Princess of Blood

by Tom Lloyd

  ‘My guess is this entrance was reserved for one Duegar family, or guild or whatever it referred to. Like a Monarch’s private entrance to a grand temple.’

  Toil copied the marks down on the map beside each of the entrances they corresponded to, the one she’d recognised going next to the North Keep, the northernmost of all the entrances.

  ‘They’re in a line,’ Lynx pointed out, tracing down through the unnumbered entrances. Toil nodded and drew a faint line over the streets to connect the three – it wasn’t quite straight, but they all knew how inaccurate city plans were likely to be.

  That left five marks on the map; Honeth quickly put a number or rough symbol beside each they had identified at Toil’s request, and an X at the one buried beneath a building. The woman spent a while looking down at the remaining marked points, head tilted to one side and tapping her finger on the first of those. She traced a line across to number two, but there was no three yet discovered and there she stopped. After a while Toil turned the map on its head and paused. There was a look of frustration on her face when she looked up.

  ‘This seem familiar to anyone else?’

  They all crowded around the table, but no one spoke.

  ‘Can you fetch Lastani back in, commander?’

  ‘She’s answering questions in private court,’ Honeth said reproachfully.

  ‘She’s here to be my Duegar scholar,’ Toil snapped back. ‘So let’s put her to damn use, eh? I’ll go ask for her myself if you’d prefer?’

  ‘You’ve interrupted the private court enough for one day, I think. Do it again and the Crown-Prince will likely shoot you dead.’

  ‘Then be a dear and fetch her. I know I’ve seen this before, or something like it anyway.’

  He was gone only a minute or two, the door opening on to a luxuriously appointed corridor similar to the one they’d stormed down earlier. Lynx had found himself turned around entirely as soon as he entered the palace via the north gate that seemed to be for the exclusive use of the Bridge Watch regiment. He could at least tell that the degree of finery increased dramatically in the part surrounding the private court and the great hall beyond it where Toil had caused a scene.

  Lastani returned looking a little pale but relieved when she saw the mercenaries waiting for her.

  Not quite a welcome sight mebbe, Lynx thought to himself, but I can guess the reaction she’s had from all the officers and nobles in the palace. They’ll be wearing faces like she’s something the cat’s just dragged in, I’ve seen that often enough.

  ‘Lastani,’ Toil said, jabbing a finger at the map where she’d drawn one line between the first and second exits, and another between the fourth and fifth. ‘There should be another point or two on this map that connects these lines and the shape reminds me of something.’

  The young scholar peered at the map for a long while, her hand tracing vague lines in the air. Then she shook her head and turned the map on its side so that the highest point of the hills to the west of the city was at the bottom. She made a few passes through the air again as though performing some silent incantation before nodding.

  ‘There,’ she pronounced, pointing at an area of the city.

  ‘What? I don’t see it.’

  Plucking the pencil from Toil’s fingers Lastani marked a part of the map in the east of the city with a cross and looked again at Toil.

  ‘Let’s just pretend this isn’t a valuable fucking opportunity for me to learn, okay?’ came the reply.

  Lastani swallowed and nodded her head. ‘Of course.’ With a sweeping motion she drew a curve from the second point, around through the new one and looped it back around to the fourth. ‘It’s the character for “the divine”,’ she explained.

  Toil slapped her palm down on the tabletop hard enough to make Lastani jump. ‘Dammit, I knew I’d seen the thing before. The Temple of the Divine, right under a carving of a tree.’

  ‘That would be consistent with Duegar mythology,’ Lastani confirmed before finally taking a proper look at what she was drawing on. ‘Oh spirits high and deep, those are the entrances to the labyrinth!’

  ‘All forming a huge word,’ Toil confirmed, ‘when you’re standing on the high ground overlooking the city. That’s no coincidence. But of course half the uses of the word in Duegar histories won’t have seen the light of day outside of Militant Order fortresses for centuries.’

  She looked up at Commander Honeth. ‘There’s a job for you however, commander,’ Toil said, prodding the mark Lastani had made. ‘Here’s where you should be looking for the last entrance.’

  ‘How certain can you be?’ The commander scowled down at the map. ‘It’s a loop drawn freehand on an inaccurate map.’

  ‘The character is probably more precise than your map,’ Lastani replied. ‘The peak of the loop must not be higher than the top, nor lower than the end, and must retain a natural symmetry. It gives you a dozen streets to scour, I admit, but that’s better than nothing, if there’s even a chance it can be used to reach the armoury entrance?’

  ‘Lynx – go with him, you can report back to us once it’s found. Kas, you too – looks like you still need to walk the day off.’

  ‘If the alternative is drawing lessons from the ancient Duegar,’ Kas said, ‘then I’ll take the walk. Do I get my bow back?’

  ‘All of your company’s weaponry has been brought to the palace,’ Honeth confirmed. ‘Obviously we don’t want the city to see mage-guns being handed out at one of the major stores in the city, half the sailors and merchant guards might start asking for the same, but the regiments are aware that mercenary companies have been retained. You can collect what you need at the Watch gate.’ He stepped closer to the map to look at the streets in the area that had been marked. ‘It will take time to check this many buildings.’

  ‘Take the Cards too, or whichever of them can still stand. Tell them you’re looking for contraband alcohol, that’ll get a good turnout.’

  He gave her a scornful look. ‘To enter private dwellings and search cellars? Perhaps not. You two can tag along behind, but leave the work to my troops.’

  Lynx shrugged. ‘If you think people are likely to be over-sensitive and object to a Hanese mercenary forcing his way into their house … then sure thing, lead on, commander.’

  Chapter 19

  Lynx watched a company of Bridge Watch form up behind Honeth in the silvery twilight with a faint sense of disquiet. This wasn’t his city and the Bridge Watch were principally a bodyguard regiment for the Monarch, but something about the black uniforms made him uneasy – cold silver braids and clasps on the officers, dull steel on the soldiers.

  They’re too smart and neat, Lynx realised. They don’t look like real soldiers. Probably they’re just made to be presentable around their rulers, but they remind me of the Sword Brethren all the same.

  The Sword Brethren had been a fringe society within the So Han army for generations, but with the brutal upwelling of tribal fervour during Lynx’s youth, they’d grown in prominence. The Brethren had always been savagely contemptuous of foreigners and when the Shonrin had clawed his way to power were the first to embrace his message of superiority and conquest. They’d become his enforcers and his spies as much as his preachers – the driving force behind the tide of arrogance that had swept the whole nation along with it.

  We commandos were the army’s elite, but those bastards had almost as much blood on their hands and they rarely went near the fighting.

  With dark thoughts filling his head, Lynx lowered his gaze so he didn’t meet the proud, dismissive looks the soldiers gave him and Kas. It’d never been hard for him to start a fight and with the city as tense as it had been in years, everyone was on a hair-trigger. He kept quiet and let Kas do the talking instead, the scout having mostly shaken off the effects of whatever drugs she’d taken.

  Before long they were out on the city streets making good time for the area Lastani had indicated on the map. The locals kept well clear as they marched sm
artly down the street, Lynx and Kas loitering at the rear of the column. Lynx saw fear in the eyes of those he passed, news of the Charneler army having clearly filtered out through the city. It would have been years since they’d faced a genuine threat at their gates – he couldn’t remember the last battle to be fought here, but certainly not since before he’d become a mercenary.

  ‘Here,’ Commander Honeth announced as they turned off a long avenue of shop fronts and on to a street of townhouses. Iron railings ran down each side of the street, penning a yard or two of ground in front of broad, double-fronted houses that declared a certain mercantile wealth.

  ‘This street to across the Riverway, running up three blocks. This is the central area, we’ll spread beyond it if we find nothing.’

  He sent his troops off in pairs to cover the ground as fast as possible. From where Lynx stood he guessed there were close to a hundred properties on this street alone.

  ‘How about us, commander?’

  The man turned, looking irritated. ‘You’re mercenaries,’ he sniffed. ‘You’ve no jurisdiction here.’

  ‘Just want to be useful,’ Kas pointed out.

  ‘You’re hired guns,’ Honeth reiterated, ‘and I’ll not have you forcing your way into homes unless we’re fighting from street to street. You are here on sufferance, remember that and keep out of our way.’

  Kas raised her hands placatingly. ‘As you wish. Come on, Lynx.’

  She took his arm and led him further on down the avenue as the Bridge Watch started about their task – splitting up to approach each street from different directions. More than a few faces started to appear at windows as the black uniforms spread out, the anxious looks extending to Lynx and Kas as the mercenaries both carried weapons.

  ‘Let’s see if anyone’s acting squirrelly,’ Kas whispered, pulling Lynx on so they got ahead of the Bridge Watch. ‘Just in case things are for the worst. If the Charnelers are here, they’ll have lookouts or guards, no?’

  ‘And then what do we do?’

  She grinned. ‘Report it to the proper authorities of course. What do you think we are, Lynx? Soldiers?’

  They made slow progress down the next street while behind them the soldiers went about their search, and had nearly come to the busy thoroughfare of the Riverway before anything unusual happened. Lynx felt Kas’s hand on his arm tighten slightly and he turned to follow where she was looking.

  A man was sitting on the steps leading up to one house distinguishable from the rest solely because it was in a slightly shabbier condition. The man himself had pale skin and dirty blond hair cut neat and short. He wore a bulky leather coat with a cloth spread across his knees and was idly puffing on a fat pipe as he watched the black uniforms further down the street.

  ‘Good Charneler face, wouldn’t you say?’

  Lynx shrugged. ‘Thought we all looked the same to you?’

  ‘Oh I’ll remember that crack,’ she replied darkly. ‘Now shut up and answer me. You ever been far north? Never been to Order heartlands myself, but whenever I’ve got shit from some bastard in a uniform, they were some blond thug just like him.’

  ‘Every bastard in a uniform gets on my case,’ Lynx pointed out, ‘but yeah, he’s northlands somewhere.’

  Belatedly the man noticed them staring and his head jerked around. Lynx saw a brisk, professional look take in all the details of them; their mercenary clothes, the tattoo on his face, the gun behind his back and Kas’s sheathed bow.

  ‘Evening,’ the man said a fraction of a moment too fast. ‘What’s going on up there?’

  Lynx glanced back. ‘Bridge Watch,’ he said baldly. ‘Inspectin’ houses.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  The man’s eyes narrowed. ‘What’re you two doing down here? Don’t look much like you belong round these parts.’

  ‘We were thinking the same thing,’ Kas replied. ‘You’re no house servant.’

  The man smiled disarmingly. ‘Afraid that’s all I am these days.’

  ‘Sure about that?’

  ‘Yeah. Fuck’s it to you?’

  Kas glanced at Lynx, a small smile on her face. ‘I love it when I’m right,’ she muttered before raising her voice. ‘What’s it to me? Let’s just say we’re taking an interest too.’

  ‘Well I’m the houseman here and it’s my job to make sure trash wandering the streets keep clear. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll shift before I call those soldiers.’

  ‘Be my guest, call ’em.’

  The man ignored her suggestion. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Just looking around.’

  ‘Don’t give me that shit. Neither of you two belong in an area like this.’

  ‘Now that’s just rude.’

  The man opened the door behind him and made to head through until Lynx drew his pistol and levelled it at the man.

  ‘Are you mad?’ the houseman said, stopping dead.

  ‘Aye, probably,’ Lynx growled. ‘Now how about you come back out here.’

  The man twitched, just glancing slightly behind into the dim hallway. Lynx saw shadows moving on the wall – could make nothing more out but clearly they weren’t alone. ‘Why?’ the man said at last. ‘I’ve done nothing to you.’

  ‘You were rude to the lady,’ Lynx said. One thing he’d learned over the years was that bullshit statements and ridiculous reactions carried more weight from behind the gun. You didn’t need to make sense when the other person was worried about being shot. ‘Now come out here and apologise to her.’

  ‘Fine – Shattered gods! Look, miss, I’m sorry,’ the man said quickly. ‘Didn’t mean no harm.’

  Kas yanked her bow clear and pulled a couple of arrows. Lynx had seen her fire a handful in quick succession like that, keeping the spares in her draw hand. ‘How about you ask your friends to come out and join us?’

  ‘There’s no one in there,’ the man said, hands raised with his fingers splayed.

  ‘We can see ’em,’ she said, drawing the bowstring back.

  ‘Okay, okay!’ He looked back and with exaggerated motions made to open the door fully.

  When he paused Lynx knew what was coming next, but it still passed in a blur. The man dropped, Lynx fired a fraction of a second before someone behind the door did the same. The white streaks of ice-bolts flashed past each other, jagged bursts of light illuminating the frontage as an arrow thrummed through the air and slammed into the shooter.

  A second arrow followed a heartbeat later, then Lynx and Kas were backing off. They were exposed out in the street – even the commando in Lynx, trained to attack with shocking, devastating speed, knew it was foolish to run into the unknown like that. Another icer split the night and the pair turned tail for the nearest cover as shouts came from down the street and the townhouse door slammed shut.

  By the time Lynx and Kas found a low wall across the street and hunkered down behind it, there were shouts coming from the house too – the lamps inside were being doused and curtains hauled across windows.

  ‘Think we found ’em!’ Kas whispered. ‘Now what?’

  ‘Now what? This was your bloody idea, wasn’t it?’

  ‘We’re here ’cos Toil wanted us to come and she’s your friend!’

  ‘You’re blaming me for this?’ Lynx pulled his long gun from the sheath on his back and checked it was loaded. ‘What happened to waiting for the proper authorities?’

  ‘I blame you for a lot o’ things,’ Kas hissed. ‘Now put an earther through that front door!’

  ‘I don’t carry ’em,’ Lynx said. ‘And anyway, it could punch a hole right through the house at this range.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Ulfer’s horn, you’re as bad as Anatin! This is a city, people live here!’

  ‘For how much longer if those are Charnelers with an entrance to the labyrinth?’

  ‘I still don’t carry earthers.’

  Kas squinted up at the windows, bow half-drawn. ‘Shit, those toy soldie
rs won’t either. Means we’re not getting inside any time soon.’

  ‘One siege wasn’t enough for you, eh?’

  ‘Shut up and tell me you remembered to bring a grenade or something.’

  ‘Oh yeah, because I’m a bloody trigger-happy lunatic. And no, I ain’t firing a burner at it neither, not going to set off a firestorm in the city.’

  Another shot tore through the night, a white lance hammering down to shatter the brickwork by Lynx’s foot. The pair flinched from the flying shards of brick.

  ‘Shit, upper windows!’

  Lynx raised his gun and fired almost blindly – letting the power of the ice-bolt be its own dissuasion – and in the next moment Kas was up beside him and drawing a bead on the windows across the street.

  Only one was open so she fired on it, hoping to catch someone in the darkness. The arrow vanished inside silently, no scream following.

  ‘Sparker?’ Kas asked as she readied a second arrow.

  ‘Yeah.’ Lynx fumbled at his cartridge box, finding a spark-bolt by feel, and loaded it. ‘Door or window?’

  ‘Window.’

  He fired and the jagged stream of light erupted up to the third-floor window. Glass shattered, claws of lightning tearing at the frame while staccato light illuminated the room inside and voices shrieked in pain from somewhere out of sight.

  ‘That’s better!’ crowed Kas, scanning the other windows for another target. Before she could pick one the Bridge Watch arrived, a trio of soldiers with their guns wavering between the mercenaries and the house they were firing at.

  ‘Hold your fire!’ roared Honeth, pounding his way down the street like a raging bullock. ‘Hold fire, damn you!’

  ‘They started it!’ Kas called, bow still drawn. ‘Thought there were no guns in this city?’

  The knot of soldiers quickly swelled as more arrived, a handful coming around the corner from the Riverway and looking just as uncertain as the others. Honeth reached Lynx and Kas, glaring furiously at them before realising Kas was right – no household in a middle-class area would possess a mage-gun. Only the nobility got away with bending the rules like that.