The Gods of Vice

by Devin Madson

  “You’re safe here,” I said, dragging her away from the edge of the tent to where a group of Pikes stood clustered, their black sashes made orange in the firelight. “Here, look after Lady Kimiko,” I shouted at them. “Stay with her. I have to go back in.”

  One called after me as I sped back toward the tent, but I was already shouting. “Katashi? Katashi!”

  Soldiers were stumbling out, singed and coughing, smoke pouring with them. Darius and Malice had escaped and lay together on the grass, injured and barely moving, no one daring to get too close. And through the remnants of the tent’s opening, Katashi strode out.

  Almost I could believe he was still my Katashi, so much the same did he look. The fire had not touched him, not burned his skin or his hair, not even scorched his clothing, but it lived in his bright eyes now like the fire was in his soul and could not be extinguished. He had been marked, changed, but while Ire and Apostasy and Conceit and all the others called on their power when they needed it, Katashi’s seemed to seethe beneath his skin, present at every step he took.

  Darius had been too strong.

  “Katashi!” I called to him, not daring to move closer. “Katashi? Can you hear me?”

  He stalked over, the swirl of his crimson surcoat like flames around his feet. I fought the urge to step back as he came to me, a dark scowl upon his face.

  “Hana,” he said, his voice unchanged, and yet the very sound of it sent fresh tears spilling down my cheeks.

  “Katashi.” I reached up to touch his face and he did not stop me, but his scowl did not lift and the flames still blazed in his eyes. Heat radiated from his skin and almost I pulled away as I might from a hot brazier. “Katashi, is it still you? Are you still here with me?”

  The question seemed to cool him, yet smoke still rose from the tent behind him like a billowing crown.

  He gripped my hand, his hot. “Always,” he said. “I love you, Hana. Together, you and I can take back what is ours, can have revenge on those who took our lives from us, our empire from us. I will kill every last man who fights for the Usurper. I will beat his armies back again and again, and when I am done, I will burn him alive, his screams the last thing I will ever need to hear.”

  Heat flared in his hand as he spoke. It seared my skin, but I could not pull away. Tears kept flowing, this hole in my heart knowing no end. “No, just walk away with me now. Please.”

  His grip on my hand tightened. “I… can’t.” He struggled with the words as though his lips did not wish to speak them. “I must… obey.”

  I knew too well how Vices worked to miss the tensing of his jaw as pain flared through him. They had to obey. Had to remain close. In the beginning, I had swallowed all Malice’s lies about it being just a precaution, but none of them had wanted to be marked; none of them had ever wanted to be turned into monsters.

  “No,” I said. “I will not let this be.”

  Darius and Malice had not moved from their prone positions on the grass, one with a sluggish wound in his leg, the other cradling his severed wrist. Pulling free of Katashi, I strode toward them.

  “Your blade.” I held out my hand to the closest soldier, his face lit with fear and firelight.

  Fumbling, he handed me his dagger, not his sword—the act of a man who knew what I was going to do.

  Darius did not appear to be conscious, for which I was thankful as I bore down upon him, intent on slitting his throat. It mattered not what he had once been to me, all he had once done—he had to die.

  “No.” Katashi’s hand closed around my wrist like a scalding iron. “I cannot let you do that.”

  I looked up into his face, such fire in his eyes, while on the ground beside Darius, Malice wheezed. “No Vice can allow their master to be destroyed,” he said. “No Vice can stray. No Vice can go against their orders, but it wouldn’t change anything even if you could do it, little lamb. Even if Darius unmarked him, he will be changed forever, yes?”

  “At least he would be free!” I wrenched from Katashi’s grip and lunged at Darius, but arms closed around my waist and I was hauled back, kicking as I left the ground. I dropped the dagger as Katashi crushed me like a coiling snake, the rumbling crackle of flame sounding on his every breath. I tried to loosen his grip, tried to squirm free, but his hold only tightened, searing my skin. At the stink of my singeing hair, I squeezed my eyes shut, a sob bubbling from my lips.

  His grip loosened, and twisting to see him, I found a look of such horror and shame and anguish contorting his face. “Oh gods, Hana, you have to go,” he said, dropping me as though I had been hot. I landed in a tumbled, winded heap at his feet, wincing that a body could own so many aches and a heart so many hurts. “You have to get out of here, before I am compelled to do something I cannot stop.”

  He backed away, looking at his hands and then around at the watching soldiers, all loyal Pikes who had remained to ride into battle with their captain. “Wen, take her away from me! Get her out of here now!”

  I wanted to refuse, wanted to go to him, to promise him that everything would be all right and we would get through this together, but every word would have been a lie. There was no coming back from this, no changing it, and tears streamed down my face as the blurring figure of Wen appeared at my side.

  “Come, my lady,” he said, holding out a hand to help me up. “Let’s go.”

  “Katashi…”

  He backed away from me, his face full of fear, and I spun on my old guardians and kicked Darius in the shoulder as hard as I could. “I hate you!” I screamed. “I hate you, you monstrous, evil—”

  Fire flared behind me, and I staggered, all fury swallowed by a frightened sob.

  “Take her away now!” Katashi roared. “Leave, Hana! Go! Please!” He had folded his arms tight, pressing his flaming hands to his own skin, and though he did not burn, pain pulled his face tight and I knew I had lost.

  “Come, my lady, let’s go.” Wen gripped my arm, tugging me away. “Come on.”

  “You can’t let her go,” Malice snarled, half rising from the grass. “You can’t let her run to the Usurper.”

  “Go, Hana! Now!”

  I had lost. Kisia had lost. And if I did not leave before Darius woke, I would never escape at all.

  “Go!” Hot tears poured down Katashi’s face, and choked with grief, I let Wen pull me away amid Malice’s shouts. The last thing I saw was Katashi falling to his knees and howling at the night sky, turning the grass beneath him to ash.

  Wen ran for horses, leaving me to gather a barely conscious Kimiko from where I had left her. In a sleepy murmur she asked where Darius and Katashi were and I could not answer, could only quiet her grief with lies as I could not quiet my own.

  We can have revenge on those who took our lives from us, our empire from us. I will kill every last man who fights for the Usurper. I will beat his armies back again and again, and when I am done, I will burn him alive.

  Vengeance. Commanded by Darius’s hand. A force all too capable of destroying an empire. Kin had to be warned before it was too late.

  “I have to get to Kin,” I said as Wen hurried back with horses. “Where is Shin? And Tili?”

  “Shin already went to Kin’s camp, my lady, just after the fre—after Lord Laroth was brought in. He took Tili with him.”

  Because with the maid whose message I had told Kin to expect, Shin could get close enough to kill. “You mean to tell me that Kisia could have lost both its emperors in one night?”

  Wen didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to.

  “We have to stop him. I only hope we aren’t too late. Help me get Kimiko up before me.”

  “Are you—?”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” I snapped. “I’m lighter, just hurry.”

  Pikes had begun to gather at a distance, but though I expected them to stop us, expected tongues of flame to rend the sky, all was watchful silence. Even the burning tent had died to a smoulder.

  It was difficult to ride with Kimiko semi-conscious
before me, but once we were ready, I urged my horse out of the camp, forcing myself not to look back, not to hope, not to mourn, just to ride.

  Once we were free of the camp, I sped to a trot, lips clamped upon grief. Wen followed, and knowing the way better than I did, he soon pulled ahead into a canter as the worn track rounded the tip of the spur. He rode bow in hand, an arrow pinched between two fingers, his gaze turning to look back as often as he scanned the path ahead. I had to trust him, too preoccupied with Kimiko to be wary of pursuit.

  An age seemed to pass with Kimiko’s hair bobbing before my nose and her weight pressing back against me, but it could not have been more than an hour before our cantering mounts brought us to a narrowing track, rising up the densely choked hills that spread from the spur. A trail of bruised petals followed us onto the scree, clumps of crushed peonies evidence that others had come this way. At the top of the rise, a thick patch of trees stood apart from the forest, their tall trunks sidling up beside a crossroad. There, a body lay sprawled across the stones. A horse had been gutted, glistening entrails spewing from the carcass to taint the air with their stink.

  Wen slowed, and I looked down as my horse shied around the corpse. The man was wearing black—not the black of a Vice or a Pike, but the plain black of a scout. One of Kin’s men.

  “Smoke.” Wen pointed at the night sky. Smoke was rising above the trees, the black plumes tinged silver.

  “We have to hurry.”

  “Are you all right? Lady Kimiko—?”

  “Lady Kimiko is fine. Move.”

  He asked no more questions but picked up his pace, his horse’s hooves scattering stones as he turned down the hill. I could smell it now, the acrid stench of a burning camp, and feared we were too late.

  The trees thinned as we climbed to the top of the ridge and the Valley opened up before us. And there on the other side of the slope was Kin’s camp, a stretch of bamboo palisade burning bright. More fires dotted the Valley floor, turning the mass of soldiers at the bottom of the slope into shadows.

  Wen turned his horse, its hooves dancing. Smoke crowded around us. “There’s no way you’ll get in there,” Wen said. “That hill is covered in soldiers.”

  “Then we go down this way where the fighting is thinnest. It looks like Kin’s men are holding the ground before the gate.”

  “They’ll kill us if we ride down there and I wouldn’t blame them.”

  “Which ‘they’? Them? Or us?”

  “Either. Both!”

  I held out my hand. “Do you have something white?”

  Wen gaped at me. “You want to cry peace? They’ll think it’s a trick.”

  “Stay here if you’re afraid.”

  “Afraid? What if they fill you with arrows?”

  “Then they fill me with arrows!” I snapped. “I will not wait here and do nothing.”

  He laughed ruefully. “I think you will either make a very formidable empress or a very dead one.” With these words, he opened the leather satchel he always carried and pulled out some scraps of linen. “This is the best I have, not quite white, but we’ll be lucky if they see them at all.”

  “It will have to do,” I said, taking one from his outstretched hand. “Wait. ‘We’?”

  “Emperor Katashi told me to look after you, and by the gods, that’s what I’m going to do, even if I hate it.”

  The beginnings of my smile faded at mention of Katashi, but there was no going back now. I reminded myself that he was lost to Darius’s madness, that he could not be reclaimed, that I had to do what was right for Kisia, and started down the slope. “Come on,” I said, as my horse’s hooves slid on the loose stones. “Come on.”

  All along the ridge, Katashi’s soldiers were still emerging from the trees. Shouts and screams rent the air as, metal on metal, the sounds of battle raged. With one hand gripping the reins, I lifted the scrap of linen high above my head. Wen did the same, the wind tugging at our only defence as we rode down the hill.

  An arrow whisked by and I gasped, snatching back my arm. Wen sped his pace, riding for the gate as fast as he dared, straight to where Kin’s men held the ground.

  He pulled ahead. A soldier pointed. Others looked up, and gritting my teeth, I thrust the linen scrap up as high as I could. Arrows were nocked, bows pulled taut, and my heart hammered in my ears.

  “Identify yourselves!”

  Wen glanced back at me. It was my answer that would save us.

  I tried to swallow, my mouth dry. “I am Lady Hana Otako and I would speak to your emperor,” I called back, waving my aching arm.

  The soldiers held their arrows. Whispers passed. The injured and dead were being dragged in from the main battle, and if I showed an ounce of fear, Wen and I would join them.

  “Lady Hana Otako?”

  “Kill me if you doubt it!”

  A hissed argument took place as Wen began to slow, my mount following his lead. I kept my arm lifted, fingernails cutting into white linen.

  “Stand down!” A man in a crimson surcoat gave the order, and every bow was lowered. “Move out. Move out. I’ll deal with this.” Arms akimbo, the man stood watching us approach, glaring at Wen. “Well, well, Lady Hana,” he said. “My name is General Rini, and might I say what an unexpected honour this is at an… unexpected time.”

  “No pleasantries, General,” I said. “I have to see His Majesty and I have to see him now.”

  “My lady…” The general trailed off. A messenger was pushing through the gathered soldiers, bloodied and limping. “What is it, man?”

  “General, they’ve breached the north wall!”

  “Captain, hold the ground. Men of the Fourth, with me! I’m sorry, my lady.” He was gone on the words, his soldiers charging off in their general’s wake.

  “We need to find Kin,” I said to Wen as I tried to adjust my grip on my reins without Kimiko falling from the saddle. “His tent is as good a place to start as any.”

  “If he’s still alive.” On the words, Wen dug in his heels and his horse leapt forward. Kimiko’s awkward weight made it difficult to follow his lead, so skilfully did he wind his way around collapsed tents and knots of soldiers. Noise bombarded my ears. Men were shouting. Screaming. Horses charged past. Arrow boys darted around us, carrying loads of linen and water, arrows and armour, memorised messages muttered on their lips.

  A man rode past, shouting above the uproar. “Barricade the gate! Barricade the gate!”

  At last, a crimson tent appeared through the smoke. I saw Endymion first, hovering alone at the edge of a clearing, and for a moment our eyes met, his expression hard to decipher. Then I saw Kin. Even dressed in plain red linen, Kin was the centre of his world, this man snapping out orders amid the chaos. Crimson surcoats flew as he dispersed his men, each one dashing away through a forest of standing arrows.

  “Look after Kimiko,” I said to Wen as I slid from my horse in a daze, heart racing.

  Half a dozen steps took me into the clearing and I stopped. Shin was there, caught between two guards. They had his arms bent back ruthlessly, but he was no subdued beast. Seeing me, his eyes narrowed, his lips parting to show a hint of teeth.

  “Lady Hana.” Kin stepped toward me, only to halt as Wen joined me, standing like the guard Katashi had commanded him to be.

  “Careful, Majesty!” One of Shin’s guards stepped forward, that instant all the Pike needed. In the space of a breath, Shin ripped free of his other captor, jabbing fingers into his throat before drawing the guard’s sword and sticking it through his gut.

  Leaving the man to fall, Shin strode across the grass, the bloodstained sword gleaming in the moonlight. “This ends here, Usurper,” he growled, advancing on Kin. Kin was unarmed, but he stood his ground, one hand raised to keep his guards back.

  “Do something!” I hissed at Wen, his weapon held slack.

  He shook his head. “That isn’t my decision to make.”

  “Then I’ll make it!” I slammed my knuckles into his elbow. Wen gasped
as the sword dropped from his grip and I caught it on its way down, already moving before he could do more than cry a warning. Dashing the short distance to where Kin stood, I threw myself before him, catching Shin’s first strike on the side of Wen’s sword. The metallic rasp screeched in my ear, the force of the swing throwing me back. I slammed into Kin and fell, rolling as I hit the ground. Scrambling up, I found Shin on me again, teeth bared as he swung with more force than finesse. I ducked, his blade ripping through the air with a shriek.

  “Are you going to kill me, Shin?” I asked breathlessly, backing away.

  He lunged, vibration jarring my hands as his sword slammed into mine. “I will kill anyone who protects him,” he growled, only to leap back as Kin aimed a thrust at his side.

  I ceased to exist as they turned on one another. Shin struck first, a speedy jab, forcing Kin to dodge. Words of warning leapt to my tongue, but I bit them back as Kin faced his opponent with the vigour of a younger man, each of an age and skill that they might have been comrades in a different time, a different place.

  “Shin!” I cried. “Katashi is lost! Kin is the only hope Kisia has left!”

  He seemed not to hear, just charged at Kin with greater force, catching him with his shoulder and knocking him off balance. I darted forward, but Kin kept his footing and threw out his hand in warning. “Stay back, Hana, it isn’t your fight.”

  “The hell it isn’t!”

  I made to charge in, but Wen gripped my wrist and yanked me back. “You can’t interfere, my lady,” he said. “This is his fight now. Too many people are watching. They won’t respect a leader who cannot fight his own battles.”

  Hopelessly, I stared around at the spectators, every man wide-eyed and hungry. I wanted to shake them, to scream into their faces. These were Kin’s men, yet they would stand by while he fought to the death, held as much by their thirst as their honour.

  I pulled out of Wen’s grip but did not move. Kin might sooner forgive me for the attempt on his life than were I to step in and save him now. But Shin was quick. He slashed and jabbed, moving with such skill that my grip tightened on the sword I was not allowed to use. Their blades met and parted, the sharp zing of steel a melody to the beat of their shuffling feet. There was beauty in the way they moved, but each wanted nothing more than to end the other.