City of Blades (Divine Cities #2)

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  *

  When Mulaghesh was in school – which was so long ago that she doesn’t even want to think about it – there were two kinds of kids: those that worshipped the Kaj and those that worshipped Thinadeshi. Most flocked to the Kaj: the man was, in a way, the saviour of Saypur, a brilliant martial leader who freed them from bondage.

  But what children eventually realised was that the Kaj never came back: he died on the Continent, less than a year after his final victory. He never saw the founding of Saypur. He never had any idea that their country could ever happen. He didn’t build; he only destroyed.

  Which was where Vallaicha Thinadeshi came in. As the Continent had relied on Saypur to provide a huge amount of resources without Divine assistance for hundreds of years, Saypuris had been forced to grow pretty canny about engineering and planning. And Vallaicha Thinadeshi proved to be the canniest: when Saypur was finally founded in 1648, she led the effort to build roads, develop irrigation and farming, and set up urban planning practices that could deal with the millions of Saypuri slaves suddenly set free. Saypur’s sudden freedom wasn’t easy, but it would have been a hell of a lot harder if Vallaicha Thinadeshi hadn’t been there to get the right things in the right places.

  But she didn’t stop at that: she was also an innovative genius. It was Thinadeshi and her cadre of engineers who developed the railways and the telegraph systems. Her protégé had been the one to bring running water to Ghaladesh. And when Saypur opted to continue occupying the Continent in 1650, and ‘reconstruct’, it had been Vallaicha Thinadeshi who sailed over and brought railways to the Continent – though Mulaghesh now knows this was chiefly so Saypur could quickly move troops throughout the polises, as they did not trust the Continent to remain passive.

  It’s this era of Thinadeshi’s life that’s endured, this image of her as adventurer and inventor, braving strange, hostile lands and bringing enlightenment with her. Mulaghesh knows the image is only somewhat true: Thinadeshi brought her family on her travels, and lost two children to plague, something she never forgave herself for. But perhaps the most mystifying and fixating thing about Thinadeshi’s life is how it ended. And it is this subject that Choudhry was apparently reading about.

  Mulaghesh reads.

  By 1661, Thinadeshi had brought railways and some basic infrastructure to every Continental polis except one – Voortyashtan. She finally ventured into Voortyashtan in order to, as one journalist put it, ‘bind the most monstrous Continental state beneath the noble steel of the Saypuri rails’, but it was during this expedition that Vallaicha Thinadeshi suddenly and inexplicably disappeared. Her scouting team searched for her and questioned the locals, but found no sign of Thinadeshi anywhere. It was as though she simply vanished. After months of searching they returned to Ghaladesh, and the country mourned the loss of a national hero.

  Mulaghesh flips back to look at the painting of Thinadeshi: proud, regal, fearless, aristocratically thin and brown from the sun.

  And both she and Choudhry, she reminds herself, vanished without a trace in this place, over sixty years apart.

  ‘Any other interesting reading habits?’ says Mulaghesh.

  ‘It’s all we found,’ says Nadar. ‘We think she burned the rest, though we’re not sure when. Or why.’

  There’s one final page to the stack of papers, a sketch of something Mulaghesh’s eyes can’t quite interpret: it looks like a black hand holding a sword blade, but the hand has been fashioned to become the hilt. It’s a severed hand, she realises, the severed wrist of the hand serving as the grip and pommel, with the clutching fingers acting as the blade’s cross-guard.

  Below this sketch of the sword are two smaller sketches, one of the sword blade alone, the other of the disturbing hand-hilt. Below this is a note, torn out from some other publication:

  The blade and hilt of Voortya each had individual meaning to Voortyashtanis. The blade was attack, assault, aggression, but the hilt, fashioned out of the severed hand of the son of Saint Zhurgut, was a symbol of sacrifice. Together the two pieces were emblematic of the joy of warfare as well as the devotion and cost warfare required. Together they balanced, becoming the warrior spirit, both taking and giving, dominating and submitting.

  – EP

  Mulaghesh doesn’t have to think hard to realise whose initials ‘EP’ are. Efrem Pangyui, she thinks. You still haunt me to this day . . .

  Mulaghesh looks up at the sound of a door slamming outside, followed by the patter of sprinting footsteps in the hall. Sergeant Major Pandey appears at the open door, panting. ‘Captain Nadar . . . I’m sorry, I’ve been looking all over for you, ma’am.’

  ‘Yes?’ says Nadar. ‘What is it, Pandey? What’s the matter?’

  ‘It’s . . . It’s, ah, happened again, Captain.’

  ‘What has?’

  Pandey frowns as he tries to think of how to phrase this. He says, ‘Another family north of here.’

  Nadar goes terribly still. Slowly she turns to Mulaghesh and says, ‘Will you excuse us?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  Nadar and Pandey exit and stand in the hall, quietly conferring. Mulaghesh grabs Choudhry’s notes and stuffs them in her portfolio, but she makes sure to tilt her head toward the door, listening. She can’t catch any clear words – the one she can make out over and over again is ‘victim’ or ‘victims’ – but when she glances out Nadar’s face is pale and her mouth is pulled tight in distaste.

  Mulaghesh sticks her head out the door. Pandey is nervously watching Nadar, waiting for an answer but too frightened to ask further. Mulaghesh walks over to them. ‘Something up?’

  Nadar shakes her head, furious. ‘Fucking shtanis . . .’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I apologise, General. There’s . . . A report just came in about an attack. A family on an isolated farm north of here. Four of them. Town called Poshok.’ She pauses. ‘We are told it’s quite gruesome.’

  ‘I see. So. What are you going to do?’

  Nadar sighs. ‘There’s an upcoming meeting of clan leaders that will surely feature a lot of difficult negotiation.’

  ‘Biswal mentioned that.’

  ‘Right. And this is the last thing we need, especially if it was one clan killing another.’

  ‘So. What are you going to do?’

  ‘Ride out there and look at it. Try and find the perpetrators, and put them on the gallows or in the ground. The faster this dies, the better.’

  ‘Want me to come along?’ asks Mulaghesh.

  Nadar looks at her, surprised. ‘You’d want to do that, ma’am?’

  ‘Really, I’m here to do whatever needs doing,’ she says. ‘I might have dealt with a few things like this as polis governor. And, frankly, I think Biswal would prefer it if I wasn’t up under his feet. Besides, you’re all busy. I’m not.’

  ‘I’m . . . I’m told the scene is quite upsetting, General,’ Nadar says.

  ‘I’ve dealt with my share of upsetting scenes,’ says Mulaghesh. ‘Odds are this won’t be anything I haven’t seen before.’

  Nadar considers her words very carefully. ‘I’m . . . not so sure of that.’

  5. Components

  Saypur may boast a formidable navy and claim control of nearly all the trade routes of all the seas, but even if our navy were twice as large as it is today it would still not hold a candle to the naval forces of ancient Voortyashtan.

  But their might was not derived from the number of ships they commanded, nor the number of warriors that manned the ships – though both of these were immense. Rather, each individual ship, no matter its size, possessed incredibly destructive powers. For though it is true that Voortyashtani sentinels armed themselves with naught but a sword and waded into battle with no shield, records indicate that their relationship with their swords was one loaded with unusual Divine properties.

  A Voortyashtani sword was considered an extension of its warrior’s soul, a piece of their heart: the two were linked on an almost metaphysical level. Most formidabl
y, a warrior’s sword always returned to the hands of its owner, which meant that when hurled across battlefields or even the open seas, it would inevitably come speeding back to the hand that threw it, no matter what the sword struck or encountered.

  As Voortyashtani blades were extraordinarily large and sharp weapons, and the sentinels possessed superhuman strength, this meant that one sentinel essentially wielded as much destructive power as a modern-day cannon. If records of naval battles are to be believed – and they are so numerous and consistent¸ one must assume that one can – a tiny Voortyashtani cutter with only a handful of sentinels aboard could easily sink a Saypuri dreadnought.

  Understandably, the relationship between a warrior’s soul and its blade carried enormous spiritual importance for Voortyashtanis. If the warrior survived for long enough it was said that the sword would become the vessel of their soul, and their body would become simply a tool for wielding it. There are even some stories of common Continentals wielding a Voortyashtani blade and becoming possessed by the previous owner, undergoing a grotesque transformation to do so. There is not much evidence found to substantiate these claims, however, and this myth may simply be an exaggeration of Voortya’s relationship to her warriors: she asked them to be weapons for her, and weapons are what they willingly became.

  – DR. EFREM PANGYUI, ‘THE CONTINENTAL EMPIRE’

  It’s mid-afternoon by the time they start out, twenty of them on horseback with Nadar in the lead. It’s been a while since Mulaghesh went anywhere on horseback, and her ass and crotch start reminding her of this almost immediately as they compensate for her handicap – handling the reins one-handed isn’t always easy – but the country roads won’t tolerate an auto.

  The ride north is quiet and sombre. The firs on either side are close and dripping with moisture. Low clouds veil the distant Tarsil Mountains, turning their bright pink hue to a muddy brown before obscuring them entirely.

  Not for the first time that day Mulaghesh wonders if she knows exactly what in all the hells she’s doing. She’s not at all sure if impetuously hopping onto an expedition north to what’s apparently a brutal murder scene will benefit her investigation into Choudhry and the thinadeskite.

  She supposes it could. She imagines Shara saying something like, A good operative plays every angle, insinuates themselves into everyone’s good graces, and learns every story they can.

  That seems like something Shara would say, Mulaghesh thinks. So maybe this isn’t that bad of an idea.

  But another thing Shara might say would be, A good operative doesn’t waste everyone’s fucking time. Which Mulaghesh just might be doing here.

  Curious forms emerge from the mist as they ride: tall, smooth standing stones, placed in patterns that couldn’t be coincidental. Then a fallen arch or causeway, white stones stained green by the mould and moisture. A mile later they encounter half of a tower, vivisected by some unknown catastrophe, its bricks scattered over the hills like broken teeth. Relics and remnants of a culture that collapsed long ago.

  The last is the most startling. The sight must be a familiar one, because only Mulaghesh reacts as they come into view: at the top of a distant hill sit two giant stone feet, perhaps eighty feet long and fifty feet high, truncated at the ankles. The feet are bare and stand on a massive marble plinth that sits uneven on the loam, like the soil below could no longer suffer the weight of whatever huge figure once stood there. But no matter how Mulaghesh searches she sees no more of the statue: no distant stone shoulder or marble hand, shattered and mouldering on the nearby hills. No blank white visage half-submerged in the loam, cracked and corroded.

  She looks back at the feet and the plinth as they ride on. ‘Do I want to know what that was?’ she asks.

  Nadar says, ‘I know I don’t.’

  *

  Mulaghesh smells it before she sees it: soft, wet wood burning somewhere nearby. Pandey consults the report he received – ‘Directions are a devilish bastard here, General,’ he breathlessly confides – and points down one of the narrow country roads. They round a copse of firs, and Mulaghesh sees a narrow tendril of dark smoke threading its way into the late-afternoon sky.

  They ride up in silence. The farmhouse is a low structure with a large porch, dark smoke streaming out from somewhere at its back. But there’s something in front of the porch that’s hard to comprehend: six totems, perhaps, or maybe decorations, pale white and placed on stakes. Yet they seem to tremble strangely, like the light around them is fluttering.

  I don’t like this, thinks Mulaghesh.

  As they ride closer they spy a hint of a breast on one of the totems, and on the other a wisp of chest hair, and soon it’s apparent that the reason the air seems to tremble is because it’s positively swarming with black flies.

  ‘Oh, by the seas,’ says Nadar, disgusted.

  They are human torsos, or rather halves of human torsos, vivisected from collar to crotch, with each half placed on a stake. The body cavities are open and exposed, the organs within withered and black. The heads, arms, and legs have been neatly shorn off and placed in piles in between each stake as if they were no more than kindling. It is, despite the viscera and stink, a curiously neat presentation, carefully and thoughtfully done, as if these corpses were vegetables to be washed and peeled for dinner.

  As the sight comes into view many of the soldiers hang back, appalled. Nadar senses the change in disposition, turns, and says, ‘Secure the area. Pandey, search the woods for signs of any passage. You and you, stay here and guard the gate. Stop anyone you see nearby for any reason.’ Then she turns back to the grisly scene, muttering, ‘Fucking shtanis . . .’

  ‘Are you good to look closer?’ asks Mulaghesh.

  Nadar glares at her defiantly. ‘Yes.’

  Mulaghesh rides forward and Nadar follows, looking fainter and fainter with each step. Soon the horses begin to resist, disturbed by the scent.

  ‘How could they . . . How could they do this?’ asks Nadar.

  ‘Carefully, it looks like,’ says Mulaghesh, waving away flies and circling the bodies. ‘They managed to part the sternum and the spine, even. That’s not easy to do – though the spinal column seems to have been a more difficult tas—’

  Nadar turns her head and vomits onto the grass. Her horse whickers, startled.

  ‘Do you need some water?’ asks Mulaghesh.

  ‘How can you just look at them?’ says Nadar, spitting and wiping her eyes.

  ‘It’s the worst I’ve seen, yes,’ says Mulaghesh grimly, looking at the closest body. ‘But not by a lot.’ She looks at the severed heads on the ground. A family, Pandey said – a wife and two sons, both adolescents. Their faces, blue and distorted, have the dull, stupid look of the dead, as if they’ve just been asked a difficult question.

  Mulaghesh dismounts, waves more flies aside, and steps closer to the corpses. There are no wounds on them besides their mutilations, no stab wounds or slashes or bullet holes. One of the sons has some kind of ugly rash on his ribs, but that’s clearly not fatal. Though she doesn’t search the pile of limbs on the ground much – even she has her limits – she doesn’t see any damage there, either. ‘Either they were poisoned or suffocated or something,’ she says aloud, ‘or the wounds they suffered were the killing blows.’

  ‘As in, they had their heads struck from their shoulders?’ says Nadar.

  ‘Maybe.’ She looks at half of a truncated neck, which is already withered and grey. ‘It’s a smooth cut. Done either all at once, in one blow, or done slowly. Tricky to do, either way. People aren’t liable to stand still for such a thing. The boy has some kind of skin infection, something nasty . . . But I’m not sure if that means anything.’

  ‘Would you . . . Would you get away from there?’ says Nadar. ‘You are absolutely crawling with flies.’

  Mulaghesh wades out of the throng of buzzing insects. ‘Pandey said there were four.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The initial report. He said it was a family of fou
r. Where’s the fourth?’

  The two of them ride around to the back of the farmhouse and find the fourth body lying in a patch of clover by the fence, facedown. It’s a man of about forty, from what Mulaghesh can see, but he shows no sign of mutilation or even harm. Mulaghesh dismounts again, looks him up and down, then squats, grasps him one-handed, and flips him over.

  His still, white face stares up. Though he’s now discoloured and crawling with beetles – she grimaces as something dark and scuttling dashes out of his mouth to hide in his shirt collar – she sees no slashes, cuts, or injuries of any kind on him. His throat, however, bears a strange tattoo, a band of green ink that resembles a braid, completely encircling his neck.

  ‘So this is the dad, I guess,’ she says.

  ‘I guess,’ says Nadar. She dismounts as well, though it’s clear she doesn’t want to.

  ‘What’s this tattoo here?’

  ‘Tattoo?’ Nadar’s face darkens as she looks at it. ‘Shit.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a tribal tattoo. All the tribes have them. Once you’ve passed all the tests and are sworn into the tribe, they give you this mark, a ring around the neck. The symbolism implies that the only way to leave the tribe—’

  ‘Is to lose your head,’ says Mulaghesh.

  ‘Right. All the tribes have different colours, patterns. This one is the Orskova tribe, a river clan. So this will piss off some important people, probably.’

  Mulaghesh looks up at the farmhouse, whose back side is smouldering, and suddenly this is all too familiar: the smoking farmhouse; the wet, cold grass; the whine of the flies; and the smell of corpses . . .

  Mulaghesh shakes herself. She stands and walks over, examining the crude wooden structure. Part of the back door has collapsed, like someone drove a truck into it. This must have broken open the hearth, which started the fire. ‘Lucky it’s wet,’ she says aloud. ‘Otherwise we’d have a forest fire.’ She looks back at Nadar. ‘You know what this is, don’t you?’