The Complete Season 1

by Michael Underwood

  The word “orders” felt like a chain settling over her shoulders, but Cassia didn’t let herself sag beneath the weight. “No, Xifos Nissou. That is everything.”

  “Very good. Then your instructions for the time being are to refrain from any action that might be construed as showing support for either Quloo or Rumika in this conflict.”

  As if the Matriarchs would ever give orders to publicly support Rumika. Cassia saluted again. “I understand. Until we know which of them is responsible, we can’t risk allying ourselves with either one.”

  Nissou frowned. “Do not leap to conclusions, Warder pro tem. It may be that neither of them is responsible. We are currently investigating the possibility that zealots among our own people may be behind this.”

  She flushed in embarrassment. I should have known better than to speak up. Zealots—the Apolytoi? Anton had run into a crowd of them once, and as usual his smart mouth had gotten him into trouble. But it was a long lunge from harassing one man to attacking an entire fleet.

  “I will be circumspect,” she promised. As orders went, these were the best she could have hoped for. Unless this turned out to be the work of Vanians after all—she prayed it wasn’t—then it wasn’t really Vanian business. Penelope would have gotten involved for Ojo’s sake . . . but Penelope was gone.

  “See that you are,” Nissou said, commanding her gaze. Cassia quailed under the old woman’s regard. Did she somehow know about Anton? Or was that just a general admonition, a reminder that Cassia represented her nation now?

  Either way, there was only one response. “Yes, Xifos,” she said, and saluted one final time before drawing her blade and ending the communion.

  Chapter 10

  Anton

  In the peaceful light of afternoon, it was hard to imagine that anything had ever gone wrong here.

  The Engwehin Rocks floated off the port bow of the Blue Knife, rugged and mostly lifeless. Here and there pockets of earth allowed grasses and flowers to cling, but mostly they were bare rock, with traces of aerstone veins gleaming through. Given the rumors about Quloo, Anton was surprised the Engwehin cluster hadn’t already been mined, the dead rock allowed to fall into the Mists far below.

  He was closer to Quloo than caution would recommend. The Quloi had gotten more and more defensive of their territory as their home island faltered, allowing very few foreign ships in, and most of those Tsukiseni. The suspicious-minded said that was because they didn’t want anyone to see how far they’d sunk. The differently suspicious-minded said it was because the tales of sinking were greatly exaggerated, played up for sympathy and to keep anyone from seeing Quloo as a threat.

  Anton felt a brief stir of curiosity at that thought. I bet I could sneak in. . . .

  But that wasn’t why he’d come here.

  This long after the destruction of the fleet, there wasn’t much left to see. A few bits of wreckage had drifted and been caught on the rocks, but the rest had long since dropped from the sky, taken by the Mists.

  The rocks themselves, however, were still there.

  Anton lifted a spyglass to his eye, surveying the cluster. “That high one, three points to starboard,” he told his helm. “Take us in close.”

  The Blue Knife eased its way in among the rocks, his bladecraft navigator practically dancing with her greatsword to keep the wind from driving them into a collision with the islets. It was a close fit, even for a ship and crew as nimble as Anton’s—but it could be done. Swarms of pinnies sheltered within the archipelago, detectable to the human eye only as an opalescent sheen in the air, rippling like curtains as they darted away from the ship.

  The afternoon’s light grew richer as the sun descended and the Blue Knife continued to explore. “You could do it,” his first mate Aline said at last, dragging the kerchief from her hair and retying it more securely. “But it would be tough.”

  Anton nodded. There was room to hide an attack fleet behind the Engwehin Rocks and send them swooping out at the trade flotilla in a pincer move. “Holding station while you waited for them to pass through would be the hardest part.”

  Aline shook her head. “Not if you’re clever. Use the aerstone in the islets to bracket yourself; they’re close enough. Balance of Forces.”

  He was a better bladecrafter than his first mate when it came to combat, but she knew navigational sigils better than he did. If she thought it could be done, then it could.

  Now the question became: Who had the ability to pull it off? The ships, the navigators, the captains necessary to make a move like this work?

  “Captain!” The shout came down from the crow’s nest. “I see something—that long, flat rock dead astern!”

  Anton’s skin jumped. An attack? “What do you mean, something?”

  A pause from above. Then the lookout said, “It looks like a person!”

  Maneuvering the Blue Knife through a 180-degree pivot without cracking against anything would have been impossible. Anton ordered the ship to lift out of the rocks, then tacked through an arc that brought them down toward the islet in question. As they drifted overhead, he took his own spyglass to the rail and searched.

  Wreckage dotted the rock, driven there by the winds or the blasts of bladecraft that had taken out the trade fleet. And a few pieces of it, Anton realized, had been assembled into a crude shelter.

  “Aline,” he said, “the command is yours.”

  Before she could object, he flung himself from the ship.

  The Herroki birthright flickered briefly, trying to keep him aboard, but gave up in recognition of his choice. Anton scribed a sigil as he fell and hit the islet like a spring, his legs coiling and then lofting him into the air once more. In three bounds he’d crossed to the shelter, and there he stopped, blade out.

  There was someone inside, their feet just visible at the edge of the shelter. But they didn’t move.

  Anton decided he’d been cautious enough. Sheathing his sword, he called out, “Hey! Are you alive?”

  No answer. He came closer and nudged one of the feet, resigned to finding a corpse—

  —and heard a faint groan from within. Like it came from someone who had spent weeks clinging to life on this rock, and was about to lose their grip.

  Anton stared. Then he backed up, scribed Voice of the Storm, and shouted up to the Blue Knife, “I found a survivor!”

  Chapter 11

  A-Sky

  Few captains would be bold enough to fly with all sails spread on a moonless night. Although they had no need to fear running aground, as river barges did, the sky held its own hazards: manaks regularly hunted in the dark, feeding off the water-rich pinnies clustered together for warmth, and the Mists always rose higher with the cooling air, bringing a greater threat of fiends.

  Nor were monsters of the sky the only reason to exercise caution. Dirt-huggers thought of the sky as being vast swaths of empty air, with relatively few islands scattered throughout it. Sailors knew better. There were countless minor islands, most of them too small to support habitation, and even smaller masses that amounted to little more than floating boulders. In the skies around Quloo, the mining guild had captured almost all of these and stripped them of their aerstone, but elsewhere they still abounded. Colliding with one could damage a ship.

  The biggest risk, though, was navigational. Those boulders and minor islands were vital to the calculation of altitude. In the dark of a moonless night, with visibility cut short, it was all too easy to veer off course. A captain who flew too fast might miss their target entirely.

  This captain was one of the best her country had to offer. She did not miss.

  Silent as a mist-fiend, her ship moved into position: narrow-bodied, sharp-prowed, built for speed. Blades gleamed up and down her deck as the initial wave readied themselves. On a hissed cue, they moved in unison: the sigil for Aerstone Stance, which would let them survive the drop to the ground far below.

  Then the bladecrafters charged the rail of their ship and leaped into the air.<
br />
  •••

  They struck before dawn, and at first it was a silent fight.

  Most of the attackers broke into the low, sprawling building that dominated the small island’s only settlement. They didn’t bother kindling lights to guide their search; instead they dumped every document they could find into sacks, for later sorting. The remaining three broke off and headed for the nearby houses.

  But the silence didn’t last. The facility had guards, and the houses had a man who, suffering from insomnia, had decided to go for a quiet walk. Both sounded the alarm before the attackers could take them down.

  It was bloody, but brief. Soon everyone was awake, the defenses mustering. The invaders beat a hasty retreat, leaving with only half of what they’d come for: papers, but no prisoner.

  Chapter 12

  Kris

  The ritual sword was a heavy weight in Kris’s hands. They remembered the first time they’d used it, communing with Rumika after their victory in the Gauntlet, announcing the plans for the deal with Quloo. It wasn’t that long ago, but already the happy memory had faded, like a painting exposed too much to the sun.

  Everything had gone so bad, so fast. People accusing Rumika, people accusing Quloo—Kris even found themself looking at Ojo with suspicion, when not that long ago he’d seemed like their best ally in the world. Adechike kept trying to smooth things over, but the fleet had been destroyed and its cargo had vanished, either stolen or lost to the skies. How could anyone mend that?

  Kris took a deep breath, resting the point of the blade on the stone at the edge of the pool. The sword was dull; it didn’t need an edge to make the sigil work. And there was no one there to see Kris using it as a crutch, leaning on it while they tried to gather their wits for the upcoming conversation. People back home would want to know what progress Kris had made, whether there was any news on the fleet—and what could Kris tell them? A Mertikan colonial was investigating. That would hardly reassure anybody.

  Delaying wouldn’t make it any better. Kris settled their hand on the ritual sword’s hilt, raised it in a salute, and carved the sigil of communion.

  As soon as the face of Vyk Jann rippled into view, they knew something was wrong.

  Formality splintered into fear. “What happened?”

  Vyk looked haggard, as if they hadn’t slept all night. “Quloo attacked the facility on Orsa.”

  “What?” Kris grounded the sword’s point, supporting knees suddenly gone weak.

  “It was a raid. They broke into the processing plant and stole documents—looks like they took everything they could get their hands on. And they tried to take Lee, too. If she’d been in her house, they’d have her. Thank the gods she has a lover—she was at Elowen’s house that night, instead of her own.”

  Orsa. One of the aerstone processing facilities. The secret to Rumika’s sudden rise: not a particularly pure vein, but a way of purifying normal ore, increasing its effectiveness so they could do more with less.

  Quloo had attacked.

  How had they known?

  “I was going to ask you that,” Vyk said grimly. Kris hadn’t even realized they’d spoken the thought out loud. “Have you left any files lying around where others might see? Have there been any Rumikan captains in port who might have let something slip? Have you said anything?”

  Sickness sank into Kris’s gut. “I—I don’t know. Maybe. I can’t be sure.”

  “You’ve got to find out. If the Quloi know where the other facilities are, they might attack those, too. Files, Lee—it’s clear they want to steal the secrets of the process from us. They might keep trying. And even if they don’t . . .”

  The damage was already done. Quloo had attacked an outlying Rumikan island. This wasn’t just about a missing fleet any longer.

  It was war.

  Episode 7

  Dreadnought

  By Cassandra Khaw

  Chapter 1

  Michiko

  The markets of Twaa-Fei fascinated Michiko like nothing else. Not even the largest of the Mertikan ports boasted of such excess in experiences. Not these sounds, these audacious flavors. Who knew that you could have spicy ciders, accented by wasp honey and blackberries? And to enjoy the sensation of málà in desserts? No cook in Kakute would dream of such blasphemy.

  Every stall, no matter how shabby its exterior might seem, revealed another pinhole into something unfamiliar. And there was no one to tell the shopkeepers that this was inappropriate or that was inefficient. No bureaucrat with threadbare smiles, full of persuasive reasons to edit an inventory. Under different circumstances, Michiko might have devoted a life here, become a priestess of its streets and read joy in every new shipment of goods from afar.

  Michiko tugged at her collar, self-conscious, and smoothed a palm along her scalp. At some point in the future, she would need to ask Kensuke about his hairdresser. If she were to one day take over his position, she would need to look the part, and the byzantine customs surrounding warder aesthetics demanded an entourage to navigate.

  But that was a problem for another day.

  She searched the alley for signs of Adechike, frowning. The crowd thickened as lunch hour poured a hundred fresh bodies into the narrow lanes, and the air sizzled with voices demanding congee, adobo, grilled pork knuckle, dumplings of every variety, accoutrements of fried pork skin, sides of pickled onions, roasted yam, broccoli served six ways. Michiko could see nothing through the throng of diners, crammed together on wooden stools outside carts the size of her closet in the embassy.

  Michiko wove past two Vanian women, both casually garbed. Traditional black togas worn over hakama trousers, the latter a nod, perhaps, to Mertikan influence, or some memetic souvenir from the colonies. Gladiator sandals. Armored epaulets on their left shoulders, support for the broadswords they bore. Neither paid Michiko any attention, although the Quloi traders Michiko passed did.

  “Are you looking for Warder Kante?” asked a lean young man, his features blunt, hair a voluminous halo. He propped an elbow atop the massive crate he stood beside; the container was sternum-high and four times his width. Michiko studied him. In complexion, he was much paler than both Adechike and Ojo, freckled along the cheekbones, but Michiko could see a commonality in facial structure. Not that it mattered or had mattered since the ignorant past, when ethnicity was still a barometer of authenticity.

  “No. Not exactly.” She searched the traders’ faces, committing each countenance to memory, their individual tics and demeanors cataloged for future reference. Despite the embassy colors that they wore, the traders—from the languidly smiling girl with cornrows to a stout man with the manners of a mercenary, his muscle knotted with fat—were strangers to Michiko. Guilt prickled at her then. She should know them. She understood this. But perhaps she’d been spending too much time looking inward. “I was looking for his understudy. Adechike.”

  A rumble of conversation in a dialect that Michiko couldn’t decipher, more vowels, more rhythm than even the norm. She steadied a hand against the hilt of her sword, a warning in the motion. This was business. Michiko would not tolerate any obstructions and neither would Kakute.

  The movement had its intended effect. It brought the traders’ eyes down to Michiko’s blade, their smiles closing into polite expressions. “You’ll find him in the warehouse, ma’am.”

  That subtle inflection curled Michiko’s lips. Whatever welcome she’d once possessed, it was gone now. She jerked her chin down, performed a Quloi salute that earned no reciprocation, only cool looks and silence. Flushing at the blatant discourtesy, Michiko turned and fled down the road to the warehouses.

  •••

  “Adechike!”

  The myriad islands kept their storage facilities in close proximity, the traffic policed by Twaa-Fei authorities. Ostensibly, it was to promote a sense of a community, the idea that regardless of where one might come from, everyone required the same things: food, water, basic comforts, things that reminded you of home. But as Lavi
nia once pointed out to Michiko, it was really to minimize the risk of sabotage.

  The Quloi youth looked up at Michiko’s exclamation, his face immediately coming alive with his easy, familiar smile. He stood in the tide of workers and traders, the fulcrum of nearby activity, his arms heavy with clipboards. Quloo was moving something into their warehouse. A lot of potentially valuable somethings. Enormous blackwood crates, triple-locked against whatever catastrophe they feared.

  What could they possibly be doing? Michiko filed the thought away, suddenly disconcerted, as she jogged to a halt in front of Adechike, the latter already spreading his arms for a hug.

  “Michiko.” He broke her name with a pause, kissing her once on each cheek. “What are you doing here? Can the Kakute hear thoughts? It was just a moment ago that I was standing there, thinking about how nice it’d be to see a good friend, spend a moment—”

  Despite herself, Michiko laughed. “Flatterer.”

  “Hardly flattery if it’s true,” Adechike protested, palming his breastbone. Today he dressed like any of the municipal workers, bereft of even Quloi colors. No sword, nothing to signify his office. The ensemble made Michiko feel overdressed and, to her surprise, slightly resentful. “I have missed you. With everything that’s going on, all the chaos, it feels like I haven’t seen any of my friends of late. I miss those early days. Don’t you? When it was all so simple?”

  “I understand completely.” Halfway words that housed no favoritism, no indication as to whether Michiko agreed or disagreed with Adechike’s opinions, only that she acknowledged them. She smiled thinly. “Actually, I was hoping to speak to—”

  Footsteps, crisp and deliberate. The two turned to find Takeshi striding up to them. Takeshi, who was long-boned and pallid from his monastic lifestyle. Takeshi, who seemed unthreatening even in the height of the Gauntlet. Today, however, he seemed . . . different.