Knives of Bastion (An Empire Falls Book 2)

by Harry Leighton

  “Do you have one of these?”

  “Hmm, bronze dagger. Looks very sharp, excellent craftsmanship … yeah, I’d say that was a genuine elven dagger. How much do you want for it?”

  He smiled at Vesek.

  His smile faltered.

  His smile went.

  He realised what was going to happen here.

  *****

  He’d once heard a philosopher stand in the market square and proclaim how time was a relative concept to what you spend doing with it, and that was probably why philosophers in Bastion were so thin and hungry and he, as a captain of the guard, had meat on the table whenever he needed.

  But time was a problem this morning, and not for the first time he wished the plan to build a giant machinework tower which would show a clock face all over the city had been a sensible idea the governor picked up and not what crazy old Malthus shouted whenever he was in the cells for drinking way too much.

  Time. You looked at the sun, you felt it in your gut.

  Time. You could also judge it by Vika, who was always where she was supposed to be, when she was supposed to be, if only to make the point that she was the authority here and everyone else was following.

  Or the machinework, however that worked.

  But there was a problem, and that’s sometimes you couldn’t see the sun properly, sometimes your gut was wrong.

  Sometimes, you were sure the Thieftaker should have been here, and she wasn’t.

  Okay, not sometimes. Never. Because if she wasn’t going to make somewhere, one of her many staff would run on ahead and inform people. Never being late was quite easy when you could change where you were meant to be beforehand.

  But there was a guardhouse full of staff ready to receive orders about a crackdown on criminals, there were reports coming in about some large scale criminal activity last night, albeit mostly against other criminals, and there was no Vika and no message.

  This wasn’t good.

  Alright, wasn’t normal, and when you’re guard, not normal is not good.

  He leant against the wall of his small office and pondered.

  Vika would be within her rights to be organising responses to whatever happened last night. So she could be late for that.

  But Vika always kept the guard informed when rumours were everywhere.

  No Vika… No runner…

  Alright then, and he opened the door of his office and walked into the main room of the guardhouse, where people were standing waiting and pretending they wanted to be doing things and not taking time off.

  “Alright ladies and gentlemen, I am taking an executive decision.”

  “We’re being sent off on our rounds?”

  “No.” Was he mad? You didn’t directly break an order from Vika without checking first. Really checking hard.

  “You’re giving the speech?”

  “No, one of you is going to run to the offices of the Thieftaker and find out where she is. What is happening. Any volunteers?”

  He wasn’t surprised when half the room put their hands up. The dream of waltzing in, lending a hand and getting serious promotion was not dead.

  “Who can run?” he said, looking at his officers. “How about … you.” He was pointing at a tall and athletic young woman who hadn’t raised her hand. Let’s send someone who might actually come back promptly.

  A short while later the chosen guard was running through the streets of Bastion, and found the experience far more exhilarating than charging through open fields. This was like an assault course where people would get hurt if she barrelled headlong into them. She wasn’t too heavy, but she was moving at speed.

  Such speed that when she arrived at her destination she stopped to get her breath before walking inside.

  Every eye in the room shot round to look at her, and there came an audible sigh of disappointment.

  The runner wasn’t stupid, she knew they had been praying she was Vika. Which meant something was wrong.

  “Excuse me,” she said, walking up to a captain, “the Thieftaker is late for a briefing at our guardhouse, what is happening?”

  The captain looked older than he had the last night. “Ah, you’re from there, are you?”

  “Yes?” Why was his voice so heavy?

  “I admit, we forgot to send someone.”

  “To let us know she would be late.”

  “No, to see if she was there.”

  “But…” The runner realised. “You don’t know where she is, do you?”

  “No. She’s not here. She’s not anywhere she was supposed to have been before here, and apparently not where she is after. Our Thieftaker is missing.”

  “Oh…”

  “Which, I needn’t remind you, is a very rare thing indeed.”

  “You did just remind me though.”

  “What?”

  “Then. You’re…”

  “I see why you were sent to us. Go back to your guardhouse, cancel the meeting, and tell everyone to get out and mop up after last night while we find the boss.”

  The runner nodded and turned.

  “Wait!” A new voice, a woman striding across. “You can take an errand on the way.”

  “Yes?”

  “Someone needs to tell the Governor.”

  “No, no,” the man stepped in.

  “We have to accept that she’s missing. Guards are noticing, things are being cancelled, directions need to be given.”

  “Vika will be here soon and then we can resume. We do not need to worry the Governor or embarrass our boss.”

  “We do. For instance, who exactly is the deputy thieftaker?”

  “What?”

  “Who takes over when she’s not around? She’s always around. But now she isn’t, which of us responds to what is happening?”

  “I… I think the Governor appoints someone.”

  “Right, until Vika is found. So we tell the Governor, because neither you nor I have any legal right to assume that role.”

  “Oh.”

  *****

  Truth.

  He let the word hang out there as he sat at his desk. One hand rubbing his eyes, the other wondering if it was too early for wine as it formed a glass-holding hand.

  Truth.

  The imperial governors were appointed by the emperor, a position that depended on his wishing you to continue and a very long oath developed over the centuries. Loyalty was mentioned a lot, keeping the economy and security was also stressed. But one thing the Emperor had never conveyed was the idea of being open and honest with people.

  What was truth?

  Was it just telling the emperor what was happening, or were all governors expected to massage their reports to allow the emperors and empresses to keep things running without micro managing every panic?

  Or was there a grander idea here?

  Should the Governor actually tell the truth to the public?

  He was supposed to uphold the law, and the law was rather keen on truths, but no one actually put the Governor under that law, just the oversight of the Emperor. You weren’t supposed to assassinate people whatever level of society you were from, no murder in law, but everyone knew the Emperor had a team of lethal bastards at hand, and some governors too, if rumours were to be believed.

  So, truth. Vika was dead, the icon of law and order of this city was gone, and people were going to go into shock over it. That had to be announced, would be announced.

  But Vika was also the leading criminal mastermind in this city, and that truth was a matter for debate.

  The Governor could hold a posthumous trial to discover the extent of her crimes, because that was the sort of thing a governor could demand on, and then he could hang her corpse. That red hair flying in the breeze as she dangled.

  But he wasn’t going to do that.

  Not because he liked Vika and wanted to spare her reputation on a personal level. Governors couldn’t afford to like too many people, especially ones gathering power beneath them, and t
he removal of Vika was an event he wouldn’t, deep in his heart, lose much sleep over. But there were other issues to be considered here beyond her reputation, and that was the thoughts of the city.

  It was one thing to be relieved a potential rival was gone, it was another to know the whole city guard might collapse if Vika was outed as Hood. The whole law abiding public would go into some bizarre and unpredictable chaos, and the security and stability of this city was threatened.

  Over in the east, a governor had fucked up and forgotten what the city thought. Here, in Bastion, that would not happen, and Vika would never be revealed as the Hood. That was going to be covered right up, oh yes it would, starting with the destruction of all the evidence Elena had presented him with.

  Vika was going to become a hero instead.

  He had considered, as he sat there turning his ideas into a crystal he could act on, what to do about Elena. But she liked justice didn’t she, and that had been done. She would, most probably, be okay with covering the circumstances of death and the depth of crime up as long as the criminal had paid, and she certainly had done.

  He could even leverage ‘letting her off’ any investigation into how Vika had ended up dead and not arrested. Which, he had to admit, was by far the best case scenario when you knew what was really happening.

  So, a message was needed, a proclamation, to be read in the squares after it had been delivered to the guards. Vika was gone. Vika was a hero.

  The Truth. It just wasn’t compatible with peace.

  *****

  He was late as he walked through the city, but his armour was gleaming so much he would surely be forgiven. Getting carried away polishing wasn’t a great thing, but it surely showed dedication?

  He stopped to look at his uniform in the small glass panes of a window, and knew he was the best dressed guard in this city.

  That was when he heard something behind him.

  “What, you, you, there come here,” and he marched to a young lad.

  “What?”

  “I heard what you said, you wished the Thieftaker was dead.”

  “No, I…”

  “I have a mind to arrest you for treason.”

  “I said she is dead.”

  “That’s still tantamount to treason!”

  “She is dead you pomped up fuck.”

  At this the guardsman spun, and found a blacksmith stood there.

  Stood in a square? Just stood there?

  In fact, why was everyone standing there shocked?

  “What did you say?”

  “They read out the message. She died, last night, in the course of duty. Some fucking criminals offed her.”

  “The Thieftaker is … dead.”

  “Jesus, if you’re the quality of the rest we’re all doomed without her.”

  “I…” He turned and ran through the streets until he was pushing the doors of a building open.

  “Where the fuck have you come from?” his father called.

  “Is it true?”

  “Ah, you heard. Yeah, one good thing about being retired guard is they bring you the messages still. I heard just now. She’s dead. I expect the guardhouse sent you to keep the peace.”

  The new arrival was so shocked by the news, he actually said, “No I was polishing too much and then running late…”

  “Well it’s true. Proclamation is on the table. Have a read. So outside, are they all moving slowly and really shocked?”

  “Yeah. Exactly that.”

  “Fuck. I know how they feel. Like when the last governor died. Fuck.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “You go to work and stop showing off. I am going to speak to my friends.”

  *****

  Bidding farewell to his father, and not receiving much warmth in return, the guardsman walked back through the city in the direction of his guardhouse. The people were in shock, the city was in shock, the entire event being unbelievable.

  People tended to believe death would follow a lingering illness when everything could be tied up. They didn’t normally allow for the fact death was sudden, and you could go to sleep and wake to find some healthy leader gone.

  Perhaps it was easier to imagine the first way, the chance to say goodbye.

  Now the city was reacting to staring this truth in the face, but as the guard walked something began to gnaw away in his mind.

  Not just the people trying to gather further news.

  Not just the looks of shock on their faces.

  Not just the arguments…

  People?

  He realised suddenly that he hadn’t seen any guards patrolling, as if the entire service weren’t on the streets at this moment.

  He knew that couldn’t be true, but as he approached his guardhouse and opened the doors, he was stunned by how warm the room was, and then the reason why: it was full of guards, all of them, whether on duty or meant to be at home, gathered here and filling a building never meant to house all of them.

  As he realised this was going on all over the city, he threaded through to his spot, and began to earwig.

  “What the fuck do we do now?”

  “We’re lost.”

  “We let her the fuck down.”

  “We should go and kill every last one of them.”

  The mood seemed tense, but even the men talking of violence were missing the edge, the will to take club wielding hands outside. It wasn’t mostly tense but … despondent.

  Faces usually filled with the confidence of rank and job were now dim, the eyes hollow and the internal strength gone.

  Bodies usually stiff and upright were bowed, uniforms once bright hadn’t been polished, the entire crowd only half there and half lost in a fog which had descended when their leader had plummeted even quicker off a roof.

  “Maybe it’s a plan,” one young guard said.

  “What? Dying is a plan?”

  “No, no, fooling them. Going undercover.”

  “By breaking her neck and her back and whatever else?”

  “That’s all a scam. No one saw her dead, did they? She’s out there, being cunning.”

  “You’ve got some imagination.”

  “You can’t rule it out can you.”

  “I already have.”

  “It’s the perfect plan.”

  “Then let’s kill you and you can go undercover instead. You’ll be just as much use.”

  “That’s harsh.”

  A door opened, and a pair of captains walked out.

  One was tall but turning to fat and with a moustache grown with the intention of gaining respect and the result of caterpillar.

  “Men and women of the watch, it has come to our attention that you have gathered here to share your grief.”

  “It’s true then?”

  “There is … no doubt as to the truth. Bastion’s thieftaker is dead.”

  “God.”

  “It has also come to our attention that by sharing your grief here you are not outside stopping criminals.”

  “What can we do now?” A crying man sobbed, “We are lost.”

  “I understand why you are feeling upset, but we are far from lost. We are a trained body of experts who keep crime down and order in this city. The presence of one superior does not change who we all are.”

  Eyes looked at him but minds did not believe.

  “Our thieftaker is dead,” a woman hissed, “and the criminals know it.”

  “Explain please?”

  “I saw them today, some of the thugs who enforce, strutting around.”

  “Strutting?”

  “Confident. They looked at me and didn’t care that I knew their past, whereas before they’d have at least pretended to be innocent and on their way to work. They looked right at me and sneered, because they know what has happened.”

  “Then question and warn them,” the moustache said, an approach to giving confidence that might have worked if his voice hadn’t broken slightly partway through.

&n
bsp; The guards looked at their captains, and both sides knew, authority was in question now.

  The captains decided to take it back.

  “I want patrols doubled then. If the criminals think we will shy away, then we will hit them harder. Double patrols, no holiday. Get out there and show the people in this city we are not beaten.” He stopped and forced a smile, and looked at the juniors he had hoped to enthuse.

  They nodded, they began shuffling, they did not seem to have been affected.

  The captain turned to his fellow, a woman taller than anyone else in this room. Size was not a requirement of advancement in the guard, for this woman got where she was through intelligent politicking instead. He wondered what she would say.

  “Perhaps the captains and everyone above them should meet and discuss a way of raising morale?” she offered, and he knew at once that was the best idea.

  “We will have to be quick.”

  “I’m sure runners could organise something before lunch, and we could carry the conclusions back out. We cannot allow our troops to go home and sleep like this, because they will wake with the guard torn up. We need to recalibrate them soon before events do it for us.”

  “Alright, we send runners, we’re proactive.”

  “A good plan.”

  “So what are you going to say at this meeting?”

  “I don’t know yet. Perhaps don’t send the fastest runners, we need to sort something out first.”

  “Ah.”

  *****

  Darek bolted the door to his lodgings and sat heavily in his chair. He hadn’t had time to think, he’d just rushed back to take stock. He hadn’t believed it possible at first. He was sure he’d misheard from behind the door, or at least misunderstood. She was so strong, so organised, so determined, so ready for anything. Or almost anything, as it turned out. It hadn’t taken long before he’d been able to confirm his fears though, sneaking in and viewing the body before they’d taken it away and put it somewhere unknown. From the way the Governor and a select group of guards were behaving, it was certain that he was one of the first to find out. Certainly the first among the Hood’s group anyway, not that it did him much good. It wasn’t as if he could do much with the information really.