voice before turning back to them. “We’re not entirely sure. It seems he’s massing troops on the southern bank of the Hadshaw. At least twenty thousand of them already.”

  “Twenty thousand,” Michel breathed in disbelief.

  “And rising. He’s pulled everyone off the plateau. They just left in the middle of firefights and melees.”

  “He must be preparing for a new push into the city.” Michel looked around at the faces of his friends, trying to make some sense of this.

  “But why abandon good positions to do it?” Yaret asked.

  No one seemed to know the answer. “Send out more people,” Michel told Jiniel. “Even if our risk of being discovered goes up. We have to know what’s going on.” He was already considering courses of action, trying to come up with any idea, no matter how far-fetched, that would allow him to rescue Ichtracia. The fear that Ichtracia was about to be used as another blood sacrifice continued to grow. He kept it to himself. No need to spark a panic until they had a better plan. “How about your allies?” he asked Yaret. “Is there a staunch resistance against Sedial yet?”

  “I’ve warned everyone on the purge list,” Yaret replied, spreading his hands. “Seven of them are already dead. Several more have fled the city. A few have managed to withdraw all their troops and plan to make a stand, and the rest… well, the rest are hunkering down to wait out the violence, hoping that Sedial changes his mind. The damned fools. It would take an act of a god to get them to act, even on the eve of their own destruction.”

  “So no help from that quarter?”

  “Maybe a small amount.”

  “The ones who plan on fighting back. Can you try to unite them?”

  It was Tenik who answered. “We’ve been trying to do just that. It’s going… all right. If we had two more weeks to work, we might be able to gather all of Sedial’s enemies.”

  Michel sought a solution—any solution—and came up empty-handed. A commotion outside took Tenik back to the door, where he conferred with a new voice. There was an excited, quiet exchange and Tenik whirled on the room. “We know why Sedial is massing his troops!”

  “Why?” Michel climbed to his feet, followed by everyone else in the room.

  Tenik scoffed, double-checked with the messenger, then shook his head in disbelief. “We’ve spotted a flotilla. There are hundreds of keelboats coming down the Hadshaw. They’re within miles of the city.”

  “Lindet?” Michel asked in confusion.

  “No. It’s Lady Flint and the Adrans.”

  A handful of gasps escaped the gathered lieutenants, and Yaret stared at Tenik. “How is that possible? We just heard from Etepali today and she said the Adrans were a five-day march north.”

  “It’s the flotilla,” Michel explained excitedly, already limping for the door. “With enough keelboats, Flint could bring everyone she has down the river in less than half the time it takes to march it. Try to organize the Palo on the plateau,” he told Jiniel. “Put out fires and give us a semblance of order. Yaret, see if you can gather some of your allies during this respite.”

  “Where are you going?” Jiniel asked.

  “If I’m going to get Ichtracia back, I’ll need an army. And Lady Flint has the best one on the continent.”

  CHAPTER 63

  Vlora stood on the prow of her keelboat, face to the wind, listening to the polers keep time as they worked their way up and down the sides of the vessel. The river was packed, hundreds of keelboats crammed together as close as they could manage without fouling their poles. All around her, soldiers double-checked their rifles and kit as their sergeants belted out encouragement, obscenities, and orders. She could feel the tension of the moment, her heart hammering at the prospect of the coming battle.

  A light powder trance hummed in the back of her head, keeping her thoughts clear and her body limber. She didn’t trust herself to take more than the smallest amount of powder, but this, she told herself, would be enough. As she scanned the horizon with her looking glass, she picked out the most important features in the landscape.

  The largest was the Landfall Plateau, looming less than two miles from their current position and growing closer with every moment. Smoke rose from the city, telling a tale of internal strife, while people streamed out of the suburbs of Lower Landfall at an alarming rate. She put the refugees from her mind. They would not be a threat.

  The threat, she found, was gathering on a bend in the river, just where the Hadshaw turned toward the ocean and the western bank became the southern bank. Thousands of soldiers—tens of thousands—mustered speedily on the plain. Their morion helmets and steel breastplates glittered in the afternoon sun as their officers tried to force them into formation. Thousands more streamed from the city, the suburbs, and from the mighty fortress half-constructed around the godstone south of the city.

  “Looks like they knew we were coming,” Bo said. He stood beside her, his own looking glass to his eye, gloves alr
eady donned. “Their scouts must be lightning fast.”

  “Or one of the armies we were facing up north sent their fastest messengers once we’d slipped away,” Vlora replied. “They would have killed a horse to get here before us, but it is possible.”

  “Either way,” Bo mused, “we’re in for a fight.”

  “As expected. Do you see that bit of high ground at seven o’clock?”

  “No… wait, yes. They’re putting a couple of field guns into place.”

  “Looks like it.” Vlora lowered her looking glass and turned to look back across the flotilla just in time to see another keelboat maneuver perilously close to hers. The polers on both vessels stopped their work as the two drifted together, and then Olem leapt onto hers. Once he was on board, the polers immediately began to move again. He brushed off the front of his uniform, gained his balance, and came to join her with a flushed face.

  “I’ve leapt between horses before,” he proclaimed, “but there’s something about jumping keelboats that’s even more terrifying. I’ve got news from the shore.”

  “Our cavalry?” Vlora asked.

  “They’re pretty exhausted from the ride down here,” Olem reported. “Sabastenien says that he’d prefer not to use them unless absolutely necessary. He has been able to scout with spare horses.”

  “And?”

  “We’re looking at twenty-five thousand infantry, with the number rising quickly as they get reinforcements. They’ve got one heavy-gun emplacement up on the plateau, but it’s not facing the river—it’s facing west. It won’t fire on our landing but it’ll pound our flanks the moment we make a move toward the godstone. On the plain itself, they don’t have a lot of good places to put field guns, but it looks like there are at least three different gun platforms for us to worry about.”