“Five or ten,” Styke said, kneeling next to Gustar and peering into the darkness. He could see a light, somewhere in the depths, bobbing around. “Lindet uses forced labor for this kind of thing so that word won’t get out to the general public.”
“What’s it for?” Gustar asked.
“This,” Styke grunted with a gesture toward their camp. “Lindet is a firm believer in being ready for anything. In addition to regular supply depots, she’s got these caches hidden away all over the country—mostly in the less-populated areas. They’re specifically meant to resupply an army. If this one is untouched, it’ll provide us with canned food, wine, ammunition, and spare weapons to last weeks.”
As if to answer the next unspoken question, the bobbing of the light suddenly came toward them, growing until the lantern was set aside and Jackal’s head and shoulders emerged from the pit. Jackal grinned up at them. “Everything is there,” he reported.
Ibana clapped her hands together. Styke couldn’t blame her. They needed a bit of good luck after the last couple weeks of hard riding and fighting.
“Check the tins and barrels,” Ibana ordered. “If the rats haven’t gotten to any of it, give everyone a double ration of food and wine tonight.”
“No drunks,” Styke added.
“No drunks,” Ibana agreed.
Styke got out of the way to let them work, and soon Jackal was overseeing a chain of men rolling out barrels and handing up crates to empty the deep cache. He watched them work for a few minutes, feeling suddenly tired from the events of the last few weeks. His body reminded him that he was no longer the Mad Ben Styke who could go a week without sleep and still fight a battle.
Looking around, his eyes fell on Ka-poel sitting on the hillside above the entrance to the cache. He was surprised to find her watching him, and when their eyes met, she got to her feet and walked away into the darkness.
Styke snorted. He still couldn’t decide what he thought about what had happened last night. Walking into the Dynize cavalry camp unopposed, seeing all of those soldiers sitting cross-legged like they were waiting for a mummers’ show in the park, unable to move or speak. The officer whom Ka-poel used as a mouthpiece. The memory floated in the back of his head like a bad dream, fuzzy on details, and he briefly wondered if he had dreamt it.
He continued to watch his lancers as they unloaded the cache for several minutes before confiscating one of their lanterns. He found Celine brushing down Margo with Sunin’s help. “Finish that and come with me,” he told her.
They walked into the darkness, lantern held high above Styke’s head. Styke followed the coppery smell of blood sorcery, sniffing at the air every few moments until they found Ka-poel at the top of the valley, sitting on the ground with the contents of her satchel spread out across a rock. There was wax, bits of hair, tiny figurines, and sticks, dirt, and even some fingernails. It reminded him of the sort of non sequitur items his little sister used to collect as a child.
Styke set the lantern on the rock and sat down across from her, watching her face. She lifted her eyes to him for a brief second and squinted before returning her attention to a half-made wax figurine in her lap.
Styke patted his knee, letting Celine sit, then addressed Ka-poel. “What did you do with the Dynize cavalry yesterday?”
Ka-poel continued her work, finishing the figurine and gently pressing a dirty toenail into the soft wax, before brushing off her hands and lifting her gaze once more to him and Celine. She drew her thumb across her neck, then flashed several more signs.
“I killed them,” Celine translated. “Just like you asked.”
“Why did you keep them as long as you did? Why didn’t you finish them sooner?”
“I told you. I needed answers.” Ka-poel raised her chin, as if daring him to continue that line of questioning.
So he did. “And?” He drummed his fingers on the rock, looking over her assortment of disgusting knickknacks.
Ka-poel stared at him, her hands folded in her lap, before finally lifting them into the light of the lantern. “I have been trying to uncover my past,” Celine translated. “When I was a child, my nurse took me from Dynize. I remember very little of that time—I remember a palace, and great halls, and I remember fleeing through the night and across the ocean in a small ship manned by sailors who knew they would die.”
Ka-poel’s eyes took on a faraway glint, her brow wrinkling with the telling. She continued. “My nurse took me into the swamp, and we joined one of the tribes there. She died very soon after from disease. Her death deprived me of my own history, and I have wondered who I am for over two decades.”
“So who are you?” Styke asked. Her look was guarded, and he knew that pushing too hard on a subject like this was likely to make a person button up for good. But he was still angry about the things he saw last night, and he didn’t have the patience to be gentle.
Ka-poel waggled her finger, as if to say, My story isn’t done. She continued. “My nurse sang me songs. I remember those. She called me a princess, and I always thought that was …” Celine struggled with the sign Ka-poel made, her small face scrunching in confusion.
“Hyperbole?” Styke suggested.
Ka-poel nodded. “I thought it was hyperbole. When the Dynize came, I had reason to suspect that perhaps … perhaps that wasn’t the case.”
Styke gently smoothed Celine’s hair, watching Ka-poel’s face carefully. She was normally stoic, sometimes bemused or playful. But she seemed genuinely troubled right now, and that set him on edge. She was too powerful to be troubled.
“A bone-eye has been calling to me,” Ka-poel finally finished.
“What do you mean, ‘calling to you’?” Styke asked, feeling goose bumps on the back of his arm.
“Sorcery,” Ka-poel clarified.
“I gathered as much. But how? Does he know where you are? Is he able to track us?”
Ka-poel hesitated. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. But I was never trained in what I do, so there are many simple things that the Dynize bone-eyes are capable of that I am unaware of. So … maybe.”
That didn’t make Styke happy. Not even a little bit. Having someone like Ka-poel around—someone so powerful that they could take physical control of a company of cavalry—and have her admit that she had not mastered simple parts of her own sorcery was not only disconcerting, it was also downright dangerous.
“I have figured out,” she said, “that this bone-eye can only call to me through shared blood.” She paused. “Those lancers—well, their officers—I was asking them about the powerful bone-eyes who came over with the invasion.”
“And what did you discover?”
“I am being called by an old man. His name is Ka-Sedial, and he was the one who came to meet your sister the day before their invasion.”
Styke was on his feet before he knew it, towering over Ka-poel, fists clenched. “Be very careful what you say next,” he said through clenched teeth. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest. The very idea that someone would discover that he and Lindet were brother and sister had never even occurred to him. Only they knew the secret, and neither was about to tell a soul.
His leap had sent Celine tumbling, and without taking his eyes off Ka-poel, he helped her to her feet and gestured for her to watch Ka-poel’s hands.
“Sit down,” Celine translated Ka-poel’s next signs. “Blood is my business. You can’t hide your relation from me.” She sniffed, as if the smell of imminent violence coming from Styke was nothing more than an inconvenience. “I will keep your secret.”
Slowly, Styke lowered himself to the ground.
“This is an exchange,” Ka-poel said. “Do you understand? I keep your secret, and you will keep mine.”
Styke tried to calm his pounding heart, remembering the conversation before his sister was mentioned. “This Ka-Sedial?”
“Yes. He is my grandfather.”
“And what does that make you?”
Ka-poel smiled dis
tantly, laughing to herself. “It makes me a princess. The Dynize emperor is my cousin.”
Styke almost laughed himself. A damned princess, riding along with him. It seemed like something out of a fairy tale, yet so much of this already did. He wondered if it explained her power—if the Dynize royal family was stronger than most. “Why is he calling to you?”
“He is trying to be …” Celine struggled with the next word, and Ka-poel had to spell it out in signs. “Paternalistic.”
“What does that mean?” Celine asked Styke.
“It means he’s trying to be fatherly. Reaching out for a lost granddaughter.” Styke didn’t take his eyes off Ka-poel. “Are you answering?”
“I am not,” Ka-poel said. “I may, tentatively, but I’m not sure if that will reveal our position. He knows who I am—he knows that I am that girl stolen away so long ago. But I don’t know why my nurse stole me away. She took me for a reason, and I want to discover why. But if I ask him, he will lie.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he may know who I am, but he does not know what I am. He does not know my power. I can see through his intentions like a pane of glass, and I know he wishes to use me.”
Styke grunted. “I don’t mind being used, but never against my will.”
“I am of a similar mind,” Ka-poel acknowledged.
Styke lifted his head, looking down the valley toward the soldiers unloading the cache. It was late, and he knew he needed to rest if they were going to ride all day tomorrow. “This thing,” he said, changing directions and gesturing to the wax figurines and bits of detritus on the rock, “I suggest that you learn some … restraint. There is no reason to torture people at length.”
“They feel no pain unless I make them,” Ka-poel said, frowning.
“Physical, perhaps. But emotional? I looked into that woman’s eyes. She knew she was being controlled and she tried with every fiber of her being to fight it. If you must do that to people, make it short. Suffering is needless.”
“I had cause.”
“We all have cause,” Styke said with a shrug. “This bone-eye, Ka-Sedial. What will you do with him?”
Ka-poel looked down at the camp herself, her frown deepening. “I will let him croon over the distance. I will let him wonder what I am up to. And in the next few days, I will find the godstone that he seeks and I will break it. Only then will I answer him, and I’ll allow him to know what I have done.” She smiled, an expression neither bemused nor playful. “Then I will demand that he explain why my nurse—a woman who loved me—felt the need to carry me off so long ago.” Ka-poel’s attention returned to the detritus spread in front of her, clearly a dismissal.
Styke left her with her figurines and headed back to camp deep in his own thoughts. Celine rode on his shoulder, clearly lost in thoughts of her own. “Do you understand never to speak of what you heard back there?” he asked.
“Yes,” Celine responded. “I’m no snitch.”
Well, at least her dad had taught her something. “Good. If you have questions, you may ask. But only when we are completely alone.” He took her back to Margo and Sunin, then found Amrec and began the mechanical work of brushing him down for the night. He thought of Ka-poel’s expression during their conversation, and of his own search for vengeance these past few weeks. He wondered if she had difficulty, trapped in her own body without a voice, unable to communicate beyond a bit of slate and a little girl’s translations.
He finished his work and prepared for sleep. They would find this godstone soon, and it would be her work to destroy or disable the damned thing. And then, it seemed, she had questions of her own to answer.
Sorcery had never scared him. But he did not envy this grandfather of hers. Not when she finally turned her attention on him.
CHAPTER 52
Michel was so furious at Taniel that he couldn’t think straight. He spent the night drinking at one of the few bars left in the city where he was fairly certain he wouldn’t run into either a Blackhat or a Dynize; then the next morning he went to Yaret’s new residence in the old bank. He stood outside, wishing he was still buried in a bottle of whiskey before running a hand through his hair and straightening the collar of his jacket.
Whatever was going on with Sedial, Ichtracia, or anyone else, Michel needed to finish what he’d started here in Landfall. Eliminating the Blackhats to the last man would make his chances of survival go up, so eliminate them he must. He held a large valise that he’d fetched less than an hour ago, and opened it once more to confirm the contents before heading inside.
He found Yaret and Tenik in deep conference in Yaret’s office. Both men looked up as Michel entered.
“You look like you got hit by a carriage,” Yaret said.
Tenik sniffed. “And you smell like a brewery. I know where je Tura is hiding.”
“Oh?” Yaret asked.
Michel went to Yaret’s desk, clearing off the papers into a messy stack and tossing them on a chair before opening the valise and producing an armload of two-foot-long cylinders. He opened one at random, discarded it, then another before producing a large roll of paper that he spread out across Yaret’s desk.
“What are these?” Tenik asked.
“Maps of the catacombs beneath Landfall.”
The two men stared at the paper in stunned silence. “Why haven’t we been using these all along?”
“Because I didn’t know they existed. The thought struck me at about four o’clock in the morning—Lindet was as good at keeping records as you, maybe even better. There are hundreds of miles of natural and man-made catacombs in the plateau. Most of the larger tunnels were sealed off decades ago, but there are plenty of entrances around the city.”
“Yes, we know. We’ve been searching the damned things and haven’t found anything.”
Michel held up one finger. “I had two thoughts. One, that Lindet would have mapped those catacombs and stashed the maps in the Millinery library. They weren’t important enough to take along, so they would have been left behind. It took me less than an hour to find them once I realized.”
Tenik swore.
“My thoughts exactly. My second thought was that we’ve been looking for an operation—dozens of men moving around supplies and powder and sleeping in the catacombs and all that.”
“Right,” Tenik responded. “And again, we haven’t found any sign of that.”
Michel leaned over the table toward Tenik and Yaret. “But we’re not looking for dozens of men. What if it’s just je Tura? Maybe two or three others at the most?”
“There’s no possible way he could have conducted all these bombings without serious help,” Yaret protested. “He blew up my house!”
“A barrel of powder in the basement,” Michel proclaimed. “I bet if you send someone to dig around in the ashes really carefully, you’ll find a hidden tunnel that connects to the catacombs. Plenty of places in the city have them. Shopkeepers use them for storage. If je Tura is moving through those tunnels—if he has maps like these, or a seriously good guide—he could evade our soldiers indefinitely. Think about it. We would easily find evidence of dozens of men down there, but if he’s carrying no more than a bedroll, a pack, and a lantern, he’ll leave absolutely no sign of his passing.”
“And the powder?”
“An off-the-books cache? A forgotten storehouse? I haven’t met je Tura, but I’ve heard rumors that he’s a strong son of a bitch. He could carry around a couple of barrels of gunpowder himself—certainly enough to set up in your basement.”
Yaret snorted in disbelief. “You’re telling me that hundreds of Dynize soldiers are being foiled by the work of one man?”
“With all the evidence—or lack thereof—it’s the only solution we have left.”
Tenik rubbed the back of his head, staring at the maps, looking as irritated as Michel felt. “So what do we do? He went off the schedule he arranged with Forgula the moment Forgula wound up dead. He’s striking at random througho
ut the city. Do we just hope we get lucky?”
“Not a chance.” Michel tapped on the map he’d rolled out. “We go in after him.”
“But we’ve tried!” Yaret said in frustration. “We can’t find him.”
“We have maps now. We start at one entrance, we take in a thousand men, and we flush the bastard out like we would rats in a basement. At the very least we might be able to find his damned cache of powder. But if we’re lucky, we corner him and catch him.”
Yaret pursed his lips. “Four thousand.”
“Eh?” Michel asked.
“Four thousand men. These tunnels are extensive and layered atop each other. I want at least four thousand men all searching them at once. A full-on manhunt.”
“Damn,” Tenik breathed. “We can’t possibly …”
“We’ll have to ask Sedial for manpower,” Yaret said. Michel could see in his eyes that he was on board and determined. Only Tenik seemed skeptical.
“We can’t trust Sedial’s people,” Tenik said in a hushed voice, as if Sedial himself were listening. “He won’t want je Tura brought to light, lest he confirm that he was working for Sedial indirectly this whole time. It’s another loose end.”
“Then assure Sedial that we’re hunting for the kill,” Michel said dispassionately. “There aren’t more than a handful of Blackhats left in the city. We can afford to shoot to kill when it comes to je Tura, and if Sedial thinks that evidence will die with him, then he’ll give his help.”
“And we lose a bargaining chip against Sedial,” Tenik said unhappily.
“Is that more important than making sure more Dynize don’t die to je Tura’s bombs?” Michel asked.
After a moment of silence, Tenik nodded. “You’re right. Yaret?”
“You have my full authority,” Yaret said. “Begin the hunt first thing tomorrow. Get Sedial’s help. Requisition every lantern in the city, and have our cartographers begin making copies of these maps. Go!”
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