by Fonda Lee
He considered phoning his Pillar but decided against it. Reinforcements would not arrive in time, and besides, he intended to meet and kill Kaul Hilo himself.
The ruse was Shae’s idea.
Before she’d arrived at the house, Hilo had been ready to head straight into the heart of Mountain territory to kill Gont and as many of his men as he could. He’d already drunk a shot of hoji and cut his tongue on a knife with his Fists—the traditional Green Bone ritual before undertaking a mission one expected not to return from.
She faced him down from across the kitchen table the way she used to when they were children. “We have to be smarter than that. If we die today, the Mountain wins.” They had to think ahead, even in this terrible time. “Gont will be ready and waiting for us. Even if we kill him, we won’t defeat the Mountain. Won’t destroy it.”
Perhaps this unfettered outburst of emotion, surging Shae’s jade aura with a vehemence that Hilo could not ignore, forced the Horn back into thinking clearly. He looked at his most trusted senior Fists and saw some of them nodding at what Shae had said. He turned to her. “I wish to the gods it hadn’t taken this to bring you back,” he said. “But you’re green, and one of us again, so tell me what you have in mind.”
Once she explained her idea, he smiled with a cold, satisfied determination and seized upon it with as much conviction as if it had been his own. He gave quick orders to his men, who sprang to carry them out. While the Maik brothers organized the attack parties, Shae went to the armory room behind the training hall to find herself some weapons. When she returned, Hilo was sitting on the stairs with Wen, saying goodbye. Their heads were bent close together, and they were speaking quietly. Wen’s eyes were dry, but her fingers trembled as she smoothed Hilo’s hair behind one of his ears with a tenderness that made Shae turn away, feeling like an intruder witnessing a private moment. She went to stand outside and watch as the Duchesse and five other cars departed the estate.
The convoy of vehicles would be sighted entering the Lo Low Street tunnel, and word would reach Gont Asch that Kaul Hilo was on his way to seek a showdown at the Silver Spur. The Mountain would rush to mount a defense while the Duchesse-led convoy took its time circling the Wallows district before returning to No Peak territory.
Seconds after the decoy cars exited the roundabout of the Kaul house, the Maiks and three other Fists pulled up in nondescript vehicles hastily borrowed from a nearby Lantern Man’s car dealership. Hilo came out. Gone was the gentleness Shae had glimpsed earlier—he strode down the front steps, then turned to face the house. There he fell to his knees and touched his head to the concrete. The Horn rocked back and raised his face to the sky. “Can you hear me?” he bellowed, and Shae was not sure who he was screaming at: his troops, the window of their grandfather’s room, the departed spirit of their slain brother, or the gods themselves. “Can you hear me? I’m ready to die. The clan is my blood, and the Pillar is its master.”
Shae had always strongly disliked Hilo’s penchant for dramatic gestures, but she bowed her head and swallowed thickly at the sight of the assembled Green Bones falling to their knees and crying out in a fervor, “Our blood for the Horn!”
The three largest and most profitable betting houses in the city were the Palace of Fortune, the Cong Lady, and the Double Double. They were located side by side on the same strip of Poor Man’s Road in the south part of the Armpit still belonging to the Mountain. Ranking among the Mountain’s most well-known holdings, they were where high-rolling Lantern Men conducted after-hours deals and where the clan’s business and political associates were rewarded or bribed with luxury and entertainment. A fitting place for an unprecedented retribution.
Hilo had nodded in admiration of Shae’s choice: “Lan fought for the Armpit, and it’s ours by right—all of it.” They crossed Patriot Street with a dozen of No Peak’s strongest Fists. Shae took the Cong Lady with the four other fighters Hilo sent with her, while the Maiks stormed the Double Double with another crew, and Hilo went with his team to destroy the Palace of Fortune.
The whole thing felt like a violent fever dream to Shae. The car pulled up right in front of the casino; Shae got out and strode past the shocked valet attendant who shrank aside at the sight of them, past the lighted fountain with the statue of the dancing lady in the center, up the marble steps to the revolving glass doors. No hiding in the crowd now; the waning sunlight flashed on her jade bracelets, and fearfully expectant eyes followed her every move. She felt sick with eagerness, and powerful in a way she hadn’t felt for years. The foreigners were right: The Kekonese were savages. Lan had not been savage, not at heart, but he was dead now.
The senior Fist next to her, a gray-eyed man named Eiten, seemed unsure of how to deal with her presence. He was one of Hilo’s higher-ranked lieutenants, but she was a Kaul; he couldn’t decide whether to order her around or defer to her. “What’s the plan, Kaul-jen?” he asked just before they reached the doors.
She drew her moon blade and held it out to him; he spat on it for luck. “Kill anyone wearing jade,” she said.
That was simple enough to agree upon. Screams erupted when they came through the doors. Shae picked out the four other jade auras in the room like a cobra sensing body heat. They stood out like beacons amid the rest of the irrelevant motion and noise. A couple of them had already Perceived the murderous approach and were ready; they leapt upon the intruders at once with drawn moon blades.
It had been years since Shae had last fought to kill. For a few minutes on the drive over here, she’d wondered if she still had the skills, the reflexes, the instinct for it, or if two and a half years of jadelessness and peaceable Espenian life had ruined her.
So she was almost surprised when she cut the first man down in a few seconds. She deflected his first attack, white metal singing against white metal, then made an obvious swing for his abdomen. The man Steeled and curved his spine away from her attack. His head tilted forward with the motion and Shae’s left hand whipped up to thrust her talon knife into his unprotected throat. She bounded Light over his body, yanking out the knife and already moving on to the next target.
It felt like an exercise at the Academy, another timed trial. Training and experience took over. She became focused and efficient, and the jade energy playing through her blood was like a song she hadn’t heard for a while but still knew by heart. She fought another man on the first floor until Eiten cut his throat from behind. Shae leapt Lightly onto the balcony of the second floor.
A woman Fist guarded the room where the staff had taken refuge. She greeted Shae with a battery of hurled Deflections that overturned chairs, sent cards and betting chips into the air like confetti, and rattled the walls. Shae weaved through the barrage, scattering the attacks with her own Deflections, until she closed in and they matched talon knives in the narrow hallway. The woman’s Steel could not be broken by the knife. In the end Shae landed a crushing stomp kick to the woman’s kneecap. As her opponent buckled forward in agony, Shae dropped her elbow down on the back of the Fist’s head with all the Strength she could summon, caving in the skull.
When every Green Bone in the building was dead—six in all—they tore the door to the back room off by its hinges, and Shae addressed the huddled, cowering staff members of the Cong Lady. “All the businesses on Poor Man’s Road are now the property of the No Peak clan,” she said. “You can leave now with your lives. Or you can swear allegiance and tribute and keep your jobs with equal terms and pay under new management. Make your choice quickly.”
A quarter of the employees left—the ones too senior or too well connected in the Mountain clan, who were truly loyal, or too frightened of the repercussions if they turned. The rest stayed and recovered from the disruption remarkably quickly; the Kekonese are accustomed to local changes of administration and treat them like natural disasters—incidents of sudden and unpreventable violence, the damage calmly dealt with afterward so business can return to normal. Soon the remaining casino staff were busy
righting furniture, sweeping up broken glass, and blotting bloodstains before they set into the expensive carpet or upholstery.
Shae gathered the jade from the enemy fighters she’d killed, then walked outside, leaving Eiten and the rest of Hilo’s men in charge. She found her brother on the street, shouting orders, pointing here and there with the tip of his bloody talon knife, his face and aura bright with battle mania. The Double Double was on fire—whether it had been set accidentally or deliberately, by the Mountain as it fled or by an overzealous No Peak fighter, no one seemed able to tell. The smoke curled out of the upper-story windows, mingling with the washed-out hues of the sky.
Hilo glanced at her as she approached, at the handful of jade she clutched, and his mouth moved in something that was not quite a smile. He turned his face back toward the melee—the fire, the running people, the intermittent sounds of continued fighting. Not just from Green Bones; people from the No Peak side of the Armpit were pouring across Patriot Street. There was shouting and clashing in the streets between civilians rallying in support of one clan or another.
“It’s not enough,” Hilo muttered. Shae was not sure what he was referring to—the amount of jade in her hands, the betting houses themselves, or the number of Mountain Green Bones killed that evening. She was too rattled to respond.
It took another thirty minutes for the fire in the Double Double to be put out and for the chaos to fade into the silence of an eerie aftermath. At some point, when the sun sank out of the smoky sky, Hilo organized his people to carry on through the night, and Shae ended up in the rear seat of a car headed back to the Kaul house. It was all a blur to her by that point, a surreal art house film of revenge and brutality.
Gont Asch took the phone call in silence, but every one of his men with any skill in Perception shifted away from him. Gont felt cold with astonishment. Then his neck flushed red with rage.
Twenty-one members of the Mountain clan were dead in the surprise attack, Fingers and junior Fists who’d hastened to defend the trio of betting houses on Poor Man’s Road but were no match for the killers Kaul Hilo had assembled from No Peak. A couple of foolish Lantern Men who had fired on the attackers were in the hospital. Every square inch of the Armpit was under No Peak control. It was an outbreak of clan-on-clan violence such as Janloon had never seen.
Gont hung up. For several seconds he was motionless. Then he tore the phone and its casing off the wall and hurled it across the room with such force that it embedded into the far wall on the other side of the Silver Spur. His men froze, shocked by the uncharacteristic outburst.
“Kaul Lan is dead,” Gont said. “His family has come down from the forest. We are now at open war with No Peak. Their lives and livelihoods are for the taking, and jade goes to the victor.”
CHAPTER
34
You Owe the Dead
Shae was confused when she woke up. It was the middle of the night and she was in her childhood bedroom. She hadn’t been in this room lately other than to pick up old clothes and belongings. When she opened her eyes, the moonlight dimly illuminating her room revealed a pile of bloodstained clothing and weapons on the floor next to her old globe lamp and a stack of paperback novels. She realized she’d crawled under the covers in nothing but her underwear—and her jade.
Everything came back to her then. Lan’s death, putting on her jade and weapons, going with Hilo to wreak brutal vengeance on Poor Man’s Road. From deep inside a pressure built and expanded like a balloon inside a box, until a great sob ripped itself from her chest. She curled tightly onto her side, squeezing the pillow to her face, and wept, long and hard, until she ran out of tears and energy. Then she lay still, breathing raggedly, and took stock of her new and terrible reality.
She’d been possessed. It was the only explanation—or perhaps merely an excuse. A dam that had been straining under hairline fractures had burst inside her yesterday, and instead of feeling appalled, she’d welcomed the final destruction, had reveled in it, in the sweet power of jade and the frenzy of violent retribution.
In the cold clarity of the aftermath, however, she felt numb. She’d done something irreversible last night, equally cowardly and brave, and she wondered if this mixture of sadness, strange elation, and calm acceptance was what one would feel in the moments of free fall after jumping off a high bridge. One could not change fate after such a decision, only own the choice and anticipate its inevitable outcome. This thought, somehow, calmed her, and slowly her body unclenched.
Perception told her she was not the only one awake. Now that she could once again sense jade auras as automatically as she discerned color, it seemed unthinkable that she would never again feel the cool, heavy texture of Lan’s presence. Yet there it was—a truth more immutable and unforgiving than gravity on a falling body.
Shae got out of bed and turned on a lamp. In her closet, she found an old T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants—clothes she hadn’t bothered to move out. Slowly, she dressed herself. Her body and mind were sore. Regular training was still not the same as carrying and fighting with jade. She had dark bruises and shallow cuts she hadn’t noticed at all last night, and she suspected it would be more than a week before she could move or extend any jade abilities without pain. In the mirror over the dresser, she saw that she looked battered and weary, more like a victim of domestic abuse than a Green Bone warrior, except for the jade on her arms, her ears, her neck.
She walked out of the room and down the unlit hall toward the glow of a single light emanating from downstairs. It was still dark out. The only sounds in the eerily quiet house were the ticking of the clock, and the clinking of a spoon against ceramic. They seemed deafening. She descended the steps, walked into the kitchen, and saw Hilo sitting alone at the table, eating a bowl of hot cereal. He was still in his clothes from the previous day. His sheathed moon blade was propped against one of the other chairs, and his stained talon knife lay on the granite kitchen counter. He had not shaved, nor slept by the looks of it, but he was eating breakfast so calmly one might have been fooled into thinking nothing at all was out of the ordinary.
Shae sat down silently in the seat opposite him.
“There’s a pot on the stove if you want some,” he said after some time. “Kyanla made it yesterday, but no one ate it. It’s still good, just add a little water.”
“Where is everyone?” Shae’s voice sounded dry. “Where’s Grandda?”
Hilo pointed the handle of his spoon up to the ceiling. “In his room. Probably still sedated. Kyanla had to call the doctor yesterday while we were gone. Sounds like he gave the old man some strong stuff to calm him down.”
Shae croaked, “What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s old and crazy.” Hilo turned darkened eyes on her. “He had a breakdown when he heard about Lan. He thought he was back in the war, and it was Du that had been killed—he’s been ranting and raving about the Shotarians. Doesn’t recognize me. When he does, he blames me—says I’m the reason Lan’s dead.”
Hilo said it with a flat affect to his voice, but Shae was not fooled. She wanted to rush up to see her grandfather, but if she got up now, Hilo would be hurt and it seemed dangerous to hurt him right now. Their grandfather had always been kinder to Shae than to her brothers, and he had always been the least kind to Hilo.
Hilo went back to eating, and she wondered, How can he even eat right now? She hadn’t eaten in over a day but had no appetite at all; she wasn’t sure she ever would again. “What about everyone else?”
“They’re busy, Shae,” he said. “We’re stretched thin. I left Kehn in charge of the mess. I sent Tar running around the city to make sure we’re defended elsewhere.”
Shae sat up as something else occurred to her. “Where’s Doru?”
Hilo’s lips went crooked. “The traitor? We picked him up that night, you know; Lan was supposed to meet us, to handle it himself. I called but couldn’t reach him; no one knew where he was. That’s when I knew something was wrong.”
“Did you kill Doru?”
Hilo shook his head. “That was going to be Lan’s call. So what was I supposed to do with the old ferret? Anyway, I stripped him of his jade and locked him in his house under guard. He’s been there ever since. No phones, no visitors.”
Stripped of jade. What abject humiliation for an elderly Green Bone who’d once been the trusted confidant of the Torch of Kekon. Despite her hatred for the man, Shae imagined him in the advanced throes of jade withdrawal, watched over by Hilo’s unsympathetic men in his own house, and she felt pity for him, traitor or not.
“I can’t execute him now,” Hilo said. “I wouldn’t taint Lan’s funeral with bad luck like that. But he’s no longer Weather Man; I’ve made that clear to the clan.”
Only then did the realization truly strike her. Hilo was the Pillar.
She stared at her brother. There had never been a Pillar under the age of thirty. Hilo was barely older than she; he’d been the youngest Horn in memory. There he sat, blood-spattered and reeking of fire smoke, eating a bowl of cereal after having led a massacre. His aura had the sharp edge of new jade he’d taken. Shae reeled. This will be the end, she thought. This will be the end of the No Peak clan.
Hilo’s spoon clattered into his empty bowl. The chair scraped back loudly as he got up from the table. He probably didn’t even need to Perceive her emotional reaction—it was on her face—but he said nothing. The new Pillar placed his dishes in the kitchen sink, then washed and dried his hands. He grabbed a chair and pulled it up in front of Shae’s, then sat back down and took her by the elbows, their knees touching.
“They’ll come after us now,” he said. “With everything they have.”