by Fonda Lee
The second man’s moon blade slashed across Hilo’s midsection. He barely had time to focus his Steel; as he curved his torso away from the cut, the length of white metal flexed from the enormous tension, opening a bloody gash across Hilo’s stomach with grisly slowness as the attacker’s Strength met and strained against his defenses. Hilo’s eyes met the assassin’s. He recognized him: Gam Oben. Second Fist to Gont Asch.
Only narrowly did Hilo escape disembowelment. With a snarl of effort, he leapt backward, Light, onto the top of a parked car. Gam released a powerful wave of Deflection, and Hilo’s feet were knocked out from under him as he landed; he slammed chest first onto the roof. His chin smacked metal and his vision wavered. He heard Maik Tar howling in pain and rage.
The Duchesse Priza, with Kehn at the wheel, barreled onto the street like a rhino. It clipped one of the motorcycles, sending it spinning, then plowed into Chon Daal. Gam barely leapt out of the way as the boy flipped over the silver grille and bounced off the hood of the car. Chon’s Steeled body shattered the windshield, then flew through the air onto the sidewalk as Kehn slammed on the brakes. The elder Maik burst from the driver’s side, bellowing.
Hilo rolled, hit the ground and was up again. He lunged at Gam, but before he could reach him, the other Mountain fighter, the one whose elbow he’d rended with the knife, careened into Hilo with a determined roar and dragged him down. As they both crashed to the asphalt, Hilo struggled, managing to wrap his arms around the man’s torso. The Green Bone’s aura spiked wild as he twisted in Hilo’s grip, and Hilo took all of it, all the jade power he could gather, and with a sharp thrust of his palm, Channeled into his opponent’s heart. The assassin’s Steel buckled like balsa wood and his heart spasmed and burst.
The blowback of energy from the Green Bone’s death rocked Hilo hard. With explosive force, the man’s life lit out of the confines of his body. The resulting jade-amplified rush was worse than a physical battering against Hilo’s skull. He reeled; for a second he could barely breathe, and his mouth filled with a bitterly sharp metallic taste. Only because he knew what was happening was he able to keep his wits intact. He tore himself off the body before he could become addled. Talon knife still firmly clutched, he clambered to his feet and looked for the next man to kill. Instead, he saw that Yen Io lay dead on the road by the Maiks’ hands. Gam, and Chon, who’d somehow survived being thrown from the hood of the Duchesse, had fled.
Less than two minutes had passed from the start of the attack.
Tar was leaning against the twisted grille of the car, bent over with a hand to his side. He’d taken bullets from the diverted gunshots meant for Hilo. His shirt was soaked with blood. Kehn pulled his younger brother into the back seat of the car. Hilo could see him pressing on the wound with both hands, Channeling his own energy into Tar, but he was no doctor, and could only slow the bleeding, not stop it.
Icy fury rose and spread like a white mist across Hilo’s vision. It steadied his body and his voice as he pointed into the throng of frightened bystanders that pressed like packed fish into doorways and behind cars. “You,” he said, picking out a newsstand owner. “You. And you.” He pointed at two others, a woman clutching her handbag to her chest, and the doorman of a club. “Come here!” They turned pale and looked as if they wanted to run, but did not dare disobey the command in Hilo’s voice. The doorman took several steps forward nervously, and the other two had no choice but to follow. Hilo looked at each of them in turn, making sure they knew who he was, knew that he had seen and remembered them, that he was speaking directly to them.
“Spread the word up and down this street, and tell everyone you speak with to tell others.” Hilo raised his voice so all nearby would hear. “Anyone who gives me the whereabouts of the two men who fled here tonight is a friend of No Peak and a friend of mine. Anyone who helps them or hides them is an enemy of mine and my clan.” He pointed to one of the dead men in the street, then the other. “This is what happens to my enemies.”
He set to work quickly. They needed to get Tar to a hospital right away, but a Green Bone was entitled to the jade of slain foes and never left it behind for thieves. From the body of one man, he pulled three jade rings, a bracelet, and a circular pendant. From the other, he collected a belt, two eyebrow studs, and a jade-backed watch. He had to hack at flesh inelegantly to get the rings and studs. He gathered up the jade-hilted weapons that had fallen: two moon blades and a talon knife. Hilo ran back to the Duchesse. He threw open the door and tossed the talon knives and moon blades onto the floor of the passenger side seat. “Keys,” he demanded.
Kehn fumbled in his pocket and passed them over. Hilo wiped the bloody fingerprints off the metal teeth with the sleeve of his shirt and started the engine. In the back, Tar gave a low moan. The car lurched forward, sending broken windshield glass across the dash; Hilo spun the wheel around and slammed on the gas.
CHAPTER
19
Council of War
It was past midnight and there was no one left in the Kekon Treasury except for a couple of night security guards in the lobby and two women janitors who moved from cubicle to cubicle in the records department, emptying trash bins and vacuuming the floors, chatting to each other in the lilting, long-voweled Abukei dialect, though they kept their voices down around Shae and did not disturb her at her work. The building had closed hours ago, and it was only because of her identity as a Kaul and the letter in Shae’s pocket—the one written in Lan’s hand and bearing the clan’s insignia—that she’d been allowed to remain at this spare desk for as long as she needed, which, for the last several days, had been late into the night.
Shae put down her pen and calculator and leaned back, rubbing her eyes, which were sore from hours studying numbers underneath the unfriendly fluorescent lights. It occurred to her that she was nearly alone with the largest amount of jade stored in one place in the world. Several floors below her, under immense layers of concrete, were lead-lined vaults of processed jade, cut into various sizes from single-gram gems to one-tonne slabs. Considering that it housed in its bowels a stockpile that comprised a considerable portion of the nation’s fortune, the Kekon Treasury was less heavily guarded than one might expect, not only because anyone who attempted to steal from it would be marked for certain death by every Green Bone clan, but because state-of-the-art security systems ensured that if any vault was breached, the intruder would be sealed inside. Unless the thieves possessed complete immunity, being locked in a vault full of jade meant a slow, agonizing descent into insanity before death.
And yet, someone was indeed stealing from the Kekon Treasury. Shae had gone through the calculations multiple times, cross-referencing records from the mines, from the Kekon Jade Alliance’s official financial statements, and now, from the Treasury itself. She’d forgotten that she was good at this—doggedly following hunches and crumbs of information until they arranged themselves into a clear picture. Staring at the figures that covered pages of her notebook, even fatigue at this late hour did not blunt the astonishment and anger Shae felt as she saw with finality her suspicions borne out in cold, hard math. The mines were producing jade that was neither being officially accounted for by the Kekon Jade Alliance, nor being taken in and stored in Treasury vaults. There was jade missing from the national reserves.
Despite the fact that she had never intended to get involved in the clan’s affairs, Shae was shaky with triumph and outrage as she packed up her findings and left the building. Her steps echoed down the empty halls as she took the stairs down to the ground floor and asked one of the security guards to let her out of the locked doors. The guard was a bored, middle-aged Green Bone wearing the ceremonial flat green cap and distinctive sash that marked him as a member of Haedo Shield, a minor clan dedicated to the sole purpose of providing security for Prince Ioan III and the royal family, as well as government buildings including Wisdom Hall and the Kekon Treasury. Knowing that she would not be returning the following evening, Shae thanked the night gua
rd as she left. She was not worried about the man tipping off anyone about her activities. The members of Haedo Shield swore ironclad oaths of neutrality with respect to the other clans; they did not even hold votes in the Kekon Jade Alliance.
It was a short subway ride from the Monument District to North Sotto, but as the trains ran less frequently at this hour, it was forty minutes later by the time Shae was walking the few blocks from the subway station to her apartment building. She was so engrossed in her thoughts, in what she would say to Lan in the morning, that she was only a hundred meters from home before she realized she was being followed.
She was so stunned and mortified with herself that she simply stopped in her tracks and turned around. If she’d been wearing jade, she would’ve Perceived the man behind her long ago. Even jadeless, if she’d been paying attention, she ought to have sensed his footsteps trailing hers.
Shae dropped her bag unceremoniously to the sidewalk and drew the talon knife from the sheath strapped to the small of her back. It was not a jade-hilted knife like the one she’d carried for years but had stored away. This was just a plain, everyday sort of street weapon, but of good quality and certainly lethal enough in trained hands. She’d been raised in a culture that deemed it unthinkable not to respond to a challenge; it did not occur to Shae that she could run less than thirty seconds to the safety of her apartment building.
The man coming up behind her did not stop, nor did he rush at her. He kept pace but took his hands out of his pockets and opened them to show that he meant no harm. In another instant, Shae saw it was Caun Yu, her neighbor. He nodded toward her respectfully, amiably, his eyes dropping to her weapon and noting that she held it in a steady, practiced grip, her stance instinctive, coiled and evenly weighted across the soles of her feet. “You look like a Green Bone,” he said with a crooked smile.
“You were following me,” Shae said, defensive.
“I live in the same building.”
“What are you doing coming back so late?”
Caun looked incredulous. “I work in the evenings. What about you?”
Shae’s toes curled inside her shoes. Of course, it was none of her business what hours Caun kept. She’d been disappointed in herself and was taking it out on someone who didn’t deserve her ire. She stowed her talon knife and picked up her fallen bag. “I apologize, that was rude of me. You caught me off guard. Shall we walk back, then?”
He nodded and walked alongside her, keeping some distance between them. “You seem very much on guard to me, Miss Shae. If I’d actually been a man with bad intentions, I wouldn’t have wanted to face you with that talon knife.”
Shae wanted to change the subject. “So what do you do for work, Mr. Caun?”
“I’m a security guard,” he said. “It’s nothing very dangerous. Rather boring, to be honest. I’m hoping I’ll get a new job soon, something more interesting.” He opened the door for her, and they climbed the stairs to their apartments on the third floor. He did not ask her a question in return, but when they reached Shae’s apartment door, Caun paused and said, with a flash of teasing in his eyes, “Good night. From now on, I’ll be sure to call out hello to you when I’m still well out of knife range.” As Caun continued down the hall to his apartment, Shae sorely missed having the sense of Perception that might’ve given her a hint as to what the man was thinking.
Shae put Caun out of her mind, went to sleep, and called the Kaul house as soon as she awoke in the morning, when the sun was barely up yet. Doru answered the phone. “Shae-se,” he said, with false, mincing surprise. “Why haven’t I seen you? I thought you would be at home more often.”
Shae grimaced. “I’ve been busy, Doru-jen. Getting settled. Lots of little things to take care of, you know.”
“You should have come to me,” he said. “Why are you living in that place, anyway? I could have gotten you somewhere nicer, much nicer.”
“I didn’t want to trouble you.” The fact that he knew where she lived made her grimace stretch further. Hastily, she asked, “Is Lan home?”
“Ah,” said Doru. A long pause followed, one that began to ring alarm bells in her head. “There’s been trouble, I’m afraid. Perhaps you ought to come over.”
Shae hailed a taxi to take her straight to the Kaul home. It crawled infuriatingly slowly through morning traffic, fighting the crush of honking cars, motorcycles, and parcel-laden bicycles, all of which employed a survival-of-the-fittest approach to intersections and road sign compliance. The whole way there, Shae stared unseeing out the window. She felt sick at heart. Not because men had tried to kill her brother Hilo. That was hardly shocking to her; if anything she was surprised it didn’t happen more often. Yet no one had phoned to tell her. Not even Lan. Had she not called the house this morning, she would still be oblivious. Perhaps in all the commotion last night it simply hadn’t occurred to them to contact her. She’d been out of the country and out of touch for years. Perhaps she shouldn’t be so upset that she hadn’t been informed right away.
She arrived to find her brothers in a council of war. Armed and severe-looking Fists were everywhere, guarding the gate and the entrance to the house, prowling the property, and standing in the hallways. In the Pillar’s study, Lan and Hilo were smoking grimly and plotting. Doru was with them. When Shae walked in, their postures told her everything: Lan leaned against his desk, tapping ashes into a tray, his face stiff and drawn. Hilo was sitting forward on the edge of one armchair, elbows on knees, staring at nothing, cigarette dangling from the fingers of one hand. Doru rested back in the other chair, legs crossed, subtly apart, watching. The tension in the room was such that Shae’s indignation failed her, driven out by an implacable sense of apprehension.
Hilo raised his eyes when she came into the study. There were lines on his face that made him look like a different person, not his usual insouciant self. Shae noticed dried blood under his nails, and beneath a white shirt that she suspected was actually Lan’s, gauze bandages encircled his midsection. “Tar is in the hospital,” he said, as if she’d been standing there the whole time.
Shae was not even sure which one Tar was, whether he was the man she’d seen with Hilo in the hotel. “Will he be all right?” she asked, because that seemed to be the appropriate thing to say.
“He’ll live. Wen is over there with him.” Hilo got up and circled restlessly, like a dog unable to lie down. The door opened and Maik Kehn thrust his head into the room. He wasn’t the one she’d seen at the hotel; that must’ve been Tar, then, the one now in the hospital. “Everyone’s here,” Kehn said. “We’re ready to go.”
“Lan-se,” Doru spoke up. “I’ll ask you again to reconsider. This could go badly for us. We can still negotiate a truce in the Armpit.”
“No, Doru,” Lan said, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray and walking to the door with Hilo. “Not anymore.” From the angle of the men’s bodies, Shae understood: Doru was being nudged out. Lan no longer trusted him. The attempted murder of Hilo had pushed the Pillar too far, sided him with his brother. Doru must have known it as well because there was a deceptive impassiveness to his face, and he did not move from his spot in the chair as the other two men left.
Shae followed her brothers. The foyer of the house was filled with Hilo’s men, armed to the teeth with moon blades, talon knives, and pistols. As Hilo walked into their midst, they coalesced around him. He did not speak, but seemed, somehow, to acknowledge each of them, with a held glance, a nod, a touch on the shoulder or arm.
Shae went to Lan. “Where are you going?”
“To the Factory.” He shrugged on a leather vest and tightened it. Someone brought him his best moon blade—a thirty-four-inch Da Tanori with a twenty-two-inch tempered white carbon steel blade and five jade stones in the hilt. He strapped it to his waist. It had been some time since Shae had seen him look so military, so much like their father, that the effect was disorienting. Lan said, “That’s where they are, the men who tried to kill Hilo. Gont is there as well
, and Ayt too, perhaps.”
The realization hit her squarely: They were leaving to do battle. Shae gripped her brother by the arm. “What can I do to help?”
Lan looked at her and she realized how ridiculous her question was. She couldn’t help, not in this, not now, not jadeless as she was. “Nothing,” Lan said. “Don’t let Doru take over the clan.” If he was killed.
“I found out more,” she said, almost desperate to delay his departure. “At the Treasury. I didn’t want to say anything in the room with Doru there, but I need to talk to you.”
“When I get back.” He gave her a quick kiss on the forehead.
“Why didn’t you phone me last night?”
“There was no need. You don’t have to be part of this,” he said. “I promised not to pull you in any further beyond what I’ve asked of you so far, which I know is already more than you wanted.” He looked over her shoulder and his face tightened.
Shae turned. Kaul Sen stood on the stairs like a baleful mummy, wearing a white robe that hung off his scrawny frame. His fierce gaze roamed the assembled fighters and alighted with blistering disdain on Hilo. He pointed at his youngest grandson, leaning into the gesture as if his bony finger were a weapon. “Your fault,” the old man snapped. “What’ve you done now? You were always nothing but an impulsive hooligan. You’re going to ruin this family!”
“Grandda,” Lan said warningly.
Hilo stepped forward through his pack of warriors. “They tried to kill me, Grandda.” His voice was soft, but Shae knew that Hilo spoke softly when he was most angry. “They nearly killed one of my Fists. It’s war now.”
“Ayt would not go to war with me!” Kaul Sen’s arms shook as he gripped the banister. “We were like brothers. We had our differences, but war, war between Green Bones! No, never. If anyone tried to kill you, you deserved it!”